[iwar] [fc:The.Roots.of.Anti-Muslim.Rage]

From: Fred Cohen (fc@all.net)
Date: 2001-10-22 07:00:39
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From: Fred Cohen <fc@all.net>
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Date: Mon, 22 Oct 2001 07:00:39 -0700 (PDT)
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Subject: [iwar] [fc:The.Roots.of.Anti-Muslim.Rage]
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The Roots of Anti-Muslim Rage
Western governments say it is not a war against Islam. Osama Bin Laden
says it is. Muslims at large are caught in the middle. <b>Omayma
Abdel-Latif</b> reports

Al-Ahram Weekly Online
18 - 24 October 2001
Issue No.556
<a href="http://www.ahram.org.eg/weekly/2001/556/6war1.htm" eudora="autourl">http://www.ahram.org.eg/weekly/2001/556/6war1.><a 
href="http://www.ahram.org.eg/weekly/2001/556/6war1.htm" eudora="autourl">htm

This was meant to be the year when the UN initiated its scheme to
promote "dialogue among civilisations." Instead, it is witness to a
confrontation apparently pitting "Islam" against the "West." In the
weeks following the 11 September attacks against the US, old theories
were dusted off, and prejudices predicting "an ultimate clash of
civilisations" were bruited about. 

Leaders of the US coalition have gone to great lengths to "win the
hearts and minds of Muslims" -- as press reports put it.  They have
emphasised that "the West has no grievances against Islam." This has
done little to soothe Muslim fears of a "crusade" against the Islamic
world.  According to one observer, the lull in the coalition military
attacks in Afghanistan on Friday, supposedly in deference to the Islamic
day of prayer was a "mockery." The bombing of a mosque near Kabul the
day before, an atrocity which killed 120, according to Britain's
<i>Independent</i> newspaper, negated the effect of all such symbolic
acts. 

Many Muslims think the official niceties of Tony Blair and George Bush
are meant only to keep the coalition intact: in reality a coalition
intended to batter Muslims.  According to John Esposito, director of the
Centre for Muslim-Christian Understanding (CMCU) at Georgetown
University, the US administration risks a backlash in the Muslim world
thanks to its inconsistent treatment of Muslim sensibilities.  Esposito
says that many in the Muslim world see the US as a "hegemon," a kind of
"neo-colonialist power," not a state engaged in a morally unimpeachable
war on terror.  "If they [the Muslims] start seeing the US as a colonial
power jumping off from Afghanistan and moving around through the Middle
East and settling old scores," says Esposito, "then the risk is that
they will believe [the coalition is engaged in] a war against Islam. 
People will think that Afghanistan was only an excuse to get in the
region."

Accompanying the strikes is a trend in foreign press writings which
amounts to what one German intellectual described as "a constant secular
slander of Islam." These writings lend credence to Bin Laden's argument
that the assault on Afghanistan is indeed a "war against Islam and
Muslims."

Elements in both the American and British press have embarked on what
Edward Said described as "a wholesale demotion of a civilisation into
categories like irrational and enraged." A constant stream of articles
have parroted Bernard Lewis and Samuel Huntington, the writers who
coined the phrases "the roots of Muslim rage" and "the clash of
civilisations," by speaking about "the strategy to win the hearts and
minds of Muslims," as if Muslims were a herd, incapable of variety of
opinion.  Other articles represent Islam as unable ever to understand or
accept a US version of modernity.  Such articles describe the fanaticism
of Islam, the moral sickness of the Arabs and Muslims and their inherent
inability to comprehend Western modernity as the rest of the world does. 
Last week's <i>Time</i> cover demanded, "Who can stop the rage?"
<i>Newsweek</i> referred to "the roots of rage." Self-appointed experts
on Islam and Muslim societies speak of "the failed societies," or "the
land of suicide bombers, flag burners and fiery mullahs." All of this in
lieu of proper analysis of real political grievances some in the region
have, and which may, just possibly, be behind their discontent. 

Contrary to Tony Blair's official praise of Islam, some British papers
have bluntly suggested, "yes, it is a war, and Islam is at its heart"
(<i>pace</i> Hugo Young in Britain's <i>Guardian</i>).  Others spoke of
war against "fanatical Islam." Such writings play to advocates of an
imminent clash of civilisations between Islam and the West and fuel the
rage of the warmongers.  Not only do they whip up anti-Islamic
sentiment, they also help mobilise what Said described as "nationalist
passions and murderous sentiments" among readers against everything
Islamic.  &nbsp; The logic, according to Professor Hassan Hanafi, chair
of the Islamic Philosophy Department at Cairo University, is to prepare
the moral ground for the massive acts of the US.  Their intention,
argues Hanafi, is not to analyse "why they hate us" but rather to use
angry violent images coming from the Muslim world morally to justify US
aggression against the Islamic world.  "It is about who sets the rules
in the global game.  The strategy to win the hearts and minds of Muslims
only translates into how can we control them," Hanafi told the
<i>Weekly</i>.  Both Hanafi and Esposito reject the notion of a clash of
civilisations between the West and Islam as a rehash of old imperialist
theories. 


"There is no one West, no one Islam: and to speak of civilisations as
isolated entities defies the very logic and nature of what civilisation
is all about," Hanafi explained.  Esposito calls the language of
civilisational clash "medieval." The question, explains Esposito, is
whether the United States truly believes in the promotion of
self-determination and human rights for everyone, or is selective when
it comes to the Middle East and the Muslim world.  "If the US and Europe
are really concerned about the promotion of democratisation and human
rights, then they have to be consistent with regard to that policy."
Otherwise, says Esposito, "they will be vulnerable to anger that
contributes to the conditions that allow Islam to be hijacked and used
to legitimate the kind of terrorist actions that we have seen."

Samuel Huntington originally wrote his article "the Clash of
Civilisations" in 1993.  Ever since, it has provided a manual to "keep
the West powerful and its opponents weak and divided." Huntington
advises the West, to "exploit differences and conflicts among Confucian
civilisations and Islamic states, support other civilisational groups
that are sympathetic to Western values and interests, and strengthen
international institutions that reflect and legitimate western interests
and values." The media have pounced on this sordid provender with glee. 
The extent to which governments do, too, remains to be seen.  But the
omens are not good. 


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