Transatlantic Politics

From the latest "What We Not Know" Newsletter:

On April 12, the UK Daily Mail reported that British schools have started to drop teaching about the Holocaust from their curriculum in order not to offend Muslims, many of whom deny it ever happened. "There is also resistance to tackling the 11^th-century Crusades," continues the article, "where Christians fought Muslim armies for control of Jerusalem–because lessons often contradict what is taught in local mosques." Falsifying or omitting parts of history just to appease a religious minority? What might seem bizarre to Americans is meanwhile common practice in European countries, especially Great Britain, whose 1.6 million Muslims represent the largest minority religion.

In recent years, more and more countries have started to not just react to but anticipate Muslim sensitivities and nip in the bud anything that might even slightly disturb them. The results range from the weird to the ludicrous… some examples.

Pigs

To Muslims, pigs are dirty, offensive animals whose flesh must not be eaten. But abstaining from serving pork to Muslims is apparently not enough. In 2003, a West Yorkshire head teacher, whose school is attended by 60% Pakistanis and Indians, most of them Muslims, banned children's books about pigs from the classroom. In 2005, British banks stopped giving out piggy banks to their customers. Politicians in West Midlands, UK, banned the display of pig-related items in municipal offices, including toys, porcelain figures, calendars, and a tissue box featuring Winnie the Pooh and Piglet. In Amsterdam, Netherlands, an elementary school stopped lessons about living on a farm because Muslim students started to demolish the classroom when the pig came up for discussion. Even the die-hard Chinese government is caving in. In February, when China celebrated the beginning of the Year of the Pig, the Chinese government decreed that no pigs should be displayed or mentioned in the ceremonies, so as not to offend the country's 21 million Muslims. A hint: even though Muslims represent only 2% of China's population, China gets most of its oil from Muslim countries in the Middle East, Central Asia and Africa, with Sudan being its biggest supplier.

Flags

In 2005, a new CNN poll asked: "Is it time for England to change its national flag?" What initiated the debate was a comment by Chris Doyle, director of the Council for the Advancement of Arab-British Understanding, who stated that the red cross of St. George in the center of the flag was an insensitive reminder of the Crusades.

According to CNN, "Doyle added that it was now time for England to find a new flag and a patron saint who is 'not associated with our bloody past and one we can all identify with.'"

The Belgian Brussels Journal reported last year that some Austrian Muslim soldiers refused to salute the Austrian flag, turning their backs on it. Instead of disciplining the soldiers, "an imam was summoned to issue a fatwa stating that Muslims are allowed to salute the Austrian flag."

What's more, "Austrian Army officers have complained that Muslim conscripts–about 3.5% of the Austrian armed forces–are unable to do most jobs because they have permission to pray 5 times a day, no matter what job they are performing at the time. Some who attend Friday prayers stay away for the rest of the day."

The Austrian defense minister's solution: hire imams as permanent chaplains in order to mediate future conflicts.

Food & Drink

In 2005, fast-food giant Burger King was forced to withdraw its BK Cones from the British market after one Muslim customer complained that a design on the label of the ice cream looked like the word "Allah" in Arabic script.

In Denmark, a traditional Christmas treat called "Jewish Cookies" elicited protests and boycotts from Muslim consumers. Ole Poulsen, head of the public food consumer department, said renaming the cookies was "a possibility."

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In the aftermath of the Bosnian conflict, Europe has both Iranian political elements and Al Qaeda affiliates just a short train ride from Vienna. This short video by Sky News summarizes the situation pretty well. Experts estimate that between 1,000 and 6,000 foreign fighters made their way to Bosnia and Kosovo to fight alonside fellow Muslims. Many of these fighters were battle-hardened veterans of the Soviet-Afghan conflict. 

Al Qaeda's presence is of course a politically-loaded issue and the truth has no doubt been skewed in the process; Serbs tend to over-exaggerate the problem and many Bosnian and Kosovar Muslims deny it exists. But discoveries like this last month in Novi Pazar, show that there is legitimate reason for concern.

The growth of Sunni fundamentalism in the Balkans was encouraged (in some instances, directly supported) by Saudi Arabia in an effort to counter-balance the influence gained by Iran (see my previous post ).  So far, nothing suggests that these influences have been put in check, making now an especially absurd time for the EU to take a lower profile in the region.

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The Iranian Cultural Center in Sarajevo is a busy place. As I wrote the other day, the story in Bosnia is far from over. Among many other problems, Iran's continued presence in the region is a destabilizing influence that may undermine both local politics and European security.

When the Bosnian conflict heated up in the early 1990s, a geopolitical vacuum formed as the EU and US rushed to bury their heads in the sand. While the international community debated the merits of intervention, Bosnian Muslims faced a well armed and organized Serbian militia — a disadvantage further exacerbated by the UN arms embargo. But other countries were in the market for friends and were happy to pay in guns. Iran in particular was more than willing to help the Bosnians even the odds.

Iran's arm shipments first arrived in Croatia, which was also outmatched by Serbian hardware. For instance, in 1992, the CIA reported a Iranian Air 747 at the Zagreb airport, which was loaded with small arms, ammunition, anti-tank weapons and other military supplies. After the truce between Croatia and Bosnia, Iran used Croatia as a middleman to pass weapons on to the ABiH — with Zagreb skimming 30% to 50% in the process.

A number of countries were uncomfortable with situation, perhaps most importantly Saudi Arabia. The Saudis had been applying pressure on the Clinton administration to both intervene on the Muslims behalf and squeeze Tehran out of the region.

On the domestic front, Congress was not happy that the Clinton administration had allowed Iran to play a free hand. The House of Representatives International Relations Committee hearing on the matter kicked off with Chairman Gilman asking the Ambassador to Croatia, Peter Galbraith, to "…please explain to the committee why the administration did not inform the American people, the Congress, even our allies of its decision to permit Iran, the world's leading terrorist state, a rogue state, to ship arms to Bosnia and thus gain a major foothold in the Balkans."

The combination of the foreign and domestic pressure eventually led the US to supply weapons directly to Bosnia through nighttime air-drops. The wisdom of this approach was questionable because it didn't address the Bosnians lack of military organization and merely fueled weapons trafficking after the conflict. Furthermore, the US supplied arms had negligible impact on the war's outcome and were too late to abrogate Iranian influence.

In the end, the reaction to Bosnia was an absolute transatlantic foreign policy debacle, that by some miracle, did not end in total disaster — though not for lack of trying.

*A lot of the background info in this post comes from Cees Wiebes book, Intelligence and the War in Bosnia, 1992-1995 .

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Europol released its FIRST TERRORISM REPORT EVER this week, stating shocking news:

Terrorism is not a new phenomenon in the EU. Nevertheless, in the twenty-first century, the threat posed by terrorism to Member States is more serious than ever.

 It's amazing..it took the EU almost 6 years since 9/11, 3 since the Madrid bombings and 2 since the London Tube attacks to come up with a paper on terorism.

It indicates that 498 attacks were carried out by Islamist, separatist, left-wing and anarchist terrorist groups in eleven Member States in 2006. A total of 706 individuals suspected of terrorism offences were arrested in 15 Member States in 2006. This report for the first time collates all statistical data on the terrorist attacks and plots in the EU as well as provides details on the where, whom and how of terrorist activities. 

Yey! way to go! better later than never…

The small number of suspects arrested for dissemination of propaganda may indicate the lack of legal basis and difficulty in investigating these types of crimes. The number of acquittals may reflect legal challenges Member States face in terrorism trials such as a lack of capacity in both the investigation and prosecution stage to deal with the often huge amount of paper and electronic evidence, as well as the fact that thecross-border nature of the crime requires costly and time-consuming travel and cooperation.

 Hot spots for home-grown or imported terrorists: France,  Spain and UK. They "are most severely affected by terrorism
as concluded from the number of terrorist attacks and arrested suspects as well as the average penalties."

At the other end, terrorism-free (or at least so far) countries are: Estonia, Finland, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania,
Slovakia and Slovenia.

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