Preachers, now you have a rival
By Syed Ali Mehdi
An official declaration of United States said that it does not recognize any such thing as “Islamic Terrorism” and that members of Al-Qaida and Taliban are simply terrorists and criminals, nothing more. The White House was prompt in disapproval of ill-timed remarks made by a close friend of American religious establishment, Franklin Graham, calling Islam a “wicked, violent” religion. Bush hosted an iftaar party for representatives of 53 Muslim nations, and alluded to Islam as one of the fastest growing religions in America. U.S. Ambassador to Pakistan, Wendy Chamberlin, was so impressed by the philosophy of Ramazan that she decided to observe Islamic fasts for whole month. Washington and its allies have expressed it over and again that Islam is a religion of peace, mercy and charity, and that the on-going strikes against terrorist hideouts should not be mistaken as a war against Islam. The FBI has reassured six million strong American Muslim community that hate crimes against it would be severely dealt with.
In its PR blitz following September 11, Washington has clearly displayed that in today’s awakened atmosphere, there has been a policy-shift from a blatant type of conflict to a largely intellectual one. In the heyday of imperialism, it was a virtue to establish colonies in the resource-rich regions of the globe; but as the level of consciousness increased, similar pursuits have been made in the guise of globalization or on the pretext of human rights. Exploitation, particularly with the help of mass media, has become so much sophisticated that it is virtually beyond the grasp of common citizens to feel or analyze it. In our day, not communities, but their essential identities are altered dexterously by giving a heavy dose of anesthesia.
Muslim community has been put on the defensive more aggressively after WTC and the right to interpret Islam, once considered the prerogative of ulama, has been liberalized by the world powers. Now the powerful Uncle Sam would not be satisfied with just the consumption of Western products, but by following Islam as preached by the U.S. State Department. Religious preachers, beware, now you have a rival! Precisely speaking, the world powers would want Muslims to adhere to an establishmentarinaist as opposed to revolutionary, pacifist as against dynamic, quietist as compared to activist, personalized instead of comprehensive, version of Islam, best suited to their strategic interests and diplomatic quest in the Middle East and elsewhere. U.S. foreign policy links all Islamic movements to terrorism primarily because of its assumption, further strengthened by autocratic regimes, that they aspire to threaten the smooth flow of oil to the West. To ensure that this does not translate into reality, they employ all means to brand them as anti-Western, anti-humanitarian, anti-women and anti-democracy to engineer domestic and liberal opinion, and ally with local regimes to crush them by military tactics, which Chomsky identifies as state-sponsored terrorism. No matter what atrocities are committed, how many innocent lives are ruthlessly taken, how public property is damaged, how women are humiliated, how tender minds are fed with horrific scenes and tales of violence, this does not concern them even slightly except in rhetoric.
I am reminded of a thoughtful verse from Iqbal, perhaps the greatest Urdu poet from modern India, wherein he says, though in an entirely different context:Khud badaltey nahin Quran ko badal detey hain (they do not change, instead change the Quran). This I want to dedicate to U.S. administration in its attempt to modify the real message of Islam to suit its ends. In yet another verse, he declares: pasban mil gaye Kabeh ko sanam khaney se(Kabah has got soldiers from idol-temple). What Iqbal did not articulate is the reverse, which too is a historical phenomenon. The oppressive ruling forces, as usual, are joined by self-interested people who wish to internalize and lend credence to the interpretations of their masters by virtue of their insider-ness. According to Reuters, the U.S. State Department has decided to fund ‘tolerant’ Imams and Muslim scholars to speak out against terrorism. The second verse is dedicated to these aspirants, if there come out any. If Washington is confident of its stance and power, why this move?
The West, in general, seems to be suffering from four major attitudinal problems: obsession with manufacturing (not products but public opinion and consent), ethnocentric analysis of world phenomena (by digging material orientations behind all categories of actions), dividing the world into two camps (reflected during Cold War phase and now in the be-with-us-or-be-with-the-terrorists attitude), and finally their desire to monopolize resources, regions and religions, leading them to intervention in these areas. I am not sure whether the source of these problems lies in their worldview, but there can be no doubt that the primary intentions are in most cases, if not in all, purely economic under the usually sophisticated guise of diplomacy, democracy, human rights, etc. After being historically forced to recognize that Islam cannot be abridged to an individualized affair, that it still epitomizes the lifeline of around one-fifth of world population cutting across social and cultural barriers, they have felt the need for a policy by virtue of which they are able to peacefully further their strategic interests specifically in the Middle East without hurting public sentiments in a confrontationist style. Maybe, it would have been better had the Middle East not been blessed with these natural resources! At least, in such a case, there would have been peace and freedom to live and follow one’s religion.
An incident from Islamic history would suffice to clarify the standpoint Muslims must hold in this terror-ridden world of today. When Abu Sufyan, a hypocrite, pledged military support to Hazrat Ali against first caliph Abu Bakr on the ground that caliphate was genuinely the right of the former, Ali retorted: “Since when did you become a devotee of Islam?” By this, he left a lesson for his followers: See who is saying, not simply what is being said. Individuals change, ideologies do not. The same conceptual play seems to be going on in our societies as well. I do not intend to distrust the intentions of those who speak out whatever convinces them, and such people abound in number everywhere.
We are thankful to world leaders for their sympathy toward Islam and Muslims; for all the admiration; for their playing a leading role in humanitarian relief efforts in Afghanistan, through airdrops and truck convoys of food, medicine, and other much-needed supplies; for their commitment to long-term reconstruction of that troubled land; for their compliments and wishes on the eve of Ramazan; and for all their concerns for the welfare of our community. However, we would also like to request them to leave the interpretation of our religion and our identities to ourselves, and not initiate a fresh spate of state-sponsored orientalism which has been responsible for much of the misunderstandings and misrepresentations that lie between us. If you really want to respect our sentiments and emotions, it could best be done by a discontinuation of the killing of civilians and loss to their property; by not targeting innocent Muslims through anti-terrorism legislations; by averting the new anti-Semitism [Guardian, Madeleine Bunting, Dec. 3 2001] that is becoming more obnoxious than racial discrimination. If there are terrorists in Muslim countries, there are war criminals in your protection too: topping the list is Mr. Ariel Sharon, whom a Belgian court has convicted for heinous massacres in 1982 at Shabra and Shatila [Guardian, Nov. 28 2001], and who is presently carrying out a disproportionate retaliation [Powell, reported by Former BBC Middle East correspondent, Paul Reynolds] against the Palestinians for weekend attacks in Israel; in the U.S., there is an exiled Haitian leader Emmanuel Constant, who has been tried and convicted in Haiti for murdering over 5,000 people. Is the U.S., then, ready to hand them over to the afflicted nations?
No more politicization of Islam and clash with Muslim civilization, please. Let U.N.O. take the lead.
http://www.shianews.com/hi/articles/politics/0000181.php