THE HANDSTAND
JULY 2005
By Abid Mustafa
"The West won the world not by the superiority of its ideas or values or religion but rather by its superiority in applying organized violence. Westerners often forget this fact, non-Westerners never do." - Samuel P. Huntington
During his visit to Europe, George Bush emphasised to his European hosts that spreading freedom and democracy was the only way of defeating terrorism in the Middle East and the wider Muslim world. His remarks echo a familiar tenet of his presidency - freedom triumphing over terrorism. But, by coining the struggle as freedom versus terrorism, the Bush administration has avoided answering some pertinent questions like - What is terrorism? Who are the terrorists? Who is the enemy in the eyes of Bush and his acolytes the neo-conservatives?
The 9/11 Commission (by no means the first) stressed that the term war on terrorism was misleading and recommended that it should be renamed to place greater ideological emphasis against Islam. In October 2001 US General Wesley Clark, said that the US war against terrorism "was a war over Islam" that would define Islam "as either a peaceful or militant" force in society [1]. Yet others have argued that it should be appropriately labelled war against political Islam.
Whatever differences exist amongst America's political elite over the naming of the war there are few to be found amongst ordinary Americans. Thanks to the Islamaphobic corporate media, most Americans irrespective of their political orientation view the war on terror as a fight against Islam.
The same milieu exits in Europe. The lack of boldness on part of the Europe's political class to confront Bush on these questions together with the Islamaphobic media has convinced ordinary Europeans that their new enemy is Islam and Muslims who live in their midst.
Before 9/11 Muslims long held the view that American intervention in their lands is part of the ongoing struggle between Islam and the West. The aftermath of 9/11 only served to reinforce this view. Today an overwhelming majority of Muslims believe unequivocally that the war terrorism is a war against Islam and Muslims. Hence, behind Bush's charade of fighting terrorism the clash between Islam and the West is well and truly under way. This struggle is being fought at several levels. The most important of all is the ideological struggle. The winner of this ideological battle will decide whether the future sustains Islam or Western secular liberalism.
So the question that now arises is who is winning the battle of ideas? The answer is that the West long ago lost the ideological war against Islam. This due to the following reasons:
1. The West has spent the last two hundred years combating Islamic thoughts in the hope of dissuading Muslims from Islam. This campaign began with the orientalists who studied Islam and attacked its beliefs and rules. For instance they attacked the divinity of the Quran, jihad, polygamy, the Islamic punishment system and the Caliphate. But despite this organised effort to alienate Muslims from Islam, the West is facing a resurgent Islam both at home and abroad.
In the West, Islam is the fastest growing religion both amongst immigrants and the indigenous community. Between 1989 and 1998 the Islamic population in Europe grew by over 100 percent, to 14 million (approximately 2 percent of the population), according to United Nations statistics [2]. "Within the next 20 years the number of British converts will equal or overtake the immigrant Muslim community that brought the faith here", says Rose Kendrick the author of a textbook guide to the Koran [3]. America is not immune from this phenomenon. One expert estimates that 25,000 people a year become Muslims in the US; some clerics say they have seen conversion rates quadruple since Sept. 11[4].
Conversion figures aside, the attitudes of Muslims living in the West towards secular liberalism is equally damning. A recent ICM poll surveying Muslim attitudes in Britain published the following results: 81% view freedom of speech as a means of insulting Islam; 61% support the Sharia; 88% want Islam in schools; and 60% do not think they need to integrate. If this is the outlook of Muslims in one of the main citadels of enlightenment then one can only guess the stance of Muslim world towards secular liberal values. Suffice to say that the West has failed to convince the Muslim masses that Western culture is better than Islam.
2.In the past the West employed the services of modernists such as Rifa'a At-Tahtawi (1801-1873), Jamal Ad-Din Al-Afghani (1838-1897), Muhammad Abduh (1849-1905), Taha Hussein (1889,1973) and Rashid Rida (1865-1935), Syed Ahmad Khan (1817-1898) to spear head their campaign of introducing Western culture under the guise of Islam. The impact of these reformists has not only been nullified but also reversed. Today's modernists find themselves in precarious situation. They are despised by Muslims and are seen as instruments of the cultural imperialism undertaking the West's bidding to defame Islam. In Western eyes they are viewed as being too Islamic and are no longer entrusted with the responsibility of turning Muslims away from Islam.
America's decision to revoke Tariq Ramadan's visa and the media outrage at Al-Qardawi's visit to the UK epitomises West's mistrust of modernists. On the whole they are discredited and have become irrelevant in the battle of ideas between the West and Islam.
3. The biggest blow dealt by the West against the Islamic world came on March 3rd, 1924, when Britain through her stooge Mustafa Kamal destroyed the Caliphate. Lord Curzon speaking in the House of Commons said, "The point at issue is that Turkey has been destroyed and shall never rise again, because we have destroyed her spiritual power: the Caliphate and Islam. " Subsequently, the European powers curved up the Islamic lands between them establishing direct colonial rule over the Muslim people.
The Muslim masses for the first time were exposed to Western solutions ranging from economic solutions which plundered their wealth to an educational syllabus which disconnected them from their history, reduced Islam to a mere set of rituals and taught them how to think like Westerners. Moreover, Islam was effaced from temporal life only to be replaced by a secular rule. Later the West granted pseudo independence to the Muslim countries they had invented and appointed loyal servants to safeguard Western interests and to rule over Muslim people on their behalf.
If the West had thought that eight years of subjugation to secularism would have been enough to deter the Muslim masses from political Islam then they were gravely mistaken. The ferocity and direction of today's Islamic revival has seized the attention of Western leaders. Vladimir Putin, Tony Blair and Donald Rumsfeld have joined a long chorus of Western leaders in 2004 warning about the dangers of a resurgent Caliphate. This was aptly summed up by Kissinger who said,".what we call terrorism in the United States, but which is really the uprising of radical Islam against the secular world, and against the democratic world, on behalf of re-establishing a sort of
Caliphate [5]".
4. There is an inherent flaw in the ideology of secularism, which has led to its predictable rejection by the Muslim world. This is because secularism insists on restricting the role of Islam in society to personal worships only. Political decisions about running the society are left to human beings. This directly contradicts the doctrine of Muslims, which considers politics an indivisible part of Islam i.e. to Muslims Islam is politics.
Bernard Lewis gave a similar assessment and said, "The absence of native secularism in Islam and the wide spread rejection of an imported secularism inspired by Christian example, may be attributed to certain profound differences of belief and experience in the two religious cultures [6]". Furthermore, secularism always leaves a spiritual void, especially when human beings are confronted by problems, which they are unable to solve. Separating God from temporal matters only accentuates this feeling. It is this intellectual weakness that has contributed to the dramatic rise
of political Islam under the secular autocratic rule, which pervades much of the Muslim world.
The West should take heed from the inability of communism to dissuade Muslims from Islam. Communism a far deeper ideology than secularism also failed to convince the Muslim masses of materialism and man made laws.
5. The duplicity of the West in promoting Western values across the Muslim world has greatly undermined its credibility. Especially, after September 11, when Western doubles standards reached new heights. It was the episode of Abu Ghraib that revealed the true extent of the Western hypocrisy and hatred towards Muslims. Western ideas such as freedom, democracy, human rights were given a devastating blow not by Muslims, but by America the so-called defender of liberty. Even the agent rulers in the Muslim world were left gasping and could not shield America from the evil crimes she had committed. In one swoop, America by its own handiwork had permanently damaged its standing in the Muslim world and had gravely weakened the very ideas that represent the cornerstone of Western civilisation. So much so, that many non-Muslims are questioning the validity of these ideas and the deceitful role played by their governments abroad.
Hence for the very first time, Western governments are faced with the challenge of convincing their own citizens why these values have to be curbed at home, while these values are forcibly thrust upon the Muslim world. Perhaps Westerners should seek solace in the words of Oscar Wilde who
said, "Democracy means simply the bludgeoning of the people by the people for the people."
These are some of the reasons, which have contributed to the Muslim world's rejection of Western culture and its secular liberal philosophy.The stark reality facing Western governments today is that the Muslim ummah (Muslim nation) has won the battle of ideas.
The chapter of ideological struggle between the Muslim ummah and the West is more or less closed. But the chapter of political struggle between the ummah and the West is still open- albeit for limited period. This is because the West and their surrogates have no political legitimacy left in the Muslim world. These surrogates only survive because of dogged support from Western powers.
Therefore the West and their puppets stand alone in coercing the ummah to accept Western values. While the ummah stands firm rejecting Western culture and calling for the return of a global Islamic state. The two positions are irreconcilable and polarisation in viewpoints between the regimes and its people cannot continue indefinitely.
It is only a matter of time before Muslims overthrow the secular order, which has been unjustly imposed upon them. Sensing the failure of its surrogates to contain political Islam, the West under the pretext of fighting terrorism has sought to re-occupy the Muslim lands in a desperate bid to reinforce its values and to safeguard its material interests. West's behaviour towards the Muslim world can be likened to that of a failed schoolteacher. A failed schoolteacher is a person who continues to beat his pupils in the vain hope of imbuing them with the values of the school. Instead, the teacher not only loses control of the class but also brings down the very establishment he is trying to protect.
Indeed Westerners have got far less to fear from the Islamists and more to fear from their own governments who in the name of freedom and democracy are slowly but surely ebbing away at the very foundations of their civilisation.
Notes:
(1.) Wesley K. Clarke speaking on BBC World's Hardtalk programme, October 29
2001 (2). Muslims in Europe, The Economist, October 18, 2001. (3.) The Spread of
a World Creed, The Times, November 9 1993 (4.) Islam Attracts Converts by the
Thousands, The New York Times, October 22 2001 (5.) Henry Kissinger, Hindustan
Times, Nov 2004 (6.) What went wrong?, Bernard Lewis, 2003
Why is Islam so feared and derided
today?
by Ian Buckley
Pound's biographer Professor Hugh Kenner
- with whom I had the honour of corresponding shortly
before his death - considered that without its poets the
world would have already have long since succumbed to
total exhaustion.
More practically, perhaps, we can view
religion as playing a similar valuable role in preserving
traditional societies, and maintaining higher values than
the almighty dollar. But not all faiths have 'what it
takes' to resist the trend towards a world turned into a
counting house on top of a rubbish dump.
Indeed, both Judaism and the Protestant
variant of Christianity are implicated, more or less, in
the rise of capitalism. Additionally, traditionalist
Catholics believe that their Church is now a shadow of
its former state, having virtually self-destructed after
Vatican II. While Eastern Orthodoxy and even
Japanese Shinto play their honourable part in resisting
the rush towards a porno-trash non-culture, it is
pre-eminently Islam that is the biggest stumbling block
in the way of the New World Order.
In the first place Islam is a profoundly
and genuinely democratic faith, as opposed to the ‘democracy’
of fakery and computerised trickery that characterised
the election of Bush and Bliar. Following on from this,
Muslims also hold true to economic democracy in the form
of the prohibition of usury. Though now abandoned, this
was also once a doctrine of the Christian Church. Such
a fundamental point is, to say the least, unappreciated
by the false prophets of globalist capitalism, always on
the lookout for fresh lands to reduce to a bland and
hence profitable mass - or mess.
When Muslims, like those
‘extremist’ Iranians, reject the societies
(perhaps non-societies might be a better term) of
Significantly, terms such as Ummah
and Dar-al-Islam are
more or less untranslatable, indicating a degree of
cohesion and comradely brotherhood that those outside the
Arabic and Muslim world can barely understand.
Though few of us realise it, we in the
West are spoon-fed a bogus view of reality: the truth
only comes out in peripheral areas. Times,
Telegraph and Observer
dribble on and on about the
wonderful EU constitution, or how we must 'democratise'
Iraq1.
However in the travel sections of such papers you can
still read the occasional comment on the wonderful
hospitality to be found in
Apparently, tourists there can find
themselves being invited, after a passing acquaintance
with a citizen of those 'evil' countries, to stay and eat
in private homes. Just try doing that in
'Throughout our journey I
was struck by the boorishness of Western hospitality by
contrast with that of the Arabs. If a stranger rings a
doorbell in Europe, he must produce some very good reason
before he can get into the house at all, much less eat
there as a guest; yet in the lands where there are
neither doors nor doorbells the stranger is not asked the
reason for his presence, and to hesitate in setting food
before him would be shameful.'
The anti-Islam crowd often Pipes up that
some Muslim countries, most notably
Today in Blair's blight land, the single
largest category of female prisoners consists of the
'desperadoes' who have failed to pay their TV licenses.2
Additionally, the high suicide rate across the entire
penal system means that the official view that Britain
has no death penalty is somewhat flawed to say the least.
As is clear from the Last Sermon of the
Last Prophet, true Islam has a civilised attitude towards
woman, unlike the misogyny that
disfigures a significant
amount of Judaic (and Christian) thought:
'O People, it is true that you have certain rights with regard to your women, but they also have rights over you. Remember that you have taken them as your wives only under Allah's trust and with His permission. If they abide by your right then to them belongs the right to be fed and clothed in kindness. Do treat your women well and be kind to them for they are your partners and committed helpers. And it is your right that they do not make friends with any one of whom you do not approve, as well as never to be unchaste. '
Muslims will have to face the fact that
they are hated, not for their vices, but for their
virtues. The normal mind to a large extent rebels against
such a novel thought. As with the true story of what
really happened on September 11th, the average person has
a mental block when confronted by the perverse, amoral
wickedness implied by 'hatred of virtues'.
Most know or at least intuitively sense that two massive towers3 couldn't really have been destroyed by a pair of Boeing passenger aircraft, but prefer not to contemplate the awful truth.
As for actual as opposed to fabled 'Muslim terrorism' - not that I agree with the dubious practice of coupling faith allegiance to terrorism - has there actually been any? There was the attack on the USS Cole, of course, but can one really describe suicidally brave men in motor-boats versus a huge floating leviathan as 'terrorism'? Other incidents such as Achille Lauro and the Munich Olympics have more than a whiff of the agent provocateur about them.
America today, in line with its
stultifying decay, hardly produces any new
contributors to the world of thought. Though scarcely
comparable to Mencken or Brooks Adams, the present-day
philosophic duo of Beavis and Butthead have it right:
'People are STUPID'.
Yes, people are stupid, especially modern Britons or
Americans. They are pleased to accept assessments of one
of the world's great religions from various
self-interested parties with an axe to grind - from tame
professors run by the intelligence agencies, to
fundamentalist 'Christian' Zionist nutcases who want to
bring on Armageddon.
The Prophet Muhammad whom they ignorantly deride was in actuality – by the standards of his time and ours – an extraordinarily humane man. One interesting fact that is seldom brought out today is that many thousands of Western Europeans are direct descendants of the Last Prophet.(4)
As for Muslims and Arabs in general,
they can take some small comfort from the words of
Beregond, the soldier of Gondor, in Tolkien's Lord
of the Rings: 'We have this honour:
ever we bear the brunt of the chief hatred of the Enemy.'
Ian Buckleyİ
Notes:
(1) 'My job is to teach these natives the
meaning of democracy, and they're
going to learn democracy if I have to shoot every one of
them.' - Colonel Wainwright Purdy (Paul Ford) in
the 1956 film The Teahouse of August
Moon.
(2) Average sentence around 7 days, but still (shamefully) the largest category.
(3) To say nothing about the destruction of WTC 7 by the impact of nothing at all!
(4) Anyone who can trace their ancestors back to the early medieval Spanish royals (much more common than it sounds) is also in all probability a descendant of the Prophet.
Open
Letter to Saudis
Tanya C. Hsu, Arab
News —
Having returned from the Kingdom, four weeks in an abaya
and hijab, I am angry and frustrated. As an analyst
specializing in Saudi Arabia I knew much of what to
expect, thus covering and not being able to drive were
nonissues. Landing in Jeddah I dropped ten degrees body
temperature switching from linen to an abaya. Four weeks
later, I flew through to Atlanta without removing my
abaya, not only to test American reactions but because it
was comfortable and practical. In Riyadh's Bedu Souk I
added a burqa and realized, for the first time in my
adult life, men spoke directly to me rather than to a
physique. That is respect.
Having completed my book on the Kingdom, I had been
invited to the Saudi American Interactive Dialogue in
Jeddah. Staying to gather material for a second book, I
met with people from all walks of life: Rich, poor,
mothers, working women; the highly successful, the
unemployed, royalty, Bedouin market sellers, and those in
between. I met with Saudis by birth, Saudis by choice,
and foreigners. I lived with Saudi families, those with
domestic help and those without. All were open and eager
to share their opinions. I traveled freely across the
country, an "Arab" woman alone. Fed monumental
amounts of food in Saudi homes nightly, unable to escape
such generous hospitality, I never witnessed men separate
from women. In Riyadh I used a Saudi friend's office for
a fortnight, was treated equally and was privy to
top-level business discussions. Thus began my irritation.
I had expected to return to the US, defensive posture
prepared. Since Sept. 11, I have tried in vain to explain
the Kingdom to a country reluctant to understand or
listen, have been the target of attacks, and have had
professional difficulty for insisting on clarity on Saudi
issues. It is acceptable in the US to be anti-war,
anti-Bush, or support the Palestinians; it is not
acceptable on either side of the political spectrum to be
"pro-Saudi". That is "sleeping with the
enemy" or "hero worship". Little of Saudi
Arabia is covered in the West other than trade, oil, and
proclamations of reform. Sadly, within the Kingdom and
despite access to satellite television, newspapers and
the Internet, even Jarir Bookstore has yet to catch up:
Only travel and photography books, or historical
biographies of Gertrude Bell and Harry Philby were
available. Not permitting political material available to
a hungry public belies logic at this stage.
I experienced few inconveniences. Prayer time forces the
habit of pausing. Time passes differently in the United
States as we race from work to school to the grocery
store to after-school activities to dinner, housecleaning
and laundry, finally collapsing in exhaustion having
barely spoken to our children eating in separate rooms at
different times. Families walk together along the Jeddah
corniche, flying kites or riding donkeys, barbecues
permeating the air — vastly different to the
deafening X-rated rap music that invades main streets in
America as teens cruise.
So why am I angry?
During all my conversations one question remained
unanswered. When asked, What makes you proud to be Saudi,
"being Muslim" or "being Arab" was as
common a reply as "being the home of the Two Holy
Cities". One can easily define Palestinian anger,
Iraqi angst, or Syrian character, yet I received nothing
on Saudi national patriotism. Can you not see?
For years you have publicly apologized for comparatively
low levels of violence, lack of reform, or the slow pace
of change. Repeatedly I heard the despair and cynicism
blinding you to what is happening in front of you:
Palpable change, construction growth, new institutions,
reform efforts, and the mutawa. You have much to be proud
of, but your politeness and kindness allows the West to
trample you, naming you a threat to "democracy"
and the world.
You cannot let this continue. Pre-empt the increase in
anti-Saudi hostility and stop re-emphasizing your
weaknesses. You are a dignified people, so take pride in
your country in action, not just spirit. Explain to the
world how you respect women, how safe and free from crime
you are, and how family takes priority. Demand how the
US, world leader in murder, rape and domestic violence,
dare accuse you of human rights abuses. Ask how Americans
can defend their preferred method of capital punishment
by electrocuting women, minors and the mentally
handicapped. How, if democracy includes the export of the
largest pornographic industry throughout the world, can
they judge the Kingdom for its restrictions? Why can a
Saudi leave his wallet, laptop and digital camera on the
front seat of a car, as I did, and return to find
everything intact? Americans live in gated subdivisions
with security alarms; child molesters roam free in every
neighborhood. Half empty compounds in the Kingdom are
triple barricaded, one Alkhobar compound protected by
five security walls and armored trucks. Murderers don't
return to the scene of their crime, so why such fear?
Nuns, priests, Jewish settlers, rabbis and Catholics
cover their heads but Saudi women are
"oppressed" for such? Why apologize for your
rate of progress when it took the United States two
hundred years, until 1920, to grant women the right to
vote? American women are paid seventy-five cents to the
dollar compared to men; the Prophet's first wife was his
employer, a successful and powerful businesswoman.
Another wife, Aisha, fought in battle alongside men, and
Islam forbids racism. How then did it take until 1963
after riots and protests before blacks were granted civil
rights, the end to segregation, and freedom? Bias remains
rampant and races still do not mix freely.
Why can the US government attack any Arab nation when not
one Arab state has ever threatened America? Is this
"democracy"? More importantly, is this what you
want?
Of course, there is much to fix within the Kingdom. All
regions rise and fall. There is little difference in the
speed of bureaucracy between Saudi Arabia and Sweden or
France; ministers settle in to roles of government power
and have no desire for change.
You have a ready-made group available for pressing
issues: The mutawa could be assigned to fine dangerous
drivers (intent to kill is haraam) or punish anyone seen
littering: It is a disgrace to the religion, the
environment and people's health.
Globalization and technology are here to stay, so as
Muhammad ibn Abdul Wahab brought reform for the sake of
unity in the eighteenth century, again use ijtihad
(individual interpretation) and contextualization to
unite for the sake of the Kingdom, Islam, and national
pride.
There is indeed something enigmatic about the Kingdom of
Saudi Arabia — perhaps the people, perhaps the
history, perhaps the land. Had I the chance to
stay I would have searched until I found an answer. A
piece of my heart remained in the Kingdom. I can only
hope that I may soon return to find out why.
— Tanya C. Hsu is the author of the forthcoming
book, "Target: Saudi Arabia". She may be
reached at TanyaHsu@mindspring.com