The Christian Science Monitor has been running some informative pieces on Islam and jihadism lately. For instance: Jihad: Who's joining, and why? by Dan Murphy and Howard LaFranchi 08/03/05.
It's useful, therefore, to think of Al Qaeda as an ideological force that reaches beyond its organizational structure. While groups like Southeast Asia's Jemaah Islamiyah (Islamic Group) and the pan-Islamic Hizb ut-Tahrir (Party of Liberation) have some doctrinal differences with Al Qaeda, they have overlapping interests.
They also touch on a theme that has become a favorite of conservatives lately, grumbling about how the "moderate" Muslims aren't doing enough. For some of these conservatives, it's pretty obvious that this is just another way to define Islam and Muslims as The Enemy.
Is a backlash against jihadism building from within Islam?
Contrary to the complaints of critics, mainstream Muslim clerics have taken steps to combat terrorism. American Muslim leaders have quickly condemned attacks, and have established programs, notably with the FBI, to assist in rooting out extremism.
Such commitments have been amplified since the London bombings. Last week, Muslim scholars in the US and Canada issued a fatwa, or judicial ruling, condemning terrorism and declaring violence against civilians - including suicide bombings - impermissible in Islam. Islamic scholars in Britain have taken similar steps. However, many experts worry that this focus on mainstream clerics is missing the mark, since the radicalized young often do not listen to religious leaders they see as Westernized.
At the same time, debate grows about whether more needs to be done. Some experts argue that jihadist violence can be ended only through opposition from within Islam. So far, such opposition hasn't stopped attacks.
This one also addresses the jihadist phenomenon: How radical Islamists see the world by Dan Murphy and Howard LaFranchi Christian Science Monitor 08/02/05.
For some terrorism experts, Al Qaeda as an organization simply no longer exists. Its Afghan training and indoctrination sites are gone. Key leaders have been killed or captured, or are on the run. Yet Al Qaeda as an ideology of global confrontation and jihad, "struggle" or "holy war," still exists.
"That is why I speak of 'Al Qaedaism' as more of a factor today than Al Qaeda," says Magnus Ranstorp of the Center for the Study of Terrorism and Political Violence at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland.
This article also addresses the important concepts of Salafi and Wahhabi:
[The jihadists'] views stem from the Salafi movement within Islam's Sunni sect, the religion's largest. For a Salafi adherent, interpretation of the Koran stops 1,300 years ago, with Muhammad, his companions, and the three generations that followed them.
What about Wahhabi thinking - is that behind Al Qaeda?
While many in the West use the term Wahhabi, practitioners of this Sunni school reject the notion that they belong to any particular sect. To their thinking, they are simply following the true path of Islam. They are Salafi followers of Mohammed ibn abd al-Wahhab, an 18th century Arabian preacher. Although the vast majority of Salafis are not involved in violence, almost all attacks linked to Al Qaeda have been carried out by people under the Salafi umbrella. The House of Saud helped this school become Saudi Arabia's dominant interpretation of Islam. Many Saudis refuse to view Osama bin Laden as a Wahhabi, rejecting his thirst for overthrowing the Saudi regime. Wahhabis are supremely intolerant of Shiites, seeing practices such as the veneration of historic Imams Hussein and Ali as a breach of monotheism.
Juan Cole provides the text of a commentary by Mark LeVine called Good Muslim, Bad Muslim, Moderate Muslim? 08/02/05.
Just over two years ago I organized a forum of leading younger Muslim activists at the Central University in Budapest. Among those present were the Swiss born scholar Tariq Ramadan and the Moroccan political and social activist Nadia Yassine. Both, in very different ways, are at the center of the Bush Administration's confusing policy of labeling certain Muslim religious leaders and organizations as "moderate" and others as "extremists" and attempting to isolate or support them based on this determination.
Last year the State Department revoked a visa granted to Dr. Ramadan, preventing him from accepting a prestigious professorship at Notre Dame. Last month it offered some support for Yassine, who is under indictment in Morocco for daring to suggest at a conference at UC Berkeley we both attended that a republican form of government would better serve Morocco's citizens than its monarchy.
The divergent treatment of Yassine and Ramadan demonstrate why this latest attempt to rein in growing antipathy towards the US across the Muslim world is doomed to fail: the support for moderate figures is inconsistently given, not backed up by changes in American policy, and easily subverted by the larger strategic and ideological agenda of Bush Administration officials.
He proceeds to explain their situations in more detail. And he observes:
The hope would seem to be that bringing moderates like Yassine into the political process will further "moderate" their views and even improve their attitudes towards US policy in the region. Such hopes are Pollyannish at best and patronizing at worst.
The reality is that the US can't have it three ways: it can't ostracize some figures, offer support for others with nearly identical views, yet at the same time provide hundreds of millions and even billions of dollars of aid to the governments that oppress them. As Nadia Yassine explained to me, "I have no confidence in American foreign policy." Why should she as long as we are supporting the government that's trying to jail her for speaking her mind?
This gets back to the reality that the jihadists, however aberrant their religion and political ideology may seem, are actually responding to American policies. Recognizing that does not dictate a particular course of action. But repeating endlessly that "they hate us for our freedoms" or that The Terrorists are evil, evil, evil or that Islamis The Enemy just makes understanding and dealing with the real problem that much more difficult.
Cole in a different posts helpfully recaps the origins of the current jihadist movement in Afghanistan, where they were actively supported by the Reagan administration which praised them as brave freedom fighters: Fisking the "War on Terror" Informed Comment blog 08/02/05. He ends it this way:
Then in July, 2005, General Richard Myers, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, announced that there was not actually any "War on Terror:" ' General Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told the National Press Club on Monday that he had "objected to the use of the term 'war on terrorism' before, because if you call it a war, then you think of people in uniform as being the solution." ' (Question: Does this mean we can have the Bill of Rights back, now?)
The American Right, having created the Mujahideen and having mightily contributed to the creation of al-Qaeda, abruptly announced that there was something deeply wrong with Islam, that it kept producing terrorists.
And while I'm quote Juan Cole, in an earlier post (Straw Backs Down on Iraq Link 07/25/05) addressed the notion that recognizing that suicide terrorism was a response to actual situations like the Iraq War, he wrote:
Look, if the US and the UK decide to do something and it is the right thing to do, and they can get a United Nations Security Council resolution for it so that it is legal, then they should do it. If there is a terrorist response, too bad. Cost of doing business.
Well put. If a certain policy is right or necessary in the national interest, then it needs to be done even if it increases the terrorist threat. But to pretend that the terrorist threat doesn't factor into the equations in situations like Iraq where it plainly does is just foolish.
No comments:
Post a Comment