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Cheaply flows the blood of Muslims

Zafar Bangash

Not only Muslim blood but even Muslim honour is cheap. One only has to glance at the world from Indonesia to Morocco and all places in-between for confirmation. The death toll is so horrendous that it defies description.

If the earlier decades were bad, the nineties have been worse for the sheer magnitude of slaughter of Muslims. Although Bosnia-Herzegovina clearly dominated the news in the last few years, its 300,000 deaths, mostly Muslims, were nothing unusual. Muslims have been killed, maimed, raped and humiliated in equally large numbers elsewhere.

This is not to belittle the suffering of the people of Bosnia. Europe - yes, the cradle of western civilization - witnessed concentration camps again since the second world war; and also ovens. Although not gas ovens this time, the net effect as far as its victims were concerned, was no less brutal. Muslims were burnt alive in smeltering plants all over Bosnia. The perpetrators were Serbian Orthodox Christians.

People in the ‘civilised’ west work themselves into a frenzy if their favourite cat or dog is mistreated, not only remained silent but when the existence of such camps was discovered, their politicians simply took refuge behind blaming ‘ancient hatreds’ for the genocide. Why such passions were suddenly aroused to target a specific group of people - the Muslims - was never explained. And if this was all based on ‘ancient hatreds’, why is it that only one side - the Serbs - was doing the killings and not the other - the Muslims?

This was capped by imposing an arms embargo on the Muslims leaving them totally defenceless. Surely, this was not the result of ancient ethnic hatreds, or was it? The west’s only concern was that the Serbs were not doing the job of finishing the Muslims efficiently. After a three-year bloodbath, there were still enough Muslims left in Bosnia to continue to resist. The real failure in Bosnia, from the west’s point of view, was that the Serbs had not been able to wipe out all the Muslims, even if they came close to doing so.

Bosnia, however, is not the only place despite giving the world such exotic phrases as ‘ethnic cleansing’ and rape camps. These sound so mechanical; all emotion is drained out of them. Clearly, impure things have to be cleansed out. At a stroke, the Muslims were not only declared unwanted but they were also branded as ‘unclean’ to be flushed out of the land. Never mind, if their women were still raped despite enough Sebian women being available and willing for the job.

The Serbs are not the only ones to have indulged in such bestiality. The white Americans are equally guilty of this. African-American men are despite; they are branded as criminals, shot at and jailed, but their women are covetted. This has gone on for centuries.

Rape as a weapon of war, however, did not originate with the Serbs. The Hindu occupiers of Kashmir had started it much earlier. The slaughter of their young men was not enough. The Kashmiri women had to be dishonoured too. According to the most conservative estimates, at least 50,000 women have been raped in Kashmir, matching the numbers in Bosnia.

From Kashmir we can go on to Palestine, Lebanon, Iraq, Chechenya, Azerbaijan or even Mindanao, in southern Philippines. Wherever there are Muslims, it seems there are massacres. In Palestine, thousands of Palestinians - Muslims and Christians - have been killed. Had Muslims killed a few Christians, all hell would break loose. If the zionists do the killing, then it is all right. Palestine also offers the largest number of refugees confined for the longest period in camps. There are perhaps as many as three million Palestinian refugees scattered across the Middle East.

In Lebanon, the Israeli invaders have slaughtered more than 40,000 civilians. When the relatives of these victims defend themselves, they are immediately branded as ‘terrorists’ and the western media are there to spread it to the whole world. It is considered legitimate to blow people to pieces - children, men and women - so long as it is done from a safe distance in the air or with long range artillery. It is all very sanitized and civilized. It is terrorism if civilians want to fight the Israeli military with small arms or with roadside bombs.

In Chechenya, the Russian invaders killed more than 80,000 people - most of them civilians - in a war that lasted 21 months (Chechenya’s total population is barely one million). In Kashmir, 60,000 people have been killed since 1990. Add to that 200,000 killed in the Philippines, 500,000 in Iraq during the brief war in January 1991 and another 100,000 in Azerbaijan and one gets the picture.

It is in Iraq, however, where the genocide of children is going on at the behest of the US. Nothing would satiate the appetite of the Americans. A million children starved to death is a small price to pay for American megalomania. Blame it all on Saddam Husain. True, he is a monster, but he is the west’s own creation. For the sake of one man, kill a million children. Perhaps, in a year’s time, another million children would be dead.

As long as pictures of emaciated Iraqi children with extended bellies are kept out of the view of television camera and therefore, away from the living rooms of American families, Uncle Sam can continue with his genocide. After all, these are Muslim children and there are, in any case, too many Muslims in the world. They are all ‘terrorists’ who must be killed without mercy.

This is the logic of the ‘civilised’ leaders of the world.

Muslimedia: January 16-31, 1998


Article from

Crescent International Vol. 26, No. 22

Ramadan 17, 14181998-01-16


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