Mar. 29 - I'm referring to the King of Snark, Paul, who has some new posts up. My favourite (because I love it when Paul gets nasty satirical) is This Week in Revisionist History in which Paul notes a number of measures that seem to defraud history, much as air-brushing the cigarette from Satre's lips has done. For example, he wonders about the sudden urge to remove a statue of Franco in Spain:

Don't get me wrong, I can understand when statues are toppled by people during revolutions, and I'm all for that, but when the people can't be bothered to go out and destroy the bloody thing themselves, I find these arbitrary governmental decisions peculiar, especially when, like in this case, it's so long after the man's death, and calling the statue a "symbol of division" seems like a rather flimsy excuse (not to mention that, considering Zapatero's core beliefs, it seems like nothing but a settling of scores with someone who can't fight back; if Franco was alive, I suppose that Zapatero would have gone with his usual drop pants, pass the KY solution).

Posted by: Debbye at 02:14 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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1 Ahhh, cheers for the link, luv.

Posted by: Paul Jané at March 29, 2005 05:45 PM (FOtPl)

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Mar. 11 - March 2004 was a bad month. There were a horrific series of terrorist attacks in Iraq and Pakistan targeting Shi'ia observances of Ashura, the Madrid train bombings, terrorist attacks in Uzbekistan and the Phillippines, and, closer to home, a plague of anti-Jewish graffiti in Toronto. Four contractors were murdered and their bodies mutilated and strung up on a bridge outside Fallujah, and Canadian Andy Bradsell was killed in Iraq protecting a convoy of people trying to restore electrical service in Mosul.

Each of those memories are searing and produced responses both good and bad, but I really didn't see this coming: Muslim clerics in the Islamic Commission of Spain have issued a fatwa on Osama bin Laden and declared terrorist acts totally banned:

The commission's secretary general, Mansur Escudero, said the group had consulted with Muslim leaders in other countries, such as Morocco -- home to most of the jailed suspects in the bombings -- Algeria and Libya, and had their support.

"They agree," Escudero said, referring to the Muslim leaders in the three North African countries. "What I want is that they say so publicly."

My initial reaction was to feel how very, very difficult this was for them. Muslims have felt under intense scrutiny since Sept. 11, and although I could never entirely condemn the natural inclincation of many to close ranks thinking to protect themselves, I was frustrated by the "Yes, but" defense as attacks in Iraq targeting Muslims mounted.

There was too common an assumption that the war on terrorism was some kind of codename for a war on Islamic fundamentalists, somehow assuming that terrorism was the unique province of Muslim fanatics and totally overlooking places like N. Ireland, Columbia and Spain.

There were even numerous arguments these past 4 years over the usefulness of labelling this a "war on terror," but its appropriateness has become more and more evident culminating, for me, with the anti-terror demonstrations last year in Columbia after a night spot there was bombed. They got it, even if some of us were slow to do so.

I suspect that it is due to Spain's internal problems with terrorism perpetrated by Basque separatists in the ETA that put the Islamic Commission of Spain in the unique position of being able to credibly denounce terrorism, including that espoused by bin Laden, and the additional fact that they contacted and communicated with those in countries from which the March 11 attackers originated makes this appear to be more than a local fatwa.

I don't know if this will be the first of many fatwas from different countries or if it will dangle indefinitely as a lone example, but it's a good beginning.

Posted by: Debbye at 07:51 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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