Judeofascism, the scourge of the XXIst century:
Webfiles: The Cost of Casual Racism
Anti-Muslim sentiment is growing - and dangerous
By ROGER MITTON
Wednesday, November 28, 2001
Web posted at 03:45 p.m. Hong Kong time, 03:45 a.m. GMT
asiaweek.com
Excerpt:
In Thailand and Myanmar, colleagues of mine have made similar comments -- before, as well as after, Sept. 11. No one now makes even a token attempt to deny that Thais and Burmese dislike their own Muslim citizens. My Burmese friend told me one evening in the bar of the Strand Hotel: "Muslims don't belong in Myanmar. We don't trust them." I am becoming weary of arguing back. I have turned purple with rage at such comments. I have come close to losing friendships. But now I hear these remarks all the time -- and from otherwise intelligent and tolerant people. I don't know what to do. It is deeply depressing.
I wonder if perhaps there's a bit of inverted prejudice on my part. I lived for five years in Malaysia. I've traveled many times to Brunei and Indonesia, as well as to places like Aceh and Mindanao. I've visited other Muslim countries in the Middle East and Africa. I have many Muslims who are among my dearest friends in the region. I feel for them and I understand their confusion, their anxiety -- and their anger. I don't blame them. I tell them openly that if I were a Muslim, I'd be tempted to protest in the streets and in front of American and British embassies. I'd be tempted to wear an Osama bin Laden tee shirt and strut about sticking a finger up at Uncle Sam. This is the horror. In reaction to the foul and insidious prejudice one begins to act like a fascist.
Right now, I am reading Anthony Loyd's book My War Gone By, I Miss It So. It is an account of his time in Bosnia and Chechnya. His reportage of the Russian bombardment of Grozny should be required reading for those applauding the bombing of Afghanistan. Loyd was one of the few reporters in Grozny when the Russians first leveled the city. The carnage defies belief -- and, horrors, it is still continuing. There are many heart-stopping passages, but there is one that made me go cold in the heat of Saigon. Loyd visits a hospital as the victims of a Russian bombing raid on a mountain village are brought in. Marika, 4, was "missing the lower part of her back and buttocks, but was still alive, just, and her pale, doll-like form lay motionless face-down on a table as a doctor removed large pieces of metal from her wounds, allowing each to drop on the table with a heavy clunk."
Her sister Miralya, slightly older, had a head wound and was crying blood and shaking uncontrollably. Loyd goes to the village and finds the girls' family. He reports that they are all dead -- "laid out on a bed in bundles, none of which was bigger than a supermarket bag. The boy was the best preserved, the mother barely recognizable as human. Of the other sisters, a small pair of legs emerged from a cloth, and the two heads lay at the end of the bed." Like Loyd, I think of this scene when I hear the term "collateral damage." What is so odious is that journalists and anchormen have adopted the term -- just as they have adopted the prefix "Islamic" or "Muslim" before they say terrorist. I don't know what is worse -- all this or the growing anti-Muslim sentiment itself. Both are on the rise and will lead to more unspeakable acts like those already seen in Chechnya and Afghanistan. Where do we go from here? Will someone tell me, please.
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Sure I can tell you, Mr R. Mitton, we're rushing headlong into WWIII --fast. |
