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Page 4 of 5
THE LAST 50 YEARS
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Freedom from Christian rulers at last? Alas no.
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The Jewish problem.
1950-1980
The last 50 years has been dominated by the collapse of the British and
any remnants of the other European Empires which gave hope to the many
colonialised Islamic territories of freedom from "oppressive" Christian
rule. Unfortunately for many Islamic nationalists, European domination
was almost immediately replaced with the sinister rivalry between two
new superpowers Russia and the US as they both vied for global
domination. The Americans were concerned to safeguard their Middle
Eastern (all Islamic) oil suppliers. The Communist Russians were very
nervous of their huge potentially troublesome Islamic underbelly,
Uzbekistan etc. (see Central Asia later) The Islamic areas of the oil
rich Middle East plus their neighbours were once again "carved up" as
follows.
- To Russia: Iraq, Egypt and Syria
- To the US: Saudi Arabia and Iran plus non Islamic, indeed Jewish, Israel
The Jewish problem
Jews from Europe and North Africa began returning to their Biblical
"Promised Land" in Palestine some 200 years ago (then very much part of
the Islamic Ottoman Empire) and cultivated much of the land which was
being ignored or poorly managed by the Arabs. 100 years ago a Zionist
(Jewish nationalist) movement was formed with the prime goal of
achieving some parcel of land in the world which Jews could call their
own. The obvious place was the Biblical "Promised Land" then Islamic
Palestine. On the disintegration of the Ottoman Empire after the First
World War, Palestine, came under English rule, as authorisation by the
League of Nations. The Arab nationalists were expecting much from the
British who with the help of Englishman, Lawrence of Arabia had been
helping them to get independence from the Turks. Whilst at the same
time the English, in charge of the future of Palestine were planning a
mass immigration by Jews. A hopeless conflict of interests. In 1917
British foreign secretary Arthur Balfour wrote to the head of the
British Zionist movement, Baron Rothschild and promised the full
support of the English to enable then to re-occupy Palestine. The
English were never able to achieve this because of the, not
surprisingly, strong resistance from the local Palestinian Arabs. The
"Balfour Declaration" was abandoned in 1939.
After the Second World War (1939-1945) when some six million Jews in
Eastern Europe and Germany had been gassed to death (ethnic/religious
genocide) by the Nazi Germans, the English continued to rule Palestine
but handed the decision for the future of the country over to the
United Nations. Palestine was thence split into two, some for Jews,
some for Palestinian Islamic Arabs, with the holy city (holy for Jews,
Christians and Muslims) of Jerusalem under international
administration. When the English military withdrew in 1948, the Arabs
in the surrounding countries immediately attacked with the avowed
intention of pushing the Jews "out into the Mediterranean sea". This
was the first of a number of Israeli Jewish / Arab Muslim conflicts
which in essence the Jews always won even when heavily outnumbered by
Arabs and gained much territory in the process. The Israelis used US
weaponry and the Arabs Russian. The strict Islamic society of Saudi
Arabia has never entered these bloody conflicts perhaps because they
are armed by the US. On the other hand the more populous Islamic
country of Iraq has (with Russian arms support).
The last 20 years
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The age of Islamic fundamentalism
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The collapse of Russia and the Soviet Block and the end of the Cold War
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The US, now the sole dominant world power.
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The old Ottoman territories, Iran and the Indian Subcontinent.
The world scene is now very much the US and the rest. The Americans now
spend more money on weapons than the next five to ten (depending on the
exchange rate) largest military spending countries added together. Even
the old Western enemy, the Russians, under Mr Putin feels if you can't
beat them, join them and he talks about joining the Americans with the
Star Wars 2 project. Recent Balkan conflicts in which the Americans
have been involved as world peace keepers has seen the Americans
seemingly sitting comfortably infront of computer screens, firing
deadly accurate rockets at offending terrorists/freedom fighters. The
same thing happened in Islamic Afghanistan. The Islamic world is not
even in a second economic or military division and other than the oil
rich states have only third world status. Islamic rhetoric describes
Americans as Satanists (from Iran) or Zionists (from Iraq). Why, when
the rest of the West would see them as secular capitalists? There is
certainly no equality of opportunity between Islamic states and the
United States in to-days world. But is the difference a result of
religion? The premier of capitalist Italy, Signor Berlusconi certainly
thinks so. And his country has been suffering under a dogmatic and
suppressive Roman Christian Church for almost 2000 years. Perhaps he
knows something that we don't. These pages do not attempt to answer
these questions but as an indicator simply looks at the present
position of many of the Islamic states which are now finally free from
Western Christian colonial domination and can finally experiment with
self rule.
Turkey
The headquarters of the once mighty Islamic Ottoman Empire now reduced
to almost third world status in spite of attempts to Westernise. The
capital has moved from historic Istanbul, eastwards to Ankara but
political and cultural alliances have moved westwards towards Europe.
(Istanbul is in Europe and Ankara is in Asia Minor.) To underline this,
Turkey joined NATO in 1952 and applied for EC membership in 1987.
However this application is currently frozen largely because of an
appalling Human Rights record. Turkey's population, large by European
standards at 65 million, is 98% Islamic but the government is secular.
The balance of power is held by the Army Generals who are said have
more brains and more education than the majority of the politicians.
Other quotations are: (from books written by Stephen Kinzer)
- "View modern Turkey
as a backward land
plagued by vast social inequalities, grotesque human rights violations
and a callous, corrupt and militaristic regime"
- "if any country is
going to prove that
Islam can co-exist with modernity and democracy, it will almost
certainly be Turkey"
- "Hundreds of
regional party bosses,
mayors and members of parliament are fanatic nationalists, ignorant
demagogues and scheming crooks"
- "In a sense this is
a reassuring system
because it guarantees that if voters make a mistake, generals will step
in and make things right"
The Balkans, Serbia, Bosnia, Croatia, Albania.
The Muslims here, inspite of being the ruling classes for some 500
years find themselves in a minority and the underdogs. Top dogs are the
Serbs (Orthodox Christian church) with moral support from Orthodox
Christian Russia. Also in the Balkans are the Roman Catholic Croatians
and Bosnians. The US with the help of the English had to quell a
genicidal bloodbath, basically between Christians and Muslims.
Slobodan
Milosevic the leader of the Orthodox Christian Serbs has been indicted
for war crimes:-assassinating Muslims. (2001)
North Africa, the second largest single coherent Islamic territory.
Egypt, Libya, Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, Chad,
Sudan, Somalia, Eritrea. (Ethiopia is Coptic Christian-similar to
Orthodox Christian)
Historic Egypt became free from Ottoman rule some 200 years ago and
thence the English had friendly if not dominant relations. Egyptian
King Farouk signed an alliance with the British in 1936 which lasted
through World War 2 when Cairo was the headquarters of the victorious
North African British Army (The Desert Rats). Then in a military coup,
Nasser took Egypt away from this special relationship and went as far
as commandeering the Suez Canal. Egypt has been self governing ever
since and has been material as the only Islamic state along with Syria
who has stood up to the tiny state of Israel. Recently Islamic
fundamentalism has done nothing to encourage the wealthy Western
tourists to visit this historic land and improve the local economy.
Islamic Libya which did not exist as a country until 1951, is the only
oil rich state in the North African block and Dictator Colonel Gaddafi
seems intent on spending oil money on tyranny, such as funding any
terrorist group who might be persuaded to do damage to the West.
Recently he has even been accused of funding a local African dictator
outside the Islamic block, Mugabe of Zimbabwe. The reasons behind this
are not yet obvious.
Islamic Algeria has independence from the Roman Catholic Christian
French at last but many from Algeria find Christian France a better
country to live in.
Middle East
Iraq
Saddam Hussein, like Gaddafi rules oil rich Islamic Iraq as a military
dictator. He has demonstrated his desires to expand his territory into
other oil rich areas with attacks on Islamic Iran and Islamic Kuwait.
The War with Iran was a costly draw. As occupation of Kuwait was seen
as a precursor to Saudi Arabia the US reacted and rapidly drove the
Iraqis back into Iraq. (The Gulf War). Saddam's view on the tensions
with the "Satanic" West, publicly stated in 2001 on Iraqi TV after the
destruction of the Twin Towers in New York, are "The Masterminders of
Zionism are, therefore, working together to engineer a clash between
Christianity and Islam, on the assumption that this and only this could
secure a chance to dominate the world".
Saudi Arabia
The largest oil exporter in the world, part of the British Commonwealth
along with most of the area including Iraq until the 1960s. The country
which has been ruled by the Saud Royal family since 1923 and on and off
since 1746, have recently chosen a strict interpretation of the Koran
for it's 19 million Islamic inhabitants. Women, if seen at all in
public, will always be covered from head to toe and in general never
work out side the house. It is not uncommon for foreign workers to
disappear for some months on end and to be tortured until they confess
to crimes that they could not have possibly committed. In the mean time
the West stands by and accepts huge contracts for military hardware.
There is effectively a permanent presence of US and English military
personal in a training and support role. When Iraq invaded and occupied
Kuwait in 1990, as a stepping stone to taking some of the Saudi Oil
fields the West was therefore in a good position to come in and defend
the Oil fields on behalf of the Saudis. Iraq was easily beaten in the
so called Gulf War. Some Islamic zealots notably Saudi billionaire,
Osama bin Laden, feel Western presence on this sacred Islamic soil
warrants terrorist actions against Western targets until the US pulls
out of Saudi Arabia, the custodians of Mecca and Medina. (Viz. the
destruction of the New York Twin Towers on 11 September 2001)
The Arab Sheikhdoms in the Gulf.
Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, United Arab Emirates (Dubai, Abu Dhabi etc),
Oman.
250 years ago these countries did not exist. Generally oil is their
birth mark. Prior to oil being discovered around 1930, fishing and
pearl diving would be the main occupation. The English have had
friendly relations with the whole area, some going back some 150 years.
Kuwait has the largest per capita production of oil in the world though
some of their production is shared amicably with Saudi Arabia as
borders in the dessert were vague until recently. Fellow Islamic state,
Iraq has been a threat to Kuwait for many years. The English saw off a
threatened invasion in 1961 and the US and the British had to drive out
an Iraqi occupation force in 1990 (Gulf War). All Gulf States have
close proximity to Iran and indeed none of the Gulf Arab states could
defend themselves against a quick land/oil/gas grabbing attack from
Islamic Iran. All these territories south to Dubai have huge numbers of
guest workers. In Dubai it is some 80%. These foreign, temporary
residents come from places like Egypt, Palestine, Yemen, Iran, Pakistan
and India plus the Philippines for the most menial tasks. None of these
people have a vote and none can own land or a company. Human rights is
generally acceptable. In Bahrain this should be aided by the chief of
police who is an Englishman.(Though no push over). In some of the
states local women have a vote and Bahrain is about to change from a
totalitarian ruling King (Emir) to an elected (by men and women)
democratic constitutional monarchy modelled on the UK. Many of the Gulf
States are now known to Western tourists (no Israelis welcome) of any
persuasion who enjoy winter sunshine and desert safaris perhaps with
some Champagne to wash down the traditional roast, desert mutton.
Islamic fundamentalism is non existent.
Indian sub-continent.
Pakistan
This ancient and historic land and one of the earliest civilisations
based round the fertile land of the Indus river basin now supports some
145 million people of whom 97% are Muslim. After the English withdrew
from India in 1947, Muslims and the majority Hindu activists, split the
Indian subcontinent into three territories based on Religion in a
bloody civil war. Pakistan has been a self governing Islamic republic
ever since. The people have proven difficult to manage due to diverse
population groups divided by geography, language, race and extremes of
wealth and poverty, resulting in unstable governments interspaced by
military coups. The billions of dollars spent on the development of a
Nuclear Arsenal has done nothing to improve the lot of the millions in
poverty. The efforts by local Muslim fundamentalists to try and start a
war with nuclear neighbour India, alarms the majority of Pakistanis not
to mention the rest of the world. The West has totally failed to work
out a concept of Nuclear disarmament which Islamic militants in
Pakistan, being the only Islamic country with "The Bomb" would now find
it, under the current climate, almost impossible to accept.
Iran
Although geographically and environmentally a rugged country there is
enough water to allow local farmers to feed 80% of the almost 70
million population of mainly Shia Muslims. Oil was discovered in 1901.
Iran was the first major Islamic country to return to almost medieval
Islamic fundamentalism when, in the late 1970s the local religious
leaders and university students rebelled against the Western freedoms
being introduced by the US backed Shah (like freedom of speech and
emancipation of women). Their religious leader, living in exile in
Paris returned and introduced press censorship, the withdrawal of
women's rights and prison and torture with out trial. Ayatollah
Khomeini vision was to cleanse Iran of all western evil and export the
concept of a fundamentalist Islamic state to the rest of the Islamic
world. Iran retains this mission today but finds being surrounded by
Sunni main stream Muslims a disadvantage to exporting this vision.
This brief of Islam would not be complete without looking at the
currently alarming position in:
CENTRAL ASIA
The Central Asia we are looking at is the huge area, sometimes
described as the underbelly of Russia. Indeed the whole area was, some
20 years ago, a significant part of the old Soviet Union. The reason
that this forms part of a History of England site is fourfold:
- Many of the new
Islamic residents of England being from Pakistan, have connections in
the area
- A number of Mosques
in England collect
funds and organise support for the Islamic militants in the area
- Many English
business people travel to this area as it is full of Oil and Gas
- Like Afghanistan
which is on the
southern boundaries of Central Asia, the area is a potential hotbed for
Islamic fundamentalists and Islamic Jihads
Geographical area and population
In terms of size we are looking at something almost as big as the
United States of America. 2000 miles wide by 1000 miles north to south,
compared with the US approximately 3000 miles by 1200 miles. The
central area is about 40 deg. north of the Equator which again is the
same as the US. Chicago and Tashkent in Uzbekistan are both about 42
degrees north. This Central Asian area borders Turkey in the West,
China in the East, Russia in the North and the following countries in
the South:- Iraq, Iran, and Pakistan.
Whereas the US is one country, Central Asia includes the following:-
(from west to east, population in brackets) Georgia(5), (plus Chechnya
in Russia), Armenia(3), Turkmenistan(4), Uzbekistan(21), Tajikistan(5),
Kyrgyzstan(4). Plus to the north the huge country of Kazakhstan(16) and
to the south the now well known Afghanistan (16). This is 8 countries
hosting 74 million mainly Islamic people, mostly in abject poverty,
compared with the US which has a population of some 260 million of whom
the vast majority are Christian and very comfortably off. The boarders
of most of these countries are artificial, created by Stalin some 70
years ago to deliberately break up the natural ethnic groups under the
heading of "divide and rule". Three other territories need to be
considered as potentially part of this Central Asian Islamic area.
- Firstly the
bordering western China
province of Xinjiang which with many underground Muslims, is or wishes
to be part of any Central Asian Islamic revival(10)
- And secondly
Pakistan (140) plus the unhappy Muslims in India(100)
- Also Turkey in the
West (60). This gives
a potential of about 400 million Muslims in this central contiguous
Asian area many of whom are looking for an Islamic revival to pull them
out of poverty. This provides a serious common point for discussion
giving the Americans two huge allies perhaps for the first time namely,
Russia and China.
A brief early history.
Some of these countries spawned the Turks of Turkey and the Islamic
Ottoman Empire as can be guessed by their names. They mingled with the
Islamic Arabs some 1300 years ago and ended up creating the main
Islamic centres of the world. Ottoman, Iranian and Indian. Most of
these countries were on or close by the famous "Silk Route" from the
Mediterranean to China, much used by the early Arabs. In this way the
local people prospered and were introduced to the Islamic faith. When
the Silk trading route was transferred to the sea, the area stagnated
and remained largely medieval as in the early European middle ages.
Last 100 years
The whole area with the exception of Afghanistan was colonised by
Russia who particularly under Stalin suppressed or tried to eliminate
the Islamic religion as he did Christians in European Russia. The
Russians were aware of the potential of Central Asian Oil and Gas but
did nothing to exploit it, preferring to drill in Siberia where they
trusted the locals. Perhaps millions were killed by Stalin to suppress
their Islamic faith.
Last 10 years
With the collapse of the Soviet Empire, the whole Central Asian area
lost its markets for cotton, which you can't eat and which Stalin
insisted they grew almost to the exclusion of their traditional crops.
They also lost a supplier for essential goods, like food, at a price
they could afford. Worse Stalin had ordered the cotton areas to be
irrigated from the scarce life giving river waters flowing into the
Aral Sea. The scheme was a disaster and much of the area is currently
not useful for growing anything.
The rebirth of Islam
With mass poverty and mass unemployment, religion is very often seen as
a hope for a better future. There has been a mass rebuilding of Mosques
and a mass religious revival much to consternation of many of the local
rulers who still favour a secular society such as under the Russians.
Each country has its own distinctive underground fundamentalist Islamic
society funded from the following sources:- Turkey, Pakistan, Saudi
Arabia and Osama bin Laden. Recruitment is easy as the local Islamic
rulers seem to have plenty of money. If things get a bit hot and the
Islamic leaders need to disappear for a few months, Afghanistan is
waiting for them. The central aims of the local Islamic rulers is quite
simple:- "To create a cohesive central Asian Islamic state under one
supreme ruler." Method Jihad.
The most powerful and militant Islamic movement is the Islamic Movement
of Uzbekistan (IMU) under the leadership of Juma Namangani and Mohammed
Tahir Farooq. They posted a jihad on the Internet in August 1999 in
Uzbek and English against the "corrupt secular" government of
Uzbekistan and President Karimov.
The events of 11 September 2001 changed everything. Observers will have
noted that the US persuaded some of these countries to supply bases to
support the attack on the Taliban and Al Qaeda in Afghanistan. This is
because the local secular governments would wish to court the West to
counter the growth of Islamic fundamentalism and to invest in their oil
and gas fields which would turn some of them into mini Saudi Arabias.
(Notably, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan. This method of
getting some 70 million people out of the poverty trap seems to be of
little interest to the local religious zealots but at least the US, the
only country in the world which can afford to significantly help the
area, has a toe hold and its presence is currently seen as being non
threatening even to the Russians and Chinese. (A threat to the Islamic
movements of course)
In England today
In secular England it is not unknown for white Anglo-Saxons to convert
to the Islamic faith even though after 11 September 2001 Muslims are
looked on extremely suspiciously. Some young Anglo-Saxon girls are
disillusioned with Western Culture which to them seems to only
encourage alcoholic drunkenness and frequent casual sex. Islam not only
bans both alcohol and premarital sex but also provides a brotherhood of
friends and a purpose for living which they say is a message not heard
from either English secular or Christian leaders. These young girls
would claim that there is nowhere in the Koran which restricts women's
freedom to develop a satisfying career so long as when married she
accepts that she must ensure all family needs are her responsibility.
She is not forbidden to delegate these responsibilities to a third
party.
On the other hand some Asian immigrants to England or children of Asian
immigrants find that the interpretation of Islam taught them by their
parents or Religious leaders is less attractive to them than their own
"updating" of Islam to embrace a western culture in the twenty first
century. Both groups of children are free to go their own way in
England so long as they are brave enough to take the plunge and the
parental flak.
There are a few Asians in England who have been influenced by
propaganda from local extreme religious leaders who have encouraged
them to emulate the actions of the Islamic leaders in some Muslim
totalitarian states particularly in joining the world movement for a
jihad to create the largest ever World Islamic State to the exclusion
of other beliefs. This movement does not fit comfortably in any Western
society (or the Koran) which preaches freedom of actions, thoughts and
belief for all sexes, races and creeds. There can be no doubt that when
Europe, at the time of the Enlightenment permitted this freedom for the
first time, economic progress was meteoritic.
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