Page 21 - The Winter of Islam and the Spring to Come

HARUN YAHYA (ADNAN OKTAR)
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elderly and children alike subjected to a terrible genocide in Bosnia…
When people first see such images, they often talk about their feel-
ings of outrage and say they want to do something. However, over time
the never-ending stream of horrific reports ceases to attract their atten-
tion anymore. More people die every day, women are raped, and chil-
dren are shot or lose a foot after stepping on mines… However,
people's reactions in the early days are replaced by an odd insensitivity.
When they buy a newspaper, they are often more interested in celebrity
gossip than stories of war. That is because the deaths of a few people in
Palestine, Afghanistan, Iraq,, Kashmir or East Turkestan have become
more or less "routine news."
Moreover, propaganda at the same time portrays all this savagery
as political developments. Thus it is that many people see the slaughter
experienced in Chechnya as an internal Russian affair, what is going on
in Palestine as a struggle for land between Israel and Palestine, and the
Hindu oppression of the people of Kashmir as a problem rooted in the
region's strategic position. Among others, it is true that historical and
economic factors do play a role in the emergence of conflict. However,
internal or economic problems have not been the only cause of the op-
pression visited on the Chechen people in recent years by some
Russians, nor the conflicts that go on in the Middle East, nor the vio-
lence that Muslim peoples in Africa are subjected to, nor the violent cru-
elty and ethnic cleansing suffered before the eyes of the whole world by
Muslims in the Balkans. As we shall see in later chapters of this book,
these people's being Muslim is one of the main reasons for these con-
flicts.
Since these people believe in Allah and want to live their lives ac-
cording to the demands of their religion, and want to raise their chil-
dren to be believers too, they are subjected to various forms of
oppression. The existence of strong states upholding spiritual values or
a strong union of Islamic nations that would protect the rights of
Muslims within a legal framework of justice gives rise to grave con-
cerns among certain circles in the West and poses a threat to the inter-
ests of certain others. The fact is, however, that a country or union that