The West should change its course with Islam
sabato 22 settembre 2012 English 0 commenti
Il Giornale, September 22th 2012We as Westerners are first left with a sense of incredulity when we witness the world soaked in red blood under the pretext of an inane film clip against Mohammed. We can not help but wonder for what 13 Pakistanis were murdered in Lahore and in Karachi ; for what Indonesia has been laid waste; why just in the same days a Palestinian terror commando left an Israeli soldier on the ground in Negev loosing also three of their own; why Paris has been under siege; why are black flags been hoisted even here in Rome, in Sydney Australia, as well as in Tunisia, Lebanon, Yemen, and in front of the French embassy in Cairo as a threat to our world; why is McDonald assaulted in Indonesia … Both in the East and in the West Muslims are well aware that the very same gibelike critics we apply to their icons we ourselves apply to ours; that for centuries Jews have been teasing themselves with tough jokes; that movies and art representation of different taste reproduce Jesus, the Holy Mary and the Saints dragging them into the blood sweat and tears of our own poor mankind. We just to laugh or cry without being told when and how to.
Was Charlie Hebdo right or wrong to print some comics, should the film clip be banned from the internet, is the German magazine Titanic publishing its cartoons wise or fool? in a word, are they somehow responsible for the violence wave unleashed by the Muslim world?
The answer is that there is no responsibility for the violence but by their perpetrators themselves; you might like a different sense of opportunity if you wish, but it's evident that people interpret their own way the exercise of their rights to free speech, and good that it is so. All the faults are to be ascribed to the use of violence in response to a drawing, a speech, a film, a comic... that differs from the prescribed Islamic picture.
Was Charlie Hebdo right or wrong to print some comics, should the film clip be banned from the internet, is the German magazine Titanic publishing its cartoons wise or fool? in a word, are they somehow responsible for the violence wave unleashed by the Muslim world?
The answer is that there is no responsibility for the violence but by their perpetrators themselves; you might like a different sense of opportunity if you wish, but it's evident that people interpret their own way the exercise of their rights to free speech, and good that it is so. All the faults are to be ascribed to the use of violence in response to a drawing, a speech, a film, a comic... that differs from the prescribed Islamic picture.
The wrongdoings indeed are not by Charlie Hebdo however. Both the satiric magazine and whoever then resorts to solitary and ostensibly exaggerated reactions in order to respond to the arrogance of a totalitarian imposition, no matter if religious or lay, are led by the lack of a greater, concrete, and culturally-based willingness of our world to thoroughly address the issue of our relationship to Islam, with dignity and courage. The emerging and development of Islam, a very important religion, dictated dignity and uniformity to a fragmented world; this world entails however nowadays a political component with a trait of violence and conquest, as proven by a considerable number of actions; this world thinks, or at least its political component is sure that when Afghanistan was freed by the mujaheddin and by Bin Laden from the Russian domination, a time for a world islamic “reconquista” had started. They act today accordingly, and we, the westerners, do not oppose this point of view in a convincing way. We don't face their ideological push, that is at the end of the day the spirit of the geist, their push toward the angry continuous demonstration of strenght that they put on the international scene.
What should we do then, in order to prevent Charlie Hebdo from becoming the flag of the libertarian West?
We should wave our flag in two ways, from the cultural and the political sides.
Since the end of last century the school of the historian Edward Said gained the upper hand on the media and the public opinion, despite the powerful voice of Professor Bernard Lewis. Edward Said read the history of Islam as a relentless attempt by the West to overcome its followers and its faith. He even established that classical historiography had been founded in function of this purported domination. He could not be any wronger. In the seventh century the Mediterranean basin was Christian until Islam arrived from the Arabian peninsula and conquered Palestine, Syria, Egypt, and Northern Africa. It then moved from Northern Africa and conquered Sicily, Spain, Portugal, reaching up to France and Italy. Their ships even reached Ostia, nearby Rome. Crusades, which nowadays are fashionably depicted as a first form of Western imperialism, were a way to respond to this Conquest, regardless what opinion you may have of crusaders' behavior at war (personally, I think they were disgunstingly ferocious agains jews and muslim). This was just the first wave, which came to an end centuries later with the Ottoman wave. There were Turkish pashas in Budapest and Belgrade,Muslims besieged Vienna … Moreover, all along the 17th century Europe was under the Muslim attack: by fighting back Europe embarked on a “reconquista” field, the idea of war was not its. The Ottoman empire lasted from 1899 to 1922, i.e. 623 years. It says something about the power of Islam, not certainly a persecuted religion.
Now, in the first place we should restore the historical truth in the public conscience, by removing the Islam's victimization from our and from their heads in the first place, so to build an equal relationship.
Secondly, politics should finally act. It has been comfortable to rely on the old Mubarak-like dictators first, except that the western politicians, abandoning them, incited the Arab revolutions. If we have human rights and freedom of speech as our guiding light , we might perhaps have the same enlightened conditionality initiative that led Ronald Reagan to tie economic and trade relations to the freedom of movement of Russians, This happened with the Jackson and Vanick amendment, which kept the Soviet Union in check.
In a little film mr Obama and Mrs Clinton apologize again and again for the internet film on Mohammed. It costed 70 thousand dollars to the American tax payer, and it only served the purpose of letting more American and Israeli flags burn. And it is a real blaze, high and powerful, as large as the whole world. All these riots are not fireworks. It is an attempt to abate the Western and particularly the American influence in the Middle East as well as a way to state that Arab Revolutions are just a first stage of the future, i.e. the future of a Jihadist Islam, without compromises.
Since the end of last century the school of the historian Edward Said gained the upper hand on the media and the public opinion, despite the powerful voice of Professor Bernard Lewis. Edward Said read the history of Islam as a relentless attempt by the West to overcome its followers and its faith. He even established that classical historiography had been founded in function of this purported domination. He could not be any wronger. In the seventh century the Mediterranean basin was Christian until Islam arrived from the Arabian peninsula and conquered Palestine, Syria, Egypt, and Northern Africa. It then moved from Northern Africa and conquered Sicily, Spain, Portugal, reaching up to France and Italy. Their ships even reached Ostia, nearby Rome. Crusades, which nowadays are fashionably depicted as a first form of Western imperialism, were a way to respond to this Conquest, regardless what opinion you may have of crusaders' behavior at war (personally, I think they were disgunstingly ferocious agains jews and muslim). This was just the first wave, which came to an end centuries later with the Ottoman wave. There were Turkish pashas in Budapest and Belgrade,Muslims besieged Vienna … Moreover, all along the 17th century Europe was under the Muslim attack: by fighting back Europe embarked on a “reconquista” field, the idea of war was not its. The Ottoman empire lasted from 1899 to 1922, i.e. 623 years. It says something about the power of Islam, not certainly a persecuted religion.
Now, in the first place we should restore the historical truth in the public conscience, by removing the Islam's victimization from our and from their heads in the first place, so to build an equal relationship.
Secondly, politics should finally act. It has been comfortable to rely on the old Mubarak-like dictators first, except that the western politicians, abandoning them, incited the Arab revolutions. If we have human rights and freedom of speech as our guiding light , we might perhaps have the same enlightened conditionality initiative that led Ronald Reagan to tie economic and trade relations to the freedom of movement of Russians, This happened with the Jackson and Vanick amendment, which kept the Soviet Union in check.
In a little film mr Obama and Mrs Clinton apologize again and again for the internet film on Mohammed. It costed 70 thousand dollars to the American tax payer, and it only served the purpose of letting more American and Israeli flags burn. And it is a real blaze, high and powerful, as large as the whole world. All these riots are not fireworks. It is an attempt to abate the Western and particularly the American influence in the Middle East as well as a way to state that Arab Revolutions are just a first stage of the future, i.e. the future of a Jihadist Islam, without compromises.