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Mahathir takes the flak, Boykin goes scot-free
George S. Hishmeh
Special to Gulf News | 30-10-2003
Mahathir Mohammed, the outgoing Malaysian prime minister, may be remembered in some circles after he retires on Friday at the end of a 22-year tenure for his remark against Jews rather than his leadership of a moderate, multi-racial and multi-religious country which he transformed into a vibrant manufacturing nation.
He was quoted as telling a just-concluded summit meeting of the Organisation of Islamic Conference, OIC, that grouped many heads of state of Muslim countries: "The Europeans killed six million Jews out of 12 million. But today the Jews rule this world by proxy."
Those living in glasshouses...
The uproar in some western nations for the 26 words in his otherwise lengthy speech may be justified but we all have been told that people who live in glasshouses do not throw stones.
Just to cite one case, that of Lieutenant-General William Boykin, an evangelical Christian and the new deputy undersecretary of Defence for Intelligence and Special Operations, who remains undisciplined by his superiors, Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld included, for his inflammatory remarks in describing the war on terrorism, "I knew that my God was a real God, and [the Muslim's] was an idol."
A keynote speaker at the 57th annual conference of the Middle East Institute in Washington last week labelled Boykin's offensive statement as "terribly destructive, not only for American policy, not only of perceptions of America, but destructive of Christianity."
Clyde Prestowitz, founder and president of Economy Strategy Institute, who described himself as a born-again Christian, said he was bothered by the fact that the Bush administration has not "really disowned" the remarks of Boykin, who also said America's war against Muslim extremist as a battle against Satan.
"We rebuked Mahathir rightly, I agree with it. But we don't say anything about Boykin. So 1.3 billion Muslims out there look at that and they say, 'Case closed.
The Americans are biased. They're not honest brokers. They're attacking Islam.' That is not where we want to be. And that's not where Christians want to be." The Malaysian prime minister received a standing ovation at the OIC, the speaker said, "not so much because of his comments he made about Jews, although that may have been part of it, but I think he got that because it was seen as sticking up for Muslims, sticking up for the Islamic world."
And he underlined that the prime minister was "extremely critical of Islamic extremism" and urged Muslims as well to pursue education to lift their people up.
In a splendid column by Paul Krugman of The New York Times on October 21, he wrote: "Thanks to [the Bush administration's] war against Iraq and its unconditional support for [Israeli Prime Minister] Ariel Sharon, Washington has squandered post-9/11 sympathy and brought relations with the Muslim world to a new low."
A major portion of President Bush's electoral base - 40 per cent - is believed to be composed of evangelical Christians, and political analysts here believe that the president "is unlikely to be re-elected without the strong support of this constituency, which is predominantly but not wholly Republican and which in other years has thrown significant support to southern Democrats" like former President Bill Clinton.
Administration officials and members of Congress were reported as saying that this religious coalition has had "an unusual influence on one of the most religious White Houses in American history."
Not all behind Bush
The front-page article in last Sunday's New York Times added that these "[Christian] groups have driven aspects of foreign policy and won major appointments," and were instrumental in making sure that the president included extensive remarks on an issue of their concern - sex trafficking - in his speech to the United Nations General Assembly last September.
However, it is a mistaken view to believe that the evangelical community is totally united behind the Bush administration's policies.
More than 50 evangelical leaders wrote Bush last July reminding him that the American evangelical community is not "a monolithic bloc in full and firm support of present Israeli policy."
They added, "significant numbers of American evangelicals reject the way some have distorted biblical passages as their rationale for uncritical support for every policy and action of the Israeli government instead of judging all actions - of both Israelis and Palestinians - on the basis of biblical stands of justice.
"The great Hebrew prophets, Isaiah and Jeremiah, declared in the Old Testament that God calls all nations and all people to do justice one to another, and to protect the oppressed, the alien, the fatherless and the widow."
Considering this track record, the Bush administration needs to tread softly among all the religious factions if it cares to improve its image especially in the all-important Arab and Muslim world. Or else, can we blame the Arabs and Muslims for mistrusting us?
The writer can be contacted at ghishmeh@gulfnews.com
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| Earth, a planet hungry for peace |
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| The Israeli apartheid (security) wall around Palestinian population centers (Ran Cohen, pmc, 5/24/03). |
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| The Israeli apartheid (security) wall around Palestinian population centers in the West Bank (Ran Cohen, pmc, 5/24/03). |
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