Editor,
Arab leaders also have poor track records in the Middle East.
Lately the catch word is “occupation” and the “West.” Funny enough, let us check the history of Arab leadership and occupations of others.
There is a long history of brutal Arab occupation of other’s lands and forced cultural change. Such is the case from west to east: the indigenous Berber populations of northwest and north central Africa (modern Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya) the ancient pre-Islamic, pre-Arabic Coptic Christian populations of north east Africa (Egypt, Sudan), the Black African populations of central Africa (virtually every country in central Africa had significant Arab conquest, evidenced by the 20-50 percent Islamic populations now there), the indigenous Jewish, Phoenician, Assyrian and Kurdish populations of the Levant (Israel, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq), etc.
Simply read the papers, turn on the television. Look around you. Look at the non-religious Muslims in the middle east: secular Muslims, Jews and Christians murdered en masse from Iran to Lebanon to Tunisia.
Not a religious enough Muslim who is gay? No problem, the leadership can fix that with some rope and a crane in downtown Tehran, as seen over the past few years. Not Muslim at all? No problem, we can fix that with some Easter truck bombs outside your church in Alexandria, Egypt, as seen over the past few years.
The list goes on and on and on. Some folks like to point the finger at others, seemingly oblivious that their own background ideology and culture, adopted or inherited, is actually the biggest target of their own complaint parade.
Pardon the cliches, but such folks are classic examples of the pot calling the kettle black, or those in glass houses who incredulously throw stones at others.
Chris Rodriguez
UNM Alumnus
