Sunday, July 09, 2006

The Arab Dichotomy

The Guggenheim Foundation announced that it will build in Abu Dhabi, its largest museum to date. The museum will cost $200 million dollars.

A google of the United Arab Emirates, Dubai, Bahrain, Qatar, and Kuwait will reveal Persian Gulf countries awash in petro-dollars which are "burning holes in their pockets." The dichotomy of the Arab world and Islam is an enigma.

One brother is advancing a backward fundamentalism funded by the other whose oil dollars are also buying western amenities and materialism. Undoubtedly some in these oil sheikdoms are financing jihad with the tacit understanding that it will be conducted elsewhere. This is a myopic policy that could lead to great ruin if the Islamists prevail. How long can Islamists tolerate decadence, hedonism and harems even if they are kept behind closed doors and silken curtains?

How long will this symbiotic relationship continue and how much misery and devastation will it inflict on the greater Islamic world before that world realizes the madness of the hypocrisy?

1 comment:

Tiger said...

Very well stated, Whit!

Which part of the museum will hold the tribute to the holocaust, I wonder? - or, photos from the Arab support of Nazis? (neither likely)

You think maybe some Guggenheim folks are spinning in their graves?