Alvaro Vargas Llosa (sim, o filho do Mario...que Mario?)

...aquele que perdeu as eleições para o Fujimori e que é um escritor famoso. E aqui, um bom artigo (ele escreve bem) sobre o mundo árabe. Tem algo a ver com Economia? Bem, acho que não. Mas você não vai me dizer que só vem aqui ler para saber das últimas sobre a nossa ciência, né?

The Independent Institute | Op-ed | Surgical Ordnance, by Alvaro Vargas Llosa

The history Europeans and Americans are taught ignores the eight centuries of Muslim civilization before the Ottoman Empire was born. Only Europe’s Dark Ages are mentioned, as if history had stopped at the end of the Roman Empire and restarted with the birth of the nation-state and the cultural Renaissance. But history did not stop. The Arab and Muslim world, largely under the very principles of freedom the Pentagon is seeking to export surgically to Iraq, experienced . . . shock and awe. The Renaissance and the "discovery" of America—and therefore Pentagon surgeons—are the children of the Muslim civilization.

It is actually misleading to speak of a “Muslim” or “Arab” civilization. Although both were major components, the principal characteristic of that civilization spanning across three continents was diversity—all races, cultures and faiths coexisted peacefully. A better term is “Saracen,” the old one used by Europeans.