The politics of dominating by street voilence

Gates of Vienna is a blog that derives its name from the siege of Christian Vienna by Islamic forces in 1683. It comments on Islamic terrorism in Europe.

Most people do not realise that Europe also has suffered Islamic terrorism - though not as much as India.

In fact, the fact that Spain remained 800 years under Islamic rule and returned back to being a Christian country used to be quoted as an example by early Hindutva leaders like Shri Munje to spread the idea that just because India had been under Islamic rulers for ~ 1000 years does not mean we could not revert back to being an Hindu country.

A recent post at Gates of Vienna mentions about Islamic protests against Israeli action in Gaza in Antwerp, Belgium - going out of hand and "misguided youth" targeting the rich Jewish settlements and rioting.

If you might recall Antwerp is the heart of worlds' Diamond trading industry. The diamond trade is concentrated in hands of Jewish and Gujarati Jain merchants.

How similar it is to stuff in India / Pakistan / Bangladesh and elsewhere.

Babri gets broken in India - so Muslims in Indonesia / UAE / Malaysia / Bangladesh / Pakistan abduct and rape Hindu women, loot Hindu property, kill Hindu men. Of course breaking Hindu temples in Kashmir and Bamyian (in Afganistan) is acceptable since that belongs to Kaafirs.

And if you have forgotten the Moplah riots in 1921, let me refresh the memory of those.

The "Khilafat" movement - supported by Non Cooperation Movement was one of those Hindu-Muslim unity experiments carried out by Mahatma Gandhi. The Khilafat movement - if you will recall - was launched world over amongst Muslims to protest against the end of Caliphate in Turkey.

And the Moplahs - the Muslims in Kerela - used these protests to kill / rape Hindus. Thousands of Hindus suffered. The areas of Mallapuram today were the hotbeds of Islamic terrorism then - they still are today.

Such was the wanton destruction, pillage, destruction and rape of Hindus (almost 100, 000 by many estimates) that Mrs. Annie Besant stated:

"They Moplahs murdered and plundered abundantly, and killed or drove away all Hindus who would not apostatise.

Somewhere about a lakh (100,000) of people were driven from their homes with nothing but their clothes they had on, stripped of everything...

Malabar has taught us what Islamic rule still means, and we do not want to see another specimen of the Khilafat Raj in India."^[2]

Why were the Hindus killed ? After all the protest was against British action in Turkey.

The crime of these Hindus ? That they were Hindus.

So, there is a very textbook kind of approach where in non Muslims are intimidated by street violence - Europe / India, 1921 or 2009 - it is just the same. If you are not a Muslim, then be willing to die.

Forget this at your own peril.