I wrote earlier about the role of the late British prime minister Margaret Thatcher and her role in the rise of radical Islam in late 20th century. Here is some more graphic evidence of Thatcher socializing with the mujahideen.
Interestingly, no women were present during Thatcher’s encounter with the Jihadists. She met with them separately. But the sexual apartheid, with women visibly having a second class status, doesn’t seem to have bothered Thatcher one bit, even though at the time she was probably the most powerful woman in the world. Clearly, she had bigger fish to fry: whoever care about the subjugation of women when you have a lesson to teach to the Soviet Union. Of course, in the UK anything like this would have lead to great outrage. But since the victims happened to be Afghan women, as opposed to British women, that made it just fine, since that was “their culture”. Which is why I see moral relativism as a form of racism.
The story was covered recently by the Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, with this quote from the Time magazine:
Lost in a Cold War fog, Thatcher, along with the U.S., supported the military government of General Mohammed Zia ul-Haq in Pakistan, helping prop up a South Asian generalissimo now seen as one of the chief architects of the Islamist radicalization of his country. Following the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, Zia became the point person for the Anglo-American fightback; under his watch, the Afghan mujahedin bloomed and the seeds of a new era of terrorist militancy were planted. During a 1981 visit to Pakistan, Thatcher delivered a speech hailing Islamabad’s efforts. The full transcript can be found here — in it, Thatcher doesn’t even pay lip service to the democratic aspirations of the Pakistani people.
Today, there is no shortage of problems stemming from radical Islam in the UK. From underage marriages to homophobia to Sharia patrols to sexual segregation to censorship disguised as “civility”, its fingerprints are everywhere. And as a significant number of British Muslims are of Pakistani descent, it very well could be that radicalization of Pakistan under General Zia, countenanced by Thatcher, has contributed to these problem.
You reap what you sow.
