Salams
some interesting blogs;
www.maajidnawaz.blogspot.com
www.abu-ibrahim.blogspot.com
www.traditionalislamist.blogspot.com
Saturday, 13 October 2007
Monday, 11 June 2007
Rand Report
Hello
The below RAND report outlines the approach the US governments needs to take to tackle Political Islam. It was written in 2003, but still relevant to US policy and strategy today in the Middle East.
http://www.rand.org/pubs/monograph_reports/2005/MR1716.pdf
The below RAND report outlines the approach the US governments needs to take to tackle Political Islam. It was written in 2003, but still relevant to US policy and strategy today in the Middle East.
http://www.rand.org/pubs/monograph_reports/2005/MR1716.pdf
The Caliphate- Islam's Challenge to the Global Order
Hello,
The below article is by Dr Numan Hanif, an expert in international terrorism and security. His blog can be accessed from the below link.
http://islamicaffairsanalyst.blogspot.com
A divine belief by the radical Islamic movement in the institution of the Caliphate as a fortress to restore Islam’s power and a vehicle to challenge the primacy of Western civilisation is gathering storm in the Islamic world and beyond. Sourced from the Koran and Islamic history, the Islamic movement may differ as to whether the methodology of revival should be jihad, reformist or political, but the goal of restoring the Caliphate is now uniformly agreed upon.
The Western response to the Islamic movement has been to link the Caliphate with global jihad and by extension the war on terrorism. The evolution of language in Western capitals from generic terrorism to Islamist terrorism to evil ideology and finally to the Caliphate has endorsed what the Islamic movement has long been advocating for some time, that the war on terror is essentially a war against Islam.
As further evidence, the Islamic movement has capitalised upon a remarkable series of statements on the Caliphate by political leaders in Washington and Europe. In a speech to the Heritage Foundation on October 6, 2005, British Home Secretary Charles Clarke said, “…there can be no negotiation about the re-creation of the Caliphate; there can be no negotiation about the imposition of Sharia (Islamic) law...” President George Bush in a speech to the nation on the 8th of October 2005 stated, “The militants believe that controlling one country will rally the Muslim masses, enabling them to overthrow all moderate governments in the region, and establish a radical Islamic empire that spans from Spain to Indonesia.'' On December 5th 2005, US Secretary of Defence, Donald Rumsfeld in remarks pertaining to the future of Iraq at John Hopkins University said, “Iraq would serve as the base of a new Islamic Caliphate to extend throughout the Middle East and which would threaten the legitimate governments in Europe, Africa, and Asia. This is their plan. They (radical Islamic movement) have said so. We make a terrible mistake if we fail to listen and learn”.
The Caliphate as defined by the Sunni Islamic Movement is the total leadership for all the Muslims aimed at implementing Islamic law and carrying the Islamic message to the entire world. It is the successor to the Islamic Caliphate which spanned at one time from Indonesia to Spain through a period of fourteen hundred years. It has not been defined as a monarchy, democracy, dictatorship or a theocracy. Rather a contract of leadership between an elected Caliph and the citizens to apply complete Islamic law within internal and external policy.
The Sunni school differs from the Shia in that it endorses the immediate restoration of Islamic rule by any Muslim meeting certain criteria. The Shia school on the other hand dictates that only a person from the lineage of the Prophet Mohammed has the authority to implement Islamic rule. This lineage having been broken by the disappearance or concealment of the twelfth Imam in 941A.D means that only through his reappearance can the Islamic rule continue. Thereby, the Iranian revolution was never declared or accepted by the majority Sunni or even the Shia in the Islamic world as a Caliphate.
In this article I will argue that the Western position of avoiding an open confrontation with Islam and resisting the popular move towards the resumption of the Caliphate is becoming unsustainable. Armed with the Koran, the Islamic movement continues to win every battle in the war of ideas. The patronage of moderate Islam as a mirror of Western Liberalism in the Islamic world is rapidly collapsing in light of superior scholarly authority from the Islamic movement.
The Islamic movement has been successful in presenting to the Muslim masses an alternative ideological model to Western secular Liberalism consistent with the Koran. The reproduction of the Caliphate forms the apex of this model as a means of challenging the Western dominated global structure.
If the West is going to challenge this model it has no alternative but to openly battle Islam along with the Koran. This is not a deliberate precipitation of the clash of civilisations, rather a clear identification of the doctrinal incompatibility between Islam and secular Western Liberalism.
It would be folly to argue that the West is going to change its policy towards the Islamic world. The perpetual conflict between energy security, global Capitalism, promoting secular democracy and accommodating political Islam will continue to bedevil its behaviour. Hence, a Western mood swing in the Islamic world towards controlled democracy by force and occupation only strengthens the Islamic movement. Continued support for dictatorships and monarchies intent on wiping out the Islamic movement and opposing the Caliphate only confirms in the minds of the masses that the West is intent on continuing a crusade against Islam. These conditions have secured an environment for the inevitable collapse of local regimes, the entrance of the Caliphate and a consequential upheaval in global order.
Roots of Islamic Revival
The ideological vacuum left by the collapse of the Communist experiment in Russia quickly focussed international debate on whether Islam would fill the void and present the next challenge to a triumphant secular liberal global doctrine lead by the United States and Europe. Basking in the unexpected ideological defeat of Communism, academics cultured in the Western secular liberal tradition were quick to pronounce the Islamic revival as a reaction to Western ideological supremacy, a strategic conundrum, but not one which was capable of challenging Western universalism. This thinking has tended to dominate the literature in the West, leading to a fundamental error in the understanding and explanation pertaining to the basis of Islamic revival and its challenge to revolutionise global order.
Western academics and policymakers have made the critical mistake of analysing the source of Islamic revival and the conditions which stimulate it as one and the same. The spring of ideas have not been separated from the political, economic and social environments which foster its growth. The foundation of the Islamic movement which aims to revive the totality of Islam through the Caliphate is securely rooted in the inspiration of its source, the Koran.
In the Islamic world it is the Koran which is considered the utopia of thought and considered to have ended history twelve hundred years prior to Francis Fukyama’s dialectic benchmark of the French revolution. The belief in the perfection of the Koran and by default God’s laws ensuing from it shape the roots of Muslim rage and render the clash of civilisations between Islam and secular liberalism inevitable.
Western academic discourse on the stated failure of political Islam is so overtaken by Western globalism that it constructs a hypothesis of Islam in its own image far removed from the Koran, the vast heritage of Islamic jurisprudence and by default the power of the Islamic movement. The belief in the Koran’s universalism and the compatibility between material and spirit render paradigms of an Islamic reformation impotent.
The Western secular dictum ‘render unto Caesar’s what is Caesar’s and unto God’s what is God’s’, is powerfully disputed by the Islamic movement through verses of the Koran and their jurisprudential understandings as having no parallel in classical or contemporary Islamic discourse.
The argument that political Islam has failed because it has been unable to adapt to Western modernity and hence to Western political structure is not a prosecution for political Islam’s failure. Rather it is further evidence that Islam and Western political architecture are doctrinally and systemically incompatible. Moreover, the Islamic Movements construction of the Caliphate as the political and systemic alternative to the Western secular model actually represents the success of political Islam.
The social, political and economic condition in the Islamic world no doubt feeds the cause of the Islamic movement, but contrary to Western assumptions, the solution to the malaise is identified not in secular liberalism or its Capitalist derivative but in the Islamic deficit. This conclusion is inevitable considering what the Islamic world has had to endure in terms of decades of Western interference ensuing from colonialism, super power conflict and brutal friendships with non-Islamic dictatorships in the name of stability and the interests of oil security. Continued Western occupation, humiliation and intervention only confirm in the minds of the Muslim masses that the West and not Islam is the cause of their suffering. The consequent helplessness has motivated them to seek an alternative in Islam in the hope of providing dignity, power, protection and stability through a system for the individual, state and society. The linkage with the Koran, the Islamic heritage and by extension the Caliphate is thus natural and inevitable. Western attempts to pre-empt the revival and the Caliphate through forced military, political, cultural and economic intervention only fuel Muslim rage.
The Resurrection
The call for the Caliphate by the Islamic movement transcends the artificial and colonial Westphalian constructs carved out of the ashes of the Ottoman Caliphate. Today, every regime in the Islamic world faces a threat to its existence from a trans-national Islamic movement. The rejection of nationalism as a destructive and disuniting force is supported by references to the Koran, jurisprudence and history, forming a powerful weapon in its quest to overturn the existing nation state order in the Islamic world and establish a unified Caliphate. The collapse of the Soviet order has further resulted in the rapid expansion of the movement, filling the vacuum in the Caucuses and Central Asia, in turn completing the arc of Islamic revival.
The conviction in Islam as a comprehensive source for the regulation of the individual, state and society, along with the global movement in immigration, ideas and information has enabled the Islamic world to overcome its sense of intellectual, technological and political inferiority to Western civilisation. The wealth of mineral, strategic, intellectual and human resources existent in the vast geography of the Islamic world provides intellectual confidence in the ability of a Caliphate to challenge and overcome Western military and technological primacy. It is thus of no great surprise that highly educated members of the Islamic movement operating from the crucible of Western civilisation in Washington, London, Paris and Rome successfully spearhead the global marketing of the Caliphate.
A series of political events from the creation of Israel to the invasion of Iraq has radically altered the political landscape and atmosphere in the Islamic world. Due in large part to mass culturing by the Islamic movement and aided in no short measure by Western policy, the political maturity of the Islamic world is far removed from the impotence exhibited during the last phase of the Ottoman Caliphate. Projects developed by the Western powers in partnership with the local regimes to divert and crush the Islamic revival in the last eighty years have been increasingly threatened by a heightened political awareness. The war on terror and the invasion of Iraq are overwhelmingly analysed in the Islamic world as a war against Islam and a policy to pre-empt the Caliphate. As a result the Islamic movement has removed the distinction between Western policy and local governments. With effective political culturing, the move towards regime change has more of a reality from the Islamic movement than from the Western powers.
Challenging Global Order
Fourteen hundred years of Caliphate history in the realms of scientific, military, economic and political thought bear witness to a coming upheaval in the US and European dominated international structure. Just as Western civilisation reverted to and continues to revert to the classical sources of ancient Greece and Rome for inspiration, the Islamic movement has also gone back to the future.
The distinctive accomplishment of the Islamic movement in resurrecting the classical sources of Islam into a modern paradigm to challenge Western ideologies formed the nucleus of its resistance towards Communism as a political doctrine and a system. The same paradigm now thrusts against the global secular/Capitalist order.
In applying the paradigm, the Islamic movement has gone to some length in detailing distinct and alternative economic, social and political models. Comprehensive rules derived from the Koran and classical sources pertaining to economic transactions, social relationships, penal code, judiciary, ruling and foreign policy have provided confidence by the Islamic movement to the Muslim masses that Islam and the Caliphate can provide solutions to modern problems.
Western powers will have little problem with the ruling or social structure of a Caliphate as evidenced by their foreign policy towards successive dictatorships. It is in the principles and policies towards economics, military and foreign relations that Western interests and global Capitalism will be directly challenged.
The Islamic movement’s fundamental definition of the economic problem being that of distribution as opposed to the Western model of production will form the basis of the Caliphate’s economic policy. The division between state, public and private ownership will be an alternative to the privatised economic model. The rejection of the market as the sole distributor of wealth and basic commodities will strike a powerful note in Africa, Asia, the Middle East, Central and South America, where liberal economics and international Capitalism despite the promises of globalisation and multilateral trade have failed to overturn the economic poverty and slide into chaos.
The mineral wealth including oil and gas will be regulated according to the Islamic economic principle of the commodity being a share of the citizens held on trust by the State. This rule outlines the foundation of eliminating Western oil interests in the Islamic world. Cheap Western access and squandering by supported regimes of the oil wealth in the Islamic world already projects a powerful magnet for the resumption of the Caliphate.
Backed by oil power and political confidence, the Caliphate will turn (as it did in history) to the gold standard to instil financial discipline and stability in the domestic and international economic environment. The oil weapon is likely to be key for the procurement of sufficient gold to support the currency. The projected stability is expected to act as catalyst to re-internationalise the gold standard with the rapid dumping of the dollar in light of plummeting confidence from heightened political upheaval.
The Islamic movement’s rejection of the idea of international law on doctrinal and Hobbesian philosophical edifice will precipitate an enormous threat to the United Nations. Unlike the pragmatic stance of the Soviet Union, the Caliphate will resist the idea of international law and the United Nations as a vehicle for Western secular hegemony, a charge already popular in the Islamic and developing world. As an alternative, the Caliphate according to historical precedent and Islamic sources will revert to conducting international relations through treatise, custom and the force of international public opinion.
The military ascendancy of the Caliphate is likely to be rapid. The immediate removal of Western military bases will deny the accessibility to strategic waterways, airspace, land routes and logistics for any short or medium term military response from the West. Furthermore, the availability of the nuclear option will make this impossible.
The Caliphate will have no shortage in the availability of brilliant minds as well as access to the same international market for scientists open to Washington and Europe. Furthermore, the enormous pool of sympathetic Muslim minds working deep in the Western and former Soviet military-industrial complexes will naturally be capitalised upon leading to a critical but predictable brain drain in the West.
As in history, the quest for military supremacy is likely to dominate in order to strengthen the Caliphate’s march towards global ideological leadership. However, military supremacy did not prevent the ideological rot of the Ottoman Caliphate. The cause was political, as was the collapse of the Soviet Union. The Islamic movement seems to have learnt its lesson from history by demonstrating sharp political skills in its ability to survive and maintain momentum in the Islamic world. No doubt the same political acumen will be a formidable force applied to the Caliphate’s quest for a revolution in global order.
Accepting the Caliphate
It was former British Prime Minister William Gladstone, whilst in the final phases of dismantling the Ottoman Caliphate, who held up the Koran in Parliament and predicted that as long as the Islamic world remained attached to the book, the West could not prevent its revival. Gladstone’s prediction has come true with the resumption of classical ijitihad (orthodox methodology of extracting Islamic law) which has radically energised the Islamic movement into sourcing the Koran for modern problems as an alternative to Western secular liberalism.
In facing this challenge, Western policy can no longer sustain a battle with Islam through the back door including the War on Terror. Islam means ‘peace’, but a peace only on its terms, through full submission to God’s law. Hence, despite politically correct adulations of Islam by Washington and Europe, there can be no co-existence between Islam and Western Civilisation.
A Reaganite inspired and neo-conservative influenced American policy seems to be moving more openly by attaching the vague label of “evil ideology” to the Caliphate. However, as with Communism, Western policy needs to be bolder in correctly defining Islam as the main threat. A continuing state of public denial as regards a conflict with Islam in Washington and Europe only breeds more confusion, frustration and contradiction amongst its academic and policy circles cognizant of the incompatibility between the two doctrines.
The Islamic world’s position on the other hand does not suffer such confusion. Western policy is clearly considered to be directed at Islam and pre-empting the Caliphate in the heart of the Middle East, as viewed by the American invasion of Iraq and the refusal to accept Islam as its sole source of legislation and the Caliphate it’s the political structure.
The essence of violent global jihad and its response by the West as a War on Terror sidesteps the underlying causes and dynamics of anti-Western sentiment in the Islamic world. Global jihad is a frustrated and mutated response to the Western policy of backing regimes which torture its citizens and obstructs the Islamic movement in its goal of establishing the Caliphate.
Washington and Europe are deceiving themselves if they think they can reassure their societies that the Islamic movement will simply fade away because of the War on Terror and the invasion of Iraq. Or that the Islamic world will follow their lead with a revised neo-colonial outlook. The political constituent of the Islamic movement goes from strength to strength, while the jihadi element raises the stakes by prolonging and expanding the violent attacks on Western society.
America and especially Europe foster sizeable Muslim populations which have strong connections to the global Islamic movement and support the re-establishment of the Caliphate as a serious objective. This phenomenon marks a failure of the West to gain doctrinal leadership over the Muslims within its own realm. This situation will only intensify as the Islamic movement perpetuates its global call.
The clash of doctrines between Islam and Western civilisation predates the asymmetrical declaration of war between the West and the Islamic movement and will continue for generations to come. The war on terror on the other hand does have an end. Global jihad’s alteration of expanding the struggle from the regimes in the Islamic world to attacking targets in the West will cease upon the birth of the Caliphate. The conflict will then transform to the more conventional.
A policy of attacking the idea of the Caliphate by linking it with the political violence of the jihadi movement cannot eliminate its Koranic authority. The Islamic world may not totally agree with the armed method of the jihadi movement, but the Caliphate’s linkage with the Koran is not in dispute. The political and non-violent aspect of the Islamic movement, considered the godfather of reviving the Caliphate idea, has deeper and wider appeal. An attack on the Caliphate is in effect considered an attack against Islam.
A fundamental transformation needs to occur in Western academic and policy circles as regards Islam. Western discourse needs to move beyond the dogmatic position of attempting to remould Islam according to the tenets of Western civilisation without Koranic authority. This attempt has failed in the Islamic world. The opium of linking the Caliphate and viewing radical Islam through the prism of the war on terror fogs the reality of understanding the dynamics of Islamic revival. There needs to be a clear appreciation that the Koran is the nuclear reactor of the Islamic world providing energy for the restoration of the Caliphate and its consequent challenge to global order. The West has no option but to accept the inevitability of the Caliphate and formulate a clear, distinct and explicit position towards Islam which identifies its doctrinal incompatibility. With the increasing success of Islamist groups in increasing the vote bank from the masses, the Islamic world seems already to have adopted its posture towards the West.
The below article is by Dr Numan Hanif, an expert in international terrorism and security. His blog can be accessed from the below link.
http://islamicaffairsanalyst.blogspot.com
A divine belief by the radical Islamic movement in the institution of the Caliphate as a fortress to restore Islam’s power and a vehicle to challenge the primacy of Western civilisation is gathering storm in the Islamic world and beyond. Sourced from the Koran and Islamic history, the Islamic movement may differ as to whether the methodology of revival should be jihad, reformist or political, but the goal of restoring the Caliphate is now uniformly agreed upon.
The Western response to the Islamic movement has been to link the Caliphate with global jihad and by extension the war on terrorism. The evolution of language in Western capitals from generic terrorism to Islamist terrorism to evil ideology and finally to the Caliphate has endorsed what the Islamic movement has long been advocating for some time, that the war on terror is essentially a war against Islam.
As further evidence, the Islamic movement has capitalised upon a remarkable series of statements on the Caliphate by political leaders in Washington and Europe. In a speech to the Heritage Foundation on October 6, 2005, British Home Secretary Charles Clarke said, “…there can be no negotiation about the re-creation of the Caliphate; there can be no negotiation about the imposition of Sharia (Islamic) law...” President George Bush in a speech to the nation on the 8th of October 2005 stated, “The militants believe that controlling one country will rally the Muslim masses, enabling them to overthrow all moderate governments in the region, and establish a radical Islamic empire that spans from Spain to Indonesia.'' On December 5th 2005, US Secretary of Defence, Donald Rumsfeld in remarks pertaining to the future of Iraq at John Hopkins University said, “Iraq would serve as the base of a new Islamic Caliphate to extend throughout the Middle East and which would threaten the legitimate governments in Europe, Africa, and Asia. This is their plan. They (radical Islamic movement) have said so. We make a terrible mistake if we fail to listen and learn”.
The Caliphate as defined by the Sunni Islamic Movement is the total leadership for all the Muslims aimed at implementing Islamic law and carrying the Islamic message to the entire world. It is the successor to the Islamic Caliphate which spanned at one time from Indonesia to Spain through a period of fourteen hundred years. It has not been defined as a monarchy, democracy, dictatorship or a theocracy. Rather a contract of leadership between an elected Caliph and the citizens to apply complete Islamic law within internal and external policy.
The Sunni school differs from the Shia in that it endorses the immediate restoration of Islamic rule by any Muslim meeting certain criteria. The Shia school on the other hand dictates that only a person from the lineage of the Prophet Mohammed has the authority to implement Islamic rule. This lineage having been broken by the disappearance or concealment of the twelfth Imam in 941A.D means that only through his reappearance can the Islamic rule continue. Thereby, the Iranian revolution was never declared or accepted by the majority Sunni or even the Shia in the Islamic world as a Caliphate.
In this article I will argue that the Western position of avoiding an open confrontation with Islam and resisting the popular move towards the resumption of the Caliphate is becoming unsustainable. Armed with the Koran, the Islamic movement continues to win every battle in the war of ideas. The patronage of moderate Islam as a mirror of Western Liberalism in the Islamic world is rapidly collapsing in light of superior scholarly authority from the Islamic movement.
The Islamic movement has been successful in presenting to the Muslim masses an alternative ideological model to Western secular Liberalism consistent with the Koran. The reproduction of the Caliphate forms the apex of this model as a means of challenging the Western dominated global structure.
If the West is going to challenge this model it has no alternative but to openly battle Islam along with the Koran. This is not a deliberate precipitation of the clash of civilisations, rather a clear identification of the doctrinal incompatibility between Islam and secular Western Liberalism.
It would be folly to argue that the West is going to change its policy towards the Islamic world. The perpetual conflict between energy security, global Capitalism, promoting secular democracy and accommodating political Islam will continue to bedevil its behaviour. Hence, a Western mood swing in the Islamic world towards controlled democracy by force and occupation only strengthens the Islamic movement. Continued support for dictatorships and monarchies intent on wiping out the Islamic movement and opposing the Caliphate only confirms in the minds of the masses that the West is intent on continuing a crusade against Islam. These conditions have secured an environment for the inevitable collapse of local regimes, the entrance of the Caliphate and a consequential upheaval in global order.
Roots of Islamic Revival
The ideological vacuum left by the collapse of the Communist experiment in Russia quickly focussed international debate on whether Islam would fill the void and present the next challenge to a triumphant secular liberal global doctrine lead by the United States and Europe. Basking in the unexpected ideological defeat of Communism, academics cultured in the Western secular liberal tradition were quick to pronounce the Islamic revival as a reaction to Western ideological supremacy, a strategic conundrum, but not one which was capable of challenging Western universalism. This thinking has tended to dominate the literature in the West, leading to a fundamental error in the understanding and explanation pertaining to the basis of Islamic revival and its challenge to revolutionise global order.
Western academics and policymakers have made the critical mistake of analysing the source of Islamic revival and the conditions which stimulate it as one and the same. The spring of ideas have not been separated from the political, economic and social environments which foster its growth. The foundation of the Islamic movement which aims to revive the totality of Islam through the Caliphate is securely rooted in the inspiration of its source, the Koran.
In the Islamic world it is the Koran which is considered the utopia of thought and considered to have ended history twelve hundred years prior to Francis Fukyama’s dialectic benchmark of the French revolution. The belief in the perfection of the Koran and by default God’s laws ensuing from it shape the roots of Muslim rage and render the clash of civilisations between Islam and secular liberalism inevitable.
Western academic discourse on the stated failure of political Islam is so overtaken by Western globalism that it constructs a hypothesis of Islam in its own image far removed from the Koran, the vast heritage of Islamic jurisprudence and by default the power of the Islamic movement. The belief in the Koran’s universalism and the compatibility between material and spirit render paradigms of an Islamic reformation impotent.
The Western secular dictum ‘render unto Caesar’s what is Caesar’s and unto God’s what is God’s’, is powerfully disputed by the Islamic movement through verses of the Koran and their jurisprudential understandings as having no parallel in classical or contemporary Islamic discourse.
The argument that political Islam has failed because it has been unable to adapt to Western modernity and hence to Western political structure is not a prosecution for political Islam’s failure. Rather it is further evidence that Islam and Western political architecture are doctrinally and systemically incompatible. Moreover, the Islamic Movements construction of the Caliphate as the political and systemic alternative to the Western secular model actually represents the success of political Islam.
The social, political and economic condition in the Islamic world no doubt feeds the cause of the Islamic movement, but contrary to Western assumptions, the solution to the malaise is identified not in secular liberalism or its Capitalist derivative but in the Islamic deficit. This conclusion is inevitable considering what the Islamic world has had to endure in terms of decades of Western interference ensuing from colonialism, super power conflict and brutal friendships with non-Islamic dictatorships in the name of stability and the interests of oil security. Continued Western occupation, humiliation and intervention only confirm in the minds of the Muslim masses that the West and not Islam is the cause of their suffering. The consequent helplessness has motivated them to seek an alternative in Islam in the hope of providing dignity, power, protection and stability through a system for the individual, state and society. The linkage with the Koran, the Islamic heritage and by extension the Caliphate is thus natural and inevitable. Western attempts to pre-empt the revival and the Caliphate through forced military, political, cultural and economic intervention only fuel Muslim rage.
The Resurrection
The call for the Caliphate by the Islamic movement transcends the artificial and colonial Westphalian constructs carved out of the ashes of the Ottoman Caliphate. Today, every regime in the Islamic world faces a threat to its existence from a trans-national Islamic movement. The rejection of nationalism as a destructive and disuniting force is supported by references to the Koran, jurisprudence and history, forming a powerful weapon in its quest to overturn the existing nation state order in the Islamic world and establish a unified Caliphate. The collapse of the Soviet order has further resulted in the rapid expansion of the movement, filling the vacuum in the Caucuses and Central Asia, in turn completing the arc of Islamic revival.
The conviction in Islam as a comprehensive source for the regulation of the individual, state and society, along with the global movement in immigration, ideas and information has enabled the Islamic world to overcome its sense of intellectual, technological and political inferiority to Western civilisation. The wealth of mineral, strategic, intellectual and human resources existent in the vast geography of the Islamic world provides intellectual confidence in the ability of a Caliphate to challenge and overcome Western military and technological primacy. It is thus of no great surprise that highly educated members of the Islamic movement operating from the crucible of Western civilisation in Washington, London, Paris and Rome successfully spearhead the global marketing of the Caliphate.
A series of political events from the creation of Israel to the invasion of Iraq has radically altered the political landscape and atmosphere in the Islamic world. Due in large part to mass culturing by the Islamic movement and aided in no short measure by Western policy, the political maturity of the Islamic world is far removed from the impotence exhibited during the last phase of the Ottoman Caliphate. Projects developed by the Western powers in partnership with the local regimes to divert and crush the Islamic revival in the last eighty years have been increasingly threatened by a heightened political awareness. The war on terror and the invasion of Iraq are overwhelmingly analysed in the Islamic world as a war against Islam and a policy to pre-empt the Caliphate. As a result the Islamic movement has removed the distinction between Western policy and local governments. With effective political culturing, the move towards regime change has more of a reality from the Islamic movement than from the Western powers.
Challenging Global Order
Fourteen hundred years of Caliphate history in the realms of scientific, military, economic and political thought bear witness to a coming upheaval in the US and European dominated international structure. Just as Western civilisation reverted to and continues to revert to the classical sources of ancient Greece and Rome for inspiration, the Islamic movement has also gone back to the future.
The distinctive accomplishment of the Islamic movement in resurrecting the classical sources of Islam into a modern paradigm to challenge Western ideologies formed the nucleus of its resistance towards Communism as a political doctrine and a system. The same paradigm now thrusts against the global secular/Capitalist order.
In applying the paradigm, the Islamic movement has gone to some length in detailing distinct and alternative economic, social and political models. Comprehensive rules derived from the Koran and classical sources pertaining to economic transactions, social relationships, penal code, judiciary, ruling and foreign policy have provided confidence by the Islamic movement to the Muslim masses that Islam and the Caliphate can provide solutions to modern problems.
Western powers will have little problem with the ruling or social structure of a Caliphate as evidenced by their foreign policy towards successive dictatorships. It is in the principles and policies towards economics, military and foreign relations that Western interests and global Capitalism will be directly challenged.
The Islamic movement’s fundamental definition of the economic problem being that of distribution as opposed to the Western model of production will form the basis of the Caliphate’s economic policy. The division between state, public and private ownership will be an alternative to the privatised economic model. The rejection of the market as the sole distributor of wealth and basic commodities will strike a powerful note in Africa, Asia, the Middle East, Central and South America, where liberal economics and international Capitalism despite the promises of globalisation and multilateral trade have failed to overturn the economic poverty and slide into chaos.
The mineral wealth including oil and gas will be regulated according to the Islamic economic principle of the commodity being a share of the citizens held on trust by the State. This rule outlines the foundation of eliminating Western oil interests in the Islamic world. Cheap Western access and squandering by supported regimes of the oil wealth in the Islamic world already projects a powerful magnet for the resumption of the Caliphate.
Backed by oil power and political confidence, the Caliphate will turn (as it did in history) to the gold standard to instil financial discipline and stability in the domestic and international economic environment. The oil weapon is likely to be key for the procurement of sufficient gold to support the currency. The projected stability is expected to act as catalyst to re-internationalise the gold standard with the rapid dumping of the dollar in light of plummeting confidence from heightened political upheaval.
The Islamic movement’s rejection of the idea of international law on doctrinal and Hobbesian philosophical edifice will precipitate an enormous threat to the United Nations. Unlike the pragmatic stance of the Soviet Union, the Caliphate will resist the idea of international law and the United Nations as a vehicle for Western secular hegemony, a charge already popular in the Islamic and developing world. As an alternative, the Caliphate according to historical precedent and Islamic sources will revert to conducting international relations through treatise, custom and the force of international public opinion.
The military ascendancy of the Caliphate is likely to be rapid. The immediate removal of Western military bases will deny the accessibility to strategic waterways, airspace, land routes and logistics for any short or medium term military response from the West. Furthermore, the availability of the nuclear option will make this impossible.
The Caliphate will have no shortage in the availability of brilliant minds as well as access to the same international market for scientists open to Washington and Europe. Furthermore, the enormous pool of sympathetic Muslim minds working deep in the Western and former Soviet military-industrial complexes will naturally be capitalised upon leading to a critical but predictable brain drain in the West.
As in history, the quest for military supremacy is likely to dominate in order to strengthen the Caliphate’s march towards global ideological leadership. However, military supremacy did not prevent the ideological rot of the Ottoman Caliphate. The cause was political, as was the collapse of the Soviet Union. The Islamic movement seems to have learnt its lesson from history by demonstrating sharp political skills in its ability to survive and maintain momentum in the Islamic world. No doubt the same political acumen will be a formidable force applied to the Caliphate’s quest for a revolution in global order.
Accepting the Caliphate
It was former British Prime Minister William Gladstone, whilst in the final phases of dismantling the Ottoman Caliphate, who held up the Koran in Parliament and predicted that as long as the Islamic world remained attached to the book, the West could not prevent its revival. Gladstone’s prediction has come true with the resumption of classical ijitihad (orthodox methodology of extracting Islamic law) which has radically energised the Islamic movement into sourcing the Koran for modern problems as an alternative to Western secular liberalism.
In facing this challenge, Western policy can no longer sustain a battle with Islam through the back door including the War on Terror. Islam means ‘peace’, but a peace only on its terms, through full submission to God’s law. Hence, despite politically correct adulations of Islam by Washington and Europe, there can be no co-existence between Islam and Western Civilisation.
A Reaganite inspired and neo-conservative influenced American policy seems to be moving more openly by attaching the vague label of “evil ideology” to the Caliphate. However, as with Communism, Western policy needs to be bolder in correctly defining Islam as the main threat. A continuing state of public denial as regards a conflict with Islam in Washington and Europe only breeds more confusion, frustration and contradiction amongst its academic and policy circles cognizant of the incompatibility between the two doctrines.
The Islamic world’s position on the other hand does not suffer such confusion. Western policy is clearly considered to be directed at Islam and pre-empting the Caliphate in the heart of the Middle East, as viewed by the American invasion of Iraq and the refusal to accept Islam as its sole source of legislation and the Caliphate it’s the political structure.
The essence of violent global jihad and its response by the West as a War on Terror sidesteps the underlying causes and dynamics of anti-Western sentiment in the Islamic world. Global jihad is a frustrated and mutated response to the Western policy of backing regimes which torture its citizens and obstructs the Islamic movement in its goal of establishing the Caliphate.
Washington and Europe are deceiving themselves if they think they can reassure their societies that the Islamic movement will simply fade away because of the War on Terror and the invasion of Iraq. Or that the Islamic world will follow their lead with a revised neo-colonial outlook. The political constituent of the Islamic movement goes from strength to strength, while the jihadi element raises the stakes by prolonging and expanding the violent attacks on Western society.
America and especially Europe foster sizeable Muslim populations which have strong connections to the global Islamic movement and support the re-establishment of the Caliphate as a serious objective. This phenomenon marks a failure of the West to gain doctrinal leadership over the Muslims within its own realm. This situation will only intensify as the Islamic movement perpetuates its global call.
The clash of doctrines between Islam and Western civilisation predates the asymmetrical declaration of war between the West and the Islamic movement and will continue for generations to come. The war on terror on the other hand does have an end. Global jihad’s alteration of expanding the struggle from the regimes in the Islamic world to attacking targets in the West will cease upon the birth of the Caliphate. The conflict will then transform to the more conventional.
A policy of attacking the idea of the Caliphate by linking it with the political violence of the jihadi movement cannot eliminate its Koranic authority. The Islamic world may not totally agree with the armed method of the jihadi movement, but the Caliphate’s linkage with the Koran is not in dispute. The political and non-violent aspect of the Islamic movement, considered the godfather of reviving the Caliphate idea, has deeper and wider appeal. An attack on the Caliphate is in effect considered an attack against Islam.
A fundamental transformation needs to occur in Western academic and policy circles as regards Islam. Western discourse needs to move beyond the dogmatic position of attempting to remould Islam according to the tenets of Western civilisation without Koranic authority. This attempt has failed in the Islamic world. The opium of linking the Caliphate and viewing radical Islam through the prism of the war on terror fogs the reality of understanding the dynamics of Islamic revival. There needs to be a clear appreciation that the Koran is the nuclear reactor of the Islamic world providing energy for the restoration of the Caliphate and its consequent challenge to global order. The West has no option but to accept the inevitability of the Caliphate and formulate a clear, distinct and explicit position towards Islam which identifies its doctrinal incompatibility. With the increasing success of Islamist groups in increasing the vote bank from the masses, the Islamic world seems already to have adopted its posture towards the West.
Sunday, 10 June 2007
Britishness and Identity Politics
Hello
The below article is by Dr Abdul Wahid, an Islamic thinker, looking into debates relating to britishness and identity politics in the UK.
Introduction
Gordon Brown, Michael Howard, Boris Johnson, David Blunkett and Trevor Phillips are just a few of the names that have dared to tackle the complex and controversial subject of British citizenship. The subject is complex, because Britain was always a convenient political identity to try to preserve an uncomfortable union between dominant England and its vanquished neighbours. It is controversial because its prominence has been brought about because one section of the British population – the Muslim community – has caused concerns. Most concerns have been dominated by allegations of a security threat by an ‘enemy within’, seemingly realised after the 7/7 bombings, but for those who had studied the issues for longer, concerns really emerged when the Muslim community in Europe had such a strong reactions to the wars on Afghanistan and Iraq. The blame was placed firmly on the policy of multiculturalism for institutionalising difference, the lack of a strong and distinct British identity and the failure of Islam to ‘reform’, meaning to secularise.
At best the responses produced to solving the problem of defining what is meant by ‘Britishness’ are, in my view, destined to fail. At worse, where they confuse security and religious reform with citizenship and identity, they could backfire spectacularly. It is measure of the failure of the debate that such a fundamental discussion has been framed as a reaction to specific events, and has placed the burdens of change upon one specific community.
Where should the blame lie?
Those who would blame Islam and Muslims for the failure to be well integrated stakeholders in society should pause for thought. It is easy to cite examples that Muslim US citizens fought against US troops in Afghanistan (John Walker Lindh for example) or that Muslims were amongst those rioting in Paris earlier this year. However, the images of an alienated black underclass in New Orleans, exposed by Hurricane Katrina, should pose an immediate challenge to complacent views that somehow other minorities are thoroughly assimilated. Furthermore the involvement of immigrants of more than one religion in the riots in Paris prompts the memory of similar riots in Brixton and Toxteth some years ago. If we are looking for a scapegoat there is more of a case to make for targeting French style secular assimilation, or the so-called American dream, than Muslims and their alleged failure to fully integrate into British society.
Fundamental mistakes: National identities, shared values and uniform ‘Britishness’
The contribution to this debate by Gordon Brown in his speech to the Fabian Society conference of 2006 was arguably the most significant contribution made thus far in the whole debate. Brown argued that Britain has a history in which people manage their multiple identities well. He felt that this was still possible as long as Britishness was built upon a shared history, a shared sense of purpose and shared underlying values.
In my view it is neither possible nor desirable to focus upon identities built on national identity, as articulated through an ‘official’ narrative, nor upon certain adopted values. It is simply not possible to unify people based upon such matters as a common history, heritage or shared cultural values. This is because it is almost impossible for people in a globalised world to share the same narrative of any nation’s history, particularly in countries with large immigrant minorities from ex-colonies. Furthermore, there is the ever increasing prominence of supranational identity – be it either European or Internationalist in outlook.
There is no currently unified or uniform view of Britishness that many such as Brown or Howard allude to. How could there possibly be? A white Anglo-Saxon Protestant has a very different historical heritage, culture or religion to a citizen who is Celtic, Catholic, Hindu or Muslim. Someone who’s ancestry can be traced back to the British Isles will have a very different view of history to someone whose ancestry is from an ex-colony. Even within one ‘ethnic’ subgroup a senior citizen, whose views in life have been shaped by two world wars, will have very different values to someone whose formative years were during the swinging sixties or the yuppy eighties.
To try to unify such a diverse society in this manner would do one of two things. Either one would simply define the lowest common denominator of shared culture, which is hardly likely to fill people with any great national pride, or one could try and impose a dominant ‘nationalistic’ interpretation of a culture on the whole of society. The former approach goes to the heart of the recent criticism of multiculturalism. The latter represents the worst form of citizenship – whether it be manifested in Britain, France or even Muslim countries like Pakistan. It is the ugly rabid form of nationalism which often leads to jingoism and feelings of racial supremacy.
So, what about shared values? Do they exist? It would be supremely arrogant for the political ruling class to define a certain view of Britishness based on certain values they advocate. It would be doubly arrogant to then dictate to large numbers of minorities a narrow view of what the best values were, or worse what were acceptable political views. The Brown / Fabian approach was just an attempt to do this, to the extent that the view of British values excluded even much of the political ‘right’.
To a large extent this has become institutionalised by the present government through its educational citizenship programme, both in schools and for immigrants. The values based approach is coercive, often aggressively promoted in the media, encouraging people to adopt certain values, and abandon some of their own. This is the reason that the pressure on Muslims to ‘reform’ Islam has become entwined with the politics of identity. Such an imposition of values completely circumvents any opportunity for reasoned debate, or ideological discussion of the relative merits of different ideas and beliefs.
There is a real danger that putting such a strong emphasis on controversial values, history or institutions as a litmus test for citizenship in the absence of conviction or genuine agreement will create different levels of citizenship. Muslim citizens for example are often made to feel that they must display more loyalty to symbols of the State such as the Crown than others in society, many of whom have little or no respect for the Crown (indeed a sizeable minority of British citizens and a majority of the Fabian conference delegates would quite happily confine the monarchy to the dustbin of history). Some expect the Muslim community for instance to show respect and trust in Parliament despite the fact that 40% of the mainstream population showed their own respect and confidence in the system by not voting at the last general election.
Even ignoring these contrasts, there are immense pressures from the media on Muslims and others who hold a very strong religious faith, to adopt liberal secular values. Not conforming to the dominant view leaves those citizens open to vilification or ridicule. This pressure creates a socially imposed censorship on the views of a significant minority every bit as sinister as the legalised censorship that is enforced in the anti-terror laws. Both forms of censorship effectively censor views the former on a number of matters relating to social domestic policy, the latter relating to foreign policy under the guise of ‘glorifying’ terrorism.
Helpful advice from the Muslim experience?
A system much admired in European history for its achievements in Andalusia was the Islamic Caliphate. From its outset in the Middle East the Caliphate achieved a largely cohesive citizenship between people of different races and religions. In the context of that diverse society Sir Thomas Arnold once wrote:
"We have never heard about any attempt to compel Non-Muslim parties to adopt Islam or about any organized persecution aiming at exterminating Christianity. If the Caliphs had chosen one of these plans, they would have wiped out Christianity as easily as what happened to Islam during the reign of Ferdinand and Isabella in Spain; by the same method which Louis XIV followed to make Protestantism a creed whose followers were to be sentenced to death; or with the same ease of keeping the Jews away from Britain for a period of three hundred fifty years. The Eastern Churches in Asia were entirely cut off from communion with the rest of Christiandom, throughout which no one would have been found to lift a finger on their behalf, as heretical communions. So that the very survival of these Churches to the present day is a strong proof of the generally tolerant attitude of Mohammedan [sic] governments towards them”. Arnold, Sir Thomas W. THE PREACHING OF ISLAM, A HISTORY OF THE PROPAGATION OF THE MUSLIM FAITH, Westminster A. Constable & Co., London, 1896, p. 80.
There are two essential points to consider based upon the model that Arnold describes. Firstly, the level of commitment to the state that needed to be shown by any citizen was obedience to the law. That was all. Not that they be forced to believe in the source of that law. Had non-Muslims been asked to proclaim that the source of law was divine it would have violated the Islamic principle: ‘there is no compulsion in the deen (religion).’ People who did not share the fundamental beliefs and values of lslam were not expected to change their religion to Islam, nor to omit verses from the Torah and Bible to conform with Islam. To ask for that would have been tantamount to a forced conversion, and could only have been described as totalitarian. Of course many will argue that Muslims are also not being asked to leave their faith, yet what is effectively being asked of Muslims is to secularise their faith to conform with the dominant value system found in western societies. As Islam does not recognise a separation between religion and state, asking Muslims to adopt divergent values and concepts is tantamount to asking them to leave important parts of their holistic faith.
The second point to reflect upon is that people in the society Arnold described trusted the system, felt secure and as a consequence felt like stakeholders. People feel secure, and consequently feel ‘at home’ when they have equal access to justice, have opportunities for redress and have space to hold on to their beliefs. The Caliphate gave citizens of different faith the space to practice their faith and even exempted them from the obligations of citizenship that were specifically linked to the Islamic belief.
This view that the predominant expectation of any citizen should be no more that to abide by the law and display civility in interaction with others is not unique to the Caliphate. It is one that some brave voices do air, and it is a demonstration of confidence in ones values and state.
The ties that bind
The push for a nationalistic, values based citizenship is therefore a divisive and coercive approach, which sadly dominates much of the identity debate today. It betrays a lack of confidence, and perhaps substance in the dominant values and symbols of national pride that are being forced on society today. Sadly, this will not create the harmony that many may intend, only harm.
In the end people, and especially minorities, feel they have a stake in society when they feel welcome, are given space to find their feet and practice their own faith in a protected sphere, without vilification and pressure to reform their religion from its basis. They feel they have a stake when they feel that justice and opportunities are truly for all. In such a way there is a natural process of attachment to ones home, an appreciation of the natural environment in which one lives, and an adoption of those aspects of culture that do not contradict ones principles. This is the natural process that existed for centuries in the Muslim world that allowed minorities – religious and ethnic – to feel attached to their state, preserving many rich cultural variations in a way that did not cause division and resentment.
For Muslims in modern Europe – including Britain - this has not only been denied through the attempts at social censorship on the personal views of Muslims, laws banning the hijab (and now the jilbab), a discriminatory foreign policy and oppressive legislation, none of which will help the process of harmonizing society.
This was the lesson of Northern Ireland. This was the lesson of Lord Scarman after the race riots of the eighties. Yet this is the path that politicians tread once again. Sadly, this is a shared history that does not appear to have been bought into.
The below article is by Dr Abdul Wahid, an Islamic thinker, looking into debates relating to britishness and identity politics in the UK.
Introduction
Gordon Brown, Michael Howard, Boris Johnson, David Blunkett and Trevor Phillips are just a few of the names that have dared to tackle the complex and controversial subject of British citizenship. The subject is complex, because Britain was always a convenient political identity to try to preserve an uncomfortable union between dominant England and its vanquished neighbours. It is controversial because its prominence has been brought about because one section of the British population – the Muslim community – has caused concerns. Most concerns have been dominated by allegations of a security threat by an ‘enemy within’, seemingly realised after the 7/7 bombings, but for those who had studied the issues for longer, concerns really emerged when the Muslim community in Europe had such a strong reactions to the wars on Afghanistan and Iraq. The blame was placed firmly on the policy of multiculturalism for institutionalising difference, the lack of a strong and distinct British identity and the failure of Islam to ‘reform’, meaning to secularise.
At best the responses produced to solving the problem of defining what is meant by ‘Britishness’ are, in my view, destined to fail. At worse, where they confuse security and religious reform with citizenship and identity, they could backfire spectacularly. It is measure of the failure of the debate that such a fundamental discussion has been framed as a reaction to specific events, and has placed the burdens of change upon one specific community.
Where should the blame lie?
Those who would blame Islam and Muslims for the failure to be well integrated stakeholders in society should pause for thought. It is easy to cite examples that Muslim US citizens fought against US troops in Afghanistan (John Walker Lindh for example) or that Muslims were amongst those rioting in Paris earlier this year. However, the images of an alienated black underclass in New Orleans, exposed by Hurricane Katrina, should pose an immediate challenge to complacent views that somehow other minorities are thoroughly assimilated. Furthermore the involvement of immigrants of more than one religion in the riots in Paris prompts the memory of similar riots in Brixton and Toxteth some years ago. If we are looking for a scapegoat there is more of a case to make for targeting French style secular assimilation, or the so-called American dream, than Muslims and their alleged failure to fully integrate into British society.
Fundamental mistakes: National identities, shared values and uniform ‘Britishness’
The contribution to this debate by Gordon Brown in his speech to the Fabian Society conference of 2006 was arguably the most significant contribution made thus far in the whole debate. Brown argued that Britain has a history in which people manage their multiple identities well. He felt that this was still possible as long as Britishness was built upon a shared history, a shared sense of purpose and shared underlying values.
In my view it is neither possible nor desirable to focus upon identities built on national identity, as articulated through an ‘official’ narrative, nor upon certain adopted values. It is simply not possible to unify people based upon such matters as a common history, heritage or shared cultural values. This is because it is almost impossible for people in a globalised world to share the same narrative of any nation’s history, particularly in countries with large immigrant minorities from ex-colonies. Furthermore, there is the ever increasing prominence of supranational identity – be it either European or Internationalist in outlook.
There is no currently unified or uniform view of Britishness that many such as Brown or Howard allude to. How could there possibly be? A white Anglo-Saxon Protestant has a very different historical heritage, culture or religion to a citizen who is Celtic, Catholic, Hindu or Muslim. Someone who’s ancestry can be traced back to the British Isles will have a very different view of history to someone whose ancestry is from an ex-colony. Even within one ‘ethnic’ subgroup a senior citizen, whose views in life have been shaped by two world wars, will have very different values to someone whose formative years were during the swinging sixties or the yuppy eighties.
To try to unify such a diverse society in this manner would do one of two things. Either one would simply define the lowest common denominator of shared culture, which is hardly likely to fill people with any great national pride, or one could try and impose a dominant ‘nationalistic’ interpretation of a culture on the whole of society. The former approach goes to the heart of the recent criticism of multiculturalism. The latter represents the worst form of citizenship – whether it be manifested in Britain, France or even Muslim countries like Pakistan. It is the ugly rabid form of nationalism which often leads to jingoism and feelings of racial supremacy.
So, what about shared values? Do they exist? It would be supremely arrogant for the political ruling class to define a certain view of Britishness based on certain values they advocate. It would be doubly arrogant to then dictate to large numbers of minorities a narrow view of what the best values were, or worse what were acceptable political views. The Brown / Fabian approach was just an attempt to do this, to the extent that the view of British values excluded even much of the political ‘right’.
To a large extent this has become institutionalised by the present government through its educational citizenship programme, both in schools and for immigrants. The values based approach is coercive, often aggressively promoted in the media, encouraging people to adopt certain values, and abandon some of their own. This is the reason that the pressure on Muslims to ‘reform’ Islam has become entwined with the politics of identity. Such an imposition of values completely circumvents any opportunity for reasoned debate, or ideological discussion of the relative merits of different ideas and beliefs.
There is a real danger that putting such a strong emphasis on controversial values, history or institutions as a litmus test for citizenship in the absence of conviction or genuine agreement will create different levels of citizenship. Muslim citizens for example are often made to feel that they must display more loyalty to symbols of the State such as the Crown than others in society, many of whom have little or no respect for the Crown (indeed a sizeable minority of British citizens and a majority of the Fabian conference delegates would quite happily confine the monarchy to the dustbin of history). Some expect the Muslim community for instance to show respect and trust in Parliament despite the fact that 40% of the mainstream population showed their own respect and confidence in the system by not voting at the last general election.
Even ignoring these contrasts, there are immense pressures from the media on Muslims and others who hold a very strong religious faith, to adopt liberal secular values. Not conforming to the dominant view leaves those citizens open to vilification or ridicule. This pressure creates a socially imposed censorship on the views of a significant minority every bit as sinister as the legalised censorship that is enforced in the anti-terror laws. Both forms of censorship effectively censor views the former on a number of matters relating to social domestic policy, the latter relating to foreign policy under the guise of ‘glorifying’ terrorism.
Helpful advice from the Muslim experience?
A system much admired in European history for its achievements in Andalusia was the Islamic Caliphate. From its outset in the Middle East the Caliphate achieved a largely cohesive citizenship between people of different races and religions. In the context of that diverse society Sir Thomas Arnold once wrote:
"We have never heard about any attempt to compel Non-Muslim parties to adopt Islam or about any organized persecution aiming at exterminating Christianity. If the Caliphs had chosen one of these plans, they would have wiped out Christianity as easily as what happened to Islam during the reign of Ferdinand and Isabella in Spain; by the same method which Louis XIV followed to make Protestantism a creed whose followers were to be sentenced to death; or with the same ease of keeping the Jews away from Britain for a period of three hundred fifty years. The Eastern Churches in Asia were entirely cut off from communion with the rest of Christiandom, throughout which no one would have been found to lift a finger on their behalf, as heretical communions. So that the very survival of these Churches to the present day is a strong proof of the generally tolerant attitude of Mohammedan [sic] governments towards them”. Arnold, Sir Thomas W. THE PREACHING OF ISLAM, A HISTORY OF THE PROPAGATION OF THE MUSLIM FAITH, Westminster A. Constable & Co., London, 1896, p. 80.
There are two essential points to consider based upon the model that Arnold describes. Firstly, the level of commitment to the state that needed to be shown by any citizen was obedience to the law. That was all. Not that they be forced to believe in the source of that law. Had non-Muslims been asked to proclaim that the source of law was divine it would have violated the Islamic principle: ‘there is no compulsion in the deen (religion).’ People who did not share the fundamental beliefs and values of lslam were not expected to change their religion to Islam, nor to omit verses from the Torah and Bible to conform with Islam. To ask for that would have been tantamount to a forced conversion, and could only have been described as totalitarian. Of course many will argue that Muslims are also not being asked to leave their faith, yet what is effectively being asked of Muslims is to secularise their faith to conform with the dominant value system found in western societies. As Islam does not recognise a separation between religion and state, asking Muslims to adopt divergent values and concepts is tantamount to asking them to leave important parts of their holistic faith.
The second point to reflect upon is that people in the society Arnold described trusted the system, felt secure and as a consequence felt like stakeholders. People feel secure, and consequently feel ‘at home’ when they have equal access to justice, have opportunities for redress and have space to hold on to their beliefs. The Caliphate gave citizens of different faith the space to practice their faith and even exempted them from the obligations of citizenship that were specifically linked to the Islamic belief.
This view that the predominant expectation of any citizen should be no more that to abide by the law and display civility in interaction with others is not unique to the Caliphate. It is one that some brave voices do air, and it is a demonstration of confidence in ones values and state.
The ties that bind
The push for a nationalistic, values based citizenship is therefore a divisive and coercive approach, which sadly dominates much of the identity debate today. It betrays a lack of confidence, and perhaps substance in the dominant values and symbols of national pride that are being forced on society today. Sadly, this will not create the harmony that many may intend, only harm.
In the end people, and especially minorities, feel they have a stake in society when they feel welcome, are given space to find their feet and practice their own faith in a protected sphere, without vilification and pressure to reform their religion from its basis. They feel they have a stake when they feel that justice and opportunities are truly for all. In such a way there is a natural process of attachment to ones home, an appreciation of the natural environment in which one lives, and an adoption of those aspects of culture that do not contradict ones principles. This is the natural process that existed for centuries in the Muslim world that allowed minorities – religious and ethnic – to feel attached to their state, preserving many rich cultural variations in a way that did not cause division and resentment.
For Muslims in modern Europe – including Britain - this has not only been denied through the attempts at social censorship on the personal views of Muslims, laws banning the hijab (and now the jilbab), a discriminatory foreign policy and oppressive legislation, none of which will help the process of harmonizing society.
This was the lesson of Northern Ireland. This was the lesson of Lord Scarman after the race riots of the eighties. Yet this is the path that politicians tread once again. Sadly, this is a shared history that does not appear to have been bought into.
Middle East Proliferation- Myth or Reality?
The spectre of Iran acquiring nuclear weapons has been causing apprehension in the West lately. There has been much concern about the potential consequences of Iranian acquisition of nuclear weapons. There has been concern about the security of Israel, especially after the rise to power of conservative politicians in Iran, who have made clear their disdain for Israel. In addition, the fear of nuclear proliferation in the Middle East has been much touted. The Middle East is unstable at this moment in time as a result of a range of socio-economic and political factors; this has raised the dilemma of a nuclear Iran acting as a catalyst of further regional instability by stimulating the nuclearisation of neighbouring states. This article aims to explore the plausibility of the notion that Iran “going nuclear” would set in motion a process of frantic acquisition of nuclear weapons by the surrounding states. The key Muslim states in the region at this moment in time are Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Syria and Turkey. These countries will be analysed in order to explore whether a nuclear Iran would lead to attempts by these countries to acquire nuclear weapons. Iraq will not be included as it is in no state to attempt anything at the moment in time due to internal security problems and Libya will not be analysed due to its abandonment of its nuclear programme in 2003 and subsequent rapprochement with the West.
Egypt
There has been general anxiety in Egypt about Israel’s nuclear programme and its impact upon stability in the Middle East since the sixties. In the era of Gamal Abdul Nasser Egypt took some tentative steps to acquire nuclear weapons, but his moves were obstructed by Russia and China. The sixties were a period of heightened Israeli-Arab tensions, resulting in the Arab military defeat in 1967. Rather than spurring the desire to acquire nuclear weapons, this defeat in fact led to the conviction that a nuclear Middle East would cause further instability and impact adversely on Egypt’s quest for regional leadership. Since the 1970s, Egypt has consistently advocated that the region become a Weapons of Mass Destruction Free Zone and has even sought to enhance its leadership role by promoting this agenda.
It is true that a nuclear Iran could change Egyptian attitudes towards acquiring nuclear weapons, but there would still be major constraints that Egypt would have to overcome. In relation to developing its own military nuclear capability, there are clear technological and economic hurdles that Egypt would have to overcome in order to achieve this. The intent of this article is not to examine the economic and technological capacity of Egypt in depth but it is reasonable to assume that if Egypt were to make the political decision to go nuclear, that these issues would need to be assessed and at this moment in time Egypt lacks the industrial capacity to produce nuclear weapons, a major hurdle to any such aspirations. In addition to this hurdle Egypt would face external constraints. There is no doubt that Egypt would have to take into account its relationship with the U.S., which Hosni Mubarak has most recently described as "strategic and strong." Egypt becoming a suspected nuclear actor would seriously jeopardize the country's relations with the U.S., and this would be a very high price to pay, especially as Egypt is one of the largest recipients of economic and military aid from the US .
In addition, the US has been a strong supporter of the Mubarak regime and any inclination towards nuclear acquirement could lead to suspension of this support and the encouragement of political change in Egypt – clearly detrimental to the monopoly of power Mubarak and his acolytes enjoy in Egypt. It is also important to bear in mind that Egypt going nuclear would upset relations with Israel which have been relatively stable since the Camp David Accords of 1978. Therefore it seems that Egypt does not have the capacity or inclination to produce nuclear weapons at this moment in time. Even if the government contemplated the acquisition of nuclear materials, the inevitable damage to relations with the US would act as a major disincentive.
Turkey
Contemporary relations between Turkey and Iran are still marked by a history of conflict and hostility – stretching back to the time of the Safavid dynasty. Despite improvements in relations during the 20th century, there have still been periods of strong hostility – stemming in part from Turkish accusations of Iran supporting Kurdish separatism. It could be surmised that Turkish distrust and the bad history between the two countries would be sufficient for Turkey to develop its own nuclear programme. No doubt there are voices in Turkey that are calling for an indigenous nuclear programme, but there are various other factors which need to be taken into consideration which would act as major constraints on such a decision.
Turkey's foreign policy options in the post-Cold War era remain highly dependant on European and American acceptance. Given the nature of this relationship, were Iran to go nuclear, Turkey is unlikely to begin its own nuclear programme, due to the potential damage to its relations with the West. Secondly, Turkey does not consider that she is the cause of Iran seeking to “nuclearise” in the first place. The closer that Turkey sticks to EU policy, the better position it will find itself in relation to accession talks. Entertaining the nuclear option would no doubt further stall Turkey’s European aspirations, if not end them all together. Turkey’s hopes of entering the EU will not just depend on a wholesale transformation in the economic and human rights fields, but also its foreign policy moves, especially how it would react to a nuclear Iran.
Therefore Turkey's long-lasting odyssey in search of EU accession – while at the same time balancing the security and military concerns of the US, Israel, and the EU – will act as a major check on Turkey. Turkey has been a member of NATO since 1952, which has acted as a linchpin of Turkish security since that time. Even after the Iranian revolution, this has remained the case, thus Turkey is unlikely to renege on this security arrangement via the acquisition of nuclear weapons. In addition, the new conservatives in Iran today seem extremely pragmatic rather than ideological, therefore the likelihood of Iran exporting the principles of the Iranian revolution seem a remote possibility. This fact will calm the nerves of Turkey’s secular elite.
Saudi Arabia
It is also unlikely that Saudi Arabia would seek a nuclear option in the face of a nuclear-armed Iran. Like Turkey, there are a number of policy constraints along that path and Saudi is more likely to revert to more stringent internal policies than attempt a tilt toward strategic or medium-range nuclear technology.
Ten to fifteen years ago, a nuclear Iran might have been a significant threat to Saudi Arabia, due to the ill treatment the Shi'a population in its Eastern province suffer. Although discrimination continues against the Shi’a in Saudi, the authorities have now opened dialogue with Shi’a leaders, and the election of 11 Shi’a candidates into municipal councils during 2004 has no doubt acted as a source of improving Iran-Saudi relations. In addition, the Shi’a in Saudi usually refer to Grand Ayatollah Ali Al-Sistani in Iraq, who has a quietist attitude towards politics in comparison to Ayatollah Khameini in Iran. Therefore Iran is unlikely to have major influence among the Shi’a of Saudi; this will ease Saudi worries of Iranian encouragement of internal Shi’a uprisings. The signing of the 2001 Iran-Saudi security agreement is another indication of improving relations and as a result Iran cannot be considered an imminent threat to Saudi security. If there was a military threat from Iran, there is no doubt that a quick response would come from the West, especially the US which has depended on Saudi oil for decades. Saudi is an important state for the US and any attack on Saudi would destabilise the whole Persian Gulf, sharply affecting the world’s supply of oil. This would be disastrous for Western economies, making US intervention to counteract an Iranian military threat inevitable.
In addition, the US has been apprehensive due to the possibility of the Saudi regime being removed by Islamists, leading to the establishment of a Caliphate. The possibility of a Caliphate emerging as a challenge to its hegemony is sufficient to worry the US; add nuclear capabilities and these fears increase. Therefore it is definitely in US national interests to thwart any Saudi attempts to develop nuclear weapons. US interests are a major constraint on Saudi ambitions, but nevertheless the US continues to be the guarantor of the Saudi regime’s security.
Syria
Relations between Iran and Syria have been on good terms since the 1970s. Mutual interests have characterised the relations between the two countries. Chief among these are the threats both countries have faced from Iraq, Turkey and Israel. In addition, today both countries are subject to criticism from the US and potential military attack in the future. In response to US threats, the two countries have strengthened their relations. In February 2005, the two countries announced that they had formed a military pact, a direct result of growing US dominance in the region and aggression towards both countries.
Given the good relations between Syria and Iran, it is unlikely that Syria would attempt to develop nuclear weapons due to Iran doing so; in fact a nuclear Iran would be in the interest of Syria. The prospect of friendly relations with a nuclear actor could strengthen the Syrian hand in relations with the US, Turkey and Israel. In addition, if one looks to the international pressure and scrutiny of the Assad regime following the Hariri assassination, it seems unlikely that Syria would consider developing nuclear weapons. The Assad regime at this moment in time is concerned with political survival. Pressure is growing from all sides, the continuing inquiry into Hariri’s assassination and a new Khaddam-Muslim Brotherhood alliance are adding to the difficulties facing the regime. External pressure could tempt the government to consider acquiring nuclear weapons, rather than the ‘threat’ of a nuclear Iran, but given the difficulties Syria faces at this moment in time, it is unlikely to make its situation more complicated and add further pressure on itself by seeking nuclear weapons.
Conclusion
The cases analysed above indicate that the fear of regional powers acquiring nuclear weapons in response to a nuclear Iran seems more myth rather than reality. A number of hurdles and obstacles face the countries discussed before they could even begin to contemplate acquiring nuclear weapons. US interests are the key factor behind the Middle Eastern proliferation story that is currently being touted. In order to build a case to argue against Iran developing nuclear weapons, justifications are required. The regional proliferation story works, but in reality this line does not stand scrutiny, it only hides true US interests. The US has been concerned by the prospect of a regional actor emerging in the Middle East that could potentially threaten its military dominance in the region. A nuclear Iran would undermine US dominance in the Middle East as it could no longer dictate but would have to consult and listen. In addition, the possibility of being driven out of the vitally important Persian Gulf by a nuclear Iran haunts the US, as it would be catastrophic to US interests. It is these interests that are driving US policy towards Iran rather than fear of instability in the region. If the US was concerned with instability in the Middle East it would have changed its decades-old policy of supporting Israeli aggression against Palestinians, and backing Arab dictators; the US would not have attacked Iraq nor instigated the War on Terror. This US policy has acted as a key source of de-stabilisation rather than stability in the Middle East. The key driving force behind US foreign policy continues to be national interests and it is these interests that are pushing the propaganda campaign to prevent the emergence of a nuclear Iran.
Egypt
There has been general anxiety in Egypt about Israel’s nuclear programme and its impact upon stability in the Middle East since the sixties. In the era of Gamal Abdul Nasser Egypt took some tentative steps to acquire nuclear weapons, but his moves were obstructed by Russia and China. The sixties were a period of heightened Israeli-Arab tensions, resulting in the Arab military defeat in 1967. Rather than spurring the desire to acquire nuclear weapons, this defeat in fact led to the conviction that a nuclear Middle East would cause further instability and impact adversely on Egypt’s quest for regional leadership. Since the 1970s, Egypt has consistently advocated that the region become a Weapons of Mass Destruction Free Zone and has even sought to enhance its leadership role by promoting this agenda.
It is true that a nuclear Iran could change Egyptian attitudes towards acquiring nuclear weapons, but there would still be major constraints that Egypt would have to overcome. In relation to developing its own military nuclear capability, there are clear technological and economic hurdles that Egypt would have to overcome in order to achieve this. The intent of this article is not to examine the economic and technological capacity of Egypt in depth but it is reasonable to assume that if Egypt were to make the political decision to go nuclear, that these issues would need to be assessed and at this moment in time Egypt lacks the industrial capacity to produce nuclear weapons, a major hurdle to any such aspirations. In addition to this hurdle Egypt would face external constraints. There is no doubt that Egypt would have to take into account its relationship with the U.S., which Hosni Mubarak has most recently described as "strategic and strong." Egypt becoming a suspected nuclear actor would seriously jeopardize the country's relations with the U.S., and this would be a very high price to pay, especially as Egypt is one of the largest recipients of economic and military aid from the US .
In addition, the US has been a strong supporter of the Mubarak regime and any inclination towards nuclear acquirement could lead to suspension of this support and the encouragement of political change in Egypt – clearly detrimental to the monopoly of power Mubarak and his acolytes enjoy in Egypt. It is also important to bear in mind that Egypt going nuclear would upset relations with Israel which have been relatively stable since the Camp David Accords of 1978. Therefore it seems that Egypt does not have the capacity or inclination to produce nuclear weapons at this moment in time. Even if the government contemplated the acquisition of nuclear materials, the inevitable damage to relations with the US would act as a major disincentive.
Turkey
Contemporary relations between Turkey and Iran are still marked by a history of conflict and hostility – stretching back to the time of the Safavid dynasty. Despite improvements in relations during the 20th century, there have still been periods of strong hostility – stemming in part from Turkish accusations of Iran supporting Kurdish separatism. It could be surmised that Turkish distrust and the bad history between the two countries would be sufficient for Turkey to develop its own nuclear programme. No doubt there are voices in Turkey that are calling for an indigenous nuclear programme, but there are various other factors which need to be taken into consideration which would act as major constraints on such a decision.
Turkey's foreign policy options in the post-Cold War era remain highly dependant on European and American acceptance. Given the nature of this relationship, were Iran to go nuclear, Turkey is unlikely to begin its own nuclear programme, due to the potential damage to its relations with the West. Secondly, Turkey does not consider that she is the cause of Iran seeking to “nuclearise” in the first place. The closer that Turkey sticks to EU policy, the better position it will find itself in relation to accession talks. Entertaining the nuclear option would no doubt further stall Turkey’s European aspirations, if not end them all together. Turkey’s hopes of entering the EU will not just depend on a wholesale transformation in the economic and human rights fields, but also its foreign policy moves, especially how it would react to a nuclear Iran.
Therefore Turkey's long-lasting odyssey in search of EU accession – while at the same time balancing the security and military concerns of the US, Israel, and the EU – will act as a major check on Turkey. Turkey has been a member of NATO since 1952, which has acted as a linchpin of Turkish security since that time. Even after the Iranian revolution, this has remained the case, thus Turkey is unlikely to renege on this security arrangement via the acquisition of nuclear weapons. In addition, the new conservatives in Iran today seem extremely pragmatic rather than ideological, therefore the likelihood of Iran exporting the principles of the Iranian revolution seem a remote possibility. This fact will calm the nerves of Turkey’s secular elite.
Saudi Arabia
It is also unlikely that Saudi Arabia would seek a nuclear option in the face of a nuclear-armed Iran. Like Turkey, there are a number of policy constraints along that path and Saudi is more likely to revert to more stringent internal policies than attempt a tilt toward strategic or medium-range nuclear technology.
Ten to fifteen years ago, a nuclear Iran might have been a significant threat to Saudi Arabia, due to the ill treatment the Shi'a population in its Eastern province suffer. Although discrimination continues against the Shi’a in Saudi, the authorities have now opened dialogue with Shi’a leaders, and the election of 11 Shi’a candidates into municipal councils during 2004 has no doubt acted as a source of improving Iran-Saudi relations. In addition, the Shi’a in Saudi usually refer to Grand Ayatollah Ali Al-Sistani in Iraq, who has a quietist attitude towards politics in comparison to Ayatollah Khameini in Iran. Therefore Iran is unlikely to have major influence among the Shi’a of Saudi; this will ease Saudi worries of Iranian encouragement of internal Shi’a uprisings. The signing of the 2001 Iran-Saudi security agreement is another indication of improving relations and as a result Iran cannot be considered an imminent threat to Saudi security. If there was a military threat from Iran, there is no doubt that a quick response would come from the West, especially the US which has depended on Saudi oil for decades. Saudi is an important state for the US and any attack on Saudi would destabilise the whole Persian Gulf, sharply affecting the world’s supply of oil. This would be disastrous for Western economies, making US intervention to counteract an Iranian military threat inevitable.
In addition, the US has been apprehensive due to the possibility of the Saudi regime being removed by Islamists, leading to the establishment of a Caliphate. The possibility of a Caliphate emerging as a challenge to its hegemony is sufficient to worry the US; add nuclear capabilities and these fears increase. Therefore it is definitely in US national interests to thwart any Saudi attempts to develop nuclear weapons. US interests are a major constraint on Saudi ambitions, but nevertheless the US continues to be the guarantor of the Saudi regime’s security.
Syria
Relations between Iran and Syria have been on good terms since the 1970s. Mutual interests have characterised the relations between the two countries. Chief among these are the threats both countries have faced from Iraq, Turkey and Israel. In addition, today both countries are subject to criticism from the US and potential military attack in the future. In response to US threats, the two countries have strengthened their relations. In February 2005, the two countries announced that they had formed a military pact, a direct result of growing US dominance in the region and aggression towards both countries.
Given the good relations between Syria and Iran, it is unlikely that Syria would attempt to develop nuclear weapons due to Iran doing so; in fact a nuclear Iran would be in the interest of Syria. The prospect of friendly relations with a nuclear actor could strengthen the Syrian hand in relations with the US, Turkey and Israel. In addition, if one looks to the international pressure and scrutiny of the Assad regime following the Hariri assassination, it seems unlikely that Syria would consider developing nuclear weapons. The Assad regime at this moment in time is concerned with political survival. Pressure is growing from all sides, the continuing inquiry into Hariri’s assassination and a new Khaddam-Muslim Brotherhood alliance are adding to the difficulties facing the regime. External pressure could tempt the government to consider acquiring nuclear weapons, rather than the ‘threat’ of a nuclear Iran, but given the difficulties Syria faces at this moment in time, it is unlikely to make its situation more complicated and add further pressure on itself by seeking nuclear weapons.
Conclusion
The cases analysed above indicate that the fear of regional powers acquiring nuclear weapons in response to a nuclear Iran seems more myth rather than reality. A number of hurdles and obstacles face the countries discussed before they could even begin to contemplate acquiring nuclear weapons. US interests are the key factor behind the Middle Eastern proliferation story that is currently being touted. In order to build a case to argue against Iran developing nuclear weapons, justifications are required. The regional proliferation story works, but in reality this line does not stand scrutiny, it only hides true US interests. The US has been concerned by the prospect of a regional actor emerging in the Middle East that could potentially threaten its military dominance in the region. A nuclear Iran would undermine US dominance in the Middle East as it could no longer dictate but would have to consult and listen. In addition, the possibility of being driven out of the vitally important Persian Gulf by a nuclear Iran haunts the US, as it would be catastrophic to US interests. It is these interests that are driving US policy towards Iran rather than fear of instability in the region. If the US was concerned with instability in the Middle East it would have changed its decades-old policy of supporting Israeli aggression against Palestinians, and backing Arab dictators; the US would not have attacked Iraq nor instigated the War on Terror. This US policy has acted as a key source of de-stabilisation rather than stability in the Middle East. The key driving force behind US foreign policy continues to be national interests and it is these interests that are pushing the propaganda campaign to prevent the emergence of a nuclear Iran.
An Idea Whose Time Has Come?
The following is an interesting article that highlights the rise of the political understanding of Islam in the world and the increased call for an Islamic based system in the Muslim world
http://www.antiwar.com/pat/?articleid=9192
An Idea Whose Time Has Come?
by Patrick J. Buchanan
In 1938, the year of Anschluss and Munich, a perceptive British Catholic looked beyond the continent over which war clouds hung and saw another cloud forming.
"It has always seemed to me … probable," wrote Hilaire Belloc, "that there would be a resurrection of Islam and that our sons or our grandsons would see the renewal of that tremendous struggle between the Christian culture and what has been for more than a thousand years its greatest opponent."
Belloc was prophetic. Even as Christianity seems to be dying in Europe, Islam is rising to shake the 21st century as it did so many previous centuries.
Indeed, as one watches U.S. armed forces struggle against Sunni insurgents, Shia militias, and jihadists in Iraq, and a resurgent Taliban, all invoking Allah, Victor Hugo's words return to mind: No army is so powerful as an idea whose time has come.
The idea for which our many of our adversaries fight is a compelling one. They believe there is but one God, Allah; that Muhammad is his prophet; that Islam, or submission to the Koran, is the only path to paradise; and that a Godly society should be governed according to the Shariah, the law of Islam. Having tried other ways and failed, they are coming home to Islam.
What idea do we have to offer? Americans believe that freedom comports with human dignity, that only a democratic and free-market system can ensure the good life for all, as it has done in the West and is doing in Asia.
From Ataturk on, millions of Islamic peoples have embraced this Western alternative. But today, tens of millions of Muslims appear to be rejecting it, returning to their roots in a more pure Islam.
Indeed, the endurance of the Islamic faith is astonishing.
Islam survived two centuries of defeats and humiliations of the Ottoman Empire and Ataturk's abolition of the caliphate. It endured generations of Western rule. It outlasted the pro-Western monarchs in Egypt, Iraq, Libya, Ethiopia and Iran. Islam easily fended off communism, survived the rout of Nasserism in 1967, and has proven more enduring than the nationalism of Arafat or Saddam. Now, it is resisting the world's last superpower.
What occasioned this column was a jolting report in the June 20 Washington Times, by James Brandon, alerting us to a new front.
"Arrests Spark Fear of Armed Islamist Takeover" headlined the story about the arrest, since May, of 500 militants who had allegedly plotted the overthrow of the king of Morocco and establishment of an Islamic state that would sever all ties to the infidel West – to end the poverty and corruption they blame on the West.
The arrests raised fears that al-Adl wa al-Ihsane, or Justice and Charity, was preparing to take up arms to fulfill the predictions of the group's mystics that the monarchy would fall in 2006.
Though illegal, al-Adl wa al-Ihsane is Morocco's largest Islamic movement, which boycotts elections, but has hundreds of thousands of followers and has taken over the universities and is radicalizing the young.
Its founder is Sheik Abdessalam Yassine, who has declared its purpose is to reunite mosque and state: "Politics and spirituality have been kept apart by the Arab elites. And we have been able to reconnect these two aspects of Islam – and that is why people fear us."
And, one might add, why people embrace them.
If Morocco is now in play in the struggle between militant Islam and the West, how looks the correlation of forces in June 2006?
Islamists are taking over in Somalia. They are in power in Sudan. The Muslim Brotherhood won 60 percent of the races it contested in Egypt. Hezbollah swept the board in southern Lebanon. Hamas seized power from Fatah on the West Bank and Gaza. The Shia parties who hearken to Ayatollah Sistani brushed aside our favorites, Chalabi and Iyad Allawi, in the Iraqi elections. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is the most admired Iranian leader since Khomeini. In Afghanistan, the Taliban is staging a comeback.
This has all happened in the last year. And where are we winning?
What is the appeal of militant Islam? It is, first, its message: As all else has failed us, why not live the faith and law God gave us?
Second, it is the Muslim rage at the present condition where pro-Western regimes are seen as corruptly enriching themselves, while the poor suffer.
Third, it is a vast U.S. presence that Islamic peoples are taught is designed to steal their God-given resources and assist the Israelis in humiliating them and persecuting the Palestinians.
Lastly, Islamic militants are gaining credibility because they show a willingness to share the poverty of the poor and fight the Americans.
What America needs to understand is something unusual for us: From Morocco to Pakistan, we are no longer seen by the majority as the good guys.
If Islamic rule is an idea taking hold among the Islamic masses, how does even the best army on earth stop it? Do we not need a new policy?
http://www.antiwar.com/pat/?articleid=9192
An Idea Whose Time Has Come?
by Patrick J. Buchanan
In 1938, the year of Anschluss and Munich, a perceptive British Catholic looked beyond the continent over which war clouds hung and saw another cloud forming.
"It has always seemed to me … probable," wrote Hilaire Belloc, "that there would be a resurrection of Islam and that our sons or our grandsons would see the renewal of that tremendous struggle between the Christian culture and what has been for more than a thousand years its greatest opponent."
Belloc was prophetic. Even as Christianity seems to be dying in Europe, Islam is rising to shake the 21st century as it did so many previous centuries.
Indeed, as one watches U.S. armed forces struggle against Sunni insurgents, Shia militias, and jihadists in Iraq, and a resurgent Taliban, all invoking Allah, Victor Hugo's words return to mind: No army is so powerful as an idea whose time has come.
The idea for which our many of our adversaries fight is a compelling one. They believe there is but one God, Allah; that Muhammad is his prophet; that Islam, or submission to the Koran, is the only path to paradise; and that a Godly society should be governed according to the Shariah, the law of Islam. Having tried other ways and failed, they are coming home to Islam.
What idea do we have to offer? Americans believe that freedom comports with human dignity, that only a democratic and free-market system can ensure the good life for all, as it has done in the West and is doing in Asia.
From Ataturk on, millions of Islamic peoples have embraced this Western alternative. But today, tens of millions of Muslims appear to be rejecting it, returning to their roots in a more pure Islam.
Indeed, the endurance of the Islamic faith is astonishing.
Islam survived two centuries of defeats and humiliations of the Ottoman Empire and Ataturk's abolition of the caliphate. It endured generations of Western rule. It outlasted the pro-Western monarchs in Egypt, Iraq, Libya, Ethiopia and Iran. Islam easily fended off communism, survived the rout of Nasserism in 1967, and has proven more enduring than the nationalism of Arafat or Saddam. Now, it is resisting the world's last superpower.
What occasioned this column was a jolting report in the June 20 Washington Times, by James Brandon, alerting us to a new front.
"Arrests Spark Fear of Armed Islamist Takeover" headlined the story about the arrest, since May, of 500 militants who had allegedly plotted the overthrow of the king of Morocco and establishment of an Islamic state that would sever all ties to the infidel West – to end the poverty and corruption they blame on the West.
The arrests raised fears that al-Adl wa al-Ihsane, or Justice and Charity, was preparing to take up arms to fulfill the predictions of the group's mystics that the monarchy would fall in 2006.
Though illegal, al-Adl wa al-Ihsane is Morocco's largest Islamic movement, which boycotts elections, but has hundreds of thousands of followers and has taken over the universities and is radicalizing the young.
Its founder is Sheik Abdessalam Yassine, who has declared its purpose is to reunite mosque and state: "Politics and spirituality have been kept apart by the Arab elites. And we have been able to reconnect these two aspects of Islam – and that is why people fear us."
And, one might add, why people embrace them.
If Morocco is now in play in the struggle between militant Islam and the West, how looks the correlation of forces in June 2006?
Islamists are taking over in Somalia. They are in power in Sudan. The Muslim Brotherhood won 60 percent of the races it contested in Egypt. Hezbollah swept the board in southern Lebanon. Hamas seized power from Fatah on the West Bank and Gaza. The Shia parties who hearken to Ayatollah Sistani brushed aside our favorites, Chalabi and Iyad Allawi, in the Iraqi elections. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is the most admired Iranian leader since Khomeini. In Afghanistan, the Taliban is staging a comeback.
This has all happened in the last year. And where are we winning?
What is the appeal of militant Islam? It is, first, its message: As all else has failed us, why not live the faith and law God gave us?
Second, it is the Muslim rage at the present condition where pro-Western regimes are seen as corruptly enriching themselves, while the poor suffer.
Third, it is a vast U.S. presence that Islamic peoples are taught is designed to steal their God-given resources and assist the Israelis in humiliating them and persecuting the Palestinians.
Lastly, Islamic militants are gaining credibility because they show a willingness to share the poverty of the poor and fight the Americans.
What America needs to understand is something unusual for us: From Morocco to Pakistan, we are no longer seen by the majority as the good guys.
If Islamic rule is an idea taking hold among the Islamic masses, how does even the best army on earth stop it? Do we not need a new policy?
The Muslim Conference-
Hello
Further evidence to prove that the recent Muslim Conference held in London was politically driven and motivated- with downing street, the Foreign Office and the Home Office having the key say over who was invited and who was not.
http://www.newstatesman.com/200706110012
Further evidence to prove that the recent Muslim Conference held in London was politically driven and motivated- with downing street, the Foreign Office and the Home Office having the key say over who was invited and who was not.
http://www.newstatesman.com/200706110012
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