Literally days after IASPS ran an Op Ed exposing the absurdity and dangerousness of the Olive Tree & Lexus analysis of the New York Times' Thomas Friedman (see "Terror in One Nation or Islam and Marxism, Part II"), Friedman fired off his own op ed (Nov. 20, 2001) attempting, apparently, to respond. In his response, Friedman seeks desperately to prove the thesis of his most recent book and numerous editorials that if only we could give the poor violent Muslim terrorists democracy and Lexus luxury sedans (i.e., participation in the global economy) we could wean them from the Olive Tree (i.e., violence and religious primitivism).

 

In "Part II" of the essay IASPS posted on this web site, the point was carefully made that Friedman's theory is akin to the Marxist/Victimization line of 30 years ago that has been carried forward by America's and Europe's spoiled intelligentsia to this day: violence and wanton rage against the West is not a product of the murderers themselves but rather of the West.  Whether attacking capitalism, the US support of Israel or even of Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, the poor downtrodden victims, meaning the terrorists, act the way they do because they live in despotic regimes and often enough the West supports those regimes for its own selfish interests.

 

Friedman seeks desperately to make his point that if you give Muslims freedom and democracy they will be peaceful.  He chooses India's "noisy democracy" (and Bangladesh) to make this point and quotes several of India's leading Muslims to say that the world's second largest Muslim population demonstrates that terror is the product of tyranny not Islam.

 

Friedman seems to ignore one very basic fact and several others: The Muslims are a minority in India and don't control that "noisy democracy." Indeed, when the Indian continent gained its independence from Britain in 1947, the first bloody war took place precisely because the Muslims who dominated in the north chose to establish their own regime. What was that? Dictatorship. That country is now Moslem-dominated Pakistan and it has waged a proxy war against India in Kashmir since then (in addition to supporting the Talibans until the US strong-armed it into submission).  It was the non-Muslims of India who chose to establish and fight for democracy.  Further, ask the non-Moslem population in India how peaceful the Moslems are (Friedman chose to ask the Moslems how peaceful they themselves were. Slick.)

 

The question Friedman must ask himself is what would become of India's democracy if it were to be dominated by the Muslims?

 

Indeed, why does Friedman find it impossible to point to any free and democratic Moslem-dominated state (he pathetically refers to Bangladesh as his "proof" that Islam can rule and be democratic and non-violent)? Why does the man who drives a Lexus fail to recognize that the despotic regime in China doesn't produce worldwide terrorism, on the one hand, and Moslems the world over when given the chance to rule do so by force and by aiding and abetting worldwide terror, on the other.

 

The answer is because Thomas Friedman is not interested in fact. Friedman is interested in making one point: if the world could but move to a global democracy we could rid ourselves of terror, poverty, and all things bad.  Islam is not the enemy here, it is our inability to export our democratic multiculturalism.  What Friedman fails to understand is that the world's 1 billion Moslems are just not interested. When necessary, they will vote. When opportunity knocks, they will kill and maim to build their own version of a global economy.