Letters to the Editor [Archives:2002/41/Letters to the Editor]
Outrage at chamber
The elections that took recently at the Chambers of Commerce and Industry were a positive sign of the involvement and interest of traders and businessmen in the democratic process.
Unfortunately, what the chairman of the Sanaa governorate chamber did in assaulting his commercial deputy with his weapon is an outrage.
This threat caused dismay and anger among the chamber’s members and the business community as a whole.
I call upon all merchants and the Chambers of Commerce General Federation in all governorates to condemn this action.
It contradicts our national goal to bring about a prosperous future for Yemen.
Ali Ali al-Shibami
Why does it take a 9-11 to move people to help?
Concerned citizens took their cheque books out faster than the Twin Towers fell on 9/11, raising more than US $2.4 billion to assist families touched by this terrorist tragedy. President George W. Bush called these attacks an “act of war.”A greater tragedy, though, is that many more people die each year in Africa from acts of war and receive no compensation at all. Is an American life worth a million times more than that of an African?
Individuals who are able to give don’t, believing their small contribution will do little. It only takes a little, however, by many, to do a lot.
Universal primary education is a good start. Estimates place the cost at around US $8 billion a year. This represents about four days worth of global military spending, or half the amount American parents spend on toys each year.
It is refreshing, then, to hear about Canadians like Riaz Abdullah and his school, the Canadian College of Business and Computers (CCBC). Riaz has been providing scholarships to Third-World students so they can study IT in Canada.
Now, the CCBC is leading an initiative to provide online education to as many as 92 million African students at no cost to them. Governments and business should be supporting efforts like this and perhaps we’ll never experience another 9-11 again.
Sean Mason, Toronto-Canada
[email protected]
The new crusaders
We as moderate Muslims thank the US for fighting Islamic fundamentalists such as al-Qaida and the Taliban. We are with the US 100% in its fight against terrorism and to seek justice and rid the world of such evils.
But isn’t time also to fight and curb the power and influence of Christen and Jewish Zionist fundamentalists who used and still using the might and power of the US government to implement theirs fundamentalist views, prophecies and agenda?
Those Christian and Jewish Zionists have succeeded in creating in 1948 their own “Taliban” government in Palestine and called it “Israel.”
As much as our Islamic fundamentalists do scare the West, Christen and Jewish fundamentalists are scaring and terrorizing us in the Muslim World, particularly in the Middle East.
What we are witnessing nowadays is a new war waged by President Bush and his war cabinet against any one opposes his Taliban “Israel”. For example when we examine his “axes of evil” Iraq, Iran, and North Korea, we find that none of these countries does actually threaten the US, but in fact pose a threat to the security of Israel. Iraq and Iran pose a direct threat while North Korea sells weapons to the other two.
President Bush reads his Bible and interprets it fundamentally as much as when Bin Laden interprets his Quran. Unfortunately President Bush will risk world peace to implement his Biblical views in the Middle East without regard for international law and respect for human life.
President Bush, in my opinion, is more dangerous than Bin Laden because he heads the most powerful country in the world and he is a fundamentalist.
Fahad Salamah, Abu Dhabi, UAE
[email protected]
Americans will protest the war
I would like to applaud the Yemen Times for their insightful and balanced editorials. It is comforting to know that there is at least a few in the Middle East that doesn’t blindly hate the United States. I would also like to say to the Yemeni people that when the time comes for war, many Americans will protest in the streets.
Iraq may sponsor terrorism but, until it is proven beyond any doubt America must simply wait. What will be won if we defeat Iraq only to enrage an entire region? Islam must also bear some of the blame for the current situation. For a religion to teach hate and intolerance is a shame to the very God they embrace. Then to be indignant when the nation they attack strikes back at any that may threaten it makes no sense. So, to Muslims, try to understand America before you hate blindly. And to America, put away your weapons of war, we are falling from the greatest nation to the most hated.
Michael Brown
[email protected]
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