A Cowardly New World

Idex stands for International Defence Exhibition, and the United Arab Emirates hosts one such exhibition every year. This year's exhibition is said to be the largest of its kind in the world, according to this article titled "Idex is 'testimony to our capabilities'" in Gulf News. Capabilities, eh?

Capabilities, perhaps, to organize meetings after major terrorist events and beg the United States not to invade you? To stand around and scratch your beards and say "Hmm, no, don't invade Iraq, it's better if you don't..." and then let them invade anyway? Impressive!

Well, some situations are better understood if one takes into consideration the context. Well, here's the context: Curtain Falls on Shopping Festival. Yup, that sure flashes a floodlight on the issue. Smack on the dot.

Meanwhile, the rest of the world says the Arab and Muslim world lacks leadership, time and time again. It's a hard and fast rule: Muslims are a decapitated community. Refer to Link TV - Who Speaks for Islam? - with Shaykh Hamza Yusuf... - Streams. As this is discussed, editorials couldn't be more insightful!

In the editorial of 13th February, 2005, the editor, while frothing at the mouth praising General Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al Maktoum, says finally and once again a brilliant and prolific Arab leader, spearheading the cause of the moderate world at large, points out what nobody before has known: bringing about a solution to Palestine should put a dent into terrorism. Absolutely mind-boggling.

General Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid is famous (infamous) for hiring dirt-cheap labour from the Indian sub-continent to work on risky projects like his famed Burj Al Arab, the tallest 7-star hotel on the planet (something to boast about for the desert Arab), where worker death tolls were unacceptably high and compensation unacceptably non-existent. Yes, the same General Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid whose legendary "vision" and influence in the UAE Supreme Council oversees systematic discrimination against people of third-world origin for people of first-world origin, regardless of degree or experience ("Forget the Experience. It's the Passport that Counts!").