re: Mahathir's speach:
The problem, as he sees it:
1. The complaint against the West, is not that they have impoverished the Muslims, but that they have humiliated them. Present American and Israeli policy, is to maximally humiliate Muslims, to force them to submit totally.
2. "None of our countries are truly independent. We are under pressure to conform to our oppressors’ wishes about how we should behave, how we should govern our lands, how we should think even."
3. Uncompromising defiance from a position of weakness, just leads to serial defeats, as in Israel.
His solution:
1. unite. Stop fighting each other, stop acting as proxies for America.
2. Opposition to Israel as a uniting theme for all Muslims. But "make a strategic retreat", negotiate and compromise, until Muslim nations are economically and scientifically advanced (i.e., a long time from now). Act as Saladin did with King Richard of England (i.e., negotiate a truce that allows free trade and access for all to the holy sites).
3. Education, especially in the sciences, even if this means using Western authors. He specifically recalled the Golden Age of Islam, when Muslim scholars studied and translated the Greek classics.
4. Focus on economic development, rather than cultural issues such as dress codes.
5. The root cause of Muslim's military defeats, is a failure to study science and industrialize.
6. Poverty and fatalism are UnIslamic.
7. Terrorism is not the solution, as it only causes more warfare with non-Muslims, infighting among Muslims, and falling further behind economically.
This is a much more realistic alternative to the militant Islamists, than what the U.S. is trying to do. If this vision triumphs, the West will have to give up garrissoning the oil fields and propping up proxy States. But we can trade and co-exist with them, as we can't with the Taliban and Al Queda. Mahathir's proposed long-term truce with Israel, could become a permanent peace. If Mao's China can redirect their efforts, and now concentrates on internal economic development, as the path to national power, so can Islam. And the West can live with that. |
