Easter!

[misscam]

Rather gloom and doom Easter, though. It's raining and raining some more, which is always lovely. I'm housesitting and spending my time kicking ass at Age of Mythology and watching Discovery and the 'Easter crime' (in Norway, Easter is high season for crime shows and crime books). Meanwhile, a cop has been killed on duty here in Norway, which is only like the 6th or 7th time it has happened since WW2.

Of course, our troubles seem minor compared to what's happening in Iraq right now. The Shi'ite are starting to get pissed - doesn't particulary help when the US does thing like bombing a *mosque*. Yeah, that'll go down real well with the Iraqis. Right now it's only this one radical Shi'ite cleric calling for attacks, but what worries me is that the leading cleric in Iraq is getting more and more critical of the US occupation. If he calls for armed revolt... *sigh* These are dangerous times for Iraq and the US occupying forces, and the more Iraqi civilian casulties you will see, the angrier Iraqis will get.

Norway will pull out our engineering and mine-clearing troops in June, according to our foreign minister. If the situation down there doesn't calm very quickly, I shall be very glad to see Norway out of it. (We're apparently sending troops to Sudan instead, where we've been involved in the peace process.) If civil war comes to Iraq, it will be an ugly thing indeed...

I'm also quite worried about all the recent arrests of terror-suspects here in Europe. They've found cells in Spain, U.K, Denmark... This tells me al-Quida has indeed come to Europe in force and sooner or later we will get another attack. Bad omens for our future.

Good thing there's Easter marzipan for comfort-eating in such times.

Comments

A looong explanation p.1

[misscam.livejournal.com]

Quite frankly, I don't have the insight or the knowledge to say what the answer is. It would require years of studying just to get near an answer. And I'm not sure it's just one cause at work here.

From what I have read of others' studies into this, I have formed an opinion on the matter, but it's in no way meant to be The Answer.

The one thing I believe is at work is a crisis within Islam itself. It's now faced with modern times and there is two responses to this. Reform it - or go back to the fundamentals and reject modernism. If you look at al-Quida and all their anti-Western talk, it is actually *modernism* they feel is the enemy and the US and others are just a symbol of modernism. Al-Quida and similar terrorist organisation aren't just busy with terrorism, they're also engaged in a battle for the soul of Islam. And to me, the West can never win that battle. It must be the muslims themselves who reject this Islam-based terrorism, or it will never be stamped out.

Here we get to another thing I believe is part of the cause - the gap between the West and the Islamic countries and a mutal misunderstanding of what the other is about. Stereotyping, you might say. I read this very, very interesting book on how the West affects Islam by a British muslim. He said something which I believe is true - in general too- that to a certain degree, if you impose your image of something onto it, it starts to become a bit like it. Like a twisted mirror, if you will. The more we fear muslisms and feel they hate the West, the more they start to. That's putting it simply, it's a lot more complex than that.

Another part of the cause is that the muslism world consists of a lot of countries run more or less by dictatorial regimes. I don't think democracy will remove terrorism - didn't do it in Europe, after all - but I think it will take away some of that widespread respect al-Quida now enjoys in several countries such as Pakistan. Take Saudi-Arabia, for instance. The Royal family runs the country and is corrupt. It has pocketed billions of the oil revenue, which wasn't as big a problem a while back. Oil prices were high and the 'common' people were given great wealth. Oil prices has then gone down and production as well. Now people don't get as much wealth. And suddenly Saudi-Arabians start crashing planes into the WTC. It's nowhere near all of the cause, but I believe it plays a part.

And you have to look at the West itself. We have done our bit to anger the Islamic world. The US's unquestionable backing of Israel while Palestinians suffer. The Islamic world feels with the Palestinians, of course. The abandoning of Afghanistan after the war with Russia. That caused resentment - the US just used Afghanistan and then threw it away. There is a lot of anger over what the West has done, in particular relating to Israel. Britain outright lied to the Arab world during WW1, for instance. To fight the Ottoman empire, Arabs had been promised Palestine, but at the same time, Britain was offering it to the zionists (in an attempt to get Russia back in the war, among other things). Britain didn't deliver what they promised, and the Arab world was angered. And of course, the Arab world remembers the Crusade. They fear the West is coming in a sort of second Crusade.
(continued in part two)

A looong explanation p.2

[misscam.livejournal.com]

There is probably other things playing in too, and of course there's specific situations playing in here too. The rise of Islamic terrorism in Palestine obviously relates to the Israeli occupation and so on. And even if what I have mentioned is part of the general cause, how do you fix it? Part of the problem of the West trying to fix it, is going into Arab countries give al-Quida the right when it claims the US and others are out to run the Arab world. What the West can do is help to combat the poverty and pressure regimes into reforming, not supporting them. The West cannot on its own win a battle against al-Quida, I believe, because it isn't just about the West. It's also about what Islam should be, how to deal with modernism, how to deal with the fact that the great Islamic empires have fallen. People have pride. And the West coming in to 'fix it all' is humiliating. This is something that is happening in Iraq now. People feel humiliated. And humiliation can easily be turned to anger.

Gah, I'm just getting into longer and longer explanations. To sum it up - I have some ideas about what might be participating in the rise of Islamic terrorism and above all I believe what the West must do is stop viewing muslims and Islam as something evil, something needing fixing and start seeing muslims as a resource to help fight terrorism. But on their own terms. And the West needs to get off its high morale horse at once.

I hope that enlightens you a bit on my viewpoints. But either way, you always and forever have the right to ask the questions. Even if you don't know everything about a situation, that doesn't mean you have to be silent. Deomcracy is the right for every voice to be heard, regardless of education or I.Q. And quite frankly, I don't think Ariel Sharon has more brains than you.

Re: A looong explanation p.2

[talestra.livejournal.com]

It was very enlightening, thank you. I really enjoyed reading someone intelligent, who has an opinion and can back it up (Now, with sucking up done I can proceed :)).
I admit freely that my opinion is very biased on the matter, despite the fact that among my friends I'm considered more liberal, just for the fact that I admit that Israel partially holds the blame for current situation.
I agree with what you said about the conflict between islam and western civilization, but sadly I still don't see the solution.
How can we stop that mutual hate? Somebody has to be the first to break the circle, to stop hating. The sad part for me is, that I personally don't believe that islamic world will accept the west that easily, even if we will be the first to reach out. There are plenty of people in the West who don't look at muslims as enemies. Your own country sent your people to help to rebuild Iraq. And yet they are in danger there. Plenty of people around the world protested against this war. How many people protest against prosecution af arabs? As well, I'm aware of the fact that extremists are only part, and not a major part of islam. But why the rest of them do nothing? Why palestinians celebrated destruction of twins? Does the fact that US support their enemy justify celebration of deaths of innocents? I swear to you, that no one in Israel celebrates the deaths of Palestinians (except for Yasin, but he was a monster). Why there is almost no condemnation of suicide bombers? If many of islamic religious figures would proclaim it wrong it would certainly help their cause. One more example. In the beginning of peace talks between Israel and Palestinians, both sides had given an obligations. Palestinians were granted certain independences(yes, I agree, that there were many things still to be worked out), they started to create their police, their army, their infrastructure. With the help of Israel. They had to remove the chapter about Israel destruction from their declaration. They never, never did it. It all happened before all hell broke loose a few years ago.
As for poor Sharon, I just don't like jumping on him because he does things not to my liking. On one hand I firmly believe that settlements have to go, on another hand, the structure of our government is such, that this move would probably cost Sharon his position. He has very hard job balancing between all these who scream that he's not doing enough for peace process, these who claim he's not keeping country secure, and not hard enough on Palestinians, and pressure from US, and pressure from Europe, who both know the best way to deal with the crisis (which I have the impression from Europe is elimination of cause, Israel itself)

And I'm so sorry to use your LJ for my ranting. Bad, bad Tal.

Re: A looong explanation p.2

[misscam.livejournal.com]

(Note: When I here refer to 'Israel' I'm talking about the state and government of Israel, not Israeli people in general.)

Well, I think part of the problem of why the West is not well recieved in the Arab world in particular has to do with the pride thing I brought up. There used to be these great Arab empires and now they are dust while the West is great and powerful. It's a bit like Germany after WW1. Part of the reason why so many average Germans tolerated and embraced Hitler was that he gave them pride back. Germany was humiliated after WW1, and it came back to bite Europe in the bum. Part of the reason why Hamas is so strongly supported in the Palestinians areas is its charity work among Palestinians, which is a part of Islamic tradition. Palestinians trying to better Palestine. It's a lot easier for a proud people to accept inside help, then getting hand-outs for foreigners. People need to have some pride in themselves. And the West coming in all condescendingly with how to fix it all is a blow to Arab pride. I think that is part of the problem. And a lack of trust. Given how the West has acted in past times, I can certainly understand that. Europe wasn't exactly known for its gentleness and kindness abroad in its Empirical days. And the regimes in the Arab world hasn't exactly done much to enlighten their people. Many of them just don't know much about what the West wants and what it is about these days. What you don't know, you fear.

I think it's unfair to say there is no comdemnation of suicide bombers. Maybe you don't get as much about that in the Israeli media, but there are quite a lot of moderate muslims who have declared this against the nature of Islam. The problem is that the loudest voices are always the fundamentalists. And Palestinians have been robbed off their pride, their land and many of their people. Palestinian causalty is way, way higher than Israel losses. The Israel military cannot be challenged by the Palestinians. So the only way they see as a method of fighting back, to regain some pride, is suicide bombers. They have nothing else. And they don't feel the Israeli people are innocent. And of course, the Israeli military has also hit Palestinian civilians, and there's probably a view among Palestinians that this is on purpose. You hit non-military targets, we hit non-military targets. And on a deeper, sadder level, this is the way Palestinians get attention about their situation.

And because the US has aligned itself so firmly with Israel, it too becomes an enemy. It's... How shall I put this? When you live in a situation with no dignity, where your friends and family die for no good reason and you barely have any food and no future - life just loses its meaning. You stop caring. And then it's very easy to kill people and celebrate the death of those you think responsible for your situation. You have nothing else.
(to be continued...)

Re: A looong explanation p.2

[misscam.livejournal.com]

Europe does not want Israel removed. This really, really annoys me. There seems to be an idea in some parts of Israel that whoever offers even a tiny bit of critisism must be an anti-Semite (nevermind that the Palestinians actually are a Sematic people as well). I'll agree that some people in Europe are using this crisis to promote ugly sentiments about the Jewish people. But this is a minority. And it does not make the critisisms raised by Europe any less valid. Maybe the recent gap between Europe and the US has to some extent pushed Europe more to the Palestinian side. It's possible. Maybe it's guilt because Europe's the one who screwed over the Arab world in the first place. Maybe it's because Israel has by far the biggest guns and therefore inflict the greatest damage. I don't know. I do know that there is a lot of worry that Israel will commit slow genocide of the Palestinians. And I also know a lot of Europeans think that the Jews of Israel, many who came from Europe after WW2, of all people should know what it's like to be oppressed and put in ghettos and walled in. How can Israel then do this to Palestinians? And Europeans are, quite frankly, pissed off at the way Israel these days rejects *every* bit of critisism. (I know many in Norway are angered at Israel because it in the 70s assinated a Norwegian citizen because they believed him to work for PLO - only they got the wrong guy. So not only did they murder someone on Norwegian soil, it was someone completely innocent. And Israel never apologised.) And some of the anger directed at Israel the state does colour European opinion of Israelis. But we don't want Israel removed. It has a right to live now, having been a country for over half a century. It was ratified by the UN. It's even participating in Eurosong now and then. Europe in general does not wish Israel destroyed.

Another factor in this conflict is that the Arab world itself hasn't exactly treated Palestinians well. Jordan keep refugee camps with Palestinians instead of allowing them to settle. Other countries do the same. I think to a certain degree the Arab world are using the Palestinians. They help keep the conflict alive. Really, the whole situation is a mess. There's blame on every side, there's blood on everyone's hands and everyone's suffering. I read some recent stuff on Israel, and the ecenomy is really shot to hell due to the military budget. And unemployment is high and there is a growth of extreme opinions there as well. This conflict is hurting both sides. It's become a bit like the fight in Northern Ireland. Both sides are the villain and both sides are the victim. Both sides have extremists who are worsening the situation and neither is really willing to back down. Because there's of course religion mixed in, which always makes conflicts so much more delightful.

And I honestly don't know how to solve it, how to end such hatred. I fear it will end with the death of Palestine, which would forever make Israel an enemy of Islam. Which is actually rather stupid, given that the Qu'ran actually tells muslims to honour Jews and Christians. Go figure. But one thing I am sure of, and that is that there can be no peace as long as the Palestinian suffering goes on as it does now. When people have nothing to live for, no hope, no future, it's easy to embrace death.

Y'know, if you really are interested in discussing this, we could always take it to e-mail. It might be better suited than LJ, given the length restrictions here. My e-mail is listed in my profile. I'm always interested in different viewpoints.