Is It A War On Islam?

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Highly compelling. Cannot agree more!

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Professor writes : Why do only fanatics demonstrate in our cities?

If you read what you have written, it might dawn on you that people whom you call fanatics may not be fanatics after all. Could it be that they are one step ahead of you?

Let us hang our heads in shame

Indeed. Not because fanatics are on the street and you are not but because the non-fanatics have lost their moral credibility for waiting for so long.

Excellent thought provoking article without usual whining. Muslims must think about future before making up their mind. They must think about two things:

1) Are Afghanistan and Veitnam better off due to war or not? At least Veitnam with Confusian culture, missed a chance to have roughly 5000 dollars per capita by now. With it, they missed better roads, better healthcare, better food and better living. They won a great and highly admirable victory, but just a victory and nothing else. Are Muslims wishing to win hollow victory too? What is there to gain by beating up USA somewhere in the world by Muslims?

2) A victory of Islam is not the same as overall victory for Muslims. It is quite possible that somewhere in the world, Muslims might be able to teach a lesson to US imperialism - a great victory for allah-o-akbar and Islam but what does it mean for Muslims? Back to camel ride, chained women to the poles in homes, no music, no entertainment, no trade, no science, no technology, no food, no healthcare, no roads, no education.............but the short lived pleasure of beating the natural evolution of ideas, society, economics, banking, trade, science and technology.

Although it is not a war against Islam, though stupid acts of Muslim terrorists made it easy for USA to go after any Muslim state or individual. Even if it is considered a war against Islam, a defeat for Islam is actually a victory for liberal, secular, progressive and reform minded Muslims because a war against Islam will hit the conservative side of Islam much harder.

By very nature Muslims love ideas that threaten grave consequences for disobeying. For example, most Pakistani Americans tend to think themselves as Muslim first, Pakistani second and American third. The reason is that consequences of disobeying America are least threatening while consequences of disobeying religioin are most . Renouncing US citizenship does not mean losing head whereas renouncing Islam means vulnerable to losing head. It means if USA starts behaving like Islamic faith, Muslims would fall in love with USA. Bush, Cheney, Powell and Rumsfeld must project themselves as modern day Tariq Bin Ziyad, Mohammaed Bin Qasim, Otaiba Bin Muslim, Mahmud Ghaznavi, Shahab Uddin Ghauri and Ahmed Shah Abdali. If Pakistanis can name their male children, Taimur, Babar, Osama etc, they should consider Bush, Cheney et al in the future.

Emotionalism based on faith is not going to deliver anything in this world. Take it over, hamidm!

Pervez:

Ho Chi Minh could not have pulled it off without Giap…string or stiletto stuttering aside…

Our problem is unique…both as a nation and as a member of the global islamic fraternity…the silent majority is silent, subservient and slumbering…

…if there is any silver lining it is the ghost of osama and the mirage of a too-arrogant power…together they can only shake us out of the slumber…

rgds,

…t

Is this article criticizing the USA, the maulvis or the Pakistani liberals?

If there are people courageous enough in Pakistan to demonstrate against the US attack on Iraq, then I don`t the author has a right to call them, ``fanatics,`` just becuause he does not like them. I think on external issues that effect the whole country, the religious, ``fanatics`` and the secular ``fanatics`` both need to agree on one platform, instead of calling each other, ``fanatics.``

Is this a war on Islam? Yes and No. It is not a war on Islam as a religion. But the current war is definitely a war on certain Islamic countries. And nearly all the people that will be killed will be Muslims. And nearly all the people being discriminated against are Muslims. So if it walks, talks and swims like a duck, then maybe it is a duck. Maybe not.

It is interesting to see the Pakistani non-maulvis slowly starting to accept that the maulvis were right when they protested against the USA. Even this article states that only the, ``fanatics`` are demonstrating. Why are they, ``fanatics`` if they are demonstrating for the correct cause? They may be, ``fanatics`` in other areas, but not in the area of US attacks. Infact the groups that are, ``fanatics`` in this area are the ones who are supporting the war. Which is what much of Pakistan`s secular brigade, (I think including Hoodbhoy) did, during the war against Afghanistan. i.e. they hated the Taliban so much, that they closed thier eyes to the methods the USA used to destroy them. At that time, they were fully behind the daisycutters.

I supported the removal of the Taliban (even when the USA was supporting them), but through different means, on an article on Chowk:

``When the United States of America was laying down its plans to attack Afghanistan, a small group of people, including the author, highlighted the fact that USA should have exhausted all international legal options, before moving troops....

However, the USA’s actions, of not completely involving the international legal norms, have had the cascading effect which many of us feared, i.e. it has set a precedent under which any country can now bypass international laws, unilaterally declare another country a terrorist state, and launch a full-fledged military attack against it. This reduces the whole world to the law of the jungle, and the survival of the militarily fittest. Under this New World Order, the only factor protecting any state is its own military strength. This has made the world a more dangerous place, and will further increase every country’s desire to acquire more weaponry, both conventional and nuclear.``

This was written before the current Iraq fiasco. And lo and behold, Iraq is being attacked, outside international law. N. Korea is jumping on the nuclear bandwagon, because they are afraid they could be next on the US list of axis of evil, i.e. if the US is going to attack you, it is better to have your nukes online, because you will not be able to put them online after the attack.

And all of the sudden, the Pakistani liberals and seculars are now anti-US also (specially since they are in a state of shock over being put into the same bucket as far as registration and visas go, as the Pakistani maulvis, i.e. as far as the USA is concerned a Talibanized Pakistani and a beer drinking Westernized English speaking Pakistani are the same).

A bit too late to protest now, if you ask me. The damage is already done. I wish people would not have let their hatred of the mullah brigade clould their judgement so much, turning themselves into secular fanatics, that they would have given the rule of law a chance. One should support laws for those one dislikes also.

This is what happens when one uses secularism (or religionism) as the only criteria for good and bad. Both can be fanatic concepts. I don`t remeber completely, but I believe Hoodbhoy was a complete supporter of the US attack on Afghanistan, with no questions asked. So this article, though mostly accurate, is one attack too late. One cannot run with the hares and hunt with hounds.

Unless Muslims learn to keep religion out of governance and scientific education, I see very little hope for progress. As long as Muslim scientists (sounds like an oxymoron, I know) fear Islamic punishments or retaliation by the Mullahs; as long as our governments try to justify all scientific, financial and economic endeavors in light of Quran and Sunnah, progress will remain as elusive as ever. Quran should be treated as a book of moral and ethical code for personal consumption, not a supplementary book of Physics.
Islam, like modern-day Christianity, needs to be defanged. It should be a private matter between an individual and God. If someone is being blasphemous, it is a matter best left between him and God. Government or Mullahs should mind their own business. The concept of Jehad should be overhauled where it only stands for peaceful solutions, not mindless killings and violence, as is rampant in our societies.
Moreover, if someone is religious or has a great deal of understanding about Islam, that should not give him an instant authority to evaluate science, economics or matters of governance. Yet, this is what most of our Ulemas aspire to be, with disastrous consequences. For example, MMA now wants to lower taxes in NWFP. As we all know, NWFP is a poor province which faces a perpetual shortage of funds for public works. If personal taxes are lowered how is the provincial government expected to function? Is MMA going to hire a reknown economist to study the impact of such measures before legislating them? Of course not. For them, economics is the work of the Western devil and hence its a conspiracy against Ummah. They, like Taleban, want simple answers for complex issues and are not willing to go beyond a superficial understanding of the world around them. They always, perhaps subconciously, take the easy route. Thats why the emphasis is on banning Cable TV and co-education instead of creating jobs and building roads and hospitals.
Lastly, while USA is no angel, our whining against Americans (or any external force such as India) should be way, way down the list of complaints. My main beef with the Mullah brigade (and many moderate Muslims) is that they are too busy pointing fingers at non-Islamic factors and find a convenient scapegoat for all of our shortcomings. 99% of the time, it is us Muslims not Americans, who are responsible for our demise. What hope can one have for people who revere a murderer like Osama bin Laden as their hero? What do you say to someone who tries to justify the killings of 3000 innocents because of their country`s foreign policy?

The answer is simple, tried and tested with great success: Separation of Religion and State!

HT reports, Indian astronaut along with Israeli astronaut were among those on board space shuttle today.

http://www.hindustantimes.com/news/181_139766,00050001.htm

What do Pakistanis get? Fingerprinting, photographing. Pakistan military needs to rethink about its cost/benefit relationship with MMA and its allies.
The sooner Pakistan does a 180* turn on Jehad, Inc the better.

#2 by arjun_m on January 16, 2003 11:08am PT
More important question..are some countries using Islam to wage a war on the civilized world?

Dear arjun dont be so blinded by the US For all the hate that some muslims display for hindus(your civilised world) they never had any real power to change last 300-400 years however it was US which armed these groups and even provided the ideological linkages necessary to help these groups to use them for their needs.
Even then these groups have been largely ineffectual to bring about much damage for a country like India or for that matter any other country.
Now the US on the other hand is very clear on what it percives the rest of the world. Papers clearly talk about the ``Imperial role``.
The think tanks (funded by the key business lobbies) are the ones which drive the US agenda (people only vote on the agenda provided by the think tanks, which have the reach and the instiutional capabiity to direct public thinking) they have no love for anybody in the world. They clearly and explicitly want the world to be ordered to their needs and have been going around proclaming just that.

Now what is the problem with people like you? When influetial people who set the policy of a country clearly say that the world is in disorder and they want to set it into the order that they want. You dont want to belive them. You can see their capacity to reject any school of thought by ruthlessly extriminating people, countries, systems yet you want to like to dream and ignore what they say.

For all the hate the fundu islamiists say they have been only capable of suppressing happless civillians in their own countries and at times inflicting some damage on neighbouring countires.

Can you Imagine OIC enforcing an embargo on India for the gujrat roits?
Can you think pakistan will run India to ground by destorying access to the world market by declaring india a terrorist country and effectivly distrupting Indian economic life?

But there is one country which can and that is the US the same country which dumps its allies the same way as you use tissue paper. Even the allies like Korea, Japan even Germany have to bear humiliation and not even attempt to formualte a policy on their own which conflicts with the US policy.

And what is the US policy to gain access to Global markets. Up till now the US economy has gone thorugh various cycles to retain its preeminence. However the balance has changed in the last decade and in the coming decades the moment of truth will arrive.
The capitalist theory which organised socitey based solely on the idea that captial deployed should give power to the state(read elite) and the the rest of the population can be retained in place (ie in order) by offering a mixture of better living and making them dependent on the captilsist system for survival. Ie disorder is to be avoided by keeping the public in a permanent state of dependence through the carrot of better living. There is no moral basis of ordering of socitey. This works as long as the system is capable of meeting the financial wants(as appossed to needs)of the people.
The question is what will happen when the system is not capable of providing the needs of the people? The difference can be easily visible. Black outs in New York or any other major city in the west will lead to Roits. Where as a black out in bangalore or chennai or Islamabad or any other third world city does not affect the life subustantially.

It can be seen in the crime and the uncertainity of life in ghettos of LA or NY or Detroit or London where the system cant keep its side of the bargain.

No wonder the Captialist system considers no barrier sacrosant in its need to keep itself in good health because the other option is chaos.
So if you need to kill a millon people to keep the system going then it has to be kept going. If it means getiting the ``the poor , the tired and the needy`` to occupy and make productive a new rich land then it does it. If it means to elimniate a whole race of people to keep the riches and to still call them Poineers then it will be done. If it means to snatch people from another continent for its purpose of slavery to extract riches from the soil then it will be done.
US demanded its independence from UK precisely for the same reasons. Ie. UK by law would not accept manufacturing in US. The colonies even if populated and controlled by the mother country could not transfer technology to the colony and certainly could not deploy capital from the mother country to the colony for the benifit of the settlers. Thus the call for Independence. Simialrly the call to abolish salvery to keep it self in power is ok.
Mass manufacturing was the next to keep the flow of money coming. The next mantra was getting the capital from the now middle class into the control of the captialist through the stock market. Then came the mantra of mergers and aqusitions , after that the supply chain fine tuning. Then comes the mantra of spending (instead of saving)to encourage growth and stability of the captilist elite and thus the system. For this if you have to aquire oil wells or look aside while your hatchet man gasses a few thouand of his people and even providing them with some gas if he insists. If it means to turn loose muderous fanatics to secure the defeat the other system (basically competing for market share of the world) then that is also ok.
Now when the world after having seen through all the excuses of the last 50 years on US behaviour and no fig leaf now available then the new way out is give a new spin to imperialist role ie to give order to the world.

In reality the real reason is the benifits of the small group of people behind the major lobbyists and think tanks stand to gain.

It works in many ways the idea is to stack the odds in such a way that no country can ever come up to compete with the US. And how is it done. Encourage unbridiled consuption(keeping recources cheap is the key here) in the US. This keeps US market big and thus not only makes its companies(and its allies) strong but also makes sure that no one can survive without doing business with it or its allies or its dependencies.

Any country/organisation/system`s stablitiy or strength depends on how efficiently it uses its recources. It is the opposite in the US, encourage expansion for strength so that no one can be as big as them. At the same time bigger companies means more strength and more money available for military power. As socites accross the world will inevitably
become more better with better education, as the newly ordered counties start getting stable and capable of having a semblence of coming to grips to their new Identity the will become new markets to be controled by the overwhelmingly large US companies they hope to live in this Utopia for as long as they can. In fact people like you and many onthis board are coopted into this by better lifestyle.

Primary to keeping this association is to make sure that people are kept aware of how US socitey is equitable and their socites understandably under poverty and chaos are a mess often with voilent consequeces.

The ability to self govern and adapt to a industrial/ post industrial situation and at the same time come to grips to their new borders(most countires as defined today are recent and have hardly had much history in thier present form) and its new constiuents is a excersise fraught with endless traps. This it self a excersice which takes quite some time for people to come to grips with their existance. To add the growing power of the west through its economy and its ability to put a spanner in this exercise frequently have run many countries to the ground. Notably Iran, Iraq, Egypt, Algeria, Turkey, Pakistan and even Philipines Nicragua, Argentina, Brazil etc.

However a few countries have been able to over come this diffiuculties and are on their way to improving themselves notably India, Malaysia and lately Iran. A key fact to be noted that there is very little US control in these countries thus the spanner in the works effect enables them to comes to terms to their problems.

But if anybody is under the impression that these countries can at some day come to a postion where they can be as developed and as any in the west by following the US way then hey are sadly mistaken.
Any country can educate its people, keep peace and provide a stable envoirment for its economic and social activities. But to remain that way by following the US method requires a key ingredinet they dont have but the US has ie the capability to aquire cheap recources and push your way around thourgh burte economic and milatary force.

The allies like Japan Korea etc can succeed as long as they remain few in number and their relatively small populations can supplement and ride on the US`s bandwagon without excessively disturbing it.

However the key to this order is existance of cheap recources available (both humuan as well as material) to be exploited for the rich few.

What happens when (as is happening now and will continue to) technologicla competence spreads too easily and countries like china, India, groupings like ASEAN which while taking the benifits of this system refuse to be slave to it. more than 2.5 billion in these groupings can theorticaly have all that is considered to become powerful ie Stable socites and technological command and business independence? There obviously be a scramble for recources and inevitably there will be a conflict on the access to these recouces. Not only will these socites consume their own resources they will also compete globaly to gain acess to those through economic and often military means.

What happens when the US socitey which high labour costs cant have as big a say as it has had till now? What will happen when the cost of manufacturing , capability of manufacturing etc will not need any US suppourt. Other economies will grow in power and acutally the flow will reverse. and what will happen to the US Socitey the one in which order is dictated by satiation of economic needs not by moral force? Will it keep quite and accept its new situation?

This is a scenario which the US elite despeartely wants to avoid. But before we reach this scenario we have to examine the basis on which it is built. Can these countries really grow by the same mantra as is being prescribed by the US? ie by socitey becomeing blindly consumerist and thus contribute to the financial prosperity? No that will be a disaster because we cant be. We need to utilise our recorces efficitently because we dont have access to them as cheaply as the US has nor have the military or economic might to aquire them at will.

So what is the solution? Blind consumerist growth hinged on extreme dependence on the US and west will be a disaster as has been demonstatted in Brazil, Argentina etc. However there is no need to despair either, that people will aquire technological compentence is a given which no country from this group disbelives(as appossed to what the west belives, Read David Landes`s recent book) something which has been demonstated frist by Japan, then Korea, the ASEAN grouping and as India is currently demonstratating in its capability, I have no doubt that all people wether they are in africa or antartica or asia are capable of anything the west achives or more. Now the strategy has changed sutiably in the west ie to claim that while people are indivually capable of matching or superseding the white man. What the west(US) offers is the unique ability to manage socitey(ie retain order, the land of opportunites, the capability to reason and live together). And the given opposite is that the rest of the world has never demonstrated this capability and cant in the future because the are inherrantly incapable and require the western intervention to keep that order(thus provide cover to control recources and economies).

While it is the benfiit to the countries like India to ally where they can to the US it woud be stupid to belive that India can grow without at some point coming into conflict with the US economic intrests(Simply because unlike japan or korea earlier in present time there are too many players, incuding ASEAN, China and a stronger Europe). When that happens then? what is the treatmeant that will be given to India? What are the consequences of US using India as a counter to china? US would love to have a Strong India fully dependent on itself for its stategic goals. It could easily deal with such a country which is totaly dependent on itself.

But for India to really be in its driver seat then it needs to have a broader base of relationships. It needs to think what will be the consequence of the a large role of US in the Gulf? People like you who think India will be able to ride on the back of the US garunteed Oil security will be deeply disapointed. The US will not just garuntee the security of the Oil they will take it over with its companies. Once it is done higher oil prices will not be not much of a loss to US as it companies beinfit. And what will a bigger and stronger US economic power house demand? More access and control to Indian market and consumer. Most countires in the world have realised this and thus the oppostion to the war on Iraq.

A agressive US in its new incarnation will be the most dangerous country on the earth ie if it is not persently.

Just dont think that US will seek to contain China with Indias help. A even better result is to have both locked in rivalry wasting resources leaving the feild open to US to control rest of the world as well as to slowly contorl the economic lifeline of India.

Your thinking and many indians thinking is clouded by the kashmir issue and the reaction of Indian muslims to forceful domination by the hindu right. But every where My hindu friends have gone in the muslim world Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Malaysia they testify the respect and friendlyness of the muslims there towards Indians. If accounts from Afghanistan are to belived then the Indians are the most favoured nationality there. Now these people are all muslims and most probably more traditional than the Indians and pakistanis that you encounter. They hold dear all the tenents that you are so eager to shout down as medivial.

Woulld it be possible for you to remove your blikners and see the real danger to our part of the world? Stop using the phrases used by the west to depict today Islam or its adherents as uncivilised world. If there is a test for civiliastion then I would like to know what are the parameters to qualify for a civilised status.

``Quran should be treated as a book of moral and ethical code for personal consumption, not a supplementary book of Physics.
``

Such a simple truth evades a lot of people who insist that all the knowledge, scientific or otherwise, emanates from The Book. Obviously Al-Beruni didn`t think that way.

Ali#9

You should submit your post as an article since you have quite some points to make. Regarding Hindus in Arabian countries, perhaps you know that they dont have any religious rights, not even of celebrating their festivals in public. But they dont go about doing jihad for this ``injustice``. They know precisely that they are there for earning money and keep their religion confined to their household. As far as good will for Indians in Afghanistan is concerned, it is a result of lot of good work like building hospitals and humanitarian aid by India. All throughout Pakistan was busy training Taliban and Mujahideen in 80s and 90s, first to serve US purpose (and get $$s in return) and then to intall proxy govt (``strategic depth`` concept) causing immense bloodshed due to civil war in Afghanistan. This is not to say that India is acting altruistically; just to underline the fact that Pakistan has screwed afghanistan big time and utilized them as pawns. No wonder sensible Afghanis dont like Pakistan.

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.... whine, whine, whine .......... pervez sounds like one of those mazdoor kissan party activists from the sixties and seventies who ran around with red flags ranting and raving about american imperialism ...... some things never change .........

.... i, for one, ``cry out for the sort of enlightened foreign administration once provided by self-confident Englishmen in jodhpurs and pith helmets`` ....... we are incapable of ruling ourselves ..........

......... last july, on my annual visit to the pindi kutchery i couldn`t help but marvel at how cool and well ventilated the registrar`s office was - it was built by the gentlemen in jodhpurs more than a hundred and fifty years ago .......... on the other hand, the ten year old new courts built by the natives were hot and sweltering and crumbling ............ the lawyers in their dusty black blazers and ragged black ties sat on wobbly desks laid out over open sewers drinking tea and swatting at pesky flies .........and, as they had done for the past fifteen years, the other party failed to show up ....... oh, how i missed the sahibs who had built these courts and given us the trappings of civilization ............. i wish they and the memsahibs would come back and save my eighty year old father the indignity of hobbling around on a walker seeking justice ................

Mr. Hoodbhoy,

Would you be happy if US just executed Saddam Insane, his sons and all of duplicates ? Don`t you think Saddam deserves to be executed for his CRIMINAL NEGLIGENCE in dragging his people to a disastrous war in 1990. According to estimates 50,000 Iraqis perished in that war. Any dumb idiot can tell you that you will loose when fighting a formidable adversary unless of course you are a Saddam with fasle pride. If this man insists on ruling Iraqis with an Iron fist then he also got the responsibility to ensure their well being. Or do you think his false machismo is so admirable ? don`t you think if Saddam is either executed or exiled U.S may repeat the Japan model ( ``forced development`` after WW2 ) in Iraq. Even if US doesnot repeat Japan model, Iraqis can start their normal trade and get some life for themselves. So how about calling your fellow muslims in Islamabad, Cairo, Riyadh, Damascus, and Jakarta to start a campaign to dislodge saddam ? how about dispelling the impression of non-muslims who see muslims as supporting murderers because they happen to be part of global ummah or some such thing ?