World leader renews blast at 'arrogant' Jews October 21, 2003
See bottom: Jewish Writer Supports Malaysian PM's Comments...There is a lot in the mainstream media calling Mahathir's speech anti-Semitic, racist and other things. Question: Do Jews control the world by proxy?
article follows:
Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad today renewed his attack on "arrogant" Jews, saying reaction to his recent controversial comments confirms "they do control the world by proxy".
The veteran leader, who retires later this month, also criticised Western media, who he said took his comments at last week's summit of the Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC) in Malaysia out of context.
"In my speech I condemned all violence, even the suicide bombings, and I told all Muslims it's about time we stopped all these things and paused to think and do something that is much more productive," he told the Bangkok Post.
"That was the whole tone of my speech, but they picked up one sentence where I said that the Jews control the world by proxy. Well, the reaction of the world shows they control the world by proxy."
The comments attracted a volley of international criticism, led by US President George W Bush, who yesterday pulled Mahathir aside at the APEC summit to denounce his "wrong and divisive" charge.
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon yesterday slammed the remarks as "slanderous". However, Mahathir was unrepentant and launched a fresh broadside today. "Israel is a small country. There are not many Jews in the world," he said in the interview.
"But they are so arrogant that they defy the whole world. Even if the United Nations say no, they go ahead. Why? Because they have the backing of all these people."
Mahathir is stepping down later this month after more than two decades in power.
Brute force won't work, US told
In the Bangkok Post interview, Dr Mahathir also told the United States that it must learn conflicts will never be won by using brute force.
Asked whether Washington was capable of resolving the campaigns it had started, he replied: ``Not in the way they are approaching conflicts.''
``They must learn ... it is sad to see that American embassies all around the world have to be protected.
``That's a measure of the bad feelings against the Americans now. That's because they changed in attitude. They have become so powerful. They are the only power in the world and they don't care any more whether we like them or not.
``They can force us to submit to them and that is the basis of their foreign policy: using force. If you are not a democratic country, I will apply sanctions against you.'' ``Using force to make people democratic, I think is wrong,'' he said.
``People must accept democracy because it is a good system. You preach democracy, you don't go around saying 'Now you must be democratic'. I think the wrong things are being done.''
Mahathir, who cited Malaysia's extensive experience of dealing with terrorism, said Washington should instead look at the root cause of why people crashed airliners into skyscrapers, referring to the September 11, 2001 attacks in the United States.
``The way we deal with it is to find what is bugging them,'' he said. ``Why are they doing this? We then tackle the problem.
``Yes, you can apply military pressure but find the root cause, the political cause, and we have conveyed this to everyone.
``But there are some who believe massive retaliation is the answer. You kill one of my people, I will kill 100 of your people. This is not going to work.''
The Malaysian government fiercely opposed the US-led strike on Iraq. Since US President George W Bush declared major hostilities were over on May 1, more than 100 US soldiers have been killed in what has become a guerilla campaign.
There is a lot in the mainstream media calling Mahathir's speech anti-Semitic, racist and other things. Question: Do Jews control the world by proxy?
In Support Of Malaysian PM's Comments On Jews
As a Jew myself (but opposed to Zionism) I need no encouragement from Malaysian PM Mahathir Mohamad to observe what should be obvious to the blatant eye: Namely that Jews effectively rule US foreign policy and thus determine to a great extent the conduct of most countries. If an empirical observation is defined as "anti-Semitism", then this would apply also to any other empirical observation, whatever its nature. When I say "the sun shines today", it would also amount to "anti-Semitism" and you will find people dispute whether the existence of an undetermined number of clouds, sometimes hiding the sun, invalidate the proposition. So it is with the proposition that Jews control the world. Surely they do not control every single action; surely it does not mean that every Jew participates in the "control".
But for all practical purposes the proposition holds. The very fact that a mere statement of this type causes outrage in the chancelleries of the most powerful nations (while the death of half a million children in Iraq between 1990 and 2001 has not), the fact that dozens of nations could change by 180 degrees their opinion of what Zionism is (in 1975 they adopted a UNGA resolution that Zionism is a form of racism whereas after the demise of the Soviet Union they simply, and without any arguments rescinded that resolution), the fact that to obtain US credits one country after the other takes up diplomatic relations with the State of Israel and shows great "sympathy" to the Jewish victims of the Holocaust, the fact that in order to be voted into the Congress, an American must demonstrate his or her allegiance to the State of Israel, all of these and many more facts demonstrate that the Jews indeed have the power referred to by the Malaysian Prime Minister.
This observation has nothing to do neither with the exotic Protocols of the Elders of Zion nor with esoteric interpretations of the Talmud. It is based on publicly available evidence and has little to do with conspiracy theories. Why Jews wield such power is again another question. Perhaps because Jews feel solidarity with each other and care much more for their "nation" than many others.
Mahathir has neither asked to discriminate against Jews, let alone to kill Jews. It is shameful to equate him to the Hitlerites. He urges Muslims to fight Jews by adopting modern methods, technology and educate themselves, in other words to surpass Jews in excellence. What's wrong with that?
By this he is doing service to the Muslims (over 1 Billion people) and to humanity.
"Many rabbis and professionals have told me recently that they fear for their jobs should they even begin to articulate their doubts about Israeli policy--much less give explicit support to calls for an end to the occupation."
-- Rabbi Michael Lerner Published on Sunday, April 28, 2002 in the Los Angeles Times --- To unsubscribe from the Virus list go to <http://www.lucifer.com/cgi-bin/virus-l>
RE: virus: Jewish Controlled Media & Leaders Misrepresent Malaysian PM
« Reply #1 on: 2003-10-27 06:12:14 »
You have been careful to quote selectively from Mohamad's speech. The speech was a call to arms against Jews. The full version - from the Muslim controlled Malaysian press - reveals the facts (see below).
The assertion that Jews rule the word by proxy was part of a wider appeal for the Muslim to unify against the rest - Utism - and Jews in particular. Mohamad exhorts his fellow Muslims to fight smartly whilst building up their military strength. The end point is the same as it has been since 1948: The defeat of the Jews and the annihilation of Israel.
He was rightly condemned as the anti-Semite racist bigot that he proudly admits he is.
Parts of the speech are interesting, much of it is simple paranoid diatribe and segments are downright Hiteresque in their appeals for the Ummah (volk) to unite against Jews (no change) so as to destroy this tiny global minority who control the world by proxy (no change).
RE: virus: Jewish Controlled Media & Leaders Misrepresent Malaysian PM
« Reply #2 on: 2003-10-28 13:50:03 »
Jonathan Davis > Sent: 27 October 2003 1312
[Blunderov] <snip> The end point is the same as it has been since 1948:The defeat of the Jews and the annihilation of Israel.
He was rightly condemned as the anti-Semite racist bigot that he proudly admits he is.
Parts of the speech are interesting, much of it is simple paranoid diatribe and segments are downright Hiteresque in their appeals for the Ummah (volk) to unite against Jews (no change) so as to destroy this tiny global minority who control the world by proxy (no change).
Perhaps you could refer me to the part of the speech that advocates 'The defeat of the Jews and the annihilation of Israel.'? I am not myself able to locate it or anything remotely resembling it. Hitleresque? I think not. Perhaps if I offer you some extracts from the speech you could illustrate their correspondence to anything that Hitler might have said? I have helpfully appended some examples of Hitler's fulminations which may assist you in this task but there is more material to be had at:
[Mahathir] During the peace that followed he consolidated his strength and eventually he was able to enter Mecca and claim it for Islam. Even then he did not seek revenge.
If we use the faculty to think that Allah has given us then we should know that we are acting irrationally. We fight without any objective, without any goal other than to hurt the enemy because they hurt us. Naively we expect them to surrender. We sacrifice lives unnecessarily, achieving nothing other than to attract more massive retaliation and humiliation.
we must take stock of our assets. I have already mentioned our numbers and our oil wealth. In today's world we wield a lot of political, economic and financial clout, enough to make up for our weakness in military terms.
Even among the Jews there are many who do not approve of what the Israelis are doing.
Remember the considerateness of the Prophet to the enemies of Islam. We must do the same. It is winning the struggle that is important, not angry retaliation, not revenge.
We must build up our strength in every field, not just in armed might. Our countries must be stable and well administered, must be economically and financially strong, industrially competent and technologically advanced. This will take time, but it can be done and it will be time well spent.
The Quran tells us that when the enemy sues for peace we must react positively.
I am aware that all these ideas will not be popular. Those who are angry would want to reject it out of hand. They would even want to silence anyone who makes or supports this line of action. They would want to send more young men and women to make the supreme sacrifice. But where will all these lead to? Certainly not victory. Over the past 50 years of fighting in Palestine we have not achieved any result. We have in fact worsened our situation.
The enemy will probably welcome these proposals and we will conclude that the promoters are working for the enemy. But think. We are up against a people who think. They survived 2000 years of pogroms not by hitting back, but by thinking. They invented and successfully promoted Socialism, Communism, human rights and democracy so that persecuting them would appear to be wrong, so they may enjoy equal rights with others. With these they have now gained control of the most powerful countries and they, this tiny community, have become a world power. We cannot fight them through brawn alone. We must use our brains also.
[Hitler] The Jew has not grown poorer: he gradually gets bloated, and, if you don't believe me, I would ask you to go to one of our health-resorts; there you will find two sorts of visitors: the German who goes there, perhaps for the first time for a long while, to breathe a little fresh air and to recover his health, and the Jew who goes there to lose his fat. And if you go out to our mountains, whom do you find there in fine brand-new yellow boots with splendid rucksacks in which there is generally nothing that would really be of any use? And why are they there? They go up to the hotel, usually no further than the train can take them: where the train stops, they stop too. And then they sit about somewhere within a mile from the hotel, like blow-flies round a corpse.
They have never yet understood that it is not necessary to be an enemy of the Jew for him to drag you one day, on the Russian model, to the scaffold. They do not see that it is quite enough to have a head on your shoulders and not to be a Jew: that will secure the scaffold for you.
AND THE RIGHT HAS FURTHER COMPLETELY FORGOTTEN THAT DEMOCRACY IS FUNDAMENTALLY NOT GERMAN: IT IS JEWISH. It has completely forgotten that this Jewish democracy with its majority decisions has always been without exception only a means towards the destruction of any existing Aryan leadership. The Right does not understand that directly every small question of profit or loss is regularly put before so-called 'public opinion,' he who knows how most skilfully to make this 'public opinion' serve his own interests becomes forthwith master in the State. And that can be achieved by the man who can lie most artfully, most infamously; and in the last resort he is not the German, he is, in Schopenhauer's words, 'the great master in the art of lying' - the Jew.
The Jew regards work as the means to the exploitation of other peoples. The Jew never works as a productive creator without the great aim of becoming the master. He works unproductively using and enjoying other people's work. And thus we understand the iron sentence which Mommsen once uttered: 'The Jew is the ferment of decomposition in peoples,' that means that the Jew destroys and must destroy because he completely lacks the conception of an activity which builds up the life of the community. etc
[Blunderov] Perhaps the link you gave is incorrect? It seems to me that you must be referring to some other speech by Mahathir?
Re:virus: Jewish Controlled Media & Leaders Misrepresent Malaysian PM
« Reply #3 on: 2003-10-28 15:45:10 »
Blunderov, I have to say that I find the speech in question rather more disturbing than you suggest. As an example;
Quote:
" There is a feeling of hopelessness among the Muslim countries and their people. They feel that they can do nothing right. They believe that things can only get worse. The Muslims will forever be oppressed and dominated by the Europeans and the Jews...
It cannot be that there is no other way. 1.3 billion Muslims cannot be defeated by a few million Jews. There must be a way. And we can only find a way if we stop to think, to assess our weaknesses and our strength, to plan, to strategise and then to counter-attack...
We are actually very strong. 1.3 billion people cannot be simply wiped out. The Europeans killed six million Jews out of 12 million. But today the Jews rule this world by proxy. They get others to fight and die for them. "
On the whole, I think Jonathan's interpretation of this is largely correct (though it makes no explicit reference to the annihilation of Israel). In a sense, my main reaction is disappointment. Much of the speech is correct in describing the economic, scientific and cultural decline of the Islamic world since the fall of the Ottoman empire. Since Malaysia is one of the very few Islamic states to have had any economic success (discount oil and the picture from the Middle East is rather unimpressive) it is disappointing to see victimisation and theocratic unity embraced as purported solutions. Instead, the Islamic world would do well to look at the cultural and economic success of the Jewish world and seek to emulate it.
Kharin, Of the citation, there is even a more global causation for pessimism. Simple artifacts of social psychology provide...UTism is ingrained in the human condition. The Jewish world embraces this paradigm and exploits it. Against a social paradigm of openness and tolerance that the Ottoman empire once stood for, a society that pits itself against that must portray the successors of Islam as being anything but. This is done through isolation and impoverishment. Since the 1940's this is what Israel has done. The paradigm of tolerance has been pre empted by mere survival and subsequent reactionism. Once this paradigm shift has became pat of the paradigm that is handed down from generation to generation, the stance of "Us peace loving Israelis versus Them terror mongering Muslims" becomes not only easy to maintain, but profitable. Anwar Ibrahim is a figure who exploits the social condition of his own people. The fact that he could does so readily encouraged him to his pederast tendencies. He was in the business of exploiting a culture, so it was a small step to exploit innocent children. Both instances point to the inherent fallacy in didactic political relationships, UTistic. The human condition seeks to simplify complex matters based on a psychological model of "ego versus environment", man v nature, man v man, man v society. This polarization of world views comes naturally to humans. But as is routinely demonstrated throughout history, nothing is polar in relationship.Americans regard Iranians as terroristic, unstable, and not to be trusted. This comes from the consequence of the Iranian embassy, the Shah, and other internal relations where the Iranian public has literally cast out the American interests in some "violent fashion." Americans get tossed or kidnapped and held hostage; Americans regard Iranians as terroristic. Iranians remember when the CIA overthrew a democratically elected president to put the Shaw in power. The Shaw was put in power because he was young and naive at the time and agreed to a sweet energy deal. The Iranian college students remember their history. Western college students tend to trust what they are taught by the curricula "sponsored" by multinational corporations. Western college students, with obvious exceptions present, tend to be vapidly ignorant of world history. But let us not limit that sin to merely western students. Anytime a societies "good name" is challenged in the historical record, a funny thing happens. It gets dismissed as being the propaganda of Them v. Us. The real "Them" is Us.Go do your homework people. Kharin does on a consistent basis. That is rare.cheerskirksteele
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RE: virus: Jewish Controlled Media & Leaders Misrepresent Malaysian PM
« Reply #5 on: 2003-10-28 17:36:15 »
Kharin > Sent: 28 October 2003 2245 > > Blunderov, I have to say that I find the speech in question rather more > disturbing than you suggest. As an example; > > " There is a feeling of hopelessness among the Muslim countries and their > people. They feel that they can do nothing right. They believe that things > can only get worse. The Muslims will forever be oppressed and dominated by > the Europeans and the Jews... > > > It cannot be that there is no other way. 1.3 billion Muslims cannot be > defeated by a few million Jews. There must be a way. And we can only find > a way if we stop to think, to assess our weaknesses and our strength, to > plan, to strategise and then to counter-attack... > > We are actually very strong. 1.3 billion people cannot be simply wiped > out. The Europeans killed six million Jews out of 12 million. But today > the Jews rule this world by proxy. They get others to fight and die for > them. " > > See also: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/3203428.stm > > On the whole, I think Jonathan's interpretation of this is largely correct > (though it makes no explicit reference to the annihilation of Israel). In > a sense, my main reaction is disappointment. Much of the speech is correct > in describing the economic, scientific and cultural decline of the > Islamic world since the fall of the Ottoman empire. Since Malaysia is one > of the very few Islamic states to have had any economic success (discount > oil and the picture from the Middle East is rather unimpressive) it is > disappointing to see victimisation and theocratic unity embraced as > purported solutions. Instead, the Islamic world would do well to look at > the cultural and economic success of the Jewish world and seek to emulate > it. > > Incidentally, Mahathir is a particularly unstable and dictatorial > personality. Until this episode he was more notorious for this: > http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/872820.stm
[Blunderov] I'm not sure that the link you kindly provided does very much to support your contention that he is a particularly unstable and dictatorial personality. Perhaps too much exposure to the daily news has caused my standards to fall to dismal levels but he seems, from this story, to be not much worse than many other politicians, some of them in the West, that we have come to know and loathe. And at least he appears to have been democratically elected - but perhaps this was rigged a la Mugabe. That said, your credibility being what it is, I am prepared to take your word for it.
However, if we confine ourselves to this specific speech, in it is not clear to me that it is a radical, or even particularly bellicose, statement. And in fact he does seem to advocate your very sensible suggestion that Islam seek to emulate Jewish success. Is he to be disqualified from expecting the same result?
It seems to me that he is referring pretty specifically to the Palestinian question and as all Virians know full well, this is a very vexed question. But to me it is very significant that he seems to specifically condemn suicide bombings and other terrorist actions. Perhaps he only does so because he perceives them as ineffective - but he does speak against them.
Imagine, if you will, that due to some unforeseen and entirely unlikely circumstances, the Palestinians (and Islam in general) were to suddenly garner the concerted support of both Europe and the USA to the same extent that Israel now enjoys it. And then an Israeli politician made the very same speech, of course transposing terms where necessary.
It might read something like: "There is a feeling of hopelessness among Israelis and Jews everywhere. They feel that they can do nothing right. They believe that things can only get worse. The Jews will forever be oppressed and dominated by the Europeans and the Muslims...
It cannot be that there is no other way. Israel has a god-given right to exist and his will cannot be subverted by a false religion. There must be a way. And we can only find a way if we stop to think, to assess our weaknesses and our strength, to plan, to strategise and then to counter-attack...
We are actually very strong. 20 million people (or however many Israelis there actually are) cannot be simply wiped out. The Europeans killed six million Jews out of 12 million. And today the Muslims rule this world by proxy. They get others to fight and die for them." (Here one may ad libertum substitute 'supply them with advanced weapons and technology to use against us', 'exercise unceasing vetoes on their behalf', or 'make feeble, if any, protests about the ever increasing annexations of our god-given territories' for the phrase 'get others to fight and die for them'.)
Would you find this just as alarming?
Quite possibly I am being obtuse but the speech seems to me to be relatively moderate.
I would just like to make it clear that I am trying as hard as I can not to espouse either cause - it is, as I have said, a very vexed question and Virus has suffered much at it's hands. It is simply my (truly humble) opinion that your and Jonathan's appraisal of the speech is not completely objective.
I read this, and in fact I find it positive. If you think that the speech was delivered in an Islamic conference, where it is common ground that the Islamic world is under attack and Israel is an enemy (possibly because it is true), an appeal to think and better their position instead of lashing back blindly is positive in my book.
Also, I find it unimaginative at the least to call antisemite someone who is definitely and actually an enemy of Israel.
Re:virus: Jewish Controlled Media & Leaders Misrepresent Malaysian PM
« Reply #7 on: 2003-10-28 18:14:06 »
Quote:
"I'm not sure that the link you kindly provided does very much to support your contention that he is a particularly unstable and dictatorial personality."
The general assumption is that Ibrahim's trial was arranged in order to remove a political rival. This link may be more informative:
"It seems to me that he is referring pretty specifically to the Palestinian question and as all Virians know full well, this is a very vexed question. But to me it is very significant that he seems to specifically condemn suicide bombings and other terrorist actions. Quite possibly I am being obtuse but the speech seems to me to be relatively moderate."
I think I have two concerns over the speech. Firstly, the acceptance of what appears to be the ideas promulgated by the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, which was also Hitler's view. I do not understand such views to have a factual basis in either political or economic terms. Secondly, the references to counter attacking, buying weapons, building up strength in armed might, defending the Islamic nation do not strike me as especially reassuring; and they do not strike me as specifically referring to Israel since many of them explicitly refer to jews in other states (I would judge that those comments would probably be prosecutable as amounting to incitement to racial hatred in many European countries). For example:
Quote:
" The enemy will probably welcome these proposals and we will conclude that the promoters are working for the enemy. But think. We are up against a people who think. They survived 2000 years of pogroms not by hitting back, but by thinking. They invented and successfully promoted Socialism, Communism, human rights and democracy so that persecuting them would appear to be wrong, so they may enjoy equal rights with others. With these they have now gained control of the most powerful countries and they, this tiny community, have become a world power. We cannot fight them through brawn alone. We must use our brains also. "
Then compare:
Quote:
" You are being enslaved by those who have the most money, the most influential ones, and those who have the strongest news media, particularly the Jews, who are dragging you behind them under the trick of democracy in order to support the Israelis and their schemes and hostility to our religion and at the expense of our blood and land, as well as at the expense of your blood and economy. "
"Despite regular multiparty elections, most of the minimal conditions necessary for the practice of democracy in the Shumpeterian sense, particularly fair elections, adequate opportunities for independent political opinion-making and political organisation and minimal protection for the individual from arbitrary state power, hardly exist in Malaysia.
In other words, elections in Malaysia are seen as so unfairly conducted and prejudiced against the opposition that they are a mere sham used to endorse the rule of the dictator, albeit an elected dictator.
Such features of authoritarianism have become more pronounced since Dr Mahathir Mohamed took over as prime minister in 1981. There has been a steady encroachment by the executive on all of the other branches of government, the judiciary and Parliament. The federal Constitution has been amended so many times that Parliament is just like another branch of the prime minister's office.
The judiciary was brought into line when the Lord President Tun Salleh Abbas, together with two Supreme Court judges, was sacked in 1988 for refusing to toe the prime minister's line. Ever since, independence of the judiciary has become a dirty word, suspicions about its integrity publicly voiced and no action taken against a 33-page letter outlining corruption and malpractices among the highest judges of the land, a letter penned by a High Court judge who was forced to resign.
As a result, Malaysians were cowed into silence with awards for damages in defamation suits involving tens of millions of ringgits, contempt action involving imprisonment became common and opposition leaders like myself convicted and jailed for sedition, banned and stripped of all political and civil rights.
Meanwhile, judges who are eminent jurists seeking reform and truth in the judiciary are hounded out of office. Even proceedings in Malaysian courts are no longer sacrosanct. Karpal Singh faces a three-year jail sentence under the Sedition Act for defending his client in court, Malaysia's famous accused, ex-Deputy Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim. Which lawyer in Malaysia dares to act as counsel for opposition politicians now that they may well join their client in prison?
The circle of authoritarianism became complete when the executive was emasculated with powers concentrated in the office of the prime minister, a virtual dictator. Which minister dares to disobey the prime minister when he has absolute powes to sack any minister without giving any reason whatsoever? In fact, it is standard practice for certain ministers or chief ministers to give the prime minister undated resignation letters.
The centralisation of powers in the hands of one person was achieved with the active acquiescence of the Fourth Estate. The press has ceased to function. There is not so much as no freedom of the press as a freedom to lie on the government's behalf coupled with a total news blackout of all unfavourable news.
The government-controlled print and electronic media plays its role not just in promoting and legitimising its mastery but also to discredit the opposition and create dissent generally. For those who still refuse to bow and scrape, imprisonment awaits them as highlighted by the imprisonment of Far Eastern Economic Review correspondent Murray Hiebert last year."
RE: virus: Jewish Controlled Media & Leaders Misrepresent Malaysian PM
« Reply #9 on: 2003-10-28 18:45:37 »
Hi Blunderlov,
Kharin has quoted some of the bits you chose to leave out. I think my/our point is made. Clearly the speech is subject to interpretation and I see it as a call to arms from a career Anti-Semite. Would you tolerate this speech from say George Bush or Tony Blair? Or if the speaker where exhorting blacks to unify in a fight against whites? Let us apply one standard or none at all.
Just because you are paranoid it doesn't prove that they are not out to get you. Paranoid, to be sure, was Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad's allegation that the "Jews rule this world by proxy" on October 16. Whether Dr Mahathir himself is paranoid, or whether he adapted his words to the paranoia of his audience makes little difference. Through the twisted prism of paranoia, the facts on the ground do indeed suggest that the Jews rule the world.
Europeans who turn up their noses at Malaysia's leader should recall that just 60 years ago, Europe's official ideology (under Nazi conquest) agreed with Mahathir's claim that the Jews "invented and successfully promoted socialism, communism, human rights and democracy". That is where Mahathir doubtless got the idea in the first place. Not only Adolf Hitler, but the highest circles of the Catholic Church believed that communism was a Jewish plot, as a Swiss priest, Father Martin Rhonheimer, documents in the November 2003 issue of First Things.
Not since Hitler has the leader of an important country claimed that democracy itself was a Jewish invention, at least in the modern period. Let us however not engage in what Leo Strauss called "reductio ad Hitlerum," rejecting ideas merely because Hitler invented them, and take Mahathir's claim at face value.
The Jews did indeed invent democracy, in its modern form, although not quite in the way he imagines.
Modern (as opposed to ancient Greek or Roman) democracy stems from the Protestant motto "solo scriptorum", "only the Bible", by which every man must interpret scripture for himself. To begin with, Protestantism was unimaginable without Jewish theologians (who exposed the incompatibilities of free will and original sin), not to mention Jewish bible translators. In such a world, congregations must elect their church elders (Presbyterians) or even their pastors (Congregationalists), rather than accept church hierarchy. If democracy rules ecclesiastical affairs, why not then secular affairs as well?
Only Anglo-Saxon Protestantism had the opportunity to take on a political form, thanks in large part to the colonization of America. America's so-called revolution was in fact a second English civil war, in which the Whigs supported the American rebels against the Tory government. England's democratic impulse came from the extreme wing of its Protestants, from such sects as the Separatists who founded the Massachusetts Bay Colony, or the Quakers who founded Pennsylvania. Only on American soil did radical Protestantism flourish unimpeded by monarchy and established church.
America's founders set forth with messianic ambitions. They saw themselves as a new Israel setting out to found a new Jerusalem, as in John Winthrop's famous sermon "On Christian Charity". "We shall find that the God of Israel is among us, when 10 of us shall be able to resist a thousand of our enemies, when He shall make us a praise and glory, that men shall say of succeeding plantations, the Lord make it like that of New England. For we must consider that we shall be as a city upon a hill, the eyes of all people are upon us."
Jews played a small role in the creation of the American colonies, and a marginal role in the revolution, but American democracy stemmed from Jewish ideas. That is quite different from Mahathir's claim that Jews "invented" democracy. No conspiracy can invent democracy of the American kind. Massachusetts farmers formed a battle line against British regulars at Lexington and Concord in 1775 because self-governance was to them a matter of life and death. Such a sentiment is alien to Mahathir's world. His imagination does not encompass people like the radical Protestants of 18th century New England.
American democracy grew from a seed-crystal of representative institutions, beginning, as noted, with the election of church officials. Americans are used to governing their own affairs through a vast number of institutions at the capillary level of society. It astonished me to discover that the election of local school boards in American towns can excite more partisan passion than a presidential election. Unlike Europe, where education ministries dispense a centralized budget, American towns tax themselves for elementary and secondary education. Towns with better schools attract higher-income residents who can afford to pay for better education, in a virtuous cycle. Hospitals, public libraries and even the fire brigade draw on private resources and volunteer labor.
That brings us to the touchy matter of conspiracies. Mahathir's world is populated by conspiracies. They are as real and tangible to him as the chair on which he sits. In the rough-and-tumble of democratic governance, conspiracies help little, because all the important issues will come to light one way or another. What Bernard Lewis calls "consultative" governance in the Islamic world, however, only can exist through conspiracies.
There does not exist to my knowledge a self-governing school board, hospital committee or fire brigade anywhere in Arab countries. But the meanest peasant may approach the loftiest ruler for the privilege of a few moments' worth of whispered pleading. Beneficent and merciful rulers will take pity on their subjects. If one wishes to influence the ruler, numerous of his subjects must agree in advance what they shall whisper in his ear, that is, literally, to conspire.
That helps explain why Mahathir can account for the facts as he observes them by no means other than conspiracy. There is another dimension to this as well, namely the theological. If the constitution is the bone of American democracy, radical Protestant theology forms its bone marrow. What is the relationship between Islamic theology and government? Does it help explain why we encounter what Lewis calls "consultative" as opposed to "representative" forms of government in the Islamic world?
Imitatio dei, emulation of God, is the most important practical consequence of religion. Religious men act according to their conception of the attributes of the deity they worship. Let us tug a bit at this thread, and see where it leads us.
Remember that the Jewish God enjoys only a qualified sort of omnipotence. His sympathy with mankind, his creation, compels him to suffer along with his creatures. He cannot help but hear the cry of innocent blood, the complaint of the widow and orphan, the mistreated stranger and the oppressed slave (Professor James Kugel of Harvard makes his hoary argument in The God of Old). He is the God of the town meeting, of the popular assembly, of the democrats. With good reason, Friedrich Nietzsche labelled the Jewish deity a God of slaves. He permits the likes of Abraham and Moses to give him a hard time over such things as the destruction of Sodom, or exterminating the sinners among the Israelites.
When ancient Israel demanded that their leader, the prophet Samuel, appoint a king (I Samuel , God complained, "They have rejected me as their king." He tells Samuel to warn the people against kings. When the people demand a king nonetheless, God tells Samuel, "Give them a king." The Jews' God chose for his people a despised race of slaves. He humbles himself by sympathizing with the weak. The Christian God even came to earth and allowed himself to be crucified. He loves the poor and weak. Indeed, weakness ineluctably draws forth his love. Jewish and Christian theologians speak of "divine humility".
Not so Allah, the beneficent, the merciful. "For Islam, the notion that man's failings more powerfully awake God's love than man's merits is an absurd, indeed an impossible thought. Allah has pity upon human weaknesses, but the idea that he loves weakness more than strength is a form of divine humility that is foreign to the God of Mohammed," wrote the Jewish theologian Franz Rosenzweig.
Imitatio dei may explain why Americans and Muslims seek quite different attributes in their political leaders. More important than strength and intelligence in the character of an American presidential candidate is humility. Whatever one thinks of President George W Bush, he cultivates the same sort of folksy image that served former president Jimmy Carter so well. In this regard one thinks of Bill Clinton, who hid his intellectual arrogance so effectively, or Ronald Reagan, who cloaked his ideological fervor in self-deprecating humor.
More than anything else, Americans want their leaders to listen to them. A president had better be a better listener than a talker. That is what Americans expect from their God, after all, and all the more so from a president who is a mere human.
The sort of leader who evoked adulation in the Arab world, eg, a Gamal Abdel Nasser, produces only revulsion among Americans. The trouble is that the gap between American and Islamic views of the world may be unbridgeable. The more Americans learn about the Islamic world, the less they may be inclined to sympathize with the Islamic cause.
In November 2001, for example, 31 percent of Americans told an opinion poll that Islam had a great deal in common with their religion. Now, only 22 percent believe that this is the case. That is why Bush will not fire General William Boykin, who scandalized the news media by suggesting that the "war against terror" had a religious dimension. If barely a one-fifth of Americans see a commonality between Islam and their own religion, who can blame Boykin - who heads the hunt for Osama bin Laden - for stating what everyone believes?
Since September 11, 2001, the government of the US, its news media and its academic institutions have made extraordinary efforts to emphasize the common goals of Islam and the West. "Islam is a religion of peace," Bush has repeated countless times. Spokesmen for Islamic organizations in the US and abroad have enjoyed an unprecedented degree of access to the American media, and the American public has been exposed to the Islamic viewpoint to an extent never before imaginable.
The result appears to be precisely the opposite of what the government, news media and academia intended. Americans show less sympathy than before to Islam, and, correspondingly, more inclination to support the Israeli cause.
Why, Arabs (and many Europeans) ask themselves, should the greatest power in the world care about the fate of a few million leftovers from an ancient past, colonizing a corner of the Mediterranean in order to preserve their battered nationhood? Why would America make so many enemies and lose so many friends over the Jews? Can anything but a vast and insidious conspiracy explain such irrational behavior?
That is a fatal error. America may be a great power, but it is composed of individuals who consider themselves weak. They want the respect of their leaders and the protection of their laws even when they are weak, poor and despised. Their ancestors came to America in the hope of finding such a haven. Fairness and sympathy for the underdog are not merely a sentimental issue in the US; they are woven into the fabric of America's being. America is the political realization of the slave-religion, the cult of the creator of heaven and earth who cannot help but answer the cry of the widow, the fatherless, the poor, and the stranger. The more you tell Americans that they should abandon their friends in the interest of political advantage, the likelier they are to reach for their guns (and most of them own guns).
They want a Jewish sort of God who hears the prayer of the widow and the fatherless, and they want a government that protects the widow and the fatherless from the powerful and the arrogant. Through America's inherent sense of justice, Jews do rule the world, just as Mahathir believes, although not of course in the way he imagines it.
Mahathir, to be sure, has deplored the violent responses of some in the Islamic world, which merely repels potential friends. Yet he has done just as much damage to the image of Islam in the West. Merely by being himself, he contributed to the deep sense of unease that Americans have concerning the character of the Islamic world.
Great understanding among cultures does not always make things better. Sometimes it makes things worse. Adolf Eichmann, it should be recalled, studied Hebrew with a Berlin rabbi, the better to understand the Jews he wished to exterminate. The leaders of the Islamic terrorist organizations are not throwbacks to the 10th century, but Western-educated science students.
In his own paranoid fashion, Mahathir has advanced the cause of mutual understanding between the Islamic world and America. Mahathir has made clear that the Jews do, indeed, rule the world, at least in the sense that he and his compatriots understand the words "to rule". And he has made clear to Americans that the filter through which the Islamic world views America is a form of paranoia that cannot quickly be cured.
I read this, and in fact I find it positive. If you think that the speech was delivered in an Islamic conference, where it is common ground that the Islamic world is under attack and Israel is an enemy (possibly because it is true), an appeal to think and better their position instead of lashing back blindly is positive in my book.
Also, I find it unimaginative at the least to call antisemite someone who is definitely and actually an enemy of Israel.
I must say I agree with those who saw parts of the speech as positive, it was.
He made some good points and was very reasonable in many of his assessments.
The problem was that it was all in the context of "Lets US change tactics in this war against THEM (Jews)".
What do you mean in your last line by the way? Since when did opposition to Israel entail being an anti-Semite?
Re:virus: Jewish Controlled Media & Leaders Misrepresent Malaysian PM
« Reply #11 on: 2003-10-28 21:21:13 »
[Kharin] I think I have two concerns over the speech. Firstly, the acceptance of what appears to be the ideas promulgated by the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, which was also Hitler's view. I do not understand such views to have a factual basis in either political or economic terms.
Secondly, the references to counter attacking, buying weapons, building up strength in armed might, defending the Islamic nation do not strike me as especially reassuring; and they do not strike me as specifically referring to Israel since many of them explicitly refer to jews in other states (I would judge that those comments would probably be prosecutable as amounting to incitement to racial hatred in many European countries). For example:
[rhinoceros] Excuse me. Where did you find those? I am also convinced that Israel has currently bought its way into the White House, and I am not a proponent of either the Protocols of the Elders of Zion nor Hitler. 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.
A reminder: The full speech is here. Check for yourselves if you haven't already.
[Kharin] Quote: "The enemy will probably welcome these proposals and we will conclude that the promoters are working for the enemy. But think. We are up against a people who think. They survived 2000 years of pogroms not by hitting back, but by thinking. They invented and successfully promoted Socialism, Communism, human rights and democracy so that persecuting them would appear to be wrong, so they may enjoy equal rights with others. With these they have now gained control of the most powerful countries and they, this tiny community, have become a world power. We cannot fight them through brawn alone. We must use our brains also. "
Then compare:
Quote: "You are being enslaved by those who have the most money, the most influential ones, and those who have the strongest news media, particularly the Jews, who are dragging you behind them under the trick of democracy in order to support the Israelis and their schemes and hostility to our religion and at the expense of our blood and land, as well as at the expense of your blood and economy. "
[rhinoceros] What I see in this comparison is a completely different spirit. Should I have seen similarities? The fact that Osama Bin Laden was the architect of the mass murder of 9/11 does not make anything he said outrageous. The extravagant or fallacious parts of his quote can be pointed out, and then they should also be found in the first quote. Are there any such similarities?
[Jonathan Davis] <snip> What do you mean in your last line by the way? Since when did opposition to Israel entail being an anti-Semite?
[rhinoceros 2] I was referring to the comments about anti-semitism in the BBC article. What I meant was this: Anti-semitism is an accusation for a kind of racism. If someone is at war with Israel over real issues or an ally of someone who is at war with Israel over real issues, calling that someone an anti-semite is whiney.
[Jonathan Davis] <snip> What do you mean in your last line by the way? Since when did opposition to Israel entail being an anti-Semite?
[rhinoceros 2] I was referring to the comments about anti-semitism in the BBC article. What I meant was this: Anti-semitism is an accusation for a kind of racism. If someone is at war with Israel over real issues or an ally of someone who is at war with Israel over real issues, calling that someone an anti-semite is whiney.
[Jonathan 2]
Yes, I agree somewhat. The term has been abused as a debate killer.
Re:virus: Jewish Controlled Media & Leaders Misrepresent Malaysian PM
« Reply #14 on: 2003-10-29 06:54:20 »
Quote:
"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:
Quote:
"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.
Quote:
"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.
Quote:
"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 any different.
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, God complained, "They have rejected me as their king."
