Middle East Focus: Strangers in Paradise: a Mad Muslim-Western Deal, Going to Alpha Centauri……….

Arabia Deserta

Strangers in Paradise: a Mad Muslim-Western Deal, Going to Alpha Centauri……….

Walking on water

“Just as earlier waves of Islamophobia cannot be understood outside the context of 9/11 and the "war on terror," so this current strain is consistent with two related trends at home and abroad. First, it marks the rise of xenophobic and racist forces within the Republican Party, for whom the election of a black Democratic president with an uncommon name and an African father has produced a perfect storm for divisive, deranged rhetoric…… The racism is not veiled but naked, the delivery not subtle but brutal. With the Minutemen, the birthers, the Tea Partyers and Fox News on common ground, it was only a matter of time before they turned their pitchforks on Muslims. For while they did not invent Islamophobia, they were well positioned to exploit it. Twenty-eight percent of Americans believe Muslims should not be eligible to sit on the Supreme Court, while fully one-third believe Muslims should be barred from running for president. Second, the moment also brings the American hard right into line with its European counterparts, which bodes ill for American political culture as a whole. The past decade has seen an alarming rise in anti-immigrant and Islamophobic parties gaining political representation in Europe. In the Netherlands in June the party of Geert Wilders, who calls Muslims "goat fuckers" and wants to ban the Koran, almost tripled its representation, becoming the third-largest party. In "liberal" Sweden in September the hard-right Sweden Democrats entered Parliament for the first time, with 5.7 percent of the vote. With extremist parties regularly getting more than 10 percent, and in some cases sitting in government, European fascism has returned as a mainstream ideology…..….” The Nation

Over all, Muslims have been in the West for a much shorter time than Western colonialism/imperialism spent in the Muslin lands. Some of that goes back to over 500 years (the years Indonesia had to unwillingly host its Dutch masters). I am going to go Gaddafi-esque here, just for the sake of argument. Suppose Muslims offer the West a deal. Here are its main features:

All Muslims will leave Europe and North America, and head to their lands of origin, in exchange for a similar Western commitment. (Some of them will end up in prison or tortured or killed, but that is the price).

All Western companies (oilers, contractors, and others), troops, bases, navies, mercenaries, etc, will leave all Muslim lands, from the eastern tip of Indonesia to the western tip of Africa. (Their corporate bottom line will be fucked up big time, but that is the price).

All Muslim nations will stop importing hundreds of billions of those Western weapons most of them can’t use effectively if at all. They can use the money to rehabilitate and reintegrate the new Muslim exodus, the ‘Aliya’, to make a Jewish comparison. (They can, and will, put some of the money in the bank accounts of the Arab potentates, just to sweeten the deal after the loss of ~~bribes~~ commissions).

All Muslims will cash in their Western chips: all investments will be liquidated and the proceeds repatriated or sent to Asian (and perhaps Latin) markets. Or maybe spend it on growing organic vegetables and raising organic sheep like they do in Umpqua Valley, if there is any other kind).Or maybe hoarded under the proverbial bed.

All Western economic and military aid to Muslim states will end. Other Muslim states will have to take up the slack (some of them can).

I wonder if all that can do as much damage to the world economy as Western corporations and their bought legislative poodles did (or nearly did) during the past decade. I wonder how all that will turn out. I have no idea, just a mad Gaddafi-type moment.
Remember, Chris Columbus sounded like a snake-oil seller in 1492 (and he was one for most of his life). Think outside the box. Think outside the planet. Think way out there. Think Alpha Centauri…..
Cheers
mhg

m.h.ghuloum@gmail.com