Gianni de Michelis, Italy's ambassador-designate-at-large
for developing countries and former foreign minister,
declared that what happened in New York and Washington
on Sept. 11 was not an act of terrorism but a declaration of war.
''A war aimed at blocking the process of globalization and its logic
of integration, cooperation and peaceful coexistence;
a war that seeks to divide the world again into good and bad,
between ethnic and religious identities.''
He says that we are dealing with a ''virtual caliph'' who believes
he can become ''real'' through an audacious challenge he hopes
will stir dispossessed Muslims everywhere, as Muhammad did when,
in the year zero of Hegira, he launched a challenge to the chiefs
of the Arab tribes for supreme leadership, ''provoking the holy war
that unsettled and conquered the world at that time.''
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Sat May 11 2002 - 17:44:16 MDT