Europe, thy name is Cowardice

I found this article (July 30, 2005, Straits Times "Europe, thy name is Cowardice" By Mathias Dopfner) interesting, very controversial and disturbing how the writer reasoned away the virtues of tolerance in such a cold logical way.


"Rather than protect democracy in the Middle East, European appeasement, camouflaged behind the fuzzy word 'equidistance', often seems to countenance suicide bombings in Israel by fundamentalist Palestinians. Similarly, it generates a mentality that allows Europe to ignore the nearly 500,000 victims of Saddam Hussein's torture and murder machinery and, motivated by the self-righteousness of the peace movement, to harangue United States President George W. Bush as a warmonger."


The world is so much more than "free, open Western societies" and I am sure more research can find that Israelites commit just as much wrong to the Palestine and how about a mentality that allowed the American leaders to ignore all their atrocities in the Vietnam war or the 2 atomic bombs that they dropped killing thousands of Japanese?The issue here is not to dwell on the past but to see the past for what it is and learn from it..then perhaps the ugly side of history can not repeat itself, like how it always obstinately does in reality.

I am not taking sides; I think violence and war is just wrong whoever it is waged by; it is only values like tolerance and love and peace that will help make the world a better place and not more excuses justifying why a certain war must be waged for the so called good of the human race and most commonly touted - for the vague "free and open Western society" and the convenient excuse of democracy. I mean how it this western notion relevant for the other half the world that is just not western?

As a third-generation Singaporean, who have never experienced any of the hardships of war unlike our grandparents' generation, ranting on and on like an armchair critic, I cannot even begin to imagine what life must be like for the people on the other side of the world , and by that I do not mean the Americans or even the Europeans but the people in Iraq, Palestine...unwillingly players in global politics, suffering lost, hunger and devastation for some white man's dream of making the world a more democratic place.

Sometimes you wonder why these young chaps will strap a bomb around their bodies and to personally denote themselves? What goes through their mind at these last moments? What motivated them? One man's terrorist is another's freedom fighter. I think it is important to remember this fact, at least for myself, i think it is. I find it morally difficult to take any stand. I do not know if I should say who or what is right or wrong anymore...the world is just not simple as that. But then what if these bombings were to hit close to home? to someone that I know? I find it so draining just to try and figure out what it is I should really feel and think of these issues without being patronising, an armchair critic or a hypocrite? How also do we develop fair views given that our constant supply of news come mostly with a Western slant?


go read the article, will be nice to know ur views...though I cant put it up here for copyright reasons.