Look out, spring has sprung
* by: Alan Howe
* From: Herald Sun <
http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/>
* November 27, 2011 12:00AM
IT is hard to know whether the problem for Arabs is Islam, or the problem
with Islam is Arabs.
Muslims mostly live happily in Melbourne and elsewhere, fully integrated,
community minded, often high achieving and robust contributors to their
societies.
Australia's Muslims come from many points on the globe: Indonesia, Lebanon,
Eastern Europe, Pakistan, Turkey, India, and, of course, the Middle East.
Increasingly, Australia's Muslims are home grown - born in Australia.
Among these, we clearly have a problem: Some of them are extremists
determined to kill to achieve their aims of having Australians turn away
from Western advancement and liberties. They want to violently end our
secular democracy. Expensive though we taxpayers find these fringe dwellers,
they are part and parcel of the multicultural life of modern day Australia.
But we must hunt them down, expose them, prosecute them and, if found
guilty, put them behind bars for the rest of their lives.
Of course we don't: It's in our generous Western system to assume good in
people and that is why some of those involved in planning mass murder now
walk the streets free to plot jihad against us.
In Arab lands, like-minded, militant Islamists abound. Some are Sunni. Some
are Shia. Some are just bonkers.
Democracy? It's all Greek to them.
The wave of uprisings this year is being called the Arab Spring, a name
derived from the so-called Prague Spring of 1968 in which Czechoslovakian
leader Alexander Dubcek untied a few of the shackles of Moscow-enforced
communism.
He was a man before his time. Within months the Warsaw pact nations invaded
Czechoslovakia sending 200,000 troops and 2000 tanks to forcefully take
control of the nation, Soviet boss Leonid Brezhnev installed a puppet leader
and communism was quickly restored.
That back-to-the-future lesson is a powerful one for the Arab world.
At first blanch, the Arab uprisings of this year looked to be advances for
people often trapped by clerics and tyrants who have used Islam to enslave,
torture and kill their people so that they can live in opulent grandeur
among some of the planet's poorest populations.
Iran might appear to be the odd man out. For a start its people prefer to
fashion themselves as Persians, but it has a significant Arab core. Its
supreme leader seems to shun the indulgences that define the lifestyles of
his neighbouring leaders, but he and his president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, are
still the two of the most dangerous men on earth.
Ahmadinejad is mad. Barking. And soon to be nuclear armed.
This year saw movements for freedom in Egypt, Tunisia, Yemen, Bahrain,
Morocco, Iran, Syria, Jordan and even Saudi Arabia.
The tyrannical states that enjoy Western support - Bahrain and Saudi Arabia
- have largely survived, although Egypt fell quickly. Those who alienated
the West, or threatened it, or attacked it, are gone. By the hand of their
own people.
A Libyan shot dead Colonel Gaddafi, even if his convoy was trapped in Sirte
by NATO airstrikes.
But the next chapter in the lives of these states is unlikely to include
anything like democracy.
A greater danger is that the threatening Muslim Brotherhood will overtly or
otherwise control their destinies.
A year ago I wrote that we'd do well to remember the name Sayyid Qutb, and
suggested that despite being dead for almost 50 years he could yet be the
most influential man of this century, in the manner that Karl Marx was the
most influential man of the last century while not living to see it.
The Koran-quoting assassins of the Muslim Brotherhood work to Qutb's
manifesto In The Shade of The Koran.
They are bad news for honest, secular Arabs who made such sacrifices this
year in the hopes of liberalism and progress that might change their
destiny.
The Brotherhood plans changes, too. First they'd turn the clock back to the
sixth century, and introduce sharia law; Muslim women and girls could forget
about equality.
Next they'd start planning for the destruction of the state of Israel.
They are well organised for today's election in Egypt and the military's
bloody crackdown on protesters last week plays directly in to their hands.
The poll results will give us an indication of the Brotherhood's real
strength there. It can hardly be a coincidence that Cairo will also be the
venue for a meeting on December 22 between the Palestinian Fatah and Hamas
movements as they strike a unity deal after recent talks on "the question of
a truce ... with Israel and the question of popular resistance".
They can't have been long talks: Hamas demands the destruction of Israel.
If the Palestinians put down their weapons, there'd be peace. If the
Israelis put down their weapons, there'd be genocide.
Meanwhile, in Yemen, the vacuum left by departing President Saleh also
doesn't mean freedom for his people. Jockeying for power there are his son
and some tribal chiefs, with various factions of the military.
In Moroccan elections at the weekend so-called "moderate" Islamists appear
to have taken the lead, as they did in Tunisia a few weeks back, but
secularists failed.
And then there's Libya. Run by a murderous lunatic and his sons - one of
them the captured Saif, best mate of Prince Andrew, whose mum is Australia's
head of state - after 40 years the people revolted and the era of fear,
torture and murder was ended.
Already the new regime is talking of sharia law.
Welcome the new barbarians.
Related Coverage
*
<
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/world/copts-worried-about-future/story
-e6frg6ux-1226190564546> Copts worried about future The Australian, 10 Nov
2011
*
<
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/opinion/egypts-arab-spring-turns-dark/
story-e6frg71x-1226168019106> Egypt's Arab Spring turns dark The Australian,
17 Oct 2011
*
<
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/opinion/extremist-threat-to-arab-sprin
g/story-e6frg71x-1226163359427> Extremist threat to Arab Spring The
Australian, 11 Oct 2011
*
<
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/world/freedom-for-extremists-could-mak
e-sinai-the-new-somalia/story-e6frg6ux-1226123116294> Sinai could be the new
Somalia The Australian, 27 Aug 2011
*
<
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/opinion/indonesias-role-in-the-arab-re
volution/story-e6frg6zo-1226122635925> Indonesia's role in the revolution
The Australian, 27 Aug 2011
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Received on Sun Nov 27 2011 - 06:23:49 EST