From: Kharin (kharin@kharin.com)
Date: Wed Oct 29 2003 - 04:54:21 MST
"And I still have to find the part about buying weapons and building up strength in armed might. What I read was exactly the opposite -- he urged them not to think only in military terms."
He enjoined them to pursue economic and technological success for reasons that relate directly back to military success. These are the sections in question:
"We are enjoined by our religion to prepare for the defence of the ummah. Unfortunately we stress not defence but the weapons of the time of the Prophet. Those weapons and horses cannot help to defend us any more. We need guns and rockets, bombs and warplanes, tanks and warships for our defence. But because we discouraged the learning of science and mathematics etc as giving no merit for the akhirat, today we have no capacity to produce our own weapons for our defence. We have to buy our weapons from our detractors and enemies... We must build up our strength in every field, not just in armed might."
There then follow several references to counter attacking and the defence of the Islamic nation. Call me old fashioned, but I have difficulty regarding the advocacy of military stockpiling (by any state) as being what I would term either positive or moderate.
"A reminder: The full speech is here. Check for yourselves if you haven't already."
At the risk of sounding tetchy, I would hardly have made reference to the speech if I hadn't read it.
"What I see in this comparison is a completely different spirit. Should I have seen similarities? "
You should indeed. I think much of the narrative is very similar; both emphasise that the entire Islamic nation is under attack from enemies that are usually characterised as Jews (Israeli or otherwise) or non-muslims of other stripes and both emphasise a need for Islamic unification to fight against this. The difference as I see it is the advocacy of economic and technological development. This difference is rather more characteristic of Mahathir, whose favoured diatribe usually tended to be that the Malays were indolent and unproductive when compared to the Chinese. As I see it, co-opting elements of Islamic rhetoric is a political ploy for Mahathir and one largely intended for domestic consumption. Mahathir has faced considerable pressure from increasingly strident Islamic groups who view him as a traitor to Islamic values. He has chosen appeasement as a response to this before, starting a process to Islamicise Malay society as a response to advances by an Islamic opposition party. I don't see this as an
y different.
See: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/3220529.stm
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