Sunday 9 October 2016

Muslims in Aftermath of 9/11 - English Essay

Muslims in Aftermath of 9/11

English Essay on "Muslims in Aftermath of 9/11"

Until a year ago Islam and Muslims were not only secure but vibrant in America and much of Europe. It is not quite the same now. In some instances life for Muslims living in the West has become difficult, and governments in Muslim countries have come under new pressures since the events of September 11, 2001.

What exactly did happen on that day? A dozen or so Arab Muslims hijacked three American airliners, took control, smashed into two tall buildings in New York city and a section of one in Washington, D.C., demolished the structures, and killed three to four thousand persons working in them. The loss of life and property was heavy enough to cause Americans stunning shock, profound agony, and then anger.

But more was involved. Never since the War of 1812 (with Britain) had any hostile foreign force ever hit mainland America. And now a small group of men from the Third World had has the audacity to strike the richest and the mightiest nation on earth. How insulting, nay humiliating! The attackers were not a bunch of “naughty boys or hoodlums. Nor did they lust for blood, taking delight in the act of killing. They killed to register a dramatic protest against a perceived American policy of dominating, exploiting, and oppressing Muslim peoples directly or through puppet regimes. Those who planned and managed this operation were allegedly affiliated with fundamentalist, extremist organizations, such as Al Qaeda.

These organizations regard America particularly, and the West generally, not only as corrupt and degenerate, but also as enemies of Islam. The West, therefore; deserves to be destroyed or, at minimum, repudiated in the thinking and lives of Muslims. Thus, if there is a battle between Islam and the West, the lines have been made graphic more by Islamic fundamentalists and extremists than by western governments or intellectuals. The western media has jumped into this battleground because the exchanges here make a good story that recruits customers. A qualification may, however, be added: sections of the American media, being pro-Israel, are in some measure hostile to Arabs and, coincidentally, to Muslims.

How are the American people, politicians, and government acting towards Muslims? While the vast majority of the people here disapprove of terrorism, they are unconcerned with Islam and they are not anti-Muslim. The events of September, 11 and the following war against terrorism have awakened them, perhaps for the first time, to the Muslim world as something to think about. Almost seven million persons living in the US call themselves Muslim. Nearly half of them are native-born blacks. They do not appear to have attracted the adverse attention of non-Muslim Americans.

Of the three to four million Muslims of foreign origin, a few thousand may have suffered harassment, abuse, or physical violence at the hands of individual non-Muslim whites. But it cannot be said that any widespread persecution or even discrimination is being visited upon Muslims in this country at this time.

The police and security agencies are probably keeping an especially watchful eye on Arab-looking individuals (that might include many Pakistanis) at airports and other transportation centres. They have arrested several thousand Muslims who were living and working in this country unlawfully. They have placed under surveillance and, in a few cases, interrogated or even detained, some of the leading activists in Islamic organizations that funded and otherwise promoted Muslim causes and campaigns abroad.

President George Bush, his advisers, aid party leaders in Congress are informed enough to know that Islam and its ordinary followers pose no threat to the West. Islam is doctrine, law, ethics, and worship. In all of these dimensions it is closely related to the Judeo-Christian tradition. The Islamic injunction against interest and the accumulation of wealth would remind one of the admonition attributed ft Jesus that it would be no easier for the wealthy to enter paradise than it would be for an elephant to pass through the eye of a needle. Followed in practice, such ideas would destroy western capitalism. But fortunately for that system neither Christians nor Muslims implement them.

Considering the matter at another level, if the Saudi women are hidden away from men, and if all must pray five times a day, western interests in that country are in no way jeopardized. The more the Muslims immerse themselves in spiritual exercises, and the more they stay away from managing worldly affairs, the more incompetent, and therefore the more amenable to western domination and exploitation they become.

The observations of western scholars such as Bernard Lewis and Samuel Huntington to the contrary notwithstanding, the alleged conflict between Islam and the West ‘is unreal, bog us. Revolutionary Islam, as understood by persons such as Allam a Iqbal, is securely tucked away $n books. It forms no part of actual Muslim practice:

One may argue also that it is rather the West that thwarts the Muslims’ interests and freedom o action, and threatens their way of life. This is true, but it has nothing to do with the fact that they call themselves Muslim. Western powers have controlled, and continue to dominate and exploit, non-Muslim as well as Muslim countries. During the first half of the twentieth century, American corporations literally owned the larger part of the economies of Cuba, Brazil, Argentina, Mexico, and several other Latin American (all of them Catholic) countries. This is an encounter between the powerful and the weak, the proficient and the incompetent, in which the former prevail. Religion has had nothing to do with it.

A small minority of Muslims will say, ‘however, that since the West is evil, they (the fundamentalist) must fight it. This is a duty laid upon them by God, and it is called “jihad.” They do not have modern armed forces at their disposal and, therefore, they must resort to other techniques, including the one that western spokesmen have begun to call “terrorism.”

Terrorism should not be confused with various kinds of war, including “wars of liberation” or freedom struggles, which are recognized categories of conflict. War may peripherally include acts of terrorism, but that does not change its essential character: it remains war. Terrorism, strictly speaking, is violence directed against non-combatants for the purpose of intimidating their p9litical authorities to concede the attackers demands.

Before speculating how the “war” between the militant fundamentalists and the West will go, a couple of other observations may be in order. First the Muslim militant misunderstands the relevant Islamic injunction. Jihad means endeavour or struggle, but its instrument need not be the sword; it may be speech or writing. Second, resort to the sword is not to be made without regard to the condition of its blade and your skill in wielding it - that is, your war-making capacity.

During a 12-year period of adversity in Makkah the Prophet (pbuh) made no resort to violence in spite of the severe persecution to which he and his followers were subjected. During his ten years in Madinah, the first three wars (Badr, Uhad, and Khandaq) were wholly defensive. The ones at Hunain and Khayber (one preventive and other punitive) were undertaken when Muslim military capability had become substantial. Islam does not call upon Muslims to go out and fight “infidels” if the odds are all stacked up against them.

Muslim scholars must explain to their own people and the outside world that the Quranic injunction to wipe out the “infidels” relates to specific enemies (the “kuffar” of Makkah and other hostile Arab tribes) at a given time and, place, and that its implementation is not to be taken as an eternal obligation.

If the militant extremists figure that sporadic attacks on western persons and property will break western power and hegemony, they are mistaken. If the United States and its allies think that they can eradicate terrorism by killing Al Qaeda, the Taliban, and their kin - not to speak of innocent bystanders in Afghanistan and elsewhere, they too are wrong. Terrorism is here to stay; it cannot be wished away. The IRA in Ireland, the Red Brigade in Italy, find the Basques in Spain had their days of heightened activity, and of late they have been quiescent. It is now the day of Muslim militants but with the passage of time, as their grievances subside to a tolerable level, they too will quiet down, and then other oppressed groups will take their place.

Terrorists do not limit themselves to hitting foreign targets. Hindu fundamentalists in India and extremists in Pakistan and some other Muslim countries have killed fellow citizens and destroyed their homes, because they belonged to a different religious or ethnic group. They are just as ready to kill those who do not subscribe to their ideology and ‘models of governance. The governments concerned should, of course, suppress these killers, but that is much easier said than done.

The task before these harassed governments is just as difficult as that of the western powers to end international terrorism. Those to be restrained live hidden lives, their organization and planning are covert, and their professed mission may have a certain measure of popular support. The effort to restrain them must, nevertheless, be made with as much vigour as possible. Deals with them, and efforts to use them against the regime’s other adversaries, will be counter-productive, as it was in the case of Afghanistan where America armed, funded and used large groups of jihadis in its proxy war against the Soviet occupiers.

Many commentators urge the West to locate the “rootcauses” of terrorism and remove them, implying that it will then go away.. Let “justice” be done to the Palestinians and the Kashmiris and the militants among them will stop their violence. This is sound advice. But note also that jutice is so very elusive. With rare and brief exceptions, great power and justice have not gone together in history. There is another complication to consider. The spread of modern technology has brought the means of violent resistance within easy reach of the oppressed. Unlike their ancestors, they don’t have to be meek. Even the semi-literate can learn to make a bomb, not to speak of more destructive weapons. Our children and grandchildren are destined to live in an increasingly dangerous world.

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