Islam And The West-Getting Back To The Basics
16 January, 2006
By Ahson Saeed Hasan
`The West does not want independence based on Islamic thoughts for Islamic countries`, former Iranian President Hashemi Rafsanjani once said. `They are confronting an important movement, and they do not like it`.
Indeed, in the post 9/11 world, finding a kind word about Islamic fundamentalism is an impossible adventure. An Op-Ed piece in the New York Times characterized this important movement as `rage, religious fury, holy war and political hypocrisy`. And that was well before the explosion at the World Trade Center in the early 1990`s, attributed to Muslim fundamentalists.
Quite apart from the profound injustice done to millions of law-abiding Muslims, equating the religion of Islam and the fundamentalistic tendencies associated with terrorism closes minds at a time when the Western world, especially the American public, badly needs to understand this important world movement, a wave of change that is now transforming the entire texture of global affairs.
To whatever extent it may ultimately prevail in the vast area stretching from Morocco to Mindanao in the Philippines, and in the several former Soviet republics, Islamic fundamentalism is a vital and growing force.
In its various manifestations, strangely, despite all the negativism that has been spread around and Osama bin Laden`s nefarious ways, Islam is well on its way to become the second largest American religious grouping, after Christianity and ahead of Judaism.
Washington will have to come to terms with Islamic fundamentalism, not in a compromising but in a `negotiated` manner. What should be the ideal grounds to start?
First, there is a need to understand that Islam is not only a non-violent and peaceful faith, just like Christianity and Judaism, it is also a politico-legal system and a way of life. Islam is not what Al-Qaeda professes. Its not about killing those who are not `considered` Muslims; its not about `judgmentalism` or arbitrariness.
Condemning Islam to the pitched darkness of the Al-Qaeda confines has only gifted the West replicas of the organization, a mushroom growth of self-proclaimed Bin Ladens and Mullah Omers, the `re-incarnated` messiahs of a `floating movement` to `liberate` the Muslim world from the subjugation of the `non-believers`.
Apart from Al-Qaeda, in Hamas, Israel was and is faced with an uncompromising `maximalist approach`, that of total liberation of the sacred land of Palestine as demanded by God, who will `repay martyrs for this cause with everlasting life`.
In contrast to the somewhat, at times, compromising Palestine Liberation Organization, Islamic fundamentalism as we see and experience it, is a formidable opponent, a highway of devastatingly superfluous radical ideas where there are no limits to insanity. The difference between the PLO`s approach and that of the fundamentalists has to do with how each views the West.
Starting from a position, real and perceived, of inferiority, the Middle East has been trying to come to terms with the West. Its coping device was imitation, perhaps most evident in Western-style nationalism and the evolution of national states, complete with ideologies, parliamentarians, anthems, and flags. Imitative Arab nationalism found its culmination in Gamel Abdel Nasser. Its low point - Nasser`s defeat by Israel in 1967. A great many Arabs concluded that they had been following the wrong model. They could never be successful trying to be what they were not ¡V a point recently acknowledged by US Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice in a somewhat different manner. Rice said: ¡§For 60 years... the United States pursued stability at the expense of democracy in the Middle East, and we achieved neither. Now we are taking a different course.¡¨
In the same way, in 1978, in Iran, the Westernizing Shah was overthrown. `We no longer have to be imitating America,` the Islamic revolutionaries cried. `We can be ourselves.` The basic question, `Who am I?` is answered by many in the Muslim countries through a return to their religio-nationalistic roots. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad`s recent election is an reassertion of the Iranian self, the nations expression of what it actually stands for and expects from its leaders, going forward.
Why the deep anger, the rage directed against the United States? One apparent reason maybe the American culture, pervasive and appealing, that the fundamentalists, no matter which part of the world they find themselves in, are trying to expel from deep within themselves and their societies.
Yet, as they reject this culture they are forced to recognize its superiority in many important respects. Finding it hard to break the shackles, the continuing dependence of those around them deepens their anger. Although they are all against the culture`s recreational sex, widespread alcoholism and drug abuse as `Western decadence`, yet their own respective environments are, in a way, `paralyzed` by the same damning culture. By contrast, these religiously inspired Islamists hold themselves to be freshly inspired to decency.
Islamic fundamentalism has, believe it or not, its own very positive side. Its medical ethics in the poorest parts of Cairo, for instance, evidencing in a practical way the duty of Muslims to care for the poor are a source of popularity and respect. Islamic law, the Sharia, or `path to salvation`, is the sum of duties required by God of human beings, with respect not only to God, but also to one`s fellows. It is the infusion of divine purpose into human relationships that distinguishes Islamic law from the secular (but yet caring) jurisprudence of Western countries.
The restoration of the Sharia, as the operating national legal code, is a cardinal feature of Islamic fundamentalism. However, the fact that propagators of the movement so keenly want the system to be implemented, it is rather realistic to think that many of the main tenets of the Sharia are still fixed in the 10th century norms and traditions. As a social statement of ethical principle, without doubt, the Sharia is hard to surpass.
How, then, can the United States come to terms with this vital and important movement? Trying out these basic steps might not be a bad idea:
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Work hard on the flashpoints. For example, the longer the Arab Israeli peace process is delayed, the stronger will be the influence of the extremists. For whatever reason Washington goes out of the way for Israel, all and sundry acknowledge that the Bush administration has overdone many of the previous administrations to favor Israel. United States must provide Mahmoud Abbas with the adequate diplomatic support and effect a balanced approach in order to really move the peace process in the right direction.
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The Bush administrations Iran policy is least impressive. Threats and intimidation may work on some countries but this hardly holds true for Iran – a battle-hardened nation that has faced years of sanctions, yet, has survived well enough to regain goodwill in most of the Western world. A persistent across-the-table effort is required to get around Tehran to give up its nuclear program. Ahmadinejad`s aggression can indeed be pacified/subdued by Washington through subtle gestures of goodwill, instead of condemning the country and branding its leader as a hostage taker.
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Stop harassing Muslim countries: Once again intimidating tactics against countries like Iran, Yemen, and Syria must come to a halt. A concerted thought process needs to be employed within the parameters of various think tanks rather than rash decisions reached within the confines of Pentagon or at the National Security level.
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Future flashpoints should be identified and stress should be laid on peaceful and diplomatic resolutions of conflicts. Compassionate representation from various religions is required in the process of discussion and decision-making to reach amicable conclusions.
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Understand motives: The key to reconciliation with Islamic fundamentalism is understanding. Unless the reasons for anger against the United States are understood, which drove the believers insane on the part of an extremist fringe, the actions they are likely to take cannot be effectively anticipated and countered. Failure on this `engagement` extends beyond the loss of life and property, it also poisons the domestic atmosphere with heightened discrimination and threats against the rights of the significant minority.
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Set a better example: The more uncaring and corrupt the US society, including the political process, appears to be, the more the US strengthens that side of Islamic fundamentalism that more resents America. Domestic reforms make effective propaganda abroad. In the post 9/11 era it seems that the US has made more enemies rather than attracting friends. In the same vein, the treatment meted out to the so-called functionaries of Al-Qaeda in Guantanamo Bay and Abu Gharib have only tarnished Washington`s image. A good beginning would be to close down such centers of doom and darkness and hence show the Muslim world that the war on terrorism is after all not about one-sided fear and blood.
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Take it seriously: Evidence greater understanding and sympathy for fundamentalism`s more praiseworthy goals. Identify the positive aspects that can unite both sides.
At the end of the US-Iran hostage crisis in 1979, a senior State Department official remarked: `Who would ever have thought that all this could have happened because of religion?` Unfortunately the same disdainful attitude continues to prevail in Washington. Has anyone in Washington thought to publish a comparison between the better goals of the Islamic fundamentalists and those expressed in President Clinton`s inaugural speech in 1992?
Those who care to think are calling upon the West to grow up, to stop being afraid of what they are unwilling to understand, to accord to others rights that they claim for themselves and their allies and to have the courage to make common cause even with those whose means appear unfamiliar, bizarre or even dangerous. In short a rational and prudent approach is required instead of offence and aggression.
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