Saturday, July 08, 2006
"The basic problem in the Islamic world"
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, in a speech in front of an audience of fascist dictators and kings of doubtful legitimacy, identifies the most important challenge facing Muslims:
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has called on Islamic countries to mobilise against Israel and "remove" the "Zionist regime".
"The basic problem in the Islamic world is the existence of the Zionist regime, and the Islamic world and the region must mobilise to remove this problem," the president said in a speech to regional officials.
Yes, Juan Cole will undoubtedly argue that this is another case of mistranslation, and that Ahmadinejad does not really mean to call for the destruction of Israel. Maybe he's right, although with all the mistranslation going on you would think that if Ahmadinejad did not mean to promote the destruction of Israel he would make himself clear. Fine. But isn't it strange that he can make such an absurd substantive assertion -- that the "existence of the Zionist regime" is the "basic problem in the Islamic world" and not lose all credibility with his audience? Isn't that the "basic problem in the Islamic world"?
Broadly and with rare exceptions, the Muslim world is economically, politically, scientifically, and socially incompetent. Other than the extraction of minerals, which it could not have done in the first place without Western technology, the Muslim world produces very little. Its idea of good government is theocracy or even monarchy, in some ways the least legitimate and most contemptible form of government there is (and certainly the most primitive left in the world). The Islamic world hasn't invented anything important in centuries. It is at war with itself, struggling against an insurgency that threatens to destroy such modernity as there is in that world.
So, at a gathering of Arab countries for the purpose of discussing security in Iraq, a nation in which Muslims have slaughtered Muslims by the tens of thousands both before and after the invasion of 2003, Iran's president pinpoints a minority tribe of six million souls living in a sea of 400 million Arabs and more than a billion Muslims as "the basic problem in the Islamic world." He does this, presumably, because the same political acumen that made him the surprise winner of last year's Iranian presidential election tells him that his audience would much rather discuss the stain of the Zionist entity than actual problems facing the Muslim world, including the purported subject matter of the conference. Apparently, any subject is preferable to self-examination.
LGF comment thread here.
5 Comments:
By 
Lanky_Bastard, at
Sun Jul 09, 12:11:00 AM:
Stupid populist scapegoating is everywhere. You might have heard of the recent constitutional ammendments regarding the twin evils of gay marriage and flag-burning? It's still stupid, but Israel is a more credible threat to the state than gays tying the knot.
By 
, at
Sun Jul 09, 01:18:00 AM:
I ran a trackback to your site, but trackbacks on wordpress stink, and almost never work correctly.
This is pure scape-goating propaganda; This message will be used to incite future Jihadis and send them on their merry ways. Sad, but true.
I also agree that most Arabs think more highly of Israel and it's people, especially when given the chance to think for themselves.
P.S. Here's the link:
http://www.benhuh.net/?p=38#comment-58
By TigerHawk, at
Sun Jul 09, 06:59:00 AM:
Thanks, Ben.
Lanky, I happen to support gay marriage and oppose the flag-burning amendment, but it is silly to say that either is scape-goating. The flag-burning amendment does not scapegoat anybody -- nobody is an inveterate flag-burner. The opposition to gay marriage, while deeply unfashionable among the chattering classes, springs from a very genuine concern that to allow gay marriage would be to transform and depreciate what many regard as our single most ancient and essential legal construct. The opponents of gay marriage are not scapegoating, and not being disingenuous. My wife is one -- it has been the subject of our most heated political arguments in the last couple of years.
By Unknown, at
Sun Jul 09, 09:01:00 AM:
Misdirection. Distract people from what a lousy job you're doing by blaming it on someone else, in this case the Israelis.
I think that's the reason for what the Sandmonkey calls “the Arab Parallel Universe”. I know that the Iranians aren't Arabs but the APU appears to be an infection that's spreading.
By Cardinalpark, at
Mon Jul 10, 10:51:00 AM:
Um, for most of recorded history, the Christian world held an analogous view of Jews -- that is, they held that the Jews were responsible for the death of their savior. While in the late 20th Century, official Vatican policy was finally changed to exculpate Jews for the death of Christ, you still have visions like that of Mel Gibson released in "The Passion of the Christ."
Thankfully, most of Christendom, though not all, seems to be reconciled with Jews and Judaism, and much of Christendom accepts Zionism - the Jewish state of Israel.
Much of Islam is not so reconciled with Jewry, much less Zionism in its midst. However, it must be recalled that the Shah, and his Iran, were an ally of Israel. Turkey, also a Muslim country, is friendly with Israel. India, with its 100mm plus muslims, is fine with Israel. Egypt and Jordan have accords with Israel.
This speaks to to the ferocity of the war within Islam of which TH has oft written, which was reflected in Ataturk's Turkey, the Shah's Iran and now Musharraf's Pakistan. It is a war which pits the future against the reactionary past - and the past is both tenacious and brutal...I have little doubt that the current Iranian regime is meant for history's "ashheap."
