| Ivo Skoric on Mon, 1 Oct 2001 04:27:53 +0200 (CEST) |
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"Ivo Skoric" <[email protected]>
Re: Islamic world trapped in historical impasse
Re: Ground Zero and the Saudi connection
More on Telling a Big One
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From: "Ivo Skoric" <[email protected]>
Date: Sat, 29 Sep 2001 16:53:43 -0400
Subject: Re: Islamic world trapped in historical impasse
We are probably going to see failure of both Pakistan and Saudi
Arabia in the next chapter of this development. This will go down
like the Eastern Europe went down once, state by state. Saudi
Arabia and Pakistan had the most potential to go down like former
Yugoslavia - violently.
ivo
date sent: Sat, 29 Sep 2001 12:32:17 -0400
send reply to: International Justice Watch Discussion List
<[email protected]>
from: Daniel Tomasevich <[email protected]>
subject: Islamic world trapped in historical impasse
to: [email protected]
Saudia Arabia is the spiritual home of Wahabism that is driving
bin Laden and his followers. Hopefully there will be more
focus on Riyadh than Kabul.
We in the West have based our political strategy in the Islamic world
on an alliance with Saudi Arabia (not to mention hitching our
economies to its vast oil reserves). But there is a timebomb ticking
away. Bin Laden aims to topple the Saudi regime and turn Arabia into
the base for his assault on the West. Even if we kill bin Laden, the
struggle to transform Saudi into a cockpit for Wahabite extremism will
continue.
Daniel
(article not for cross posting)
-------------------------------------------------------------
The Scotsman September 28, 2001, Friday
ISLAMIC WORLD TRAPPED IN HISTORICAL IMPASSE
BY: George Kerevan
FORGET Afghanistan. The key to Islam is Saudi Arabia. Forget the
debate over the rights and wrongs of America's support for the state
of Israel. The hatred towards the United States felt by the young
Islamic intellectuals who look to Osama bin Laden for leadership is as
much to do with its backing of the current Saudi regime as it has to
do with the occupation of the West Bank. And our ultimate ability to
reconcile the Islamic world with Western-style modernisation, on which
might depend the peace and prosperity of the entire globe over the
next century, lies in Riyadh not Kabul.
Let us begin by trying to understand the central impetus behind the
friction between the Islamic world and the West that led to the
atrocities in America on 11 September. Palestine is a totem of this
friction, not its cause. The fiercely proud Islamic community -
roughly a third of humanity - is trapped in a historical impasse. For
it is the West and Western values that have triumphed globally: our
economic model, our science, our individualism, our notion of women's
rights and our sexually-charged consumer culture. Leave aside for a
moment quite how this has happened, but the Islamic - and particularly
the Arab - world is an economic failure. The average per capita yearly
income of the Islamic nations is now barely GBP 2,000 - a tenth of the
rich West. In 1950, Egypt and South Korea were peasant economies on a
level pegging. Today, capitalist Korea, without Egypt's cheap
electricity, is five times as rich.
This reality is what hurts Islam's young intellectuals who fly planes
into the icons of international capitalism. Worse, the Arab countries
tried for a generation between the Fifties and the Eighties to
modernise (aka create Western industrial economies) and failed. The
head of this movement was the charismatic Gamel Nasser in Egypt.
Nasser believed in socialist central planning which only resulted, as
it did in Eastern Europe, in bureaucracy, waste and corruption.
But Nasser had one blindingly important insight. He knew you had to
bridge adopting Western modernisation (albeit skewed by Dr Marx) with
some ideological balm to soothe the realisation that the Islamic world
was thereby admitting its economic and cultural dead-end. Nasser
sought to overcome this psychological barrier by advocating a militant
Arab nationalism premised on the eventual political unification of the
Arab world.
Nasser's mythological Arab unity dissolved in conflict between the
various military cliques who seized power across Islam in an attempt
to build the chimera of Arab socialism (and waste their oil revenues
in the process). In the Western democracies, we did not grasp what
would happen with the eclipse of Nasserism. Sadly, Islam's young
intellectuals easily flipped from Parisian Marxism to religious
fundamentalism - not such a chasm to leap. Admitting you have "failed"
twice in a row is hard on personal identity, especially in a martial
society. It's the kind of mental crisis that can resolve itself too
easily in martyrdom.
So across Islam, the bright young university men - not Dr Marx's
proletariat - have sought a psychological retreat from what they
perceive as Western cultural victory by adopting a purist, modern
version of Islam called (but not by them) Waha-bism.
Enter Saudi Arabia, the spiritual home of Wahabism. This cult was
created by Mohammad Ibn Wahab at the end of the 18th century. Wahab
led an extreme fundamentalist revival of Islam based on its own texts
- for example, Wahabis think that the Iranian Shi'ites, who revere
different Islamic historic writers, are a heretical sect founded by
Jews to destroy Islam. Wahabism, unlike mainstream Islam, also
relegates women to an inferior role. Osama bin Laden is a devoted
Wahabite, as are the Taleban.
Ibn Wahab joined forces with the Arabian Arabs against the Turkish
Ottoman Empire. In the 19th century, one of these, Ibn Saud, adopted
Wahabite doctrines as his official creed. During the First World War,
Britain aided the Saudi family to eject the Turks and take control of
the Arabian peninsula. Then came oil riches.
For today's passionate young Wahabites, their creed represents a
revivalist purity and reaffirmation of their great heritage. But it is
also a "successful" model: for it was the pure Wahabite faith that
drove out the Turks and won independence without recourse to Western
ideas (if you forget Lawrence of Arabia).
But the new Wahabites have an enemy beyond the West - the current
Saudi regime itself. Extremists such as bin Laden and his ilk see
their spiritual home as now corrupt and pro-Western.
We in the West have based our political strategy in the Islamic world
on an alliance with Saudi Arabia (not to mention hitching our
economies to its vast oil reserves). But there is a timebomb ticking
away. Bin Laden aims to topple the Saudi regime and turn Arabia into
the base for his assault on the West. Even if we kill bin Laden, the
struggle to transform Saudi into a cockpit for Wahabite extremism will
continue.
The reality of the Saudi economy is that without oil revenues it is an
utter basket-case waiting to melt down, precipitating the overthrow of
the existing royal family and its replacement with a fundamentalist
regime. For the past 20 years, Saudi economic growth on average has
been a pathetic 0.2 per cent per annum. The national income per head,
once as large as that of the United Sates, has dropped remorselessly
to today's third-world $ 7,000.
Many of the 15 million Saudis have not noticed this catastrophic
economic failure because the government keeps them in uneconomic jobs
subsidised by massive foreign borrowing. The country has turned from
being a net creditor in the Eighties to being a net debtor on a large
scale, possibly running into several hundred billion dollars.
The cash empties down two drains. Firstly, a vast network of
inefficient state-owned industries, from petrochemicals to services,
that makes the old Soviet Union look entrepreneurial. The other
subsidy black hole is the all -powerful monarchy itself. This is
centred on the remaining 24 sons of the kingdom's founder, Ibn Saud,
who died in 1953. Most are in their sixties and seventies, leaving the
dynasty ageing dangerously. As much as 40 per cent of government
revenues go to the family.
But Saudi Arabia has one of the fastest-growing populations in the
world. Some 110,000 Saudis come into the workforce each year and only
40,000 find jobs. Unemployment stands at 14 per cent, and 20 per cent
among young Saudi men. Mix unemployed youth, official corruption and
Wahabite extremism and you have all the makings of the situation that
overthrew the Shah of Iran. In May, gangs of Saudi youths rioted at
the new Feisaliyya shopping complex in Riyadh.
Here is our problem. We in the West have no policy for creating
free-market democracy in the Islamic countries - which essentially
means destroying Wahabism. Worse, the linchpin of our anti-terrorism
coalition is an ultra -conservative but wobbly Saudi Arabia, the
official home of Wahabism.
A week after the attack on New York, Saudi's ailing King Fahd flew to
Switzerland for medical treatment. He's still there. Back home, there
is talk of friction between Crown Prince Abdullah (aged 77) and
defence minister Prince Sultan (aged 76). Keep your eyes on Riyadh.
_________________________________________________________________
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From: "Ivo Skoric" <[email protected]>
Date: Sat, 29 Sep 2001 16:04:13 -0400
Subject: Re: Ground Zero and the Saudi connection
Yes, this is true. There is that subtle distinction between Saudis
and Romanovs. While they both presided over decadent
monarchies with idle, runaway, mostly foreign educated elites,
whose offspring peculiarly started to romantically identify itself with
the majority of deprivileged 'subjects' - Romanovs, at least, did not
finance their own mortal enemies.
Saudis want and need the US to protect them from their own
creation, while not wanting to part with it. This is a very tough
proposition. It is like an alcoholic that demands help but wouldn't
give up the bottle. How about creating WA (Wahhabis Anonymous)
and a 12 steps program for overcoming the religious zealotry
addiction?
ivo
date sent: Fri, 28 Sep 2001 18:33:43 -0400
send reply to: International Justice Watch Discussion List
<[email protected]>
from: Andras Riedlmayer <[email protected]>
subject: Re: Ground Zero and the Saudi connection
to: [email protected]
> ancient feudal monarchy to stay in power so long by bribing
> everybody around into protecting them. Meanwhile, their youth built
> very dangerous beliefs, that are now slowly coming back to
> threaten the old monarchy - not very different than the relation
> between Bolshevism and Tsarist Russia - only that
The Saudi monarchy is unlike the Romanovs (who were anything but promoters
of revolutionary ideas). As both Schartz and Tariq Ali point out, the
Saudi monarchy is still publicly espousing Wahhabism and financing its
propagation abroad. But the young Wahhabi radicals - most of whom get
their training and their extreme ideas in Saudi-financed fundamentalist
mosques and madrasas in Pakistan and elsewhere - despise the monarchy
as having betrayed the Wahhabi ideals in exchange for Western protection
and Western decadence. "Running dogs" who must be "cleansed" along
with the West, the ultimate source of corruption.
If one had to search for a historical parallel, I'd say the relationship
btw the Saudi monarchy and the Islamist radicals is more analogous to
that btw the old-guard Communists in China and the Red Guards who turned
upon their aging mentors, denouncing them as corrupt "running dogs" of
Western imperialism who had to be done away with. Some millions of deaths
later, the Cultural Revolution fizzled out. Let's hope this one will
not be as costly.
Andras
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From: "Ivo Skoric" <[email protected]>
Date: Sat, 29 Sep 2001 16:04:08 -0400
Subject: More on Telling a Big One
I think the people in the Balkans are simply jealous that media
attention went elsewhere (David Rohde, the journalist hero of
Srebrenica, is in Northern Afghanistan, for example), so they want
to bring all those cameras back. So, they keep finding bearded
Arabs among themselves. Maybe Osama Bin Laden and Radovan
Karadzic should, indeed, switch hiding locations to confuse
international forces. Those were not able to dig Radovan out of his
hide-out, despite having the military control over the region in which
that hide-out is placed. Good luck with finding Osama.
ivo
------- Forwarded Message Follows -------
Bin Laden loyalists said heading to Bosnia
By Daria Sito-Sucic
SARAJEVO, Sept 28 (Reuters) - Dozens of militants linked to Saudi-born
radical Osama bin Laden's organisation are trying to flee Afghanistan for
Bosnia, the Interior Minister of the country's Muslim-Croat federation said
on Friday.
The ministry said it was ready to intercept those seeking refuge, presumably
with local sympathisers, and had already taken measures with the United
Nations policing mission and the NATO-led peacekeeping force in Bosnia.
"We have got information from a reliable source that 70 people, who are
involved in bin Laden's organisation, are preparing to leave Afghanistan for
Bosnia, thinking it is now the safest place for them," minister Muhamed Besic
said.
Bin Laden has become the world's most wanted man after being named by the
United States as the prime suspect for this month's suicide attacks on the
World Trade Center in New York and The Pentagon near Washington.
After the attacks local media revived allegations that Bosnian wartime
authorities had issued a passport to bin Laden but this has been repeatedly
denied. Some media have accused past Bosnian governments of backing foreign
fighters with links to bin Laden.
Some foreign Muslim volunteers, known as Mujahideen, were given passports in
gratitude for fighting with Bosnia's Muslim-led army in their 1992-1995
struggle against Serbs and at times also against Croats, but the government
puts the number at only 420.
The suffering of Bosnia's Muslims in the war and perceived Western sloth in
coming to their aid became a rallying cry for hardline Islamic groups across
the world.
But the presence of hundreds of militant Arabs became an embarrassment for
Bosnia's Muslim authorities after the war, with the United States
conditioning aid on their departure, fearing that some were planning
extremist actions.
Besic said Bosnia's role as a transit centre for illegal immigration between
East and West had enabled some criminals and terrorists to enter the country.
"There are well-founded suspicions a number of criminals and terrorists used
this way to enter Bosnia," he said.
WAVE OF ARRESTS
Bosnia's federation recently launched a crackdown on foreigners with Bosnian
citizenship who were wanted abroad. It was intensified after the September 11
suicide attacks.
Besic said four Arabs were wanted by Interpol on terrorism charges. Two
Egyptians were extradited to France, one Turk was handed to Germany on drugs
charges and the remaining two Egyptians will be extradited to Egypt in
following days.
Besic said one of the Egyptians, also wanted by Croatia for allegedly taking
part in a bomb attack, would not be extradited to Bosnia's neighbour due to
Zagreb's failure to hand over a suspect in a car bomb attack on a Bosnian
minister.
Besic said that his ministry, acting upon information from Interpol and some
foreign embassies in Sarajevo, had been tracking 13 people who were "under a
well-founded suspicion of being linked to terrorism."
He said local Bosnians and also foreigners with Bosnian citizenship were
among the suspects.Bosnia's 1995 Dayton peace deal split the country into a
Muslim-Croat federation and an autonomous Serb republic under a weak central
government.
11:02 09-28-01
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