0	1	Southeast Asia, Iraq, China, Middle East, Singapore, Japan, Lee Kuan Yew, India, Deng Xiaoping, democracy, globalization

The anniversary of the Mumbai terrorist attack of Nov 2008 has just passed without incident. The mainstream media -- and sundry corporations -- milked it for all it was worth. To an uninformed observer it would have appeared that this was the first ever act of Islamic terrorism on Indian soil. It was as if every year India did not suffer scores of attacks, as if the long history of centuries of Islamic onslaught on India which killed by the millions never happened. All in all, it was a sickening spectacle and I am sorry that I got to watch it involuntarily as it was impossible to escape the media orgy.

Islamic terrorism is a long-term problem and one cannot comprehend it by focusing on the transient and the short-term. Comprehension of the causes of Islamic terrorism is the first step to confronting it. Going by the past performance, I don't have much faith in India's ability to fight Islamic terrorism. India's leaders are too busy counting votes. They are going to the schools which propagate the ideological foundations of jihad and lending their support to the mullahs. They are sowing the seeds and in the end the harvest will be bitter: innocent Indians will be killed by the hundreds. Every time that happens, those leaders who fueled the fire, will get additional protection. Perhaps that is the idea -- to encourage more terrorism so that the leaders can get more power.

Here's someone who takes the long view. Lee Kuan Yew in conversation with Charlie Rose, recorded in 2004. "An hour with Lee Kuan Yew, the former Prime Minister of Singapore, about the battle against terrorism, Singapore's relationship with the US, the rise of China and India and his relationship with his son, the current Prime Minister of Singapore."

(Video embedded above but just in case it does not show up, click on this link. Hat tip: Ajoy Philip.)

Charlie Rose is usually good but I got a bit impatient with his interruptions. I wish he had allowed Kee Kuan Yew to complete his thoughts instead of butting in frequently. I transcribed a bit of the beginning of the talk, for the record.

Begin transcript

LKY: “... we are all facing the problem of terror. I’m facing it in Singapore. We need to understand what this is all about. It is not about Faluja or Iraq or Beslan. This thing is in the brew for some thirty plus years, in retrospect.

In South East Asia, the Muslims are different. They are relaxed, easy to get on with. But over the last thirty odd years, since the oil crisis and the petrodollars became a major factor in the Muslim world, they have been proselytizing, building mosques, religious schools – madrassas – where they teach wahabbism, an austere brand of Islam. And sending out preachers, and having conferences. Globalizing, networking. And slowly they have convinced the south east Asian Muslims, and indeed Muslims throughout the world, that the gold standard is Arabia, Saudi Arabia. That that is the real good Muslim.

. . . Let me explain what the Saudis and the other Arab countries did -- in raising the religiosity, the level of fervour throughout the world – has done for Osama bin Laden. Having worked it up to a fine pitch and everybody feels, ‘Yes, we are closer to god’, he then scouts around for the vulnerable those who feel they need redemption, and recruit them to become jihadists.

That’s where the world’s problems begin.

Why have they done this? Well, they say because America has supported Israelis who have been cruel and oppressive to the Palestinians. Partly true.

They say that Russians have killed the Chechens. Also true.

They say the Serbs killed Muslims in Bosnia. Also true.

The Albanians killed the . . . and so on and so on.

I did not realize in the beginning. I did not know this. I thought it was all very odd. Until we found that we are enveloped in the same relentless drive to assert Islam’s right to supremacy.

This particular brand of Islam – they don’t consider all these separate incidents to be disparate events connected with each country. Every act of cruelty, every atrocity, every massacre of any Muslim anywhere in the world is a crime to all Muslims anywhere in the world. So let us all join together and hit out at those who hit us. And who is the ring leader? America. So let’s kill Americans . . .

What [Osama bin Laden] wants is to get all of the oil of the gulf states, have Taliban type regimes. Then he’s got all the industrialized countries – Christian Europe, America, Japan, China – by the throat. Then they have their Muslim caliphate across the world.

Now what have I done in Singapore to offend him that he wanted to --- he and his affiliates the Jama Islamia in south east Asia – were planning seven huge car bombs ... each twice the size of the Oklahoma city bomb, for Dec 2001. One for the American embassy, another for the Israeli, the British, the Australians, the American school, the club where the Americans have their sports, an underground railway station where the Americans de-bus to go to the sports center. Seven of them.

It would have caused enormous damage. What have we done? Nothing. All we’ve done is to allow American aircrafts and American ships to use our harbor and our airports. So we are lackeys of the Americans, we deserve to be punished. 

End transcript

That's just the beginning. I recommend the whole conversation.