Indian Leftists Response to Killing of Russian Children

[Guest guest]

>By Rajeev Srinivasan

>"According to T K Ramachandran of Secular Initiative, he didn't react

>as 'it would not have influenced the thinking of anyone.'

 

>How to avoid future 9/11s & Beslans

>

>http://in.rediff.com/news/2004/sep/30rajeev.htm

>

>September 30, 2004

>

>

>Part I: September tragedies: 9/11/73, 9/11/01 and Beslan

>

>The reactions of many players to the Beslan tragedy were quite

>interesting, thanks to reader Arvind for bringing some of them to my

>attention. The All-India Muslim Majlis president Syed Shahabuddin

>deplored the incident but made it clear that he supported Chechen

>separatism:

>

>'The All India Muslim Majlis-e-Mushawarat is shocked by the

>horrifying sequence of events in Beslan in North Ossetia, Russia,

>which has caused the death of hundreds of innocent children and other

>civilians.

>

>Islamic law absolutely prohibits the holding to ransom and killing of

>innocent non-combatants, particularly old men, women and children.

>

>However, the AIMMM takes this opportunity to reiterate its moral

>support to Chechenya's centuries-old struggle for liberation from

>Russia.'

>

>India's Old Left was caught on the wrong foot according to the New

>Indian Express ('Intellectuals regret their silence on Beslan,'

>September 7, 2004). It was quite entertaining to see them squirm. I

>was reminded of Sherlock Holmes' 'curious incident of the dog in the

>night-time,' the singularity of which was that the dog didn't bark:

>

>'I should've reacted. And I expected others also to react. But I did

>suffer the pain (of Beslan killings) though didn't know how to

>express it,' admitted Justice V R Krishna Iyer, known for his strong

>positions on issues like US aggression on Iraq.

>

>Echoing a similar regret, poet K G Sankara Pillai said he was pained

>and shocked and didn't know how to express his grief.

>

>'I wasn't sure where to air them. I'm sure there would be many like

>me who underwent similar trauma on hearing the tragedy,' he said.

>

>According to T K Ramachandran of Secular Initiative, he didn't react

>as 'it would not have influenced the thinking of anyone.'

>

>On whether his earlier reactions on international crisis had any

>impact, Ramachandran seemed confused. 'I wanted to protest. But

>didn't express. But now I regret it,' he said.

>

>When their pet groups are in conflict, the Old Left seems inclined to

>plump for the Muslims: I guess it is because the Russians are

>apostates, having converted out of Marxism. I eagerly await the day

>when Uighur Muslims take hundreds of Han Chinese hostage. That would

>really create a moral dilemma for the Old Left. Will they support the

>Han Chinese or the Muslims? Of course the Chinese will have no

>dilemma, a few hundred hostages are expendable: they will attack the

>Uighurs with full force.

>

>At least one Arab Muslim felt the whole episode in Beslan was a shame

>on his fellow-Muslims. This was journalist Abdel Rahman Al-Rashid,

>whose cry from the heart appeared in The Daily Telegraph (Innocent

>religion is now a message of hate, September 5, 2004, ). Said Al-

>Rashid:

>

>'We can't call those who take schoolchildren as hostages our own.

>

>We cannot tolerate in our midst those who abduct journalists, murder

>civilians, explode buses; we cannot accept them as related to us,

>whatever the sufferings they claim to justify their criminal deeds.

>These are the people who have smeared Islam and stained its image.

>

>We cannot clear our names unless we own up to the shameful fact that

>terrorism has become an Islamic enterprise; an almost exclusive

>monopoly, implemented by Muslim men and women.'

>

>Both Shahabuddin and Al-Rashid talk about 'innocents', and this

>brings up a question. If Islam explicitly disallows attacks

>on 'innocent' old men, women and children, why do Islamic terrorists

>(they generally claim to be devout Muslims) feel free to

>slaughter 'innocent' old men, women and children? I wonder if the

>explanation is in the meaning of the word 'innocent', which may be a

>technical term in Islam different from normal street parlance (just

>as 'terror' is different to NATO from street parlance).

>

>There are other technical terms in Islam with specific meanings, for

>instance 'peace.' 'Peace' in Islam appears to mean 'the state of

>affairs in which Islam is dominant'. Thus dar-ul-harb is the domain

>of conflict, as opposed to dar-ul-islam, the domain of peace. This

>stands theologically even though there have been intra-Muslim wars,

>for example the long-running Iran-Iraq war, and there has been

>internal conflict in Muslim lands, for instance 100,000 have been

>killed in Algeria by fundamentalist fellow Muslims.

>

>Similarly, I wonder if 'innocent' is a technical term that

>means 'Muslim non-combatant.' For, it is believed by the faithful

>that the appeal of Islam is so strong that anyone exposed to the

>teachings of Islam should automatically become Muslim. Taking that

>logic further, if someone hasn't become Muslim, that means either a.

>they are ignorant and haven't been exposed to Islam, or b. having

>been exposed to Islam, but they are resisting it, which means they

>are wicked and perverse. Clearly, neither an ignorant person nor a

>wicked person is innocent.

>

>This conjecture would explain the seeming paradox of devout Islamists

>attacking what the impartial observer would consider 'innocent'

>people. This is why Muslims have always been able to slaughter non-

>Muslims so casually. Remember Vijayanagar, which burned for six

>months? Remember Direct Action Day in Calcutta, when 10,000 unarmed

>Hindus were massacred? Remember the Moplah Rebellion, another 10,000

>Hindu civilians killed, raped, forcibly converted? Remember Maraad?

>What about ongoing atrocities in Bangladesh, as in the HRCBM web

>site? This is why nobody should be amazed at what happened in Beslan.

>

>That brings up an important question. How can non-Muslims deal with

>Muslims? Logically, there are three possible ways to do this:

>

>With outright hostility. The Russians have done this in Chechnya,

>with the result that there are serious attacks on the Russian state.

>With fawning obsequiousness. The Nehruvian Stalinist establishment

>has done this in India, with the result that there are serious

>attacks on the Indian State.

>With indifference. The British have done this; there is a virtual

>parallel Islamic State there, and London is now widely

>called 'Londonistan.'

>All three models have failed.

>

>But historically speaking, outright hostility seems to have had the

>best percentage. Christian Crusaders violently ejected all Muslims

>from Spain, and that held the line in Europe. Hindus in India kept up

>continuous armed resistance for centuries, and this prevented them

>from being completely overrun like Persians and Egyptians were,

>although they took a lot of losses.

>

>Obsequiousness or dhimmitude has never worked anywhere: just ask

>Coptic Christians, Assyrians, Druze, and other such vanishing dhimmis

>in Muslim majority nations. The religious demography of India that

>was published recently by the census authorities makes this history

>quite au courant for India too.

>

>The British (and European model) is revealing. After a few decades of

>benign multiculturalism, Muslim immigrants and their descendants are

>ghettoised, radicalised, antagonistic to the State and to non-Muslim

>citizens; they have created no-go areas where the police fear to

>tread, and prey upon young non-Muslim women. And yet they see

>themselves as somehow victimised by these welfare States.

>

>So the world has to do something with their Muslim populations. The

>question is what, exactly? We better think up something pronto, to

>avoid future 9/11s and Beslans. The Americans, alas, have failed to

>take the lead, because they are trying to run with the hare and hunt

>with the hound: usually a losing proposition.

>

>

>

>

>

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