FREE TIBET !

See my post in my other blog: 

FREE TIBET FROM CHINESE IMPERIALISM

 See Free Tibet websites:

FREE TIBET.ORG 

SAVE TIBET.ORG 

United Arab Emirates has launched its national newspaper, The National. This is to showcase the oil sheikhdoms’ supposed progress and development. It is run by Westerners led by its Editor-in-Chief Martin Newland, formerly of London’s The Telegraph. About 200 journalists are on board, mostly from The Telegraph and other British and American newspapers and magazines, including The New Yorker.

As usual with the oil-rich Gulf Arabs, they think that by imitating the West, they are showing to the world how progressive they are. Having a newspaper with the biggest budget in the world and some of the West’s top journalists do not mean that the country has a great free press. Press freedom is certainly not guaranteed in a land where the money is kept by a small coterie of sheikhs, their relatives and their favorite Western friends.

And what kind of agenda will these Western journalists set in UAE and the Arab / Persian Gulf area?

FIRST OIL CRISIS

In 1973, in the last major Arab-Israel war, the Gulf Arabs led by Saudi Arabia’s King Faisal ibn Abd ul Aziz placed an embargo of oil shipments to the United States of America and other countries like the Philippines for their undying support for Israel.

That embargo made the world realize how powerful the Arabs were.

Unfortunately, King Faisal was assassinated by his nephew who was allegedly brainwashed by the CIA. Without King Faisal’s leadership, the Arabs easily fell to the charms of the Western world.

Oil prices skyrocketed and the era of cheap oil came to an end.

And the poor nomadic Gulf Arabs (bedouins) found themselves awashed with petro dollars beyond their wildest imagination. Of course, this was all orchestrated by what was then called The Seven Sisters – the seven major oil companies in the world then – SOCAL, GULF OIL, TEXACO, MOBIL, BP (British Petroleum), ROYAL DUTCH-SHELL, and EXXON.

FROM RAGS TO RICHES

In the first half of the 20^th century, the Gulf Arabs were the poor brothers in the Muslim world. They did not even have money of their own. They were using Pakistani rupees, and even old 18^th century Maria Theresa silver dollars as legal tender.

The Egyptian government was the one that used to clean and change the drapes of the Ka’aba in Mecca because the Saudi government could not afford them.

When ships leave Jeddah, young Arabs would stow away in hope of a better future. Many such stowaways found homes in Malaysia, Indonesia and Mindanao.

When my mother went to Mecca for the Hajj (Pilgrimage) in 1969, she said that the Saudis were selling their citizenship for FIFTY PESOS and there were hardly any takers.  And of course, there was an Arab stowaway in their ship.

In 1973, the Gulf Arabs became instant millionaires. In the 1970s, I met a couple of Moros in Saudi Arabia who were so glad to discover that their Arab fathers came from very rich Saudi Arab families. I almost envied them for having poor, nomadic Arab forebears in what was now Saudi Arabia instead of my Arab forebear who was a world-traveling educated faqih (jurist) from the Sultanate of Lahej in what is now Yemen.

INVESTING IN THE WEST

Instead of investing in fellow Muslim countries, the nouveau-riche Arabs enjoyed their new-found treasures in the Western world. They poured huge sums of money in the US and Europe. They couldn’t care less about fellow Muslim nations like Pakistan, Bangla Desh, Malaysia and Indonesia.

They did not even invest in fellow Arab states like Egypt and Syria, the two countries who were fighting for the Arab cause.

PALESTINE

When Egypt’s Anwar Sadat realized that the newly rich Arabs would not even share their wealth to fellow Arabs, Sadat decided to make a separate peace with Israel. I do not fault Sadat for signing the Camp David Accords. He was thinking of the Egyptian people’s welfare first.

But because of Egypt’s peace treaty, Palestine became isolated. During the last Israel-Lebanon war, the Israeli and Western media described the Palestinian issue as if it was purely a Palestinian affair. Fighting a two-pronged war, Israel claimed to be fighting Hamas in Palestine and Hexbollah in Lebanon. It claimed to be fighting against organizations and not nations. Israel and Western media were at pains to point out that it was not an Arab-Israel war.

At first, some Gulf Arab leaders expressed support for Israel but when the Arab people saw on Al Jazeerah TV what was actually happening in Lebanon, they were incensed and the Arab leaders had no choice but to call for a stop to Israeli aggression.

IRAN – IRAQ WAR

With the fall of the Shah of Iran and the rise of Ayatollah Khomeini, the US prodded the Gulf Arabs to fight Iran. Iraq’s Saddam Hussein thought that with US arms and the rich Gulf Arabs’ money, he could beat Iran. The Arabs were very wrong. The Iranians proved to be a resilient and strong nation.

Like Sadat before him, Saddam Hussein complained that he was doing all the fighting but the Gulf Arabs were not giving enough money. When he went to Kuwait, a former province of Iraq, the Gulf Arabs called on Uncle Sam to protect them.

Uncle Sam (care of George Herbert Bush) came to the rescue and as a result, the US now owns three-fourths of Kuwait and now has a military base in Saudi Arabia, the land of Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him.

It must be noted that Mecca and Medina, the birthplace of Islam, do not belong to Saudi Arabia. They belong to all Muslims.

LAND OF ISLAM?

One of the titles of the King of Saudi Arabia is “The Keeper of the Two Holy Mosques”. This young nation-state established by King Abdulaziz ibn Saud has amassed such wealth beyond the imagination of its founders – Sheikh Abdulaziz and the Wahhabi brotherhood. And its great wealth has provided for the livelihood of millions of people, especially non-Muslim people –  the Americans, Europeans, Canadians and even Filipinos. It also now has thousands of American troops on its soil.

About a dozen years ago, after the First Gulf War, I met a Pakistani-American who was working with the American government. He told me that when he went to Saudi Arabia, at the Customs area, the inspectors opened his bag. He brought along a copy of the Qur’an and reading materials. To his surprise, the Saudi guard looked at him suspiciously and asked him to follow him (the guard) to a room nearby. In the room, there was another officer. The guard showed the officer the contents of the bag, especially the book by Iqbal. The guard, who was a Pakistani, just shook his head and let the Pakistani-American go.

The Pakistani-American was so shocked that in the land of Islam, a man with a Qur’an and a book by Muhammad Iqbal would be considered “suspicious”.

In American and English minds, Muslims who read books by Muslim political thinkers like Iqbal or Qutb fit into the profile of a terrorist.

BIN LADEN and 9/11

The presence of US troops in Saudi Arabia is the “official” reason for Osama Bin Laden’s fight against the U.S.

Although Osama Bin Laden is a Saudi Arab and none of the Al-Qaeda members were Iraqis or Afghanis, America invaded Afghanistan and Iraq in retaliation of the attack of the World Trade Center in 9/11.

And the leaders of the Gulf Arab states now find themselves entrenched on the side of the United States of America.

While America, UK and the “Coalition of the Willing” (which included the Philippines) went on killing Muslims, the nouveau-riche Gulf Arabs provided the US with millions of dollars to aid the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

WAR ON TERROR

While America, England and a handful of allies including the Philippines wage their War on Terror in different lands, killing and torturing Muslims of whatever nationality, the nouveau-riche Gulf Arab leaders are investing massive sums of money in the US and Europe, building huge skyscrapers in their cities and even creating media organizations and national newspapers – all managed and run by non-Muslim Westerners.

Filipinos have a saying that goes something like “He who forgets where he comes from will never reach his destination.” It would do well for the Gulf Arab leaders to ponder upon this thought.

=============

Related posts:  

Our cousin Datu Zekie Sinsuat passed away tonight. His remains now lie at the Quiapo mosque. He will be buried tomorrow in Dimapatoy, Cotabato. He is the husband of our cousin Bai Puti Sinsuat, who is the sister of our brother-in-law Datu Osin Sinsuat (deceased). Datu Zekie is the son of Datu Blah Sinsuat, former Congressman and Speaker Pro Tempore of the Batasan Pambansa.

Datu Zekie led a colorful and controversial life. May God bless his soul.

"There is no death! What seems so is transition., this life of mortal breath is but a suburb of the life elysian, whose portal we call death."  —  Longfellow