[Buddha-l] Re: Greetings from Oviedo

[Joy Vriens]

Dan Lusthaus wrote:
> The problem of Islam in Europe is real. As Bat Yaor has
> warned, if Europe doesn't wake up, it will *be* the Muslim world in less
> than 20 years (like Kashmir, Bali soon, etc.). It's a war of hegemony.

Islam in itself shouldn't be a problem. Islamist terrorism is. Islamist 
proselytism can be considered a problem, but then so should any other 
form of proselytism be considered a problem.
What I find worrying is that there isn't much of a reaction of rejection 
from more moderate muslims about others hijacking their religion.
And even if Islam itself were the problem, then I am not sure that 
direct confrontation, a sort of war, a new sort of war as some called 
it, is the solution.

> The US didn't blow up a bunch of people in Bali a
> few days ago, and the target was not Americans (the only Americans wounded
> in that were natives revisiting the homeland on vacation).

The logic of terrorism is condemnable, but it is implacable. In a 
democracy everyone is responsible. It are the people that elect their 
governments. And so everyone is responsible for the policy conducted by 
it. If those, more or less elected, that are in power and in charge 
can't be targeted by terrorism because of their most efficient 
protection, than those who are less protected become targets. This 
principle is not a new one, it has been invented when the Total war 
concept was introduced and generally accepted and used. Attempts have 
been made to attenuate it by introducing the notions of "collateral 
damage" and "deplored unintended civilian victims", but it's easy to see 
through this propaganda. I personally can't see the difference between 
Hiroshima and Bali as far as the method is concerned. There is an 
enormous difference of scale of course, but that is only because the 
Bali terrorists didn't have the same means.

> Let me put it this way: unless people on the left begin to recognize the
> reality of the problem of Islam and devote some creative energy to dealing
> with that (enlisting and empowering moderate Muslims would be a start), the
> only ones who will be dealing with it are the Bushes and right wing
> demagogues.

Unless people focus directly on terrorist/Total war behaviour regardless 
by what side it is carried out and condemn it outright and stop thinking 
of it in terms of sides, there will be no end to this problem. And you 
are right, if moderate muslims don't take their responsibility, Islam 
itself will become a problem.

> As long as the left thinks the way to solve the problem is to
> join the jihadists in their anti-American choruses (as if that somehow
> immunizes them from being the target of the next attack -- it doesn't), the
> problem will only get worse, and those in the middle will continue moving to
> the right.

I don't know if there is much of a left left. The opposition seems to 
focus more on being against or in favour of a globalised free market 
with less and less State intervention as far as welfare and social 
rights are concerned. The "anti-Americanism" is not directed against 
America and Americans as such. It is against the intentional undermining 
of the role of the UN, against the refusal to give power to an 
environmental policy (Kyoto), the International Court of Justice, the 
non respect of the Genevian Convention, Human rights, the Death penalty, 
the self-attributed Messianic role of the religious right, the 
undermining of democracy and democratic rights in the US itself, etc etc.

As much as moderate muslims have the obligation to save Islam from 
Islamist extremism, moderate Americans have the obligation to save what 
the Western world loved about America. Wakey wakey. Listen to Al Gore
http://www.buzzflash.com/alerts/05/10/ale05154.html

Joy