Greater Kashmir, India
Feb 7 2005
No ideology of hate
No bloody borders, as Huntington sees, the whole affair needs to be
seen from an objective perspective, writes
ASHFAK BUKHARI
How and why 9/11 occurred, shattered the myth of America’s supremacy
of power for a while, and provided a raison d’etre for the renewal of
‘crusades’ against Islam, as a religion and society, is a theme that
has seized the attention of western intelligentsia since the event
and led to a flood of books on the subject in the market. But the way
this sensitive subject has been treated and the explanations offered
in most of the essays, 20 in all, in this outstanding work by a
Pakistani economist who teaches in an American university, is
inspiring.
The question commonly asked is: Is there an Islamic problem behind
this unthinkable tragedy? The answer the author gives is: there is no
Islamic problem – and, if any, it is a problem of temporary
disruption in the West’s legacy of plunder, conquest and massacres to
subjugate the rest of the world. Two opposite visions dominate
American scholarship on Islam and Islamic societies. One represents
Islam as an enemy that must be destroyed, or otherwise it will
destroy the West. Its prominent advocates are Bernard Lewis, Daniel
Pipes, Charles Krauthammer and Martin Kramer.
The second vision tends to accommodate Islam and argues that since
political Islamists do not reject modernity, they must be given a
chance to run Islamic societies as this will, ultimately, either
discredit them or bring them into political mainstream of western
orientation. The upholders of the first vision, whom the author calls
“anti-Islam warriors”, consider Islamic societies lagging in economic
development, deficit in democracy, and having “bloody borders” – a
phrase coined by Samuel Huntington.
The author, Shahid Alam, says the evidence fails to support these
charges. Although the Islamic countries do face numerous serious
economic problems, they are not worse or much worse than others.
Judging from the 1999 living standards, according to the World
Development Report, 2000, one can see Muslims have not done too
badly: Malaysia is well ahead of Thailand, Iran fares better than
Venezuela, Egypt is modestly ahead of Ukraine, Turkey is slightly
behind Russia, Tunisia is well ahead of Georgia and Armenia, etc.
Regarding bloody borders, Jonathan Fox has shown that Islam was
involved in 23.2 per cent of all inter-civilizational conflicts
during 1945-1989 period and 24.7 per cent of these conflicts during
1990 to 1998. This is not too far above Islam’s share in the world
population, nor is there any dramatic rise in this share since the
end of the cold war. Hence, Huntington’s claim of “Muslim
bellicosity” does not qualify as a fact. Islamic societies have not
suffered from democracy deficit either. Incredible as it may appear,
Tunisia, Egypt and Iran were in the process of making a transition to
constitutional monarchies during the 19th century but their attempts
were foiled by the West. In 1881, the Egyptian nationalists had
succeeded in convening an elected parliament but the British
disbanded it when they occupied the country a year later. Tunisia
promulgated a constitution in 1860, setting up a supreme council with
an intention to limit the powers of monarchy. Ironically, the French
suppressed this council in 1864 when they discovered that it
interfered with their ambitions in Tunisia.
Turkey elected its first parliament in 1877; it was dissolved by the
Caliph a year later. A second parliament was convened in 1908. In
1906, Iran’s first elected parliament adopted a constitutional
monarchy limiting the powers of the monarch but in 1911, with the
support of Russia and Britain, the pro-monarch forces defeated the
constitutionalists and the parliament was dissolved.
And in recent period, it has been oil, Israel and the old antipathy
to Islam that have kept democracy away from the Arab world. It is
interesting to note that the western donors have, especially after
the end of the cold war, used their financial leverage to encourage
democratization in client countries. But not so in the case of Arab
countries because democracy there could bring Islamists to power.
They do get enough support of various kinds so long as they come to
terms with Israel and are willing to suppress Islamist opposition.
When Iraq violated this understanding in 1990, it faced endless war
and crippling sanctions. Then, Algeria shows the fate a Muslim
country can face if the Islamists seek to capture power.
The author takes note of an essay written by a well-known physicist
and activist, Pervez Hoodbhoy, in December 2001 in which he argues
that a deadening obscurantism has paralyzed Islamic civilization
since the 12th century and that the Muslims can end this paralysis
only if they decide to “replace Islam with secular humanism which
alone offers the hope of providing everybody on this globe with the
right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness”. This suggests,
the author says, Hoodbhoy has been raised “on a pure diet of
Orientalism and its falsification of Islamic history”.
Shahid Alam refutes the claim of Eurocentrists and their Muslim
acolytes quite forcefully that religion and culture are the principal
source of backwardness of Islamic societies and its so-called
antipathy to science, rationality and modernity. He quotes a
historical fact, often ignored by the western scholars, that had the
Egyptian bid to industrialize – initiated by Muhammad Ali Pasha in
1810 – not been dismantled by the European powers, the Middle East
would have been industrially transformed. But since an industrialized
Middle East would have renewed the “old threat of Islam”, the
European powers united to abort Pasha’s great initiative. In
contrast, when Japan made a similar industrial drive some 60 years
later, Europe did not block it.
Referring to Hoodbhoy’s advice to the Muslims to “give up the false
notions” of Islam, the author asks them instead to give up false
Orientalist notions of an Islam that has been misrepresented as
“irrational, fatalist and fanatical”. Rational thinking, he says, did
not begin with the Enlightenment as the West claims. In fact, several
Enlightenment thinkers turned to Islam to advance their own struggle
against medieval obscurantism. Shahid Alam concludes his first
chapter, which is the core essay lending its name to the book, by
suggesting that the Muslims, a fourth of the world’s peoples, are
today seeking their identity within a stream of history that flows
from the Quran. The Quranic impulse towards truth, justice, sincerity
and beauty will find expression again, not in combat, but in a new
Arabesque of creative minds.
The book is divided into three parts: Islamic societies and the West,
Arabs and the United States, and Palestine and Israel. Each chapter
begins with a verse from the Quran , relevant to the subject-matter.
The author has devoted one chapter to Huntington’s thesis “Clash of
Civilizations”, calls it utter nonsense and demolishes his
philosophy. Another chapter takes to task Bernard Lewis, the doyen of
the Orientalists, who has actually been serving the Zionist interests
for 50 years.
“Why 9/11 and why now” is a fascinating essay in which he says the
tragic event, irrespective of whoever engineered it, has incidentally
enabled the quartet of American Likudniks, Corporate America, the
Zionists and the Christian coalition to launch their project of a
‘new American century’.
–Boundary_(ID_Joy5q+94Wnpv1FnkxNhraA)–