Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : Don't Blame Me, I Voted For Kerry -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: lorne who wrote (73599)	2/23/2006 7:57:19 PM
From: ChinuSFO	Respond to of 81568

Open up your mind and learn for yourself from these posts. You were the one who came on this thread and prematurely blasted Islam and France's immigration policies for the French riots. Enough said. _______________________________________________________ Meeting the challenge SOME observations made by Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz at the inaugural ceremony of Comstech’s General Assembly are most appropriate and deserve to be taken note of. It also makes sense that these remarks were made at a forum which brings together OIC members on the science and technology platform. While rejecting the clash of civilizations theory, Mr Aziz observed that the blasphemous cartoons printed in a Danish newspaper were an attempt by the West to make this clash inevitable. This he attributed partly to ignorance about the true teachings of Islam and partly to the objective of demonizing Islam. What is most upsetting about the cartoon episode is the helplessness of the Muslim world to challenge this “insensitivity towards our beliefs”. True, the protests have rung out loud and clear — so much so that lives have been lost because some people reacted so violently. There have also been demands from the highest quarters in the OIC for the West to institute a code of ethics and invoke the existing laws prohibiting the publication of offensive material. But as pointed out by the prime minister, Muslims face the threat of marginalization at the global level. The need of the hour is for the Muslim world to strengthen itself to confront today’s challenges. It may be pointed out here that military power is not what is needed to save the Islamic bloc. The bigger threat to its existence comes from its poverty, intellectual backwardness, economic underdevelopment and lack of education. Mr Shaukat Aziz was candid in pointing out that 24 per cent of the world’s Muslim population earned less than a dollar a day and an average of 39 per cent lived below the poverty line. While Muslim countries possess 70 per cent of the world’s energy resources and 40 per cent of the raw material, their share in the global trade is a measly six to seven per cent. Mr Shaukat Aziz could also have added that in the Islamic world more than a third of the population is illiterate. Over and above this, the absence of democracy, economic equity and social justice in these countries has contributed greatly to the unrest and volatility that marks their societies. As a result, the greatest danger the Muslim world faces today comes from within it rather than from confrontation with the non-Muslim world. For Europe and America, where the cartoon issue is being made out to be symbolic of their right to freedom of speech and expression, the danger comes from the Muslim world’s inability to sustain itself and ensure its survival. Given the growing interdependence of the world in this age of globalization, the need is for the two sides to forge a measure of understanding and harmony between them. There is need for an interfaith dialogue among the leaders of opinion on both sides so that they realize that hurting each other’s feelings does not help. There is also the need for the moderate and enlightened leaders of opinions on each side to try to bring the hardliners and extremists amidst them round to their moderate viewpoint. To produce meaningful results, the two sides will have to rein in their own hotheads and hardliners who would be happy to push things towards a clash of civilizations — a possibility that Mr Shaukat Aziz chooses to deny. Wisdom and realism demand that they are the ones who should be marginalized. dawn.com