Village Journals
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Resonate your identity with Naseeb journals. Express your opinions, share your thoughts, post your writings and connect with like minded people through the power of expression.
If It's a Muslim Problem, It Needs a Muslim Solution
Very Interesting Article!
July 8, 2005
If It's a Muslim Problem, It Needs a Muslim Solution
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
Yesterday's bombings in downtown London are profoundly
disturbing. In part, that is because a bombing in our
mother country and closest ally, England, is almost
like a bombing in our own country. In part, it's
because one assault may have involved a suicide
bomber, bringing this terrible jihadist weapon into
the heart of a major Western capital. That would be
deeply troubling because open societies depend on
trust - on trusting that the person sitting next to
you on the bus or subway is not wearing dynamite.
The attacks are also deeply disturbing because when
jihadist bombers take their madness into the heart of
our open societies, our societies are never again
quite as open. Indeed, we all just lost a little
freedom yesterday.
But maybe the most important aspect of the London
bombings is this: When jihadist-style bombings happen
in Riyadh, that is a Muslim-Muslim problem. That is a
police problem for Saudi Arabia. But when
Al-Qaeda-like bombings come to the London Underground,
that becomes a civilizational problem. Every Muslim
living in a Western society suddenly becomes a
suspect, becomes a potential walking bomb. And when
that happens, it means Western countries are going to
be tempted to crack down even harder on their own
Muslim populations.
That, too, is deeply troubling. The more Western
societies - particularly the big European societies,
which have much larger Muslim populations than America
- look on their own Muslims with suspicion, the more
internal tensions this creates, and the more alienated
their already alienated Muslim youth become. This is
exactly what Osama bin Laden dreamed of with 9/11: to
create a great gulf between the Muslim world and the
globalizing West.
So this is a critical moment. We must do all we can to
limit the civilizational fallout from this bombing.
But this is not going to be easy. Why? Because unlike
after 9/11, there is no obvious, easy target to
retaliate against for bombings like those in London.
There are no obvious terrorist headquarters and
training camps in Afghanistan that we can hit with
cruise missiles. The Al Qaeda threat has metastasized
and become franchised. It is no longer vertical,
something that we can punch in the face. It is now
horizontal, flat and widely distributed, operating
through the Internet and tiny cells.
Because there is no obvious target to retaliate
against, and because there are not enough police to
police every opening in an open society, either the
Muslim world begins to really restrain, inhibit and
denounce its own extremists - if it turns out that
they are behind the London bombings - or the West is
going to do it for them. And the West will do it in a
rough, crude way - by simply shutting them out,
denying them visas and making every Muslim in its
midst guilty until proven innocent.
And because I think that would be a disaster, it is
essential that the Muslim world wake up to the fact
that it has a jihadist death cult in its midst. If it
does not fight that death cult, that cancer, within
its own body politic, it is going to infect
Muslim-Western relations everywhere. Only the Muslim
world can root out that death cult. It takes a
village.
What do I mean? I mean that the greatest restraint on
human behavior is never a policeman or a border guard.
The greatest restraint on human behavior is what a
culture and a religion deem shameful. It is what the
village and its religious and political elders say is
wrong or not allowed. Many people said Palestinian
suicide bombing was the spontaneous reaction of
frustrated Palestinian youth. But when Palestinians
decided that it was in their interest to have a
cease-fire with Israel, those bombings stopped cold.
The village said enough was enough.
The Muslim village has been derelict in condemning the
madness of jihadist attacks. When Salman Rushdie wrote
a controversial novel involving the prophet Muhammad,
he was sentenced to death by the leader of Iran. To
this day - to this day - no major Muslim cleric or
religious body has ever issued a fatwa condemning
Osama bin Laden.
Some Muslim leaders have taken up this challenge. This
past week in Jordan, King Abdullah II hosted an
impressive conference in Amman for moderate Muslim
thinkers and clerics who want to take back their faith
from those who have tried to hijack it. But this has
to go further and wider.
The double-decker buses of London and the subways of
Paris, as well as the covered markets of Riyadh, Bali
and Cairo, will never be secure as long as the Muslim
village and elders do not take on, delegitimize,
condemn and isolate the extremists in their midst.
July 8, 2005
If It's a Muslim Problem, It Needs a Muslim Solution
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
Yesterday's bombings in downtown London are profoundly
disturbing. In part, that is because a bombing in our
mother country and closest ally, England, is almost
like a bombing in our own country. In part, it's
because one assault may have involved a suicide
bomber, bringing this terrible jihadist weapon into
the heart of a major Western capital. That would be
deeply troubling because open societies depend on
trust - on trusting that the person sitting next to
you on the bus or subway is not wearing dynamite.
The attacks are also deeply disturbing because when
jihadist bombers take their madness into the heart of
our open societies, our societies are never again
quite as open. Indeed, we all just lost a little
freedom yesterday.
But maybe the most important aspect of the London
bombings is this: When jihadist-style bombings happen
in Riyadh, that is a Muslim-Muslim problem. That is a
police problem for Saudi Arabia. But when
Al-Qaeda-like bombings come to the London Underground,
that becomes a civilizational problem. Every Muslim
living in a Western society suddenly becomes a
suspect, becomes a potential walking bomb. And when
that happens, it means Western countries are going to
be tempted to crack down even harder on their own
Muslim populations.
That, too, is deeply troubling. The more Western
societies - particularly the big European societies,
which have much larger Muslim populations than America
- look on their own Muslims with suspicion, the more
internal tensions this creates, and the more alienated
their already alienated Muslim youth become. This is
exactly what Osama bin Laden dreamed of with 9/11: to
create a great gulf between the Muslim world and the
globalizing West.
So this is a critical moment. We must do all we can to
limit the civilizational fallout from this bombing.
But this is not going to be easy. Why? Because unlike
after 9/11, there is no obvious, easy target to
retaliate against for bombings like those in London.
There are no obvious terrorist headquarters and
training camps in Afghanistan that we can hit with
cruise missiles. The Al Qaeda threat has metastasized
and become franchised. It is no longer vertical,
something that we can punch in the face. It is now
horizontal, flat and widely distributed, operating
through the Internet and tiny cells.
Because there is no obvious target to retaliate
against, and because there are not enough police to
police every opening in an open society, either the
Muslim world begins to really restrain, inhibit and
denounce its own extremists - if it turns out that
they are behind the London bombings - or the West is
going to do it for them. And the West will do it in a
rough, crude way - by simply shutting them out,
denying them visas and making every Muslim in its
midst guilty until proven innocent.
And because I think that would be a disaster, it is
essential that the Muslim world wake up to the fact
that it has a jihadist death cult in its midst. If it
does not fight that death cult, that cancer, within
its own body politic, it is going to infect
Muslim-Western relations everywhere. Only the Muslim
world can root out that death cult. It takes a
village.
What do I mean? I mean that the greatest restraint on
human behavior is never a policeman or a border guard.
The greatest restraint on human behavior is what a
culture and a religion deem shameful. It is what the
village and its religious and political elders say is
wrong or not allowed. Many people said Palestinian
suicide bombing was the spontaneous reaction of
frustrated Palestinian youth. But when Palestinians
decided that it was in their interest to have a
cease-fire with Israel, those bombings stopped cold.
The village said enough was enough.
The Muslim village has been derelict in condemning the
madness of jihadist attacks. When Salman Rushdie wrote
a controversial novel involving the prophet Muhammad,
he was sentenced to death by the leader of Iran. To
this day - to this day - no major Muslim cleric or
religious body has ever issued a fatwa condemning
Osama bin Laden.
Some Muslim leaders have taken up this challenge. This
past week in Jordan, King Abdullah II hosted an
impressive conference in Amman for moderate Muslim
thinkers and clerics who want to take back their faith
from those who have tried to hijack it. But this has
to go further and wider.
The double-decker buses of London and the subways of
Paris, as well as the covered markets of Riyadh, Bali
and Cairo, will never be secure as long as the Muslim
village and elders do not take on, delegitimize,
condemn and isolate the extremists in their midst.
Comments on this journal
Thomas Friedman's Muslim Problem
By BEHROOZ GHAMARI
In his op ed, "If It's a Muslim Problem, It Needs a Muslim Solution", in the July 8 edition of the New York Times, Tom Friedman called on Muslims around the world to condemn the violence committed under their name by al Qaeda jihadists. Friedman's call is based on two false assumptions. First, he alleges that "to this day - to this day - no major Muslim cleric or religious body has ever issued a fatwa condemning Osama bin Laden. For Mr. Friedman's information, hundreds of esteemed Muslim scholars and influential theologians have categorically condemned al Qaeda terrorism as unIslamic. They have repeatedly questioned the authority of bin Laden in issuing fatwas and the legitimacy of his so called jihad. It is not hard to find references to these condemnations. Here are few useful links, and I hope Mr. Friedman will check them out:
groups.colgate.edu and www.unc.edu .
There are many articles about fatwas against bin Laden posted on the following website: www.cbc.ca .
Yesterday in Tehran, the imam of Friday prayer, ayatollah Imami Kashani, also denounced the attacks in London as unIslamic. In his sermon, he reiterated the Iranian Ministry of Foreign Affairs' denunciation of the bombings in London and proclaimed that "the killing of innocent men, women, young, and old is neither conscionable nor a virtuous human quality." "These terrorist acts," he decreed unequivocally, "are not Islamic, they are savagery."
The second false presupposition Mr. Friedman puts forward is that bin Ladenite jihadism is a Muslim problem that begs Muslim solutions. I wonder whether throughout the years that the IRA terrorized Britons in London any pundit ever called the predicament of the Irish a "Catholic problem with Catholic solutions." It is so convenient for Mr. Friedman to burry the historical facts of the emergence of al Qaeda with the aid and assistance of the Reagan administration and Pakistani intelligence services. The problem of violence wrapped in an Islamic cloak does not make it Muslims' problem. It is true that Islam, like any other religion, is understood in competing and at times contradictory ways. But each of these competing interpretations of Islam corresponds and reacts to particular situations in which Muslims find themselves. One cannot understand violent interpretations of jihad outside the violence to which Muslim majority nations have been subjected. In other words, Islam is not innately predisposed to violence; it does not breed savagery ex nihilo, thus the fallacy of terrorism as a "Muslim problem." Somehow it is easier for many western pundits to understand that rather than a "Catholic problem," violence in Northern Ireland had much to do with British Empire.
Mr. Friedman declares that "When jihadist-style bombings happen in Riyadh, that is a Muslim-Muslim problem. That is a police problem for Saudi Arabia. But when Al-Qaeda-like bombings come to the London Underground, that becomes a civilizational problem." Then he rushes to position himself as a defender of Muslims' rights in the West by observing that these attacks would harm their civil liberties and will turn each Muslim into a suspect. With friends like Tom, who needs enemies! As a zealous advocate of unregulated globalization, Mr. Friedman ought to know that jihadists fighting the Saudi police on the streets of Riyadh is hardly an internal matter of Saudi Arabia. Fighting a police force that is trained by American advisors, armed by American-made weapons to protect the interests of an oppressive Royal Family supported by the United States is far from a mere domestic dispute. What Mr. Friedman wants is a war away from home, where the casualties are unknown and the costs hidden.
"Jihadist-style bombings," in London, Madrid, and any other European or American cities are not inherently different from the same kinds of attacks on civilians in Baghdad, Tehran, Bali, Riyadh, or anywhere else in the Muslim world. They are neither civilizational nor do they have anything to do with Islam. An al-Qaeda attack on innocent civilians is as much part of Islam as Timothy McVeigh was a descendant of Thomas Jefferson.
Mr. Friedman declares that "The double-decker buses of London and the subways of Paris, as well as the covered markets of Riyadh, Bali and Cairo, will never be secure as long as the Muslim village and elders do not take on, delegitimize, condemn and isolate the extremists in their midst."
Mr. Friedman's prescription hides the historical and political roots of terrorism. It does not matter what the Saudis teach in their primary and secondary schools about Christians and Jews so long as every Saudi citizen understands which world powers support their corrupt regime, which countries seal their mouth against injustices in their country to keep open the flow of oil. It does not matter how much the "Muslim village and elders" condemn bin Ladenites, so long as the U.S. government continues to support tyrannical regimes of Central Asia, and builds military bases on soils tainted by the blood of innocent people. A just solution to the plight of Palestinians and the end of Israeli occupation of their land contains terrorism more effectively than hundred decrees against violence and the promotion of the peaceful nature of jihad. These murderous atrocities are perpetuated only by the global network of terrorism and the warmongering Anglo-American administrations who have substituted violence for critique, bullets for words, destruction for change, and occupation for liberation.
Behrooz Ghamari is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at Georgia State University. He can be reached at: [email protected]