Waiting for Allah
Defeatism in the Islamic World has become a currency
and self-inflicted pain has become pleasure
November 28, 2003
The Iranian
''Bush's war has been the greatest thing that ever
happened to Al-Qaeda. If Bush were making progress in
the war on terror, we wouldn't be seeing vastly more
Al-Qaeda attacks now than we saw before the Iraq
war'' -- From a friend's post
Conspiracy theories, as in stories in 1001 Arabian Nights,
abound in the 21st century. The wearied
argument from the Arab street stresses that
because of the new crusade by the Bush administration,
there is a new holy war! These mushrooming sleeper-cells and wide
spread convoluted sympathies on the fringes of the Islamic world
exist because they need to
heap the reasons of their failures on someone else. In the recent
century it happens to be the US; in the last century it was colonialism.
Islam today is faced with new questions that need to
be answered by the main body politic of Islam, not
Bush; that is how Muslim blood became the collateral
damage in the jihad against infidels. For when guns
are turned on one's own as a result of an inability to
face the West, it has led to the failure of Al-Qaeda
sympathizers and their implosion within their
own confines, the fallout of which is now affecting
Muslims at large.
The
blood orgies of Al-Qaeda have opened a lot of unopened
eyes; the questions that were missed post 911 (as most
of the blood was those of 'infidels') are now being
asked, such as why and what for? When Western blood is
spilled, there is a gleeful silence; when Western
interests are hurt, there is a universal sense of
accomplishment in fringe Islamic communities. This
perverse pleasure taken in the miseries of the West is
not what Islam preaches as its very message is peace
and creation of the abode.
Wasted excess of squabble against US imperialism
cannot be more exemplified by the life of a fringe
youth within the Islamic world. He, who wakes up with
a Proctor & Gamble mouthwash, a breakfast of Kellogg's
frosted wheats, wears Gap jeans, works on a
Cisco-Intel-Microsoft based technology to connect to
the internet whilst sipping Starbucks coffee lashes
out at American way of life. The envy towards America,
for its accomplishment through hard won freedoms, is
nothing more than passive-aggressive aggression egged
on by the sense of abject failure and underachievement
of the leadership that failed them.
A madrassa product
can not be compared to an Oxbridge grad and this is
the result of centuries of accumulated failure where
'innovation of thought' was denounced by Imam
Al-Ghazali as heresy. Khuldoon, Sina, Ibn Ishaq,
Khayyam, Biruni or Farabi you name it, for one or
other reasons were declared heretics or were condemned
as revisionaries by the clergy of the time, the
efforts to arrest Islamic free thought in the cocoon of
time have been always triumphant as clergy took the
front seat in championship of Islam.
The silent
majority spirit has always been trampled by
determination and 'insight' of clergy to keep the
masses in check, the inability to move with times and
be a part of change left Islamic world directionless. The concept
of pre-destination, and born with the will of Allah, overtook struggle
for betterment. Clerical leadership
has been the cause of decay. Had it not been for the foresight
of leaders like Sir
Syed, the South Asian region would be as backward as
those north in Asia. It is not an accident that
Afghanistan does not have institutions like King
Edward Medical College or the rail and canal systems.
The continuous battles to refuse supremacy and
struggle for false sovereignty have resulted into a
country that has limbless thousands and still unable
to connect to the world. Connect tribalism with a
virulent form of extremist ideology and an explosive
combination will lead to a self destruction of the
societies. Al-Qaeda today is in on the forefront to
achieve this 'failure' of a society like Afghanistan
for places that are connecting to the world. Turkey is
the target since it represents the ability of Islam to
co-exist with democracy and freedom.
Palestinians
feel aggrieved by Israeli aggression but their leadership has
failed them during the course of
this century by aligning themselves with losers. The
issue of Palestine would not have risen had the
Ottomans not aligned itself with the Germans in the
First World War. The break up of the Ottoman Empire
was the result of realignments within the world and
the mufti Al Hussieni went to Hitler in World War II to
produce Muslim recruits for the German army. Why
should Islam become aligned with losers? Why can't we
have the vision to connect with the winners? The
Palestinian issue is at the core of the Islamic world
but defeatism has become a currency and self-inflicted
pain has become pleasure.
The war against the civilized world was hatched by the
loonies of the world when the icon of 'Democrats'
was busy having flings in the sacred office of the
White House. After the USS Cole bombing in Yemen, appeasers
fired misguided missiles on Sudanese factories
and mud rubble in Afghanistan but
no consistent policy was followed. The hornets'
nest was considered to be far too sensitive. These
vandals on the doors need men with resolve; the left
with its self serving agenda does not have what it
takes to face the criminals. The call of global jihad
against the US and her citizens was carried out by the likes
of Osama bin Laden under an
administration that never took it seriously.
If taking
the battle from US streets to far flung areas of
the world is not a success what is? These extremists are and will
be in constant hibernation. The challenge is to deny them
sanctuaries in hinterlands of terror production
factories that existed under Global Jihad Inc under
the tutelage of countries like Pakistan, Saudi Arabia
and others. Even Iran's recent cooperation with the IAEA
represents how the threat of big sticks works across
the board so comprehensively. Iran is ready today to
open up its facilities of enrichment and that is one
other success of areas that are benefiting from global
containment of terror regimes.
Thanks to the US, freedom of action that
allows us to speak and differ, is now a new coinage in
the Arab world, which is of historic magnitude. The
very reason that an Iraqi can call Bush a 'usurper' is
a success in the war on terror. The war on terror is freedom
from the shackles of primitiveness, and that is the
big picture post 911 strategy. I see it not as neoconism or a
new crusade, but action for the collective good of the world,
freeing Islam
from people
who want to hijack it in the name of blood orgies. From Bali
to Istanbul the fight remains a single-minded resolve to free
our world
from influence of cave man
who want to rob our freedoms.
The challenge is to
bring the Arab world out from the cave age and from
the cradle of conspiracy theories. Muslims must take a giant
step to incorporate a free press where 'expression of dissent'
is guaranteed in an era of new self-determination. The Bush Administration
sees this and hence its ability to convert the most hardened on
its side.
The likes of
Musharraf, Prince Abdullah and Erdogan are
ex-hardliners within the context of Islamic freedom
movements. However they are now the staunchest of US allies.
The US needed the pivotal countries of the Muslim world to carry
its fight to the enemy. How strange
that the left in the US is unable to appreciate the
alliance of the most unwilling that this
administration has been able to sew. If this is not
a diplomatic success -- carrying a big stick and
dangling big carrots -- what is?
The
fight against Al-Qaeda is
helping the cause of freedom in two ways. One is that the cancer
is clear and presents itself as a defined target that
can be confronted. Every suicide bomber leaves a
trail that closes doors for 100 other possible bombers.
Turks in Istanbul or Saudis in Jeddah blowing
themselves up are not in retaliation to US actions but
as a result of the inability of Al-Qaeda to destroy Western homes.
In a last ditch attempt, they are now on the path of
self destruction. The streets that had gleefully
expressed smiling adulations to the suicide bombers in
Israel today find how horrendous these bombers can be. Saudis
who complained that Israel should take no action against Palestinians,
even if they keep blowing
the Israelis with these bombs, are now on a crack down.
They have realized that this ferocious beast is out to take
anyone who opposes their brand of medievalism.
The Bush Doctrine has set a whole region free from
the chains of the past. Yes, there will be upheaval and it will
be a mounting task to face but the street in Arab lands
fails to see why Muslims are killing Muslims in a
vendetta that is directed against the West. The concept of
collateral damages of Islamic blood is now too
difficult to handle for appeasers and naysayers in our
part of the world.
The reasoning that all this would
have passed if no action was been taken is the
biggest fallacy. There is, and was, no sympathy towards Western
philosophy, according to the extremists. Islam promised its one
billion faithful the rule of the world,
and what they have discovered is that they are at the
bottom most wrung of the ladder as a result of their
own failure. The rage of impotence combined with
blind craving to manage the human race through the
'will of Allah' is what propels hatred within the
fringe elements.
It is dreams of rediscovering the history of Islam's golden
age and the re-conquest of the world, like old Spain,
that propels many lunatics to impose the 'will of Allah'
on the unwilling. This is not about terror, rather
this is about imposing a way of life through a 'regime
of terror'. Appeasement only makes their work easier.
Throwing a gauntlet like what Bush did makes it harder
but it takes a very big man to do it. History has put
this burden on a Texan who looked quite ordinary -- and
for the left even stupid -- but he has taken this burden
better than many a Sagittarius!
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