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SPEAKING
FREELY
Roots of terrorism reach into the past
By Harout H Semerdjian
Speaking Freely is an Asia Times Online feature that allows guest writers to have
their say.
Please click here if you are interested in
contributing.
The roots of Islamic terrorism are not in the founding of the modern
nation-state of Israel or in the US-led war in Iraq, as some wrongly assert.
These events have merely fueled worldwide Islamic terror in the name of Allah,
or God, and once again exposed the hostile face of Islamic fundamentalism. The
recent acts of international terrorism are a modern-day demonstration of the
deadly magnitude of terrorist objectives, particularly as they transpire on
North American and European soil. What we are experiencing today, however, is
not a new phenomenon in world history.
With the birth of Islam in the 7th century came its steadfast dissemination,
often through violence and jihad, or holy war. Over centuries, millions have
converted to Islam through good faith while others have done so through
subjugation and force under the ultimatum of the medieval sword. On Western
soil, this form of terror is largely a new reality to cope with and is now even
deemed a threat to the very existence of civilization.
The eminent French writer Victor Hugo once appropriately remarked that "If a
man has his throat cut in Paris, it's a murder. If 50,000 people are murdered
in the East, it is a question." For centuries entire indigenous populations in
the Middle East and elsewhere have been exterminated in the name of religion.
While the patterns of such events are not exactly the same as what we are
witnessing today in the form of Al-Qaeda-inspired violence, the thought process
behind the systematic and orchestrated murder of innocents is. In the last 200
years, such sadistic acts have been further exacerbated by the advent of
nationalism. Unfortunately, the breadth and scope of these crimes have been
ignored by European powers due to a combination of short-term interests and
short-sighted policies, often yielding tragic results.
The first people in the modern-era to collectively fall victim to Islamic
terror were the Armenians of the Islamic Ottoman Empire. What is today the
eastern portion of the Republic of Turkey was for three millennia the homeland
of the Armenians. This land that had nurtured generations of these people 2,000
years before the Turkic invasions of the 11th century, became a distant land
for them almost overnight in 1915. The outcome was one of the worst
quantitative measures of terror and genocide in human history, resulting in the
massacre of 1.5 million people and the destruction of an astounding 4,000
Christian churches and monasteries. An entire people was systematically
targeted and annihilated on the grounds of their religion and what it
represented in the confines of the Islamic empire.
While this forgotten genocide, long ignored by the West, was a calculated
result of Turkish nationalism and racist policies of Turkification, Islam was
the ideological weapon for mass annihilation and slaughter. "Whoever kills
seven Christians will go to heaven," Islamic clerics and town criers would call
out. For backward, rural Kurdish and Turkish religious communities, killing gavour
(infidel) Armenians was an opportunity for salvation, while for the Turkish
government it was the ultimate weapon for genocide.
This is the same logic and method recently employed by Al-Qaeda, the Taliban
and other deadly Islamic terror groups to incite their people against peaceful
populations. Religion is a powerful ideology, and ideology has proven to be the
single most destructive element in history. Today's Turkey - a member of NATO -
is considered a strategic US ally in the Middle East. It is in this very
context of alliance that the United States should expose this dark chapter in
world history and require Turkey to own up to its Ottoman past, and hence
secure a more reliable and responsible partner in the region. This is
particularly important if this partner is said to be committed to fighting
extremism and terrorist-prone elements within its own borders and in
surrounding regions.
In Israel today, Islamic terror against the Jewish "infidels", as Islamists
have long labeled them, has claimed the lives of hundreds of innocent
civilians. Afghan Mujahideen, the Islamic world's favored religious fighters,
have long been known to assist the struggles of Islamic countries and regimes.
Recently, Azerbaijan hired hundreds of such mercenaries to fight the Armenians
in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. These very mercenaries were later exported to
Chechnya to fight against Russians in the name of Islam. In Africa, the Islamic
Janjaweed militias of Sudan are annihilating thousands of indigenous Sudanese
in Darfur.
Needless to say, the pinnacle of recent Islamic terror for the West was
September 11, on the very soil of America - the nation that has been a global
safe haven over the years to refugees fleeing war, ethnic conflict and
religious discrimination, including large numbers of Muslims. Despite being a
prime target of terror, America still continues, though often controversially,
to aid and assist Arab and other Muslim countries. This is primarily because
America distinguishes Islamic extremists and terrorists from Islamic moderates,
who understand that the real message of Allah as one of peace.
Islam is a noble religion based on respect, love, charity, good morals and
values. In fact, the Koran calls the Christians and Jews, the two other
Abrahamic faiths, the "Peoples of the Book" who ought to be protected. During
the Turkish genocide of Armenians, it was the Muslim Arabs of the Levant and
Mesopotamia who honorably gave shelter to the homeless and ravaged survivors.
Islam has given the world a tremendous amount of knowledge, piousness and
wisdom. Meantime, however, exploiters of the religion have unleashed an
incredible degree of havoc on peaceful populations in the name of their faith.
What we have witnessed among certain Muslim regimes over the past century is
nothing more than an abuse of Islam for reasons of expedience and convenience.
Their actions have been atrocious, immoral, and bellicose acts of desperation
to dominate and dictate.
The war that rages today within our own borders is a new, globalized variant of
international terrorism. This latest extent of Islamic terror, quite
ironically, has been advanced by modern, Western technology. This is a clear
contradiction of the terrorists' struggle against modernization - and hence a
clear sign of convenience of choice by the fighters as well as an indication of
the incoherence of their jihad.
The events of the last century, and particularly in the last decade, should
embolden the West's commitment to fighting worldwide terrorism. This, however,
cannot and should not be done without careful consideration of the historical
development of today's problems. The way Islam has been exploited in the past
has not been rectified one iota by the inability of the international community
to call a spade a spade, or for that matter, a genocide a genocide. Truth has
over and again been sacrificed to the expediency of political alliances and
short-term interests, and thus the collective sense of being "beyond reproach"
has prevailed in many countries where those who mastermind mass violence have
lived. Herein lies the root of the reprehensible thinking that a people, a
race, or a country "have gotten what they deserved" upon completion of a
violent or terrorist act. Ironically, the same expediencies mentioned above may
lie at the very root of the terrorist problems we are encountering today. US
President George W Bush has rightly demonstrated increased determination in
countering and fighting terrorism; hopefully he can match that resolve with an
equal will to understand its real causes, and to remedy some of its most
blatant manifestations through clear recognition.
We need to strengthen this effort by promoting education and knowledge about
historic and current issues of vital importance. The key in countering current
acts of violence lies in understanding and absorbing lessons of history, and
helping to set the historical record straight. Our fortitude and capacity to
acknowledge past acts of terror will assist our current efforts in countering
terrorism. Additionally, our findings and know-how in this regard should be
exported abroad in defense of commonly upheld and applied standards of
humanity. We are not there yet - neither in reality nor in the perception of
the majority of our counterparts in the international community. Our global
partners in this effort deserve our assistance and support, as well as the
chance to benefit from our own introspection.
Harout H Semerdjian is a Research Associate at Harvard University's
Kennedy School of Government. He holds dual MA degrees from the Fletcher School
of Law & Diplomacy and the University of California, Los Angeles. He may be
reached at harout_semerdjian@ksg.harvard.edu
Speaking Freely is an Asia Times Online feature that
allows guest writers to have their say.
Please click here if you are interested in
contributing. |
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