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| ON THE OTHER HAND |
| Vietnam Pilgrimage
By Antonio C. Abaya Written Sept. 26, 2006 For the Standard Today, September 28 issue. This was the first and only time that I have ever been to Vietnam . As a tourist, one is struck by first impressions. Among which would be the sheer number of motorcycles, motor scooters and motor bikes on the streets of Ho Chi Minh City (nee Saigon ). With a human population of eight million, HCMC has four million two-wheeled vehicles. There are few private cars, and even fewer (but modern) buses, which stop to load and unload passengers only at designated, roofed bus stops, which are more artistically designed than the MMDA�s jerry-built boxes. But the buses are seldom full. Everyone else, literally including everyone�s grandmother or grandchild, is on a two-wheeler. Especially during morning and evening rush hours, this bewildering armada of two-wheeled mechanical locusts swarms over every nook and cranny of the city and makes crossing a busy intersection or negotiating a roundabout (rotunda to us) a death-defying experience.. Most of them are mercifully quiet and glide along unobtrusively � if four million moving machines can be unobtrusive � but their sheer numbers give the city a quasi-permanent low-frequency purr, as if all the vibrators in town were being used simultaneously. And, get this, no one wears a helmet. Why so, I asked our Vietnamese guide Ly, isn�t there a city ordinance that requires cyclists and bikers to wear helmets? The city tried to pass one, he explained, but there was so much objection to it, the city council gave up. Helmets are too bulky to carry into the office or shop or factory, the bikers and cyclists complain, and they would be stolen if left with the two-wheelers on the sidewalk or the parking lot. Surprisingly, during our four-day stay in HCMC during which we must have encountered at least half of the city�s four million cycles, we saw only one minor collision and no bloodied head. One other noticeable aspect of the Saigon cityscape is the thousands of buildings with frontages of less than five meters. I asked Ly about this. He explained that this was carried over from the French era, during which city lot owners were limited to only four meters each of access to the streets. Why, he didn�t know. Either out of French concern for egalite, I reckoned, or to cast a wider tax collection net, or both. So you see dozens of medium-height buildings, some as tall as six or seven levels high and used as apartments or even hotels, but only four meters wide, and 10 to 20 meters deep. HCMC residents are lucky they are outside the earthquake zone. And speaking of the French, their beautiful language is hardly used in HCMC anymore. The commercial signs and adverts are in either Vietnamese only, or in Vietnamese and English. I overheard French being spoken by Vietnamese individuals only once. The most enduring signs of French influence, and the Vietnamese should not complain about it, are the many stately trees that line the main boulevards, the numerous parks where the locals congregate at all hours of the day and night, and the beautiful architecture of many public buildings such as the Opera House, the main Post Office, the city hall (officially called the People�s Committee Hall). The most touristy part of HCMC is District 1 (patterned, I suppose, after Paris � arondisements) where most of the interesting sites are located, together with the high-end hotels and restaurants. But if you want to save money, stay in a hotel in Districts 3 or 5, which is what we did. My son Hochi (after Ho Chi Minh) accessed the website www.hotels.com to look for hotels offering promo rates, which is how we found our hotel in District 5, a newly built 25-storey structure, with restaurants and shopping mall in the lower floors. For a modest promo rate of $60/night, we had a large comfortable room with bath, TV, internet access (for $12 a day), free and ample breakfast buffet, and � the clincher � free bus shuttle to District 1 every half-hour, from 8 in the morning to midnight. In District 1, such a room would have cost twice as much. But you have to pay in advance, by computer and credit card. I did not visit Vietnam merely as a tourist, but also as a pilgrim of sorts. During the 1960s and 1970s, the Vietnam War was the definitive Moral Issue of the Day throughout the world, perhaps in a more profound way than the Iraq War became the definitive Moral Issue in the present decade. Though I am generally pro-American � in 1991, I was one of the few columnists who supported an extension of the US military bases � in the 1960s I put myself squarely on the side of the Vietnamese. My wife and I named our eldest child, born right after the Tet Offensive, Victoria Carla, in honor of the Viet Cong, whom the Americans called Victor Charlie. We nicknamed our only son, Hochi, in honor of Ho Chi Minh. The Vietnamese in no way posed a threat to the US , was never accused of developing weapons of mass destruction, and was never associated with any evil plot to attack the US on a scale even remotely approaching 9/11. Yet the Americans dropped more tons of bombs on puny, agricultural and dirt poor Vietnam than all the combatant countries dropped on each other during the entire Second World War. It was the most shameless example of the Arrogance of Power in the 20th century Not just explosive bombs, but also napalm bombs to burn the jungle cover under which the Viet Cong guerillas hid, and chemical defoliants like Agent Orange, to prevent the jungle from growing again, and which resulted in thousands of Vietnamese infants born with grotesque deformities, and other hundreds of children and adults afflicted with leukemia.. The chant of anti-war protesters in the 60s � Hey, hey, LBJ! How many bicycle shops did you bomb today??? � said it all. What did the Vietnamese ever do to the Americans to deserve the deaths, destruction and untold suffering that the Americans inflicted on them? President Lyndon Baines Johnson (LBJ) claimed in 1965 that Vietnamese torpedo boats had attacked or threatened to attack American warships in the Gulf of Tonkin , a claim that was later exposed as a lie, but which was used to justify the sending of American soldiers, marines, sailors and airmen and their efficient death machines to Vietnam . But the Vietnamese fought back with a ferocity that stunned the Americans and caught the imagination and drew the admiration of the rest of the world. These wiry little guys (and some gals), who probably averaged 5 feet 4 and 120 lbs, with deceptively mild and gentle dispositions, fought like lions against foreign invaders - be they Mongol, Chinese, French or American - and won. As Henry Kissinger put it, considering the disparity in resources and firepower, for the Americans not to win was equivalent to losing, and for the Vietnamese not to lose was equivalent to winning. A total of 8.75 million American servicemen fought in Vietnam from 1965 to 1973, of whom 58,000 were killed and 153,000 were wounded. (So far, less than 2,800 Americans have been killed in Iraq .) In addition, the Americans lost some 7,000 aircraft, both fixed-wing and rotor, some shot out of the sky by VC flak or North Vietnamese surface-to-air missiles, others destroyed on the ground in daring attacks by VC sappers on US airbases.. To this day, place names like Saigon, Hue, Cu Chi, An Loc, Pleiku, Khe Sanh, Ban Me Thuot, Bien Hoa, Quang Tri, Danang and many others, seared in my mind in the 1960s as hallowed ground where the Vietnamese sacrificed two million of their young men and women in a magnificent defense of their country, remain vivid and brought back memories as we viewed the exhibits in the War Memorial Museum on Vo Van Tan Street.. To this day, I recall how Sweden , another country that I admire, officially reacted to the Vietnam War. At the height of the American bombing of Hanoi , the Swedish government built and equipped the most modern hospital in that city. The ruling Social Democratic Party in Sweden publicly raised funds to buy medical field kits for the Viet Cong guerillas. The then Minister of Education Olaf Palme led anti-war demonstrations in Stockholm , arm-in arm with the ambassador from North Vietnam . When the Americans protested that Sweden should adhere to its traditional policy of neutrality, the Swedish government replied that being neutral did not mean they should be silent in the face of injustice. The Americans withdrew their ambassador in a huff. Years later in 1986, Palme, by then Prime Minister, was shot dead as he and his wife walked to a parking lot in Stockholm to fetch their car. (Until then, even the highest Swedish officials had no bodyguards or drivers; they drove their own cars.) To this day, that assassination remains unsolved. I have always suspected that the CIA was behind it: payback for past disservice to the USA . To this day, I cannot forget the Viet Cong guerilla who was captured by the South Vietnamese during the Tet Offensive in Saigon in February 1968. He was given a choice. If he revealed some vital military information that he had, he would be shot like a true patriot. If he refused to talk, he would be run over by a truck like a dog. He chose to be run over by a truck. But before he was thus executed, he was interviewed by an American reporter. I do not recall the Viet Cong�s name, if he had a name in that story, but I still recall some details. He and his wife were both guerillas, he said, and they both fought against the French and now against the Americans. They both knew they were going to die before the war was over, but they chose to have children because they wanted a part of themselves to remain to enjoy the fruits of their sacrifice. In answer to the reporter�s question, the guerilla replied that, no, he did not hate the Americans, nor did he hate the French. What the Viet Cong taught him was to love his country, and for him who was a simple unlettered village peasant, to realize that he had a country was a revelation. What a noble man. To this day, whenever I think of him, I feel a lump in my throat. **** Reactions to [email protected]. Other articles since 2001 in www.tapatt.org OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO |
| Reactions to � Vietnam Pilgrimage�
Dear Mr. Abaya, I just came across your article in the Manila Standard today and wanted to thank you for that wonderful piece on my home country. Since growing up in the US , I randomly find myself reading articles from many different people who visit Viet Nam for the first time and somehow feel they never seem to understand the depth and intensity of the Vietnamese people. You've captured and felt deeply how much we've sacrificed for the war and what we've done to grow from that human disaster. One always hopes the lessons are learned but the cliche of history repeating itself seems to ring true once more. I am glad you were able to experience something personal on your first and hopefully not last visit to Viet Nam . Kind regards, Elizabeth Pham, [email protected], Sept. 28, 2006 wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww Hi from Oakland and thanks for the "Vietnam Pilgrimage" which is an eye opener for me. You have a keen sense for details and even a sharper wit to tie events with history, local or beyond or across the continents. Thought provoking reading and, me too, a lump in my throat for that heroic Vietnamese. (A bit of nostalgia -- in my younger years as a student of Maryknoll where women compleat hail - ahem- in my nationalistic years of love of country for Filipinas, I would have willingly given my body to be crushed by a truck too. Older now, I think I am less patriotic and more critical.) May the force be with you always, Marla Chorengel, [email protected], Rodeo, CA, Oct. 03, 2006 wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww What a beautiful story. Tony, I didn't know that about the Swedes and Palme. With your permission, I am going to email your article to all the Filipinos and Filipino Americans in my address book. Thanks for sharing. Angie Collas-Dean, [email protected], Eugene, Oregon, Oct. 03, 2006 wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww Hi Tony: I found your story very sentimental and was deeply touched by your comments on the treatment of the Vietnamese people. Many will continue to suffer from the effects of Agent Orange just like those who lived in the Bikini Atoll or the nearby islands when the Atom Bomb was dropped for testing after WW2. Same thing perhaps with the people from Nagasaki and Hiroshima who are of second or third generation who may have acquired cancer from the effects of radiation. You never know that this radiation effect may still be embedded in the ground and could still affect the residents of those places. Really sad if that would still be the case. You really chose good names for your kids specially Ho Chi. Victoria Carla is also one that has a lifetime of memory to it. Great choices ! I truly enjoyed this personal sketch of your Vietnam experiences. I was there twice--1964-65 then from 1969 to 70 while on duty aboard the USS Constellation, CVA-64 and the USS Coral Sea, CVA-43, both of which were aircraft carriers. Mind you, I was only a member of the ship's company and had nothing to do with the bombing of Vietnam. Cheers ! Fred Vidal, [email protected], Plantation,. Florida, Oct 03, 2006 wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww Dear Tony A piece written from the heart. You must tell us more when we meet. Warm regards. Jayjay Calero, [email protected], Oct. 03, 2006 wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww Dear Tony, It has been rumored here in the US that Kissinger is advising George Bush to stay the course in Iraq and not follow history in Vietnam wherein US just run and cut. As long as Bush stays in the White House until 2008 more soldiers will die and exceed the civilian deaths in 9/11. Bush will never cut the death of these young volunteer soldiers and the US will continue to run huge trade deficits. Dr. Nestor P. Baylan, [email protected], New York City, Oct. 03, 2006 wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww Tony, Welcome back! This is a beautiful story. Regards, Cesar Sarino, c_sarino@hotmail, Oct. 03, 2006 wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww Hola Tony, I enjoyed reading your informative article about Ho Chi Minh City. I see that you were ahead of your time regarding the Vietnam War and the moral issue of the US participation in it. I recall that the Philippine started with Operation Brotherhood and our Army's role under General Tobias was involved in civic action. Like you I was pro-American in this issue, following the Domino Theory and the expansion of Communism during the global Cold War. Prior to that my hero was Douglas MacArthur and later my manok was the movie actor President Ronald Regan. I recall the mass demonstrations against the Vietnam War in the US, which were associated with the Flower Power and Hippies of the time. What I recall was the chanting of - "Hey, hey, LBJ, how many kids have you killed today? I understand that Monsanto Australia produced (some of the chemicals used in Agent Orange. Glad to see that you don't follow the mold of cattle/sheep mentality as seems to be the fashion of the day. Abrazos, Jaime Calero, [email protected], Sydney, Australia, Oct. 03, 2006 wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww Mr. Abaya � I want to say that was a lovely piece you wrote on Vietnam . I�m sending you an article I wrote. Sorry I don� know how to lengthen out the text to make it more readable. Best wishes � Isabel T. Escoda, [email protected], Hong Kong , Oct. 03, 2006 wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww Indeed, the Vietnamese and the Thais are true citizens of their countries, and they understood/understand fully what that means...so unlike------many other nationalities, Filipinos among them... Nonoy Yulo, [email protected], Oct. 03, 2006 wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww Good for them, in their own way they�re rising triumphant from their plight. Heard they�re now competing with China for source of leather shoes, etc. Maria P. Almeda, [email protected], Oct. 07, 2006 wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww Tocayo, Sharing something re Vietnam: *After Ateneo high school I took one school year off in 1948 to work as apprentice officer (dcck) on board M.V. Noreverett of the Everett Orient Lines and saw almost all Asian ports from Bombay to Korea and Japan. I was in Saigon when the French government still reigned supreme in Vietnam (still part of French Indochina). *In 1954 apprenticing as rewriteman in Pierre Brissard's Agence France Press, Manila, I was lucky to have received the teletyped message of the fall of Dien Bien Phu. Assisting Pierre was Teddy Benigno. I worked with Agence partime as I pursued a Journalism course at the Ateneo. *In 1973 after attending a founding committee to setup ARTDO [Asian Regional Training and Development Organization] at Kuala Lumpur I stopped over in Saigon on the way back to Manila. I almost got caught by the Vietminch government when I missed the last Pan Am flight out of Saigon. I am fascinated by your naming your son Hochi. Ciao! Tony Joaquin, [email protected], Daly City, CA, Oct. 07, 2006 wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww (The following article was emailed to us) Popes and the Kings by Uri Avnery Since the days when Roman Emperors threw Christians to the lions, the relations between the emperors and the heads of the church have undergone many changes. Constantine the Great, who became Emperor in the year 306--exactly 1700 years ago--encouraged the practice of Christianity in the empire, which included Palestine. Centuries later, the church split into an Eastern (Orthodox) and a Western (Catholic) part. In the West, the Bishop of Rome, who acquired the title of Pope, demanded that the Emperor accept his superiority. The struggle between the Emperors and the Popes played a central role in European history and divided the peoples. It knew ups and downs. Some Emperors dismissed or expelled a Pope, some Popes dismissed or excommunicated an Emperor. One of the Emperors, Henry IV, "walked to Canossa", standing for three days barefoot in the snow in front of the Pope's castle, until the Pope deigned to annul his excommunication. But there were times when Emperors and Popes lived in peace with each other. We are witnessing such a period today. Between the present Pope, Benedict XVI, and the present Emperor, George Bush II, there exists a wonderful harmony. Last week's speech by the Pope, which aroused a world-wide storm, went well with Bush's crusade against "Islamofascism", in the context of the "Clash of Civilizations". * * * IN HIS lecture at a German university, the 265th Pope described what he sees as a huge difference between Christianity and Islam: while Christianity is based on reason, Islam denies it. While Christians see the logic of God's actions, Muslims deny that there is any such logic in the actions of Allah. As a Jewish atheist, I do not intend to enter the fray of this debate. It is much beyond my humble abilities to understand the logic of the Pope. But I cannot overlook one passage, which concerns me too, as an Israeli living near the fault-line of this "war of civilizations". In order to prove the lack of reason in Islam, the Pope asserts that the prophet Muhammad ordered his followers to spread their religion by the sword. According to the Pope, that is unreasonable, because faith is born of the soul, not of the body. How can the sword influence the soul? To support his case, the Pope quoted--of all people--a Byzantine Emperor, who belonged, of course, to the competing Eastern Church. At the end of the 14th century, the Emperor Manuel II Palaeologus told of a debate he had--or so he said (its occurrence is in doubt)--with an unnamed Persian Muslim scholar. In the heat of the argument, the Emperor (according to himself) flung the following words at his adversary: "Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached". These words give rise to three questions: (a) Why did the Emperor say them? (b) Are they true? (c) Why did the present Pope quote them? * * * WHEN MANUEL II wrote his treatise, he was the head of a dying empire. He assumed power in 1391, when only a few provinces of the once illustrious empire remained. These, too, were already under Turkish threat. At that point in time, the Ottoman Turks had reached the banks of the Danube. They had conquered Bulgaria and the north of Greece, and had twice defeated relieving armies sent by Europe to save the Eastern Empire. In 1453, only a few years after Manuel's death, his capital, Constantinople (the present Istanbul) fell to the Turks, putting an end to the Empire that had lasted for more than a thousand years. During his reign, Manuel made the rounds of the capitals of Europe in an attempt to drum up support. He promised to reunite the church. There is no doubt that he wrote his religious treatise in order to incite the Christian countries against the Turks and convince them to start a new crusade. The aim was practical, theology was serving politics. In this sense, the quote serves exactly the requirements of the present Emperor, George Bush II. He, too, wants to unite the Christian world against the mainly Muslim "Axis of Evil". Moreover, the Turks are again knocking on the doors of Europe, this time peacefully. It is well known that the Pope supports the forces that object to the entry of Turkey into the European Union. * * * IS THERE any truth in Manuel's argument? The pope himself threw in a word of caution. As a serious and renowned theologian, he could not afford to falsify written texts. Therefore, he admitted that the Qur'an specifically forbade the spreading of the faith by force. He quoted the second Sura, verse 256 (strangely fallible, for a pope, he meant verse 257) which says: "There must be no coercion in matters of faith". How can one ignore such an unequivocal statement? The Pope simply argues that this commandment was laid down by the prophet when he was at the beginning of his career, still weak and powerless, but that later on he ordered the use of the sword in the service of the faith. Such an order does not exist in the Qur'an. True, Muhammad called for the use of the sword in his war against opposing tribes--Christian, Jewish and others--in Arabia, when he was building his state. But that was a political act, not a religious one; basically a fight for territory, not for the spreading of the faith. Jesus said: "You will recognize them by their fruits." The treatment of other religions by Islam must be judged by a simple test: How did the Muslim rulers behave for more than a thousand years, when they had the power to "spread the faith by the sword"? Well, they just did not. For many centuries, the Muslims ruled Greece. Did the Greeks become Muslims? Did anyone even try to Islamize them? On the contrary, Christian Greeks held the highest positions in the Ottoman administration. The Bulgarians, Serbs, Romanians, Hungarians and other European nations lived at one time or another under Ottoman rule and clung to their Christian faith. Nobody compelled them to become Muslims and all of them remained devoutly Christian. True, the Albanians did convert to Islam, and so did the Bosniaks. But nobody argues that they did this under duress. They adopted Islam in order to become favorites of the government and enjoy the fruits. In 1099, the Crusaders conquered Jerusalem and massacred its Muslim and Jewish inhabitants indiscriminately, in the name of the gentle Jesus. At that time, 400 years into the occupation of Palestine by the Muslims, Christians were still the majority in the country. Throughout this long period, no effort was made to impose Islam on them. Only after the expulsion of the Crusaders from the country, did the majority of the inhabitants start to adopt the Arabic language and the Muslim faith--and they were the forefathers of most of today's Palestinians. * * * THERE IS no evidence whatsoever of any attempt to impose Islam on the Jews. As is well known, under Muslim rule the Jews of Spain enjoyed a bloom the like of which the Jews did not enjoy anywhere else until almost our time. Poets like Yehuda Halevy wrote in Arabic, as did the great Maimonides. In Muslim Spain, Jews were ministers, poets, scientists. In Muslim Toledo, Christian, Jewish and Muslim scholars worked together and translated the ancient Greek philosophical and scientific texts. That was, indeed, the Golden Age. How would this have been possible, had the Prophet decreed the "spreading of the faith by the sword"? What happened afterwards is even more telling. When the Catholics re-conquered Spain from the Muslims, they instituted a reign of religious terror. The Jews and the Muslims were presented with a cruel choice: to become Christians, to be massacred or to leave. And where did the hundreds of thousand of Jews, who refused to abandon their faith, escape? Almost all of them were received with open arms in the Muslim countries. The Sephardi ("Spanish") Jews settled all over the Muslim world, from Morocco in the west to Iraq in the east, from Bulgaria (then part of the Ottoman Empire) in the north to Sudan in the south. Nowhere were they persecuted. They knew nothing like the tortures of the Inquisition, the flames of the auto-da-fe, the pogroms, the terrible mass-expulsions that took place in almost all Christian countries, up to the Holocaust. WHY? Because Islam expressly prohibited any persecution of the "peoples of the book". In Islamic society, a special place was reserved for Jews and Christians. They did not enjoy completely equal rights, but almost. They had to pay a special poll-tax, but were exempted from military service--a trade-off that was quite welcome to many Jews. It has been said that Muslim rulers frowned upon any attempt to convert Jews to Islam even by gentle persuasion--because it entailed the loss of taxes. Every honest Jew who knows the history of his people cannot but feel a deep sense of gratitude to Islam, which has protected the Jews for fifty generations, while the Christian world persecuted the Jews and tried many times "by the sword" to get them to abandon their faith. * * * THE STORY about "spreading the faith by the sword" is an evil legend, one of the myths that grew up in Europe during the great wars against the Muslims--the reconquista of Spain by the Christians, the Crusades and the repulsion of the Turks, who almost conquered Vienna. I suspect that the German Pope, too, honestly believes in these fables. That means that the leader of the Catholic world, who is a Christian theologian in his own right, did not make the effort to study the history of other religions. Why did he utter these words in public? And why now? There is no escape from viewing them against the background of the new Crusade of Bush and his evangelist supporters, with his slogans of "Islamofascism" and the "Global War on Terrorism"--when "terrorism" has become a synonym for Muslims. For Bush's handlers, this is a cynical attempt to justify the domination of the world's oil resources. Not for the first time in history, a religious robe is spread to cover the nakedness of economic interests; not for the first time, a robbers' expedition becomes a Crusade. The speech of the Pope blends into this effort. Who can foretell the dire consequences? Uri Avnery is an Israeli writer and peace activist with Gush Shalom. wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww (The following article was emailed to us) The Islamization of Morocco. by Olivier Guitta Oct. 02, 2006 , Weekly Standard A LITTLE MORE THAN three years ago, Morocco experienced Islamic terrorism firsthand. On May 16, 2003 , Casablanca was hit with four simultaneous attacks that left 45 people dead and hundreds injured. The attacks were perpetrated by Moroccan citizens who were members of the al Qaeda-affiliated Moroccan Islamic Combatant Group (known by its French acronym, GICM). Needless to say, the kingdom was stunned that its sons had turned violently against it. Now, the dismantling of another extensive Islamist cell in Morocco confirms that extremism is spreading inside what has long been viewed as one of the most moderate countries in the Arab world. In a series of arrests over the past month, Moroccan authorities have seized 59 people and over 30 kilograms of TNT, more than was used in the 2003 attacks but of the same type. The alleged targets were political and military leaders, along with locations in Marrakesh , Morocco 's premier tourist destination, the air force base of Sal�, and the U.S. embassy in Rabat . But the most troubling aspect of this cell by far is its membership. While the suicide bombers of 2003 came from the slums around Casa blanca, the newly arrested suspects are from all walks of life. They include five members of the military, three policemen, a Domestic Security officer, two imams, and four society women. Two of these women, the wives of Royal Air Morocco pilots, had volunteered for suicide missions in Iraq and Israel . The cell leader, Hassan Khattab, who had spent two years in prison for his support for the 2003 terror attacks, had persuaded the women to finance local jihadi attacks because Morocco is the "ally of the Americans and the Zionists." Coincidentally, these four women had befriended Fatiha Hassani, the widow of the top Moroccan al Qaeda operative who was killed by Saudi forces in April 2005. The indictment accuses the cell members of "planning terrorist acts to overthrow the regime and install an Islamic caliphate." The potential infiltration of the army by jihadists has clearly alarmed the authorities. As of August 31, they have eliminated compulsory military service in order to avoid giving free military training to potential terrorists. In addition, military officers and troops alike have been forbidden to perform Friday prayers in uniform. Beyond the army, there are other clear signs of the rapid Islamization of Moroccan society. Nowhere is this more apparent than in women's dress. In just a few years, Moroccan women have gone from the miniskirt to the hijab. Interviewed in the French daily Le Monde a few months ago, a Moroccan high school teacher named Soukaina (she said she was afraid to use her last name) said that she no longer recognizes her country. Twenty years ago her high school had only one veiled teacher. Today everyone is veiled, teachers and students alike. Soukaina resigned more than a year ago under subtle pressure from Islamists, who wanted her to wear the hijab. She concluded: "It is only a matter of time until Islamists are leading the country." Both in Morocco 's big cities and in its villages, street vendors sell Islamist propaganda calling for jihad and the subjugation of women, spewing anti-Semitism and hatred of the West, on audio and video tapes, CDs and DVDs. One of the bestselling CDs is a rant by a salafi preacher named Abdellah Nihari, who teaches that "women are creatures of Satan" even when they are veiled. For him, women's liberation is to blame for every evil in society. Islamists also have their own freelance "religious police" who operate illegally, mostly on beaches, targeting unmarried couples for harassment, assault, and even, in a few cases in recent years, murder. Another sign of Islamization can be found in opinion surveys of Moroccan youths. According to a January 2006 study by L'Economiste, 44 percent of Moroccans aged 16 to 29 think al Qaeda is not a terrorist organization, 38 percent "don't know," and a mere 18 percent consider it a terrorist group. Furthermore, a July 2006 landmark report ordered by the Ministry of Planning and entitled "Morocco 2030" revealed that lots of high school graduates dream of a liberated Palestine , the destruction of Israel , and the fall of the United States . In such an environment it's only natural that the leading Islamist party--the PJD (Justice and Development party), closely linked to the Muslim Brotherhood--has been gaining traction. Already the third largest party in parliament, the PJD is projected to win 47 percent of the vote in the 2007 parliamentary elections, according to a recent poll by the International Republican Institute. This would make it the largest party, and the king would be obliged to ask it to form a government. The PJD is your classic double speak party, carefully presenting itself as a Moroccan version of the German Christian Democrats, the soul of moderation, in order to achieve broad appeal. But its program, history, and membership leave no doubt about its real intentions. In its unofficial newspaper, At-Tajdid (Renewal), the PJD reveals its true nature. The party pretends it has nothing to do with At-Tajdid, but the paper's editors and publishers are PJD leaders, several of them even members of parliament. At-Tajdid routinely expresses ex trem ist views, especially on moral issues and foreign policy vis-�-vis Israel and the United States . For in stance, At-Tajdid explained the December 2004 tsunami by pointing out that the affected Asian countries were corrupt and were being punished by God for not following the true Islam. The magazine implied that Morocco might be next, for the same reason. But most worrisome are the PJD/At-Tajdid links to terror. Right after the 2003 attacks, Moroccan police arrested the treasurer of the party in Kenitra for his alleged involvement in the plot. Indeed, at the time, most political parties and King Mohammed VI favored banning the PJD. It is widely asserted in the Moroccan press that the U.S. ambassador pressured the king to give up this idea. Also, At-Tajdid's website has a permanent link to the Union of Good, an umbrella organization of Hamas-funding charities, five of which are listed by the United States as Specially Designated Global Terrorist entities (SDGTs), and another two of which are accused of supporting al Qaeda. Last, according to the Moroccan daily Al Ahdath Almaghribia, Hassan Khattab, the terror ringleader just arrested, was initiated into Islamism by PJD members including the director of At-Tajdid, Abdelilah Benkirane. Considering all this, it is baffling that Mustafa Khalfi, editor in chief of At-Tajdid, was awarded a prestigious 2005/2006 Fulbright/American Political Science Association Congressional Fellowship. This honor has afforded him the opportunity to work for congressman Jim McDermott of Washington , to take a course at Johns Hopkins University , and to be a visiting scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Similarly, the head of the PJD, Saad Eddine Othmani, recently visited Washington and met with members of Congress. It's almost enough to make you think some in Washington are quietly positioning themselves for a PJD victory. Olivier Guitta is a foreign affairs and counterterrorism consultant in Washington, D.C. � Copyright 2006, News Corporation, Weekly Standard, All Rights Reserved. wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww Winston Churchill on Islam 1. The following was published 107 years ago in 1899. 2. It was authored by Winston Churchill who first became a household name forty years later during world turmoil leading up to WWII. 3. It was impossible for him to even imagine a fraction of the changes in technology or world politics yet to come. "How dreadful are the curses which Mohammedanism lays on its votaries! Besides the fanatical frenzy, which is as dangerous in a man as hydrophobia n a dog, there is this fearful fatalistic apathy. The effects are apparent in many countries. Improvident habits, slovenly systems of agriculture, sluggish methods of commerce, and insecurity of property exist wherever the followers of the Prophet rule or live. A degraded sensualism deprives this life of its grace and refinement; the next of its dignity and sanctity. The fact that in Mohammedan law every woman must belong to some man as his absolute property, either as a child, a wife, or a concubine, must delay the final extinction of slavery until the faith of Islam has ceased to be a great power among men. Individual Moslems may show splendid qualities, but the influence of the religion paralyzes the social development of those who follow it. No stronger retrograde force exists in the world. Far from being moribund, Mohammedanism is a militant and proselytizing faith. It has already spread throughout Central Africa, raising fearless warriors at every step; and were it not that Christianity is sheltered in the strong arms of science, the science against which it had vainly struggled, the civilization of modern Europe might fall, as fell the civilization of ancient Rome." Sir Winston Churchill (The River War, first edition, Vol. II, pages 248-50 (London: Longmans, Green & Co., 1899). OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO |