It's West v Islam - Mahathir
By Mark Baker, Herald Correspondent in Singapore
September 10 2002
Malaysia's Prime Minister, Mahathir Mohamad, has warned that the United States and its allies are locked in a clash of civilisations with the Islamic world that will make global terrorism worse.
Western countries bent on revenge since September 11 and now threatening to invade Iraq would succeed only in further alienating moderate Muslims and ensuring a stream of fresh terrorist recruits, he said.
He said the prediction of a Harvard scholar, Samuel Huntington, that the "fault lines between civilisations" would become the battle lines of the future was now a reality.
"Huntington's forecast has come true. There is now a clash of civilisations, that of the West against the Islamic civilisation," Dr Mahathir told a retreat for international business leaders at an exclusive Malaysian resort island at the weekend.
"Typically, the Western solution is to physically fight against the enemy, the Islamic civilisation, the Muslims ... They have made no effort to win the hearts and minds of Muslims, but have done everything to alienate them, anger and frustrate them."
The failure of the United States-led coalition against terrorism to tackle the underlying issues of injustice and alienation that led to the attacks of September 11 would ensure a more serious problem in the future.
"The West does not care to find out the causes of terrorism and remove them. The faint voices protesting from among them are ignored," he said.
Dr Mahathir said that following the September 11 attacks all Muslims had been regarded by the West as potential terrorists and routinely abused, penalised and humiliated when they travelled.
Oppression and discrimination in the Middle East and in other parts of the Islamic world had bred anger and frustration among Muslims, many of whom saw terrorism as their only way to retaliate.
smh.com.au |
