Ikle on Nuking Mecca: Or, Racism Lives

Date: Sun, 02 Jun 2002 14:17:39 -0400
From: Juan Cole


Re: Fred Ikle, Stopping the Next Sept. 11
http://www.opinionjournal.com/extra/?id=110001790

Where Ikle writes: "Those who out of cowardice use their wealth to pay danegeld to the
preachers of hate and destruction must be taught that this aggression will
boomerang. A nuclear war stirred up against the "infidels" might end up
displacing Mecca and Medina with two large radioactive craters."

Cole replies:

My problem with the racist invocation of nuking Mecca and Medina on the
Right (first Lowry [see below] and now Ikle) is that it is ignorant,
counterproductive, and monstrous.

It is ignorant because if the point is to menace the Saudis into ceasing
their export of Wahhabism throughout the Muslim world, the center of
Wahhabism is Riyadh and Najd, not the Hijaz where Mecca and Medina are
located. Indeed, the Hijaz has been, along with Shi`ite al-Hasa, a major
center of Muslim opposition to Wahhabism ever since the Saudi conquest of
1924-26, and a hotbed of Sufism, non-Hanbali law, and Muslim
cosmopolitanism (because of the pilgrimage and the desire of Muslims from
all over the world to study and live near these sacred centers). So, it
seems a hard thing that Mecca and Medina should be obliterated for the
(alleged) sins of the Wahhabis.

It is counterproductive because Mecca and Medina are very dear to the
hearts of all Muslims, even secular ones. The very mention of "nuking
Mecca" stings their eyes to tears and enrages them. There are over a
billion Muslims in the world and there are going to be 2 billion before
very long. The task of the United States is to get them on its side, not
to alienate or enrage them. This is something George W. Bush, himself a
man of faith, understood instinctively, and got perfectly correct after
September 11. The Wall Street Journal should be ashamed of itself for
printing this kind of drivel, and Mr. Ikle should be ashamed of himself
for writing it.

It is monstrous because it is morally bankrupt to threaten nuclear
holocaust against millions of innocent persons and against the center of a
world religion. Lowry and Ikle no doubt deeply disliked the Latin
American liberation theologians who melded Catholic theology with leftist
ideas. Did they therefore advocate nuking the Vatican? What is the
difference between talking about nuking Mecca for political purposes and
Mulla Omar's destruction of the Buddhas of Bamiyan, which was rightly
denounced as barbaric? (The difference is that no human beings were
vaporized at Bamiyan).

I have asked it before, and ask it now again. What would happen to the
editor of an op-ed page who allowed a columnist to call for nuking the
Vatican or the Wailing Wall? Would we consider such an organ part of the
civilized world? Isn't the real reason this sort of thing is allowed is
that anti-Arab racism is still considered acceptable at the cocktail
parties of the American wealthy? Why aren't Paul Gigot and James Taranto
forced to resign over this monstrosity?


Sincerely,


Juan Cole
U of Michigan