On "Demonization of Muslims" and so on

Dear Editor,
If books are only books, and  facts are facts, why so much fuss about a book? One fifth of the humanity holds it for holy. Are they evil? Is the book evil? All this sounds very simplistic. We'd rather make a historical analysis of what is going on in the world now. I can perfectly understand that the world public opinion is becoming alarmed, as we read every day in the newspapers that there are terrorist attacks, more and more inhuman. The milestone reached in Besla is all the more revolting. It is perhaps the most vicious fact  I have heard of in the last years.

Are we going to condemn one billion people for that? NO. Are we going to condemn their religion, because there are in their holy book things we do not like? NO. There are many things we do not like in all the other foundational books, which are the basis of all civilizations and cultures. And that is our human richness.

I agree there are some intolerant sects, like the Wahabbis in Chechnia, who are racist and supremacist, and who hate to death all those who do not agree with them. They are Fascists. Are they Muslims? I think they have kidnapped a reading of the Muslim faith for their political ends. These terrorist sects which threaten innocent people must be isolated and condemned by the rest of the world, and by the Muslims in the first place. The ominous actions perpetrated on behalf of the Chechen secession stress one thing : they have been so successfully isolated by the Chechen people, and the rest of the Caucasian peoples, that they descend into madness, as they are unable to organize a real popular struggle for their purposes.

Terrorism will never be defeated without going to the roots of the problem. This doesn't mean to give in to the extremists' milenarist demands. In Chechnia, the political and economic reforms must be speeded up. In Iraq, the aggression must stop and the occupying forces must withdraw the sooner the better, and Israel must abide by the international law and recognize the Palestinians ' right to live in peace and to return home.

There are many local conflicts, and each deserves a different approach, but from a global point of view, it is the ethnic cleansing perpetrated by Israel against the indigenous population of Palestine, by stealing their land, enclosing them in ghettoes and pushing them to exile, the FACT which inflames  the most the Muslim street. If we do not want more terrorists in the world, instead of blaming a civilization and a religion, we should persuade Israel and her allies, especially the US, to endeavour to make a just peace in the Middle East.

Enrique Ferro, Brussels