There is an interesting article in Dawn.
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New US approach to South Asia
The West and the Muslims
By Iqbal Jafar
THERE is now a general consensus in the West, backed by a growing mass of literature, that those men in black turbans and baggy trousers, 'the Islamic fundamentalists', are up to no good. The West seems to have discovered but only recently that these men tend to grow beards, take a dim view of women, are prone to be violently intolerant, and strongly disapprove of the ways of the West.
But, surely these men have not materialized suddenly out of nowhere to frighten the children here and the elderly in the West. In fact, the elderly in the West should be able to recall that the creed of religio - political authoritarianism that these men represent remained in the warm embrace of the West for no less than four decades, beginning in the early 1950s.
Even a brief recollection of that close association between the West and the Muslim authoritarians can provide a clue to two of the many riddles of our times: one, why a secular-democratic political culture has not yet found a stable foundation in any of the Muslim states; two, why does militant religious fanaticism (referred to as 'fundamentalism' in academic discourse) continue to grow in Muslim societies in this day and age? Let us open a little window on the recent past to have a glimpse of the genesis of this situation.
From the times of stern Presbyterian fundamentalism of John Foster Dulles ('Nobody in the Department of State knows as much about Bible as I do') and his brother Allen, to the days of secular cynicism of William Casey when he ruled the invisible and invincible empire of the CIA, religious orthodoxy and political authoritarianism were both nurtured as a powerful bulwark against the expansion of Soviet influence, all over the Muslim world from Morocco to Indonesia, systematically and at great cost.
Those were the times when such notions as democracy, rule of law, and eradication of poverty, currently being advocated as revolutionary new ideas, were all suspect in the eyes of the surrogate guardians of the Muslim states, and were viewed as seeds of subversion sown by the malcontents of the left.
As a consequence of the ideological paranoia that prevailed on both sides of the Iron Curtain, writers, intellectuals, politicians and others who believed in the liberal and populist mode of governance were allowed to be marginalized, disinherited and persecuted all over the Muslim world - in fact all over the Third World. In numerous instances the ideological suspects were not only persecuted but even physically liquidated. In the 1963 coup in Iraq, for example, about 5,000 Iraqis(according to some, 30,000) were disposed of in a planned manner. Included among them were some of the best of the Iraqi society - senior army officers, doctors, teachers, writers and others. The lists of those who were to be eliminated were provided by the CIA ( Said K. Aburish: 'A Brutal Friendship') and were prepared by its outfits in Cairo, Beirut and Damascus with the help of Iraqi exiles, including a Ba'ath party member, then living in exile in Cairo, by the name of Saddam Hussein.
The western meddling in the politics of the Muslim countries was so frequent and pervasive that out of 35 coups or coup attempts in the Middle East (Eliezer Be'er: 'Army officers in Arab Politics and Society') no less than 34 were supported or encouraged by the West. The only exception is the Iraqi coup of 1958 which was anti-West. Thus, by the early 1960s military dictatorships had been installed in all such Muslim countries where an autocratic government was not already in place.
Also, in pursuit of its objectives during the period of cold war, the West consistently promoted religious orthodoxy in the Muslim states as a counterpoise to the godless creed of communism and to the secular nationalist forces, especially in the Arab world, who were assumed to be more vulnerable to the Soviet influence. It is no more a secret that the West provided generous support to the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and to similar other organizations elsewhere in the Muslim world. Even Israel provided funds (Jochem Hippler and Andrea Leug: 'The Next Threat') to the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas (yes, it is true!) from 1970s to 1980s to undermine the PLO and Arab nationalism.The long and massive support for the Muslim fundamentalists in Afghanistan (Osama bin Laden was one of them) is, of course, the most well documented story of the western support for the fundamentalists.
These, then, are the immediate causes of the prevalence of religio-political authoritarianism in the contemporary Muslims societies. Those who are making strenuous efforts to discover the roots of authoritarianism in the Muslim societies by delving deep into the religious thought and statecraft of medieval Muslim societies (no different from those of other medieval societies) would do well to focus on more recent times.
So much for the weak foundations of secular-democratic culture in Muslim societies. Next, the second of the two riddles mentioned in the beginning: why does militant religious fanaticism (fundamentalism) continue to grow in Muslim societies in this day and age?
The so-called 'Islamic fundamentalism' or 'Islamic resurgence' is a complex phenomenon. It is a fusion of no less than five different streams of thought emerging at different points on the scale of history: one, the pro-West reformist Islamic movements, beginning in the 19th century; two, the militant orthodox Islamic movements against European colonialism, also beginning in the 19th century; three, the pro-West and anti-Soviet orthodox Islamic activism of the cold war era; four, anti-West Islamic activism fuelled by excesses against the Muslims in Palestine, Kashmir, Bosnia, Kosovo, and by the virtual occupation of the Gulf states by the US; and five, an urge to seek redemption under an Islamic dispensation as the new world order, wallowing in sleeze, crime and consumerist garbage, offers little hope for the dispossessed and the forsaken.
The Islamic fundamentalism or resurgence is, thus, a phenomenon that does not have a single source of inspiration. Nor does it have a single or common objective. Being a fusion of many elements, old and new, it represents a wide range of historical residue, current concerns, academic discourse, and political militancy. It subsumes dedicated and benign scholarship at one end of the spectrum and acts of terrorism at the other. It is, however, the anti-West and violent end of the spectrum that invokes such apocalyptic visions as 'Islamic Threat,' 'Sword of Islam' or 'Green Peril' leading to a 'clash of civilizations'. It is in this context that one may ask the question: How come that the most favoured allies of the West for 40 years are now seen as its most dogged enemies? What are the causes of this conflict? Why is the Muslim world as a whole supposed to be arrayed against the West, and for what purpose?
In order to understand the nature of this conflict one must focus attention on certain facts that have been erased from the discourse by partisan scholars and media. These are:
- Muslims are in direct conflict with the Israelis, Indians and Serbs, not with the West.
- Muslims have indirect conflict with three western powers (the US, UK and France) which support the Israelis, and have no quarrel with other western powers such as Italy, Spain, Germany and Canada.
- Islam as an ideology was accepted as supportive of the West throughout the cold war.
- West has best of relations with a number of countries that have enforced Islamic laws, and are Islamic states.
- Three Muslim countries with whom the West has worst of relations - Libya, Syria and Iraq - are secular political entities where fundamentalists have disappeared without a trace.
If one gives some thought to these facts one would come to the clear conclusion that there is neither a conflict between Islam and the West, nor between the Muslims and the West. The reality behind the huge global furore over the supposedly ongoing conflict and the coming Armageddon between the Muslims and the West is no more than the conflict in Palestine where three western powers have chosen to support and condone the excesses of the Israelis against their neighbours who happen to be Muslims and whose lands they occupy.
Now, how does this explain the growing influence of militant fundamentalists in the Muslim world? The reason is simple. The liberals, the nationalists, the pro-West politicians in the Muslim world have failed to protect their people from acts of aggression and terrorism especially by the Israelis and their supporters. They have also failed to stand up to discriminatory, unfair and humiliating treatment, of which there are innumerable instances.
Those who cooperated with the West in seeking justice for their people (Anwar Sadat, Yasser Arafat) have been made to look like pawns in the hands of the West rather than peace-makers.
The inevitable has, therefore, happened. When the weak cannot inherit their own earth, they become terrorists and draw strength from racial, linguistic or religious fanaticism, in place of material resources of which they have little. This is what has happened throughout history, and also in our own times. Zionists themselves justify their terrorist activities, since before the creation of the state of Israel, for these very reasons. The terrorist activities by the IRA are another example in our time of revenge by the weak.
What the West itself has done to create and strengthen militant Islamic fundamentalism is an amazing aspect of its policies. It first gave all the moral, political and material support to the fundamentalists for no less than 40 years and, later, provided them with a cause to fight for by supporting Israelis, reacting very slowly to the ethnic cleansing by the Serbs, and by being indifferent to what the Indians have been doing in Kashmir. As if all this was not enough, the West also saw to it that the pro-West liberals in the Muslim world become irrelevant and discredited among their own people.
The so-called Jihad by the Islamic fundamentalists cannot be justified even on the basis of sharia, but their cause (the right of self-determination) is justified even on the basis of western ideals and values. As Bernard Lewis has observed in his article on Usama bin Laden (Foreign Affairs: November/December 1998): "At no point do the basic texts of Islam enjoin terrorism and murder. At no point do they even consider the random slaughter of uninvolved bystanders." He then goes to give a perfectly sensible advice: "But in devising strategies to fight the terrorists, it would be surely useful to understand the forces that drive them."
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[This message has been edited by PG (edited February 05, 1999).]