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Clash of extremes Pt 2
November 14, 2001
By Denis Solomon
(Continued from last Wednesday)
Islam is worldwide, and Islamic terror is transnational. But Islam in its early history was closely associated with states, and in many cases remains so, unlike Christianity, which in most countries has been separated from the State. The successors of the Prophet were caliphs, i.e. chiefs of state. The Sunni-Shia schism was a quarrel over the succession to Muhammad.
This inherent propensity toward politics is reflected in the Koran. The concept of Jihad as propounded there is not necessarily territorial expansion or forcible conversion, but the assumption of political power in order to implement the principles of Islam through public institutions.
But conquest, if not enjoined, is implied. In classical Islamic law the world is divided into three zones: the House of Islam, which consists of the Islamic countries; the House of Peace, composed of the nations with which Islam has peace agreements; and the House of War, which is the rest of the world.
Besides the Last Judgment, applicable to individuals, the Koran recognises another kind of divine judgment, which is meted out by history to nations. They, like individuals, may be corrupted by wealth and power, and are punished by being destroyed or subjugated by more virtuous nations.
It is not, therefore, inaccurate to say that Islam enjoins on its followers the creation of Islamic states. Secularism in politics is inconceivable to Islam. This is what enables the Jamaat-al-Muslimeen in Trinidad and Tobago to say that they are not interested in democracy, but in the "law of God". It is what enables the deputy leader of the Jamaat, when he threatened retaliation for the fence built across the Jamaat's compound, to propound the following astonishing syllogism: Islam requires Muslims to revolt against unjust regimes; the state permits the practice of Islam: therefore the state permits revolt against itself.
Yet Muslims are no different psychologically from the rest of humanity, and it is a universal psychological law that religiosity intensifies in direct proportion to suffering, discontent and resentment. "Any group of people on the defensive," says Odon Vallet, "can sink into extremism." In the course of its history Islam has undergone periods of philosophical elaboration and even reform, and the periods of freest Islamic thought have coincided with periods of prosperity. In the Middle Ages, when Christianity was at its most savage, the Islamic caliphates were centres of high civilisation in which scholars applied the methods of Greek philosophy in their interpretation of the Koran. The mystical Sufi movement, starting as a scholarly doctrine in the 9th century, survived persecution by the orthodoxy, and from the 12th century onward gained widespread popularity among the masses, contributing greatly to the spread of Islam into Africa and East Asia.
Unlike the Christian reformation, however, these changes related to the interpretation of the Koran, not to the unity of its text or belief in its divinely-inspired nature. In the twentieth century, therefore, attempts to bring Islamic social doctrine into line with Western trends such as constitutional democracy, technology and the emancipation of women had to be backed by plausible interpretations of the Koran. And as it became clear that these supposed virtues were bringing little benefit to Muslim populations, or overcoming the ill effects of colonialism, modernism began to be more and more bitterly opposed by fundamentalists, intent on setting up their versions of an Islamic state. Algeria, Pakistan and Nigeria are examples of this conflict. The political influence of Islam was least in Turkey and the Balkans, the last vestiges of the Islamic Ottoman Empire. But even in Turkey, the army now has to hold the line of secularism against increasing religious fundamentalism, while Turkish governments walk a tightrope between fundamentalist pressure and secularism as represented by membership in NATO and the European Union. The Baathist regime in oil-rich Iraq was practically secular when it came to power, and maintained friendly relations with the Soviet Union. Saddam Hussein began to emphasise his Islamic connections only when his position became more insecure.
The governments of traditionally Islamic countries, however secure they may feel themselves to be, are reluctant to oppose fundamentalism for fear of compromising the unity of Islam.
Islamic terror is therefore the result of a generalised situation of ketchass, in which people cling more and more blindly to their strongest asset, the unity of their faith. The ketchass immediately responsible for the World Trade Center bombing was the plight of the Palestinians.
Fanaticism springs from resentment at economic and social injustice. But it is not confined to the poor. After all, Osama bin Laden is a billionaire. The key to fanatical movements is that they attract people with closed minds; people conditioned to believe in absolutes. It has been said that all the September 11 hijackers were educated men. This is not so. They were not educated. They were trained. Someone pointed out to me that they all had backgrounds in technical subjects: engineering, electronics, aeronautics; not in the humanities. Education broadens the mind and induces doubt; training narrows it and promotes belief in certainties, not just technological but abstract, such as the inherent virtue of an Islamic state and the promise of paradise for martyrs.
As long as the conditions that produce religious extremism persist, there will be a supply of such people amply adequate to wage what has come to be called "asymmetrical war"—a war of terror by small groups against a big power, wielding the weapons of the enemy, including chemical and biological ones. The same applies to the anti-globalisation movement, which increases in strength as the fundamental incapacity of states to protect citizens against international market forces becomes more apparent.
The answers unanimously proposed by liberal thinkers in the West call not for putting an end to globalisation, but for democratising it. In the words of Benjamin Barber, "Capitalism is an efficient system, but it is not a way of living together." We must struggle against poverty and ignorance, which are the two sources of fanaticism, says Odon Vallet. Elie Cohen proposes the urgent initiation of a cycle "not of liberalisation, but of development." This would mean fulfilling the promises made by the North to the South; dealing with issues of biodiversity; and providing adequate compensation for the continued protection of intellectual property. And above all, a cycle of direct financial aid, without strings.
Even more specific proposals have been in the works for many years, such as the "Tobin tax" proposed by Nobel economist James Tobin to stem the short-term speculative movements of capital that wreak havoc in developing economies. Elie Cohen suggests that massive development aid could be financed by a tax levied either on personal and corporate incomes in the industrialised countries or on the profits of multinationals, who are the principal beneficiaries of Third World poverty.
But the frustrations that give rise to international terrorism are not solely economic. They have to do with politics, ideology, culture and identity. The tragedy is that on the one side there is political will in abundance, strong to the point of murder and martyrdom, but profoundly irrational; on the other, considerable resources of reason but a political will debilitated by arrogance and illusory self-sufficiency.
Copyright © 2004 Denis Solomon