Another Pariah State?
"Allahu Akbar" rings out passionately as a declaration that not only is God great, but His will has been done. Would that Allah could pronounce on whether truly that was what was willed. For don't most spiritual figures of great devotion preach compassion and peace, and decry war and factions visiting death upon one another? We have been informed, we of the West, time and again how Islam is a religion of peace. Yet we've seen little to convince us of that.Yet despite the deliberate ploy to create a crisis whereby Hamas militia had no option but to hunt down their Fatah counterparts, hurl them from tall buildings; attack any who profess support for Fatah, including wives and children of supporters; using heavy munitions to destroy civic infrastructures; wounding countless Palestinians - Hamas claims they acted in the name of justice and in defence of their religion with peace and security the goal.
Gazans may now look forward to living in peace under an Islamist rule. The threatening intimidation they've until now been given a mere taste of will become their day to day existence. Women who decline to wear strict Islamic dress will bear the ugly consequences. "You are without shame or morals" the Islamic Swords of Justice pronounced against secular Palestinian women. "We will cut your throat from vein to vein if need be to protect the spirit and morals of this nation."
That's a very compelling argument. There isn't likely to be much misunderstanding of where they stand, among the Palestinians living in Gaza, nor what may befall them should they fail to observe the strict conditions now being laid upon them as residents of the territory, ruled by Islamists. They know the consequences. After all, they have been able to observe, at first hand, what befell those Fatah supporters unfortunate enough to fall into the hands of the avenging Hamas militias.
In the Gaza Strip a violent religious fundamentalism will prevail. Among a population long accustomed to living a freer lifestyle, a society which has been secular in nature. But a group of protesters brave enough to demonstrate against the fighting between Hamas and Fatah found themselves fired upon. Those taken prisoners were summarily executed - and it evidently took many rounds of ammunition to satisfactorily kill individual targets.
In the West Bank, under a new Fatah administration at the helm of the Palestinian Authority, one chastened by its experience of the last several years, responsible administration may yet evolve. Doing its just duty on behalf of the people it has long claimed to represent and who have been longing for just such an opportunity to make the best of their lives for far too long.
There will arise an obvious dichotomy between the two jurisdictions. But we've seen this before. History has a habit of repeating itself. Ideology or religion, when either becomes corrupted or sufficiently malignant the end result is the same. We have seen the division of Germany between East and West, post WWII, with one prospering, the other completely dessicated.
There is the example of South and North Korea where the same kind of situation prevails. Yet history and time and the patience of those living in proximity with an violently Islamist state is not likely to result in their sitting back to watch it fester mostly because that state's mandate and ultimate obsession is the destruction of a neighbour.
The constituents of this dilemma are manifestly familiar, yet the solution to the problem will be one not yet observed elsewhere.
Labels: Middle East, Religion, Troublespots
posted by Pieface @ Sunday, June 17, 2007
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