THE WEALTH OF THE GOLDSTEINS STOLEN BY THE THIEVES

BY

Moin Ansari 

There was a wealthy man who had worked hard all his life to build a nice home for his family. His father, his grandfather and his great grand father had all worked hard to build a home, a factory and they had bought a gold mine.  The hooligans on the street hated Mr. Goldstein. For years they tried to get to Mr. Goldstein, but could not. Then one day they were able to get into the house through craftiness and cunning and by making a big knife. They all ganged together bought guns and one day took over the Goldstein palace. They then looted his home all day long, and took the money from his factory and took over his gold mine and used it to pay and build for their own homes…………………….this went on for days, and weeks Then one day. the robbers decided to leave.

They forced the Goldsteins into heroin and took off with his daughters. They divided up the beautiful palace into small rooms and handed it over to the gardener and the cook and the other street urchins. They then made the old security guard the head of the mansion and kept on providing him with guns and ammunition to keep the Goldsteins into check. They kept some rooms for themselves to be used as storage and visit.

They gave one miserly room to be shared by the entire Goldstein family. The destroyed the factory and there was nothing left in the Gold mine…all of it transferred to the thieves. The thieves prohibited the Goldsteins from ever owning a gun or dealing with Gold or making silk in their factories A week later the thieves wrote an article in the newspaper informing the Goldsteins how poor and lazy they were and their poverty was because of their ineptitude and inherent laziness and they should learn to build modern factories like them and why don’t they educate themselves properly and learn the civilized way.  

Most of the Goldsteins were good people and they began to build their lives in earnest. One went berserk and tried to kill the thieves who had stolen his Rolex watch and raped his daughter and was showing off the panties to the entire town, bragging about his modernity, civilization and education. The thieves then came and killed two members of the Goldstein family blaming them for all the murders in the town. …………..actually the thievery had went of for years……………….in actual fact this went on for five centuries………….and about fifteen generations……………… The “Goldsteins” of course were the Mughal rulers of India and the thieves were the British.

Emperor Jehangir was the wealthiest man on earth and the East India Trading Company tried for decades to get trading rights to India. Columbus was seeking a route to wealthy India with her treasures. He was able to sail to India because the treasury of Cordoba was stolen from the last ruler of Spain and the money was given to Columbus to sail. The ships were built by the money from the treasure of Cordoba.  

The Godsteins were also the Ottomans rulers and the thieves with the British and the French. The Godsteins were the rulers of Indonesia and the thieves were the Dutch. The Goldsteins were the rulers of Algeria and the thieves were the French. The Godsteins were the rulers of the Philippines the thieves were the Spanish……………..Vietnam, Ghana, Nigeria…you get the picture! When I see comparative economic studies of Spain and the Philippines I cringe. When I see GDP comparisons of Indonesia and the Dutch, I wonder.

When I see economic comparisons of India and the British I want to ask, what belongs to whom that is kept in the Tower of London. Even when I visit the Louvre, I am amazed at the affluence and see the stolen treasures and wonder who the real owners are. The silk factories of India were burnt so that Manchester could ship the cheap cotton. The artisans had their hands cut off. Heroin was grown in the fertile fields of Pakistan and shipped to China forcing them to consume heroin. Gold was then carted off from China to London. The Chinese fought and lost the First Opium War and the Second Opium War to the British, and were only able to regain a scintilla of their sovereignty when Mao and the Communists threw out the Japanese the Sun Yet Sen. The Chinese and the Indians were luck, the South Americas had their entire populations decimated.

Today when Pakistan tries to sell cheap T-shirts to the West it faces quotas. William Saffire wrote an article on this in which he said, if the USA lifter trade barriers against Pakistan, the country would be able to sell 6 Billion Dollars worth of more T-shirts and bed-sheets to the USA alone and the children would go to private schools not madarsas, and the fundamentalism would die out. The same story is repeated all over the third world. 

When I read Bernard Lewis in “What went wrong with Islam” I wonder which world we are living in. What went wrong with Islam is the same thing that went wrong with Vietnamese Buddhism, Indian Hinduism, Mozambican tribalism, Chinese agnosticism, and Kenyan Christianity. When I read Pipes who repeatedly defines that there is no cause and affect between terrorism and occupation, I wonder why the Indians and the Chinese are so xenophobic and the Venezuelans still are so anti-Western.

When Chavez and Castro speak up against Exxon is it because they are scared that their sugar and oil will be stolen from them again. When Pakistan explodes a Nuclear device and Iran tries to get one, is it because they want to destroy he world or is it because they want to save their crown jewels?  When I hear about how bad the “shariyah” (almost exactly like the “halikah”) is made out to be, I wonder if Hasdai Shaprut thought it was bad, because he was the Prime Minister and the commander of the armed forces for 30 years in a Muslim country in the Middle Ages when Jews were not even allowed to live in London and Paris. I also wonder how and why Moses Maimonides thought that the “shariya” was so good when he was copying “Perplexed” from the Muslim philosophers of the time. The “shariya” is just as good or as bad as they think it is. If the “shariya” is used to discriminate, maim and stone, it is bad. However it is none of that, just like the “halakah” is not just crucifixion, amputation, and transfer; and Christianity is not just Crusades run in the name of Jesus Christ.

When I hear onward Christian soldiers being sung in the churches I cringe a bit, but then I sing along, because I know the singers do not want to take over Baghdad and Tehran again! 10,000 priests in Baghdad today are there for a picnic?  Lest I be blamed for living in the past, and “what have you done for me lately“, let me remind everyone that Muslims have elephant memories. That is why Muslims memorize the Quran and Muslims teach their children history, It has only been 50 years since the Goldsteins got back from the incarceration and they only recently got rid of the squatters.

Is it wrong for them to think of the centuries of glory that they had had and how recent the thievery has been. In real historical terms it has been only a blink of independence and centuries of slavery. Already a few Muslim countries and few third world countries have made it. In the next century, it is obvious that it is going to be multi-polar world. The Muslim world is vibrant and vivacious and growing. There is nothing to fear and nothing will keep them down. We all need to celebrate the humanity of ONE HUMAN CIVILIZATION.

We oppose both Samuel Huntington and Laden when they talk about the clash of civilizations. Those who think that Abu Ghraib and hated Mongolian contingent may intimidate the denizens of Mesopotamia and remind some of what Halaku Khan did to Baghdad in the 13th century, may want to visit the Baghdad British cemetery that holds 30,000 British soldiers in Baghdad. Britain made a hasty retreat within a few years of “liberating” Baghdad. We learned this in Vietnam and also in the Philippines where 40,000 bodies were shipped back after we had annexed the Asian paradise. We liberated Nicaragua six times. How many times will be liberate Venezuela. Already Chavez is making new noises.

The Europeans and the Israelis know that occupation does not work. That is why they are telling us about this. According to Seymour Hersh, Ehud Barak informed Vice President Dick Cheney that “you have lost the war in Iraq, only the size of your humiliation is left“. Before that becomes a reality, and before the Latinos and Africans join the Muslim militants in a global World War Four, we need to declare victory and bring my sons and daughters home! Occupation and empire building does not work. Something to think about!