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Extremists in the
ascendancy
By Mushahid Hussain
ISLAMABAD - One year after September 11, their
impact continues to reverberate in the Muslim world and
shape its relations with the West.
Since the 19
hijackers that day were Muslim, some have used the
tragedy as a pretext for promoting negativism about
Islam and Muslims, who make up 1.3 billion of the
world's population.
Contemporary historians will
record September 11 as probably the third watershed
event affecting relations between the West and the
Muslim world in the past 30 years.
The October
1973 Arab-Israeli war was the first event that
influenced these ties. Saudi Arabia's oil embargo
against Western supporters of Israel at the time,
particularly the United States, meant that for the first
time pro-Western Muslim countries were using their
precious natural resource, oil, as a political weapon.
That gave rise to an increase in oil prices, the
quest for a new international economic order and the
emergence of the Palestinian issue as the centerpiece of
the Middle East conflict.
The second key event
in relations between the Muslim and Western worlds was
the February 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran. That
overthrow of a pro-Western monarchy was the first time
that Islam was perceived as a vehicle for radical change
with a distinct anti-Western flavor. The terms
"political Islam", "radical Islam" or "Islamic
fundamentalism" then started gaining currency as part of
the Western political lexicon.
September 11 was
the third and most far-reaching event that has unleashed
a process that could go either way - toward the prophecy
of a "clash of civilizations" or toward a joint endeavor
between the West and the Muslim world to weed out
extremists, who are as much an aberration for Muslims as
they are a threat to the West.
However, the
initial portents a year down the line provide little
room for optimism. Three reasons can be cited for this
view. First, September 11 and its aftermath show that
the extremists on both sides are ascendant. If the
purposes of the terrorists and al-Qaeda were to spark a
confrontation between the West and the Muslim world,
then the US response, particularly the preoccupation
with the use force, is playing into the hands of the
extremists. The moderates are being marginalized, since
the terrorist crimes are being responded to in a manner
that could spawn further extremism in the Muslim world.
Second, religion is being injected as a factor
in international relations. For instance, so far,
terrorism is largely being linked with Islam or
identified primarily with Muslims.
Third, within
the rubric of the war on terror, various countries have
seen the long-standing violence that they have been
coping with become included in the global anti-terror
bandwagon.
Israel, India, the Philippines,
Russia, Uzbekistan, China, Malaysia and Algeria form
part of a growing list of countries that view with
satisfaction the US State Department's official
certification of their respective Muslim dissidents as
"terrorist" ones.
However, September 11 has also
provided an opportunity for introspection, and even
course correction within some Muslim countries.
The ouster of the Taliban, for instance, was
received with relief by the people of Afghanistan, who
felt the repression unleashed by a medieval tribalism
that invoked their religion, although their practices
had nothing to do with Islam.
Similarly,
Pakistan did a course correction, not through regime
change as in Afghanistan, but through policy change in
key areas. It ditched the Taliban in a timely U-turn and
says that it is discarding the jihadi' political
culture, which took inspiration from Afghanistan and
influences what for Islamabad is the struggle in
Kashmir.
The approximately 10,000
madrassa (religious seminaries) are being brought
under state regulation, both in the content of their
curricula and their funding from overseas.
There
have been vocal voices among reformists within the
Iranian hierarchy, including the government and members
of parliament, regarding relations with al-Qaeda, and
the powers of the president whose wings are being
clipped by an increasingly assertive, conservative
clerical establishment.
In fact, it is an
unwitting offshoot of September 11 that President
Mohammad Khatami called a press conference on August 27
in Tehran, seeking the restoration of presidential
powers that had been enjoyed by his predecessors but
which were revoked in his case. This is despite the fact
that he won both his presidential terms, in 1997 and
2002, with a huge plurality.
Reactions among
Muslim regimes, masses and the intelligentsia to
September 11 have broadly taken various forms.
There is a realization that extremism
degenerating into violence needs to be curbed and
combated, since it is internally destabilizing and
externally damaging for the image of Islam - a faith
that preaches peace and tolerance, which are repugnant
to extremists.
For example, Pakistan President
General Pervez Musharraf's landmark speech of January
12, 2002, announced remedial measures to reverse wrongs
regarding extremism, a move that won him accolades at
home and abroad, although he has yet to fully deliver on
his promises.
Then, there is the growing impulse
toward democracy and respect for civil liberties and
human rights. Even those countries that are American
allies in the war on terror are feeling the pressure to
promote the rule of law and a better image before their
Western friends. These winds of change are sweeping
across several Muslim countries: Pakistan, Qatar,
Bahrain, Libya, the Sudan, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Iran and
Uzbekistan.
The success of the anti-terror
campaign launched after September 11 will depend, in the
ultimate analysis, on how the United States is able to
delink the war on terrorism and extremism from Islam and
the Muslims - and how Muslim countries cope with the
fact that extremism is as much their problem as it is a
global one.
There is also a growing feeling that
the war on terror may become a long-haul campaign, with
various twists and turns before terrorism in its various
forms is truly curbed, combated and eventually crushed.
It is a unique struggle in the annals of
history, since the "enemy" is not clearly identifiable
or confined within a state's boundary. It is faceless,
stateless and sometimes nameless.
That is the
challenge, which can only be met through cooperation
within the international community rather than through a
confrontation between cultures or blaming the people of
one faith alone for what is a global problem.
(Inter Press Service)
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