From: carasso@Turing.ORG (Roger Carasso)
Subject: Re: An Article
Organization: The Turing Project, Public Access Internet Host
Date: Mon, 28 Dec 1992 19:25:06 GMT

In article <m0n6OOl-000Q3lC@jack.sns.com> trh@jack.sns.com (Al Trh) writes:
>
>MUSLIMS AWAKE
>
>Who isn't going to Sarajevo this year?
>
>A Christmas visit  by John Major to the British  troops in Bosnia
>would come  as no suprise;  such a meeting makes  political sense
>and  would be  a decent  Christian gesture.  It should,  however,
>provoke  some thought  about  other leaders,  notably those  from
>Islamic states, who  have not been seen anywhere  near the Balkan
>war zone.
>
>Islamic states  are in confusion, unable  to act as an  'umma' or
>concerted Muslim  nation. The war  in Bosnia is  highlighting the
>powerlessness of Islam to respond  to a conflict that threatens a
>whole  Muslim  community. So,  despite  strident  calls for  arms
>shipments to be sent to  the Bosnian Muslims, despite the appeals
>for a 'jihad', no Arab leader ventures close to Sarajevo.
>
>The Bosnian crisis directly affects two million European Muslims.
>If it spreads, to Kosovo and  Macedonia, if it drags in Bulgaria,
>Albania and even Turkey, then tens of millions of Muslims will be
>at war  against a Serbian army  that draws on the  imagery of the
>Orthodox church.
>
>Mosques and minarets are already  targets in the Bosnian war; far
>worse can  be expected.  Yet the Islamic  Conference Organisation
>(ICO)  had generated  few ideas  towards resolving  the conflict.
>Supplying guns to  the Bosnians - as the  Islamic states threaten
>to do  from January 15  - is unlikely to  change the tide  of war
>unless it  is part  of more  comprehensive strategy.  The Islamic
>volunteer brigade in Bosnia is  a tiny ragamuffin group of Afghan
>veterans of no significance.
>
>Money  is flowing  to house  Muslim refugees,  but few  have been
>offered homes in  Islamic states. The impotence of  Islam is also
>evident outside the Balkans.  When 20,000 Indian Hindus ransacked
>the mosque of  Ayodhya, there was a lukewarm  response, even from
>Iran,  which merely  appealed to  the Indian  government to  make
>"wise  and calculated  decisions". The  famine in  Somalia should
>have pressed Islamic  states into urgent action.  The country is,
>after all, a member of both the Arab League and the ICO.
>
>The inability  of the Muslim governments  to develop multilateral
>solutions to  the problems  that affect Muslim  communities plays
>into  the  hands of  fundamentalists.  The  coincidence of  three
>crises, Bosnia, Somalia and India -  and the slow progress on the
>future  of  the  Palestinians,  is  breeding  new  generation  of
>fundamentalist militants.
>
>Every day, small  humiliations add to the anger that is currently
>directed not so much against  the Christian West as against those
>moderate Arab governments  that raise barely a  squeak when their
>fellow believers  are ill treated. The  competition for influence
>in the Asian  republics of the former Soviet Union  is typical of
>the exhausting, self defeating nature of Islamic policy abroad.
>
>There  is  a  division  between  Sunni  and  Shi'ite  spheres  of
>influence in central Asia. In  Bosnia, Turkey is playing a useful
>role in  trying to keep  Islamic pressure within the  confines of
>the overall  UN peacekeeping strategy.  But Iran is  straining at
>the leash. Its  ambitious arms procurement programme  seems to be
>enhancing its status as a regional  power and it is eager to test
>its influence.  Certainly, it  will be the  first of  the Islamic
>states to ship  guns to Sarajevo if the January  15th deadline is
>ignored.
>
>Those Serbs who already claim  that they are fighting a religious
>war will promptly declare a propaganda victory. The time has come
>then to try  to draw the Islamic states more  closely into global
>decision-making, to make  more demands of them.  They should help
>pay for  the Balkan refugees  who are  putting so much  strain on
>Germany, Austria and Croatia. They  should be encouraged to treat
>the Somali famine as a matter  of the most urgent concern for the
>Islamic world. And it would do no  harm at all if a Saudi prince,
>following in the steps of  Christian leaders, were seen in Bosnia
>with a convoy of food aid.
>
>THE TIMES, London, 22 December 1992
>            _
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