Submitted by H R Thomas(Australia), Aug 30, 2002 at 17:30
Soon after the collapse of Communism, an Australian political commentator named B A Santamaria wrote that the next enemy of the West would be Islam. I lived for over 6 years in Egypt and Saudi Arabia, and 2 years in Singapore (which has a large Muslim population) and was not persuaded he was wrong.
Indeed, Singapore feels so strongly about Islam that it will not allow her pilots and similar combatants to be Muslims. The government is concerned as to where a Singaporean Muslim's ultimate loyalty would lay should Singapore get into conflict with its Muslim neighbours of Indonesia and/or Malaysia. There is no secret about this policy - Malaysia's Prime Minister commented on it recently.
The hangover of multiculturalism and political correctness seems to have affected the commonsense of the West (but not the Singaporeans) in many ways. I refer to the provision of the Koran to the captives at Guantanamo Bay...
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