They say a little knowledge is a dangerous thing. Ian Hunt’s letter in Saturday’s Adver gives some measure of this.
He refers to something he calls Islamic religious group “WAHHAB1” . Looks more like the licence plate of a Saudi monarch’s Rolls to me.
Seriously; he must be referring to Wahhabism. He says it is a Shia group. It isn’t. It is Sunni.
He says it is ancient. It isn’t. It has its roots in an eighteenth century movement.
It became institutionalised through an alliance with the Saud family which the British state decided was its best bet in the region for suppressing its people and delivering oil.
It was one way we chose to show our love for democracy.
Another was repeatedly cancelling the results of elections that took place elsewhere in the Middle East if we didn’t like the result, which we usually didn’t.
When Ian Hunt swears his allegiance to the British state presumably he will cross his fingers when he gets to the bit about supporting the Wahhabi Saudi regime against its people.
Mr Hunt’s statement about the causes of the World’s problems is daft, especially when we ask who has actually done most of the invading, occupying, supporting dictatorships, bombing and robbing in the world. ISIS is a morbid symptom not a cause.
What is really offensive in Ian Hunt’s letter isn’t the woeful fracture with reality.
The Nazis in Germany invented a great Jewish conspiracy to take over the World. Jews couldn’t really be German they screamed. And Ian Hunt’s letter reeks more than a little of this kind of narrative.
Peter Smith Woodside Avenue Swindon
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