Obama and the challenges of the Muslim world - I

مِنْ أَجْلِ ذَلِكَ كَتَبْنَا عَلَى بَنِي إِسْرَائِيلَ أَنَّهُ مَن قَتَلَ نَفْسًا بِغَيْرِ نَفْسٍ أَوْ فَسَادٍ فِي الأَرْضِ فَكَأَنَّمَا قَتَلَ النَّاسَ جَمِيعًا وَمَنْ أَحْيَاهَا فَكَأَنَّمَا أَحْيَا النَّاسَ جَمِيعًا وَلَقَدْ جَاء تْهُمْ رُسُلُنَا بِالبَيِّنَاتِ ثُمَّ إِنَّ كَثِيرًا مِّنْهُم بَعْدَ ذَلِكَ فِي الأَرْضِ لَمُسْرِفُونَ
Because of this did We ordain unto the children of Israel that if anyone slays a human being-unless it be [in punishment] for murder or for spreading corruption on earth-it shall be as though he had slain all mankind; whereas, if anyone saves a life, it shall be as though he had saved the lives of all mankind. And, indeed, there came unto them Our apostles with all evidence of the truth: yet, behold, notwithstanding all this, many of them go on committing all manner of excesses on earth.(Al-Qur’an, Chapter 5, Verse 32)

As I sit down to write this, a horrendous event is unfolding in the city of Mumbai in India. Armed gunmen opened indiscriminate fire with automatic machine guns and grenades on innocent, unarmed civilians in about 10 of the busiest locations in Mumbai, including CST (Victoria) rail terminus, the busiest rail terminus in the world, Taj Mahal Hotel at the Gateway, Oberoi Trident at Nariman Point, Santa Cruz airport, Cama and GT hospitals and Mazgaon Dockyard. Initial estimates but the number killed at around 101 killed with many more in the injured list.
It is indeed a dastardly act, specifically targeting civilians, including a women’s and children’s hospital, which cannot be justified by any cause whatsoever.

There is a high probability that this attack was carried out by Muslims (even though the last acts of terrorism in Mumbai and in Orrisa were carried out by Hindu fundamentalist), probably Kashmiri separatists influenced by the ideology of Al-Qaeda. Most of the attackers, as shown by the images on TV, are young men; probably ready to be ‘martyred’ for their cause. Little do they realize, that even if the grievances are real, there is absolutely no way they will be resolved by the shedding of innocent blood….neither here on earth nor by God.

Terrorism does not follow any faith or religion. They just follow an ideology of spreading fear and terror in order to achieve their narrow aims. These movements feed off from an underlying unrest and a sense of injustice among its target populations. If the government is able to address these grievances (at least give an impression to the populace that it is trying its best to resolve those grievances) the popular support for these terrorist groups wane, cutting off funding, manpower and material support resulting in these group slowly die off.
Conversely if the authorities or the ‘stronger community’ try to ‘strong arm’ the local or the weaker population into submission and cooperation, it leads to mushrooming of support for these groups.

This is what happened in the case of Kashmir and other separatist groups in India. And in other Indian Muslim communities living in Mumbai and Uttar Pradesh, after the riots that followed after the destruction of Babri Mosque in 1991; and again after the massacre of Muslims in Gujarat in the post Godhra riots. And this what followed in the Northeast regions of India following the heavy handed approach used by the Indian Army in the Jharkhand /Nagaland / Assam / Arunachal Pradesh area in the 1950’s thru 1970’s. Of these, the Jharkhand issue was peacefully resolved after prolonged negotiations after the central government agreed to give the area statehood within the Indian Union.

And this is exactly what has happened to the US vis-à-vis its relation with the ‘Islamic world’.
Contrary to the point propagated by many think-tanks in US, the current set of grievances of Muslims worldwide against the US did not start due to the formation of Israel in 1947 with a vote in the UN. The resentment started after the 1948 Israel-Arab war after Israel ended up occupying 50% more than the UN partition proposal allotted them, but even then it was not as high in many areas as compared to their opposition to the say the French or the British (Britain had in fact promised these lands to the Arabs and in 1916 Britain and France signed the Sykes-Picot Agreement, according to which Palestine was to be internationalized). Add to that the humiliation that Arabs suffered during the 1967 war, the limbo in which millions of Palestinian refugees are living as persona non grata, and we have a perfect storm brewing.
The tipping point did not come as one single event but a series of US foreign policy missteps:
· The 1953 overthrow by the Shah and directed by the US (CIA) and British intelligence (MI6) of the moderate constitutional government of Mohammed Mossadegh in Iran (Operation Ajax), followed by years of support for the brutal regime of the Shah.
· U.S. support for the regime of Jafaar Nimeiry during most of his repressive 16-year rule of Sudan led to the destruction of much of that country's civil society, resulting in the 1989 coup by hard-line Islamic military officers.
· During the 1970s and 1980s, the destruction of moderate Muslim-led factions in Lebanon by U.S.-backed invasions and occupations from Syria and Israel—and later military intervention by the U.S. itself, leading to the formation of extremist groups like Hezbollah who now serve as the sole provider of relief supplies and work in southern Lebanon and are incredibly popular in those area.
· Inciting the Afghan citizens to rise up against an invasion by the USSR in the 1970’s leading to years of brutal suppression and untold brutality leading to the complete destruction of their infrastructure and any hope towards a decent future. And as soon as the Soviets were defeated, USA turned away from that area, leaving behind heavily armed groups (USA tended to arm local strongmen instead of training a united nationalistic insurgency movement) led by tribal leaders jockeying for power and control. This led to a deadly civil war killing hundreds of thousands and killing any chance that Afghanistan had to rise back as a nation, pitching Uzbeks against Pashtun’s against Tajik’s against Hazara’s against Turkmen etc…. And each of these ethnic groups was further divided based on their loyalty to their local tribal leader / strongman. And of-course the local powers like Pakistan, India, Iran, Uzbekistan, Arabs, all started playing the field using the local strongmen to jockey for power.Again here, when peace was finally brought into place, it was done by an extremist group of the Taliban (students of Islam) who took the only common denominator among all these warring factions, their faith in Islam to unite them. And as Afghans, they had not forgotten the debt to the ‘Arab Afghans’ like Osama bin-Laden who had stayed behind to help the locals when the ‘Americans’ had abandoned them. Unfortunately, these guys were mired in tribal traditions instead of being educated in modern sciences and true Islamic principles, leading to a brutal anti-western feudal system of government.
· Indirectly facilitating the escalation of the Kashmiri problem for blindly toeing the Pakistani government (which was often led by self seeking despots) policies instead of seeking true solutions. Here the Pakistani and Indian governments had a big hand in radicalizing the issue and pushing it towards being a religious issue instead of being a local issue.
· The current state of Palestinian people, where people from outside the Palestinian lands can easily visit and pray in the holy mosque of ‘Al-Aqsa’, the second holiest mosque for Muslims, but they themselves have to apply for a permit and may get to pray there once in their entire lifetime if they are lucky! Where, their factories are shut down due to lack of power or raw materials due to the blockade put in by the Israeli army to protect settlers who had illegally occupied Palestinian lands even by the standard laid out by the Israeli Supreme Court! Where food supplies sent in by humanitarian organizations (including the UN) are stopped from being distributed to starving children due to this blockade! Where the funds collected from the Palestinian people in form of taxes and tariffs are not given back to the local authority even after an agreement brought about by the US to pay wages to the locals. Where people live as slaves and hostages in their own homes, in their own lands. All this has led to a great resentment and rising popularity of the extremist group Hamas, which like a sunni 'avatar' of Hebollah, are a very efficient group with very little corruption (unlike other moderate Palestenian factions like Fatah) and popular among locals for their social work and efficiency with which they administer the areas under their control. Brutal attempts by Israel to sideline them (as the ones mentioned above) have only rise in their status as the only group facing upto 'aggressors'.

This is just a list of the most well known grievances. There are other lesser known or less established ones, like in countries like Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Iraq, Kuwait etc., where locals believe that US always tries to prop up tyrannically dictators to guard its interests, while taking about its high moral values and about democracy.. They love the ideas of democracy, freedom and the basic dignity that US people stand for. But they deeply mistrust the US government’s motives and intentions.
So how will we (led by President Obama) overcome this in order to ‘spread peace’ thru the middle-east and the Muslim world? (..........to be continued!)