Author:
Publication: The Middle East Media
Research Institute (MEMRI)
Date: December 2, 2003
URL: http://memri.org/bin/latestnews.cgi?ID=SD61803
In response to former Malaysian
prime minister Mahathir Muhammad's address at the Islamic Summit Conference
on October 16, 2003, Bassam Darwish, editor of the U.S.-based liberal Arabic
site http://www.annaqed.com, wrote an article, titled "A Complex Waiting
to be Solved." [1] The article was a rebuttal to Mahathir Muhammad's speech
in which he claimed that Jews control the world and encouraged Muslims
to unite to achieve a "final victory." The following are excerpts from
the article:
Mahathir's Speech Encouraged Ignorance
Among Muslims
"'Despite its relatively small size,
the Jewish society has become a force, and we [the Muslims]
cannot fight it only by means of
force [but must] fight it also by means of our wits. We need today cannons,
missiles, bombs, fighter planes, tanks, and destroyers in order to protect
ourselves.'
"These are some of the words included
in the speech of [former] Malaysian prime minister Mahathir Muhammad at
the opening of the conference of the Organization of Islamic Countries,
which demanded of Muslims 'to use their wits' and urged them 'to adopt
science and education as means' in the war against the Jews - whom he described
as 'ruling the world.' The leaders of the Muslim countries who were present
at the conference all stood up and roundly applauded the speech.
"Certainly, none disagree with Mahathir's
call 'to adopt science and education,' and no one in the free and civilized
world longs to see one-fifth of mankind rotting in the darkness of ignorance
- as their ignorance causes more damage to the world than it does to them.
The problem is that this statement came from a man who does not understand
the meaning of science. When a Muslim leader. encourages the Muslims to
adopt science for only one purpose - in order to be better and stronger
than the Jews, Christians, Buddhists, and others, and in order to be able
to annihilate the Jews - he is actually not urging Muslims to cling to
science but to cling to ignorance itself, and to a mad dash backwards.
"When Louis Pasteur consumed his
days and nights with searching for a cure for rabies, the goal before him
was man, whoever he may be, and not proof that he was better than the Jews
or the Muslims. This is true for every Western scientist, whether he be
a Christian or a Jew, and there is no doubt that it is also true for every
Muslim scientist. When Ibn Sina wrote his medical books. he did not state
that their goal was to achieve superiority over the Jews, Christians, or
Hindus. and when the heads of universities in the West speak before students,
they reiterate to them that they [i.e. the students] are about to obtain
for themselves higher scientific education so as to take part in building
a better world - and not that the purpose of their scientific studies is
to achieve superiority over the Muslims and other people."
Muslims' 'Jewish Complex' Began
With Islam
"The Arab Muslims are not the only
ones suffering from a 'Jewish complex'. Even a Muslim living on the most
remote island suffers from this complex, which appeared not because of
the founding of the Zionist movement or the establishment of the State
of Israel, but with the creation of Islam itself.
"For the sake of balance, we must
point out that even in the West they suffered from this disease, but with
one difference: the roots of the disease among Westerners are [not] religious,
[but] man-made, while the roots of the disease among the Muslims were and
remain religious and made by Allah. Therefore, it is no wonder that it
was easier for the Westerners to rid themselves of their disease, while
among the Muslims the disease became malignant, and can only be gotten
rid of by a divine instruction that will 'abrogate' Allah's previous instruction.
"'The Jews control the world' is
the chorus of all those who cannot swim with the flow [and cannot use their
minds like] the Jews use their minds. The Jews never controlled the world.
They survived in this world despite their small number, and despite the
persecution that they suffered throughout history. They were merchants,
scientists, physicians, lawyers, and wealthy men, as well as ordinary people
who worked hard for their bread and their existence. They helped each other,
lived a communal life, and united [as a society] not with the goal of taking
over and controlling the world but in order to continue to exist in it
as a minority, against the majority that never stopped attempting to destroy
them.
"Had this basis of the Jewish existence
developed to the point of ruling the world. they would have deserved it
by rights, because they did not consume their days and nights with consulting
over questions [such as] whether it is legitimate for a Muslim or a Christian
to greet them first, or whether it is permitted for a Muslim to wish the
Christian well on the occasion of his holiday. [Instead], the Jews devoted
themselves to learning and working, and in this way preserved and based
their existence.
"Mahathir Muhammad urged the Muslims
of our time 'to cling to science' in order to produce cannons, missiles,
bombs, fighter planes, tanks, and destroyers to defend themselves - but
to defend themselves from whom? From a mere 14,000,000 [Jews] who managed,
throughout history and by their wits alone, to protect themselves from
persecution and annihilation?!
"The Muslims do not need missiles,
tanks, and cannons to rid themselves of their 'Jewish complex.' This complex
will be resolved when the Muslims try to see the world through non- religious
glasses. The Muslims' belief that the entire world is a single front against
Islam is correct. and how can it not be correct, if the Muslims [themselves]
see the world strictly through religion?"
The Muslims are Responsible for
Creating A Cultural Separation Fence
"Everywhere in the world, and in
Israel as well, people, politicians, and Christian and Jewish clerics go
to demonstrations and declare their solidarity with the Palestinians and
the Arabs. And what, in contrast, is happening on the Arab and Islamic
side? It is not the Israelis who elected Sharon as Israeli prime minister
but the Arabs and Muslims. It is not the Israelis who are working to build
the separation fence, but the Arabs and Muslims.
"When we hear of spontaneous marches
in the streets of the Arab and Muslim countries condemning the suicide
and terror operations aimed at innocent people in Israel and other places,
and demands for trials for those who encourage them - then the fence will
fall without using a single axe.
"When we hear of an Arab leader
standing and delivering a speech fervently before his people, saying that
the time has come to reach out to the Israelis and cooperate with them
in order to create a just peace in the region for us and for them, then
Sharon will retire and open a coffee shop in Tel Aviv.
"When we hear of an imam in a mosque
giving a sermon to the worshippers and saying to them that the most supreme
form of worship is for them to go out and shake the hands of their Jewish
and Christian neighbors, or bear in their hands olive branches and throw
them [at their neighbors] rather than stones - then the separation fence
will fall by itself and the Israelis will beat their tanks into plowshares
for building both Israel and Palestine. "Then the memory of Mahathir Muhammad
and his ilk will fade into the dustbin of history."
[1] www.annaqed.com/news/complex_waiting_to_be_solved.html,
November 2, 2003. The site states that it
is for "Arabs in the U.S..... to
work as a catalyst to their minds, educating them about the importance
of loving this great country, by criticizing the wrong and the wrong-doers
whatever and whomever they might be." For the English section, see http://www.annaqed.com/english.html
