تحليل مركز الديمقراطية وحقوق الإنسان في السعودية – واشنطن
طالب الأمير تركي الفيصل إيران بالتوقف عن إثارة الفتنة الطائفية بين مواطني دول مجلس التعاون الخليجي في كلمة ألقاها يوم الثلاثا الماضي أمام مؤتمر "الأمن الوطني والأمن الإقليمي لمجلس التعاون لدول الخليج العربية".
إن تصريحات الفيصل ربما لا تخلو من الصحة فإيران - وكغيرها من الدول - قد تسعى لاستغلال كل الظروف المواتية لزيادة نفوذها أو تحقيق مكاسب سياسية أو استراتيجية أو دينية. ولكن السؤال الأهم هو ما الأسباب التي أدت إلى نجاح إيران في تحريض بعض مواطني دول الخليج ضد حكوماتهم؟
إن على دول الخليج إن أرادت وقف إيران أو غيرها من التأثير على مواطنيها مراجعة سياساتها الطائفية والمساواة بين المواطنين في جميع المجالات بغض النظر عن انتماءاتهم الدينية.
إن على تركي الفيصل وغيره التركيز على إيجاد حلول جذرية لمعاناة المواطنين الناجمة عن سياسات حكام الخليج الطائفية بدلا من إضاعة الوقت في توجيه أصابع اللوم إلى أطراف خارجية.
إن السياسات الطائفية في دول الخليج هي التي مهدت الطريق أمام إيران لاستغلال الورقة الطائفية والتأثير على من يعتقدون أن بإمكان إيران الدفاع عنهم ومساعدتهم في الحصول على حقوقهم الشرعية.
Saturday, January 21, 2012
Friday, January 13, 2012
Unity Among Gulf Monocracies Doomed to Fail
By Ali Alyami
Threatened by developing domestic and regional challenges, the six autocratic Arab monarchs of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) huddled in the Saudi capital Riyadh on Dec. 19 and 20, 2011, to strategize against internal and external threats to their regimes. Their fears were voiced by King Abdullah warning that “the security of Saudi Arabia and its Arab neighbors [meaning the ruling dynasties] was being targeted.” He implored the monarchs of the smaller Gulf States to ‘move beyond the stage of cooperation and into the stage of unity in a single entity’, which translates to a formal union dominated by the Saudi ruling family.
Prior to the Riyadh meeting and King Abdullah’s call for unity, the GCC had invited the two remaining autocratic Arab kings of Morocco and Jordan to join the GCC even though they are geographically distant from the Gulf. Indigenous analysts of Gulf dynamics and critics of the ruling dynasties speculated that the intent behind this move was to form a united front among these autocracies against the spread of the pro-democracy Arab Uprising. The GCC’s membership invitation has been shelved due to unfavorable public reaction, especially in the social media since public criticism of the ruling families is impermissible.
King Abdullah’s call for a united Arab Gulf States ‘in a single entity’, ostensibly to protect all GCC members from internal and external threats is destined to fail. Gulf Arab analysts attribute such failure to the fact that the primary objective of establishing a “single entity” is perceived by the smaller states’ rulers as an attempt to consolidate Saudi hegemony over the Gulf States and thus strengthen the Saudis’ bargaining position regionally, particularly regarding future settlement of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. However, there are more compelling reasons why the “single entity’ proposal would fail.
Prominent among the reasons for the likely failure of the Saudi proposal is the historical mistrust of the Saudi royals among the ruling dynasties of the smaller and weaker Gulf States. Based on their historical experience, the overlords of these smaller Gulf Arab States consider the Saudi royals to be condescending, too rigid, heavy-handed, and confrontational. In addition, the rulers of the smaller States see the Saudi policies as a menace to their “live and let live” strategies, not only within their heterogeneous societies, but also with Iran, with whom they share borders and beneficial relations. The recent transition of power from the ailing and aging Saudi King Abdullah to two well-known pugnacious Princes, Naif and Salman, is more likely to lessen instead of increase cooperation, let alone create unity among the autocracies of the Gulf.
Furthermore, the ruling dynasties of the smaller Gulf States can afford to reject the ambitious Saudi plan to form a “single entity’ which they know would be dominated by the Saudi ruling family and its Wahhabi ideology. In the early 1990s, the West began to shift its military presence from Saudi Arabia to the smaller Gulf States; as time passed, the West found these rulers more responsive to Western needs than the Saudis. The gradual shift of Western dependence from the Saudi ruling family to the rulers of the smaller States has diminished Saudi influence in the region and has rendered obsolete the smaller Gulf States’ need for Saudi protection.
The efforts by the Saudis to recruit the kings of Morocco and Jordan to the GCC cartel in order to fend off the spread of the Arab Uprising to the Gulf have been unsuccessful. This and their apparent failure to unite the Gulf Arab States rulers “in a single entity” under their control are more likely to increase the Saudi rulers’ reliance on domestic oppression and intense use of religion to promote their self-interest. However, pursuing these policies will increase the Saudi people’s discontent, which will to domestic strife and regional isolation, eventually hastening the fall of the Saudi monarchy to the very forces they are trying to escape.
Threatened by developing domestic and regional challenges, the six autocratic Arab monarchs of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) huddled in the Saudi capital Riyadh on Dec. 19 and 20, 2011, to strategize against internal and external threats to their regimes. Their fears were voiced by King Abdullah warning that “the security of Saudi Arabia and its Arab neighbors [meaning the ruling dynasties] was being targeted.” He implored the monarchs of the smaller Gulf States to ‘move beyond the stage of cooperation and into the stage of unity in a single entity’, which translates to a formal union dominated by the Saudi ruling family.
Prior to the Riyadh meeting and King Abdullah’s call for unity, the GCC had invited the two remaining autocratic Arab kings of Morocco and Jordan to join the GCC even though they are geographically distant from the Gulf. Indigenous analysts of Gulf dynamics and critics of the ruling dynasties speculated that the intent behind this move was to form a united front among these autocracies against the spread of the pro-democracy Arab Uprising. The GCC’s membership invitation has been shelved due to unfavorable public reaction, especially in the social media since public criticism of the ruling families is impermissible.
King Abdullah’s call for a united Arab Gulf States ‘in a single entity’, ostensibly to protect all GCC members from internal and external threats is destined to fail. Gulf Arab analysts attribute such failure to the fact that the primary objective of establishing a “single entity” is perceived by the smaller states’ rulers as an attempt to consolidate Saudi hegemony over the Gulf States and thus strengthen the Saudis’ bargaining position regionally, particularly regarding future settlement of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. However, there are more compelling reasons why the “single entity’ proposal would fail.
Prominent among the reasons for the likely failure of the Saudi proposal is the historical mistrust of the Saudi royals among the ruling dynasties of the smaller and weaker Gulf States. Based on their historical experience, the overlords of these smaller Gulf Arab States consider the Saudi royals to be condescending, too rigid, heavy-handed, and confrontational. In addition, the rulers of the smaller States see the Saudi policies as a menace to their “live and let live” strategies, not only within their heterogeneous societies, but also with Iran, with whom they share borders and beneficial relations. The recent transition of power from the ailing and aging Saudi King Abdullah to two well-known pugnacious Princes, Naif and Salman, is more likely to lessen instead of increase cooperation, let alone create unity among the autocracies of the Gulf.
Furthermore, the ruling dynasties of the smaller Gulf States can afford to reject the ambitious Saudi plan to form a “single entity’ which they know would be dominated by the Saudi ruling family and its Wahhabi ideology. In the early 1990s, the West began to shift its military presence from Saudi Arabia to the smaller Gulf States; as time passed, the West found these rulers more responsive to Western needs than the Saudis. The gradual shift of Western dependence from the Saudi ruling family to the rulers of the smaller States has diminished Saudi influence in the region and has rendered obsolete the smaller Gulf States’ need for Saudi protection.
The efforts by the Saudis to recruit the kings of Morocco and Jordan to the GCC cartel in order to fend off the spread of the Arab Uprising to the Gulf have been unsuccessful. This and their apparent failure to unite the Gulf Arab States rulers “in a single entity” under their control are more likely to increase the Saudi rulers’ reliance on domestic oppression and intense use of religion to promote their self-interest. However, pursuing these policies will increase the Saudi people’s discontent, which will to domestic strife and regional isolation, eventually hastening the fall of the Saudi monarchy to the very forces they are trying to escape.
Tuesday, January 3, 2012
Monday, January 2, 2012
“Arabs dream of building democracy as 2012 begins”
CDHR’s Commentary: The most positive and empowering outcome of the Arab Revolt thus far is the fact that people are no longer afraid of the sword. The assessment in the article below (see link) is accurate and anyone who still doubts the Arab people's awaking and political maturity needs to listen to what the people quoted in this article are saying: New regimes will not survive if they don't learn from what happened to their corrupt and tyrannical predecessors. The majority of the Arab masses of today are very different from their parents and grandparents. It will take them time to weed through centuries of enforced marginalization and its concomitant sense of worthlessness.
The marginalized peoples of the oil rich and tyrannically ruled Gulf Arab States are no less aspiring than the rest of the Arab people. In fact, most of them suffer from harsher policies than the Arabs who took to the streets and overthrow their despots. The autocratic ruling monarchs of the Gulf States, their descendants and commanded media ought to read the glaring writing on the walls, rethink their outdated policies, perceptions, practices and start transferring power to the people before it's too late for them and the well-being of their restless populations. They have to understand that the people's demand for freedom is irreversible regardless of intimidation, bribery and the use of religion as a tool to justify oppression, segregation, discrimination and exploitation.
http://www.zawya.com/story.cfm/sidANA20111231T193807ZCOY09/lok193813111231/Arabs_dream_of_building_democracy_as_2012_begins?&zawyaemailmarketing
The marginalized peoples of the oil rich and tyrannically ruled Gulf Arab States are no less aspiring than the rest of the Arab people. In fact, most of them suffer from harsher policies than the Arabs who took to the streets and overthrow their despots. The autocratic ruling monarchs of the Gulf States, their descendants and commanded media ought to read the glaring writing on the walls, rethink their outdated policies, perceptions, practices and start transferring power to the people before it's too late for them and the well-being of their restless populations. They have to understand that the people's demand for freedom is irreversible regardless of intimidation, bribery and the use of religion as a tool to justify oppression, segregation, discrimination and exploitation.
http://www.zawya.com/story.cfm/sidANA20111231T193807ZCOY09/lok193813111231/Arabs_dream_of_building_democracy_as_2012_begins?&zawyaemailmarketing
Friday, December 23, 2011
Various YouTube clips
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4mj9DQlLzMA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hqxwtzxbXiU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j_IrmEOBFyQ&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hqxwtzxbXiU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j_IrmEOBFyQ&feature=related
Monday, December 19, 2011
The Tehran Theocratic Mullahs’ Loathing for “The Great Satan” and Its Saudi “Puppets”
The Tehran Theocratic Mullahs’ Loathing for “The Great Satan” and Its Saudi “Puppets”
By Ali Alyami
There is nothing that the theocratic Mullahs in Tehran would rather do than tarnish the absolute Saudi monarchy’s image and render insignificant its leadership among Muslims and within the international community. It is a well-known fact that these last two tyrannical Muslim regimes are competing for Arab and Muslim leadership in the hope of securing global recognition and legitimacy for their draconian rule at home. In addition, the cruel Iranian regime will stop at nothing to drive a bigger wedge between the absolute Saudi monarchs and their most important protecting ally, the US. However, plotting to attack the Saudi embassy in Washington and kill its hundreds of personnel including King Abdullah’s yes-man ambassador will back fire in a way even the vicious Iranian regime is not suicidal enough to undertake.
The similarities between the autocratic and theocratic regime in Tehran and their counterparts in Riyadh are well known. They are anti-democracy, anti-women, anti-non-Muslims, anti-human rights and share a common objective of ridding Arab and Muslim countries of Western influence so they can continue to oppress their people in the name of God and Shariah law. Both foster, export and finance extremist and terrorist groups in order to spread their influence and extract concessions from Western governments as the Saudis did with Britain regarding Arms Sales’ bribery in 2008. (http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/feb/15/bae.armstrade).
Knowing that Tehran’s despots and their counterparts in Riyadh are brimming with hate for the US and Israel as well as for each other, it should not be surprising, albeit unlikely in this case, that someone in Tehran would attempt to hire assassins to hit a small Saudi target, especially in the West. The theocrats in Tehran are vying for a leading role among Muslims; and bullying their Saudi competitors along with their US ally would enhance the image of the Iranian regime among many Muslims regardless of religious differences.
Like the Saudi royals (recall King Abdullah's urging President Obama to "cut the head of the snake”), the tyrannical regime in Tehran wants to drag the US and/or Israel into a prolonged war in an Arab or Muslim country so it can convince the rest of the mostly poverty stricken and marginalized Muslims of the “Crusaders’ war” against Islam and Muslims.
Even harsh critics of Arab and Muslim ruling hooligans’ politics and practices would find the Justice Department’s alleged Iranian escapade to be unconvincing, especially at a time when the Iranian regime knows misbehaving could generate a crippling military response by a combination of regional and international coalitions. The Tehran theocrats are vicious, but not suicidal.
By Ali Alyami
There is nothing that the theocratic Mullahs in Tehran would rather do than tarnish the absolute Saudi monarchy’s image and render insignificant its leadership among Muslims and within the international community. It is a well-known fact that these last two tyrannical Muslim regimes are competing for Arab and Muslim leadership in the hope of securing global recognition and legitimacy for their draconian rule at home. In addition, the cruel Iranian regime will stop at nothing to drive a bigger wedge between the absolute Saudi monarchs and their most important protecting ally, the US. However, plotting to attack the Saudi embassy in Washington and kill its hundreds of personnel including King Abdullah’s yes-man ambassador will back fire in a way even the vicious Iranian regime is not suicidal enough to undertake.
The similarities between the autocratic and theocratic regime in Tehran and their counterparts in Riyadh are well known. They are anti-democracy, anti-women, anti-non-Muslims, anti-human rights and share a common objective of ridding Arab and Muslim countries of Western influence so they can continue to oppress their people in the name of God and Shariah law. Both foster, export and finance extremist and terrorist groups in order to spread their influence and extract concessions from Western governments as the Saudis did with Britain regarding Arms Sales’ bribery in 2008. (http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/feb/15/bae.armstrade).
Knowing that Tehran’s despots and their counterparts in Riyadh are brimming with hate for the US and Israel as well as for each other, it should not be surprising, albeit unlikely in this case, that someone in Tehran would attempt to hire assassins to hit a small Saudi target, especially in the West. The theocrats in Tehran are vying for a leading role among Muslims; and bullying their Saudi competitors along with their US ally would enhance the image of the Iranian regime among many Muslims regardless of religious differences.
Like the Saudi royals (recall King Abdullah's urging President Obama to "cut the head of the snake”), the tyrannical regime in Tehran wants to drag the US and/or Israel into a prolonged war in an Arab or Muslim country so it can convince the rest of the mostly poverty stricken and marginalized Muslims of the “Crusaders’ war” against Islam and Muslims.
Even harsh critics of Arab and Muslim ruling hooligans’ politics and practices would find the Justice Department’s alleged Iranian escapade to be unconvincing, especially at a time when the Iranian regime knows misbehaving could generate a crippling military response by a combination of regional and international coalitions. The Tehran theocrats are vicious, but not suicidal.
Islamists Have Nothing to Offer, But Religious Totalitarianism
Islamists Have Nothing to Offer, But Religious Totalitarianism
CDHR’s Commentary: While there is legitimate apprehension circulating in the Middle East and around the world regarding Muslim parties wining preliminary elections in Egypt, Libya and Tunisia, one has to listen to what the heads of these parties say. They are promising an end to corruption, poverty and oppression. These are the reasons that drove millions of people to the streets to risk their lives to rid their countries of oppressive despots who have subjugated them for decades. These Muslim parties’ fates will be the same as the ones they are replacing if they do not keep their commitments to the new generation of Arabs whose worldly aspirations and needs overcame their crippling fear of their states’ cruel police and security apparatus. It seems that many Western analysts and experts are overlooking an extraordinary factor when they write about or discuss the Arab Uprising even when facts on the ground contradict their abysmal forecasts.
All an astute observer has to do is to look at the freedom and justice seekers (men and women) facing states’ tanks and bullets in Syria, Yemen and Bahrain. They are willing to pay the ultimate price to end centuries of religious and political totalitarianism. This new generation of Arabs who are tortured, shot at, killed, starved and incarcerated will not stop at anything less than liberation from the yoke of oppression imposed by the men and institutions that have
coercively dominated their lives and livelihoods for decades and
centuries. For the first time in their tumultuous history, the Arab
people are looking inward instead of blaming outsiders for their systems’ gargantuan failures to meet their basic worldly needs. Unlike the Islamists, the new generation of Arabs yearning for freedom did not have platforms to air their grievances until now. They discovered that freedom is not free and decided to create platforms from which they can make their voices heard and their needs met. Tahrir (liberation) Squares are the new platforms where they can force whoever wins elections and rules think twice before going against their demands for better
governance that works for them instead of enslaving them.
What the Arab masses, rich and poor, are fighting and dying for is
above and beyond what the Islamists are capable of offering:
liberation from all forms of dictatorship, especially
oppressive religious taboos and the imposition of stifling doctrines. One can learn a lesson from the Iranian masses’ support for the Islamists Revolution in 1979, until they discovered the Mullahs for who they really are: Power seeking hooligans. The Arabs, especially liberals, youth, women and minorities, in Tunis and Egypt are already engaging the Islamists politically and in some cases physically over their political future.
At the end of the day, the freedom fighters will win, especially if
they receive genuine support from the West which has thus far taken very cautious measures in selective places and continues to support
tyrannical systems in places like Saudi Arabia and other small but
wealthy Gulf states which finance Islamists and anti-democracy groups in Arab and Muslim countries and the international community,
especially the West.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/12/05/egypt-election-runoffs_n_1129135.html
CDHR’s Commentary: While there is legitimate apprehension circulating in the Middle East and around the world regarding Muslim parties wining preliminary elections in Egypt, Libya and Tunisia, one has to listen to what the heads of these parties say. They are promising an end to corruption, poverty and oppression. These are the reasons that drove millions of people to the streets to risk their lives to rid their countries of oppressive despots who have subjugated them for decades. These Muslim parties’ fates will be the same as the ones they are replacing if they do not keep their commitments to the new generation of Arabs whose worldly aspirations and needs overcame their crippling fear of their states’ cruel police and security apparatus. It seems that many Western analysts and experts are overlooking an extraordinary factor when they write about or discuss the Arab Uprising even when facts on the ground contradict their abysmal forecasts.
All an astute observer has to do is to look at the freedom and justice seekers (men and women) facing states’ tanks and bullets in Syria, Yemen and Bahrain. They are willing to pay the ultimate price to end centuries of religious and political totalitarianism. This new generation of Arabs who are tortured, shot at, killed, starved and incarcerated will not stop at anything less than liberation from the yoke of oppression imposed by the men and institutions that have
coercively dominated their lives and livelihoods for decades and
centuries. For the first time in their tumultuous history, the Arab
people are looking inward instead of blaming outsiders for their systems’ gargantuan failures to meet their basic worldly needs. Unlike the Islamists, the new generation of Arabs yearning for freedom did not have platforms to air their grievances until now. They discovered that freedom is not free and decided to create platforms from which they can make their voices heard and their needs met. Tahrir (liberation) Squares are the new platforms where they can force whoever wins elections and rules think twice before going against their demands for better
governance that works for them instead of enslaving them.
What the Arab masses, rich and poor, are fighting and dying for is
above and beyond what the Islamists are capable of offering:
liberation from all forms of dictatorship, especially
oppressive religious taboos and the imposition of stifling doctrines. One can learn a lesson from the Iranian masses’ support for the Islamists Revolution in 1979, until they discovered the Mullahs for who they really are: Power seeking hooligans. The Arabs, especially liberals, youth, women and minorities, in Tunis and Egypt are already engaging the Islamists politically and in some cases physically over their political future.
At the end of the day, the freedom fighters will win, especially if
they receive genuine support from the West which has thus far taken very cautious measures in selective places and continues to support
tyrannical systems in places like Saudi Arabia and other small but
wealthy Gulf states which finance Islamists and anti-democracy groups in Arab and Muslim countries and the international community,
especially the West.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/12/05/egypt-election-runoffs_n_1129135.html
The World needs Islamic guidance” Says the King
The World needs Islamic guidance” Says the King
CDHR’s Commentary: In a speech read on his behalf at an influential Muslim scholars' conference in November 2011, King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia sounded self-assured that “Only Islam’s mercy, light and guidance can provide people with a way forward in life and toward the Hereafter.” The King went on to implore all Muslims to convince non-Muslims to come to and embrace the Muslim faith [i.e., the Saudi brand of Islam, Wahhabi doctrine] because he inexplicably believes that non-Muslims are in need of redemption and “Islam, with its comprehensive divine values and a balanced view of life, is alone capable of rescuing humankind from its current behavioral predicament…”
The King reminded Muslims that it’s their obligation to convert non-Muslims to Islam, “The Muslim Ummah [community] has a responsibility to call people to Islam through its Da’wa [Call] work around the globe.” Perhaps King Abdullah is not cognizant of the fact that he is presiding over one of the most religiously oppressed and least politically free countries on earth. Saudi Arabia is the birthplace of Islam, home to its two holiest shrines, the Quran is its constitution and the Shariah is its law. In other words, Saudi Arabia is ruled in accordance with Islamic teachings, laws and commands, as interpreted by the Kingdom's Hambali/Wahhabi “religious” men.
King Abdullah’s well-timed and pointed plea to the 1.5 billion Muslims during their holiest occasion, the annual pilgrimage rituals, and its far-reaching implications never made it to Western news outlets, despite the fact that the West is his target. One would think that King Abdullah is asking Muslims to perform the impossible given the current slaughtering of Muslims by other Muslims, but he is not. Millions of people around the world are economically hurting, vulnerable and looking for solutions from any source, specially the divine ones.
It is not accidental that Islam is the fastest growing religion in the world, particularly in Western societies where the overwhelming majority of the populations see Islam as a belief, not as a domineering value system that controls every aspect of its adherents’ lives, perceptions and relations with non-Muslims. The majority of Muslims have been brainwashed into believing that the rule of law, freedom of choice and individual liberty are antithesis to divine laws, therefore blasphemous.
King Abdullah's call on Muslims to spread Islam and its Shariah law must not be taken lightly. He is the “Custodian” of Islam’s two holiest shrines in Mecca and Madina to which most of the world’s 1.5 billion poverty stricken, oppressed and indoctrinated Muslims look for guidance, instructions and money. It would be naïve and myopic to think that the King’s call would fall on deaf ears as many in the West seem to think. After all, he is the absolute ruler of the most religiously and financially influential country in Arab and Muslim lands and beyond.
Prominent Muslim scholars from the prestigious Al-Azhar University and others have described the Saudi brand of Islam, Wahhabism, as enemy number one of Islam and Muslims. The former President of Indonesia Abdulrahman Wahid, a world renowned Muslim scholar himself, called on the international community to unite and defeat the Wahhabi doctrine because it poses a deadly threat to democracies and harmony among people. The West should listen and prevent Islamist ideology from taking root in Western societies, where it will result in social strife, divisions and conflict as is the case in many Arab and Muslim countries and communities.
Read article
http://www.saudigazette.com.sa/index.cfm?method=home.regcon&contentID=20111101111499
CDHR’s Commentary: In a speech read on his behalf at an influential Muslim scholars' conference in November 2011, King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia sounded self-assured that “Only Islam’s mercy, light and guidance can provide people with a way forward in life and toward the Hereafter.” The King went on to implore all Muslims to convince non-Muslims to come to and embrace the Muslim faith [i.e., the Saudi brand of Islam, Wahhabi doctrine] because he inexplicably believes that non-Muslims are in need of redemption and “Islam, with its comprehensive divine values and a balanced view of life, is alone capable of rescuing humankind from its current behavioral predicament…”
The King reminded Muslims that it’s their obligation to convert non-Muslims to Islam, “The Muslim Ummah [community] has a responsibility to call people to Islam through its Da’wa [Call] work around the globe.” Perhaps King Abdullah is not cognizant of the fact that he is presiding over one of the most religiously oppressed and least politically free countries on earth. Saudi Arabia is the birthplace of Islam, home to its two holiest shrines, the Quran is its constitution and the Shariah is its law. In other words, Saudi Arabia is ruled in accordance with Islamic teachings, laws and commands, as interpreted by the Kingdom's Hambali/Wahhabi “religious” men.
King Abdullah’s well-timed and pointed plea to the 1.5 billion Muslims during their holiest occasion, the annual pilgrimage rituals, and its far-reaching implications never made it to Western news outlets, despite the fact that the West is his target. One would think that King Abdullah is asking Muslims to perform the impossible given the current slaughtering of Muslims by other Muslims, but he is not. Millions of people around the world are economically hurting, vulnerable and looking for solutions from any source, specially the divine ones.
It is not accidental that Islam is the fastest growing religion in the world, particularly in Western societies where the overwhelming majority of the populations see Islam as a belief, not as a domineering value system that controls every aspect of its adherents’ lives, perceptions and relations with non-Muslims. The majority of Muslims have been brainwashed into believing that the rule of law, freedom of choice and individual liberty are antithesis to divine laws, therefore blasphemous.
King Abdullah's call on Muslims to spread Islam and its Shariah law must not be taken lightly. He is the “Custodian” of Islam’s two holiest shrines in Mecca and Madina to which most of the world’s 1.5 billion poverty stricken, oppressed and indoctrinated Muslims look for guidance, instructions and money. It would be naïve and myopic to think that the King’s call would fall on deaf ears as many in the West seem to think. After all, he is the absolute ruler of the most religiously and financially influential country in Arab and Muslim lands and beyond.
Prominent Muslim scholars from the prestigious Al-Azhar University and others have described the Saudi brand of Islam, Wahhabism, as enemy number one of Islam and Muslims. The former President of Indonesia Abdulrahman Wahid, a world renowned Muslim scholar himself, called on the international community to unite and defeat the Wahhabi doctrine because it poses a deadly threat to democracies and harmony among people. The West should listen and prevent Islamist ideology from taking root in Western societies, where it will result in social strife, divisions and conflict as is the case in many Arab and Muslim countries and communities.
Read article
http://www.saudigazette.com.sa/index.cfm?method=home.regcon&contentID=20111101111499
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