- (january 2009)
A letter to the New York Times
The New York Times published a lengthy
article by Libya's dictator Qaddafi on the Palestinian problem. In that
article Qaddafi advocates a one-state solution in which Jews and Arabs (and
presumably Christians) would live together.
In reaction to Qaddafi's article, the New York Times published a number of letters by readers. Here is the letter that i sent them today.
In reaction to Qaddafi's article, you published a number of letters
that repeatedly refer to Libya's involvement in a terrorist attack
that killed the 259 passengers of a USA flight. It would be fair to mention
that a few weeks earlier a missile fired by a USA warship downed
an Iranian civilian plane and killed all 290 passengers aboard
(an event much less advertised in the USA press, but no less painful for the
relatives of those victims).
One of your readers accuses Libya of "a history of terrorist crimes and
continued human rights abuses". The whole world thinks that the USA has
been guilty of the same over the decades, culminating with torture in Iraq
and Guantanamo. Ordinary people from Nicaragua to Iraq can exhibit plenty of
evidence of USA atrocities committed against their relatives and friends.
If Qaddafi is not qualified to advance a proposal for peace
in the Middle East, the world probably wonders why the USA should be.
It is a sign of the times that in 2009 Qaddafi sounds like a moderate and
one of the few people with common sense.
As for Qaddafi's article itself, it has some merit and a multi-ethnic nation
like the USA should certainly appreciate the idea of Muslims, Jews and
Christians living in peace within the same state. However, it would be nice
if Qaddafi also advocated that Saudi Arabia became a multi-religious state.
Saudi Arabia is another state that embeds in its constitution a racist view
of relibion, and even forbids non-Muslims to enter two of its cities.
It is unthinkable to build a Catholic church or a Hindu temple in Mecca,
whereas there are Muslim mosques in both Rome (the capital of the Catholic
world) and the major Indian cities. Saudi Arabia seems to me a much worse
example of religious and ethnic intolerance, and unfortunately it is held
as a role model by millions of Muslims worldwide. Non-Muslims are even
forbidden to criticize the Quran, to dispute the legitimacy of Mohammed as
a prophet, to point out that he personally murdered people, and even to make
fun of him. One wishes that Qaddafi had creative solutions also for the
big problem of religious intolerance in Saudi Arabia and not only for
the relatively small problem of Palestine.
TM, ®, Copyright © 2007 Piero Scaruffi All rights reserved.
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