Mixed Muslim message in 'war on terror' By Sreeram Chaulia
It is exactly 15 years since Samuel Huntington's iconic article appeared in
Foreign Affairs journal to predict that the centuries-old cultural clash
between "Islam" and the "West" will "become more virulent".
Today, if one examines the positions of the 57 member states of the
Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) on the West's "war on terror",
Huntington appears to be belied. The majority of them (with exceptions of
"radical" states like Iran, Syria and Malaysia) lend territorial and/or
military assistance of different shades to the US's "war on terror".
Human Rights Watch, the New York-based non-governmental organization, has just
disclosed that the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) clandestinely
transported at least 14 detainees
linked to the "war on terror" to Jordan, which was the top rendition
destination from 2001 to 2004. Jordan's General Intelligence Department
allegedly interrogated and tortured these non-Jordanian Muslim suspects on
behalf of the CIA. Due to their questionable status in international law,
renditions have been conducted in a hush-hush manner, irrespective of the
destination country.
However, the case of Jordan is unique because it is a Muslim-majority country
in which the "war on terror" is vastly unpopular and inflammatory. Knowledge of
the Jordanian government's collusion with its American ally on such a sensitive
issue could have flared up extremist violence in the Arab country. By
shrink-wrapping US-Jordanian collaboration in the "war on terror" beyond public
gaze, Amman tried to shoot two birds with one shot - cement elite-level ties
with Washington and deny dissenters and Islamists new fodder to resist the
monarchy.
An identical process has been unfolding in several other Muslim-majority
countries since the George W Bush administration embarked on a global campaign
to counter perceived terrorist threats. The British Broadcasting Corporation
revealed last month that soldiers of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) are
participating in dangerous full-scale operations alongside US troops in
Afghanistan.
While their stock task is to "deliver humanitarian aid to fellow Muslims", they
are also reported to be "fighting their way out of Taliban ambushes". Typical
to the pattern, the BBC said, "Until now, their deployment has been kept so
secret that not even their own countrymen knew they were here." As a sidelight,
it was also added that Jordanian forces were carrying out base security duties
in Afghanistan as well.
But for the investigative penchant of media and rights watchdogs, it is
unlikely the people of Jordan or the UAE would have known that their armies and
intelligence agencies were serving under the much-despised American banner.
Similarly, great controversy envelops the exact role of Pakistan's armed forces
and intelligence in aiding the American effort to eliminate the Taliban and
al-Qaeda in the restive borderlands abutting the Durand Line that separates
Pakistan and Afghanistan. Over the years, numerous claims have been made that
American forces have secured from President Pervez Musharraf the right to fire
missiles and organize raids on terror hideouts on Pakistani soil.
Unlike in Jordan or the UAE, the Pakistani government's hospitality for large
American troop contingents is an open truth known to the people of Pakistan.
However, the details of the nature of cooperation being extended by Islamabad
to its American ally are kept out of public gaze because of its incendiary
potential.
What is more, to cover up the extreme anger being generated in Pakistani
society at the open access being accorded to US forces, Pakistani intelligence
agencies have played it both ways. They kept their lines open to the Taliban
and al-Qaeda even while ostensibly ranged against them on the side of the North
Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). Ambiguity in Pakistan's stance on the "war
on terror" is necessary for Islamabad to contain public dissent and furor over
behind-the-scenes compromises with Washington.
The type of assistance a Muslim country can render to the US in the "war on
terror" varies according to the nature of tasks assigned to it. Egypt, Libya
and Sudan, which consider themselves as much part of Africa as of an extended
Middle East, have been quietly but steadily handing over al-Qaeda suspects to
the US since 2001. Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Bahrain, Oman and Kuwait have ceded
territory and facilities for US military bases from which power is projected
and war threats are issued against "axis of evil" states.
Of the 700-odd overseas military bases commanded by the US, quite a few "lily
pads" existed after 2001 in Central Asian Muslim countries like Kyrgyzstan
(Manas airbase), Uzbekistan (Khanabad airbase, closed in 2005) and Tajikistan
(Ayni airbase). Kazakhstan has allowed usage of its air fields for landing and
refueling of US jets on their way to Afghanistan. The ensuing counter-measures
taken by Russia and China rolled back Central Asian red carpets to Washington,
but it is a fact that governments of these Muslim countries were eager to
welcome American forces much against the will of their populations.
In Southeast Asia, the US has been conducting joint military exercises with the
army of the world's largest Muslim country, Indonesia. Washington states that
it is involved in a "long-term counter-terrorism program" with Jakarta that
includes military and police training to combat the Jemaah Islamiyah. The
post-Suharto normalization of military cooperation between Washington and
Jakarta occurred in spite of the tremendous surge of anti-American sentiment in
Indonesian society.
What emerges from all these illustrations is a pattern of governments of most
Muslim countries subtly but officially siding with the US "war on terror",
while their citizens have taken on vehemently anti-American positions. To an
extent, this government-citizen divide is not unique to the Muslim world.
Even Britain under prime minister Tony Blair pledged complete loyalty to the US
in Afghanistan and Iraq in spite of rising anti-war public opinion at home.
However, the difference between Europe and the Muslim world is that the former
has democratic procedures for popular will to throw out governments that are
erring on foreign policy.
Spain and Italy are two examples where governments fell in 2004 and 2007 owing
to their allegiance to the US "war on terror". A comparable change of regime in
dictatorial Saudi Arabia or Tajikistan is unimaginable.
Yet, Pew Global Attitudes Surveys have consistently found that the image of the
US and its "war on terror" is abysmal in all Muslim societies, even that of
secular Turkey. Almost in unison, Muslim people around the world are wary of
the "war on terror" being a deliberate assault on their co-religionists and
faith.
The impression of "ugly American", for many reasons, enjoys great sway in the
Muslim world. The total lack of appreciation among Muslim publics for the "war
on terror" does vindicate Huntington's thesis that Islam vs The West is a huge
fault line whose cracks are widening.
The deals that governments of Muslim countries have struck with Washington
since 2001 are practical regime survival stratagems that lack civilizational
consent from their societies. A civilization cannot be reduced to states and
their foreign policies because it is a much more grassroots phenomenon
emanating from informal institutions and social beliefs. In the case of Islam,
the concept of the ummah (universal Muslim brotherhood) is the
centripetal tether of a civilization that is politically parceled out in the
form of the 57 states of the OIC.
Global protests and demonstrations among Muslim communities at the Danish
cartoons imbroglio since 2005 did not respect the political partition of the
civilization into multiple nation-states. The visceral mistrust and fear of the
"war on terror" among these same communities is, likewise, a mirror of
civilizational suspicions that transcend opportunistic foreign policies of
individual Muslim states.
Huntington can be faulted for over-generalization and broad-brushing of
numerous internal clashes within civilizations, but the mood of the "Muslim
street" towards the "war on terror" does uphold the view that there exists a
civilizational solidarity that is defined in opposition to other civilizations.
On civilization-defining issues like the "war on terror", Islamic societies
speak and think as one entity, even if their rulers sup with the devil. The
government-citizen duality on the "war on terror" in the Muslim world augurs a
reconsideration of Huntington's famous "clash of civilizations" formulation. In
his 1993 essay, Huntington referred to "peoples and governments" as belonging
to a particular civilization, without distinguishing between the two. The case
of the "war on terror" teaches that recognizing the duality helps one to arrive
at a fairer assessment of his academic bombshell on its 15th anniversary.
Sreeram Chaulia is a researcher on international affairs at the Maxwell
School of Citizenship in Syracuse, New York.
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