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Last week I was in a dual lecturer/ dialogue
mode, taking visiting US Evangelical students to meet leading British
Muslims, such as new MCB leader Dr Bari, Fareena Alam, Sarah Joseph,
Humeera Khan and officials from the Islamic Human Rights Commission,
Muslim Association of Britain and Muslim Public Affairs Committee to
talk about specific subjects: British Muslim concerns and aspirations;
British Muslim media; women’s activism in the UK Islamic movement;
British Muslim relations with other faith communities and attitudes to
America; and British Muslim political activism. The meetings went very
well and the America students were extremely appreciative of all they
heard, including the copies of The Muslim Weekly.
However, I was struck again by the insularity and frankly, the
ignorance of the Americans involved. This was best exemplified on the
first day when Dr Bari, a young London Muslim Centre official called
Ihsan and Fareena often referred to ‘7/7’. When question time came
one student asked: ‘What’s this "7/7" you all keep
referring to?’ Considering that these were intelligent mature people
– who had met me the Saturday before, where I had been introduced as
the author of ‘From Rushdie to 7/7: The Radicalisation of Islam in
Britain’ - this was flabbergasting. Even more so when you consider
that Britain is America’s mother country, and that 7/7 occurred when
Bush was visiting here. Imagine if a Briton visited America and asked
‘What’s this "9/11" you all keep referring to?’
Americans would be gobsmacked! Of course, many in the 25-strong group
acknowledged that Americans – especially their media – pay little
if no attention to foreign events.
Inevitably, after I brought each group on a tour of Whitechapel, I was
asked about Al-Qaida and their motivations. The usual refrain was
heard from some students – that ‘they hate our values’; ‘they
want to conquer us’, ‘they won’t stop until they make America an
Islamic State’, etc. I was able to set them right on those scores,
but it demonstrates a major problem; few Americans know why Al-Qaida
is fighting, nor what can be done to gain peace (the final question
each group asked me). The ignorance is breathtaking, but quite
understandable.
Two years ago, at a Ramadan event in the Houses of Parliament, one
young Muslim man approached me. He said he had wanted to meet me for
some time, since he liked my articles. Then he made a telling
observation: "We wouldn’t dare say the things you say about Al-Qaida!"
I understood what he meant. As a Born-again Christian, nobody could
suspect me of sympathy for Al-Qaida’s methods (which contradict
every aspect of New Testament ethics) or its ultimate aim of the
united Islamic caliphate. Obviously, as an academic, I can write
articles giving a scholarly analysis of Al-Qaida from a detached
perspective – recognising where their methods were clever and
effective, even if from my moral perspective, based on the ethics of
Jesus, these tactics were malign. If a Muslim attempted this, as the
young man implied, he might be accused of sympathy for Al-Qaida.
Hardly surprising that Muslims are wary of attempting this (and in the
light of the Forest Gate raid, such fears are well-grounded – even a
long beard is sufficient ground for suspicion these days).
However, the problem with this is that it leaves the field open for
Islamophobes to present their distorted propaganda, as well as the US
and UK governments to propagate their claims that foreign policy has
nothing to with the conflict. As the reaction of the students showed,
this strategy has enjoyed success – basically by default. It is not
helped by the fact that Al-Qaida broadcasts are always in Arabic,
rather than English, which inevitably blunts the impact of the message
(as well as leaving it to sometimes questionable translations of
certain institutions). In contrast, the video of Mohammed Siddique
Khan after 7/7 had an immediate impact – because it was in easily
understandable English.
Moreover, Westerners – especially Americans – are woefully
ignorant of the historical basis for the current conflict – the
continuing consequences of the 1916 Sykes-Picot Agreement between
Britain and France, and US domination that filled the vacuum created
by the post-1945 collapse of the British and French Empires. With each
group of the students when they started questioning me about the
causes of 9/11 I had to explain the 1916 Agreement. Don’t blame
ordinary Americans for intransigence or even prejudice when it comes
to Middle Eastern events – their government and media ensure that
they are kept ignorant, so that the current situation continues. The
latter borrowed from Orwell’s dictum in ‘1984’ that ‘ignorance
is strength’.
The unwillingness of the British government to take on board detailed
recommendations of the Muslim Task Force as revealed in last week’s
issue should come as no surprise – especially the refusal to hold an
independent public inquiry. After all, such an inquiry would
inevitably emphasise the centrality of Britain’s historic and
contemporary foreign policy vis-à-vis the Middle East as being the
cause of 7/7. Neither the US nor UK governments want this information
to filter down to the masses; they wish them to remain ignorant, so
that this negative foreign policy can continue. They want them to
continue to believe that Al-Qaida kills Westerners simply because the
group delights in slaughtering infidels, and is intent on conquering
the West, imposing a Talibanesque government on us.
However, as I informed the American students, the truth is different.
I told them that there are two dimensions of military jihad; offensive
and defensive. The latter can be as violent as the former, but the aim
is different – to drive-away the enemy invader. All modern jihads
are defensive. Offensive jihad can only be ordered by a Caliph (and
there isn’t one now), and even if there were an Islamic caliphate
from Morocco to Indonesia, it wouldn’t attempt an attack on the West
because of Surah 8:66 which states if the enemy is twice as strong as
you, you don’t engage in offensive jihad. So, even if America now
‘cut and run’, it wouldn’t be endangering itself, because its
nuclear arsenal will remain a perpetual deterrent to anyone attempting
to conquer it – on theological as well as practical grounds.
I also told the students in answer to their questions that what gives
Al-Qaida the edge is a combination of two factors. Firstly, the
concept of martyrdom, removing fear of death, making the Neo-Con idea
of bombing Muslims into submission redundant and counter-productive.
Secondly, the fact that Al-Qaida’s major aims – the reversal of
the Sykes-Picot agreement, the liberation of Palestine and end to
Western domination are concerns shared by virtually all Muslims, even
secular ones. As long as these issues remain unresolved, Al-Qaida will
gather support, and the conflict will continue. The only way America
can undercut Al-Qaida on these issues is to fulfil the deepest wish of
Arabs and Muslims in the Middle East – for America to leave, just as
they left Vietnam. Not just their troops, but their dominance and
support for puppet, oppressive regimes.
For this to happen, the American public must pressure their government
and Congress to leave. However, the strength of the US establishment
is the ignorance of the American public about why the conflict is
raging. That ignorance will continue until Muslims are able to put the
case about the causes of unrest. Unless they do, we will see more
9/11s, 7/7s, and more raids like that at Forest Gate. Nonetheless, as
that young Muslim indicated, for Muslims to do so would inevitably
lead to their being accused of support for Al-Qaida.
The way forward is for the MCB, together with the other Islamic
organisations mentioned earlier, to urgently organise their own
independent and (very) public inquiry into 7/7. As part of this, they
should invite American scholars such as John Esposito, Yvonne Haddad
and Noam Chomsky to present public expositions of the causes of the
conflict. With the US media present, this might help put the record
straight. With the ignorance of the US public removed, the strength of
the Neo-Con imperialists would evaporate, and pressure could build up
for a repeat of 1972-75 – the withdrawal from Indo-China. This would
simultaneously liberate the Middle East, isolate Al-Qaida, make
America and Britain safer – and also secure Western Muslim
communities from state repression. The collapse of American public
ignorance is the strength of Western - including Western Muslim –
security.
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