There’s a low but growing tide of hostility out there toward the Saudis. A lot of the money trail supporting the Taliban and al Qaeda seems to be leading back to Saudi Arabia. And more and more evidence is coming out that, whether through cultural schizophrenia or through an attempt to counter fundamentalist forces in their own regime, the Saudi royal family is seems more than willing to play both sides of the modernism/reactionary fence. A number of folks are beginning to ask when the Bush “You’re With Us, Or Against Us” Doctrine is going to be put into play.
Not to address that directly, but here’s an interesting bit about how Saudi reconstruction crews in Bosnia are demolishing historic religious architecture they consider idolatrous and blaphemous, and rebuilding it in their own fashion.
At the Beg mosque, the Saudis ordered the Ottoman tilework and painted wall decorations stripped off and discarded and had the whole building redone, as Riedlmayer puts it “in gleaming hospital white, even the minaret slathered in white plaster.” He says that in scores of villages, the Saudis had war-damaged but restorable historic Ottoman-style Bosnian mosques demolished and redone Saudi-style. All of the colorful Balkan-Muslim interior decor was eliminated, and separate entrances were added to segregate women.
Imagine, if you will, if the US were doing this ….
(I have to confess, that with my twisted Historian values, this bothers me a lot worse than some other things going on ….)
(Via InstaPundit)