Al-Qaida: Wrong answers to real problems
by Soumayya Ghannoushi
Monday 11 July 2005 4:36 PM GMT
Once again I watched the nauseous devastation and massacre, this time
in the heart of my city, near the universities and libraries, where I
have spent much of my adult life.
Madrid and Bali, Casablanca and Riyadh, I have come to predict al-
Qaida's responsibility for a given criminal act through the following
test. If I find myself at a loss for an answer to the questions: "Why
the innocent?" and "For what purpose?", then, in all likelihood, the
crime is of al-Qaida's doing.
The absurd, random mass carnage of young and old, male and female is
its trademark. Residential buildings, tourist resorts, rush hour
trains and crowded buses turn into grand spectacles of mass murder
where no heed is paid to the victim's identity and the extent of
his/her responsibility for the policies of a country defined as the
enemy. The boundaries between the world of politics and that of
organised crime are blurred, as political demands get wedded to
criminal methods.
Al-Qaida, it must be said, is no pioneer in this field. For although
it founds its ideology on religious references and speaks a language
overwhelmed by religious symbols, al-Qaida falls largely within the
modern tradition of revolutionary anarchists - from the Jacobins and
the Bolsheviks down to latter-day Marxist guerrillas like the Baadr-
Meinhoff Gang.
Destruction as a passion
Like these modern revolutionary nihilists, al-Qaida warriors
subscribe to an instrumentalist logic that recognises no distinction
between the legitimate and illegitimate, thereby sanctioning acts of
terror for the attainment of their ends. Like them, they are more
interested in the act of destruction than its effects. As the father
of Russian anarchism Mikhail Bakunin put it, 'the passion for
destruction is also a creative passion'.
Al-Qaida is also a revival of the radical currents that surfaced in
Islamic history from time to time only to be defeated by moderate
mainstream Islam led by the Ulama (scholars). In particular, they
appear to be a continuation of Kharijite thought with its dualistic
puritanical conception of the world and the community of Muslims and
of Gnostic underground organisations like the Assassins and Qaramita,
who sought to disrupt the stability of Muslim societies through acts
of terrorism.
Al-Qaida would be best seen as a mixture of these political and
ideological strands. Apart from the ideological justifications it
takes recourse to, one would, indeed, be hard put to find much that
distinguishes it from Latin American anarchist groups. Their acts
share the same destructive ferocity, the same absurdity. The
difference is that where one finds its ideological legitimacy in
Marxism, the other seeks it in the Islamic religion.
Islam misinterpreted
How can the murder of the innocent be perpetuated in the name of a
religion that likens the loss of one human life to the loss of
humanity at large? How can Islam be said to sanction such acts of
aggression when it openly forbids revenge and declares in no less
than five Quranic chapters that: "No bearer of a burden bears the
burden of another"?
How can the killing of ordinary men and women going about their
business be permissible when even the battlefield has been regulated
by the strictest moral code: "Destroy not fruit trees, nor fertile
land in your paths. Be just, and spare the feelings of the
vanquished. Respect all religious persons who live in hermitages or
convents and spare their edifices"?
Perhaps the one thing al-Qaida militants have proven good at, apart
from the shedding of innocent blood, is fanning the flames of
hostility to Islam and Muslims. From the darkness of their caves and
hiding places, these self-appointed spokesmen for about one and a
half billion Muslims worldwide have excelled in stirring latent
negative images of Islam within the Western psyche. Through their
senseless crimes, Islam, in the minds of most, has become a euphemism
for mass slaughter and destruction. Thanks to them, racism, bigotry
and Islamophobia could rear its ugly head unashamedly in broad day
light.
The terrible irony is that Muslims currently find themselves
helplessly trapped between two fundamentalisms, between Bush's hammer
and Bin Laden's anvil, hostages to an extreme right wing American
administration, aggressively seeking to impose its expansionist and
hegemonic will over the region at gunpoint, and to a cluster of
violent, wild fringe groups, lacking in political experience or sound
religious understanding.
'Us' and 'them'
Although the two claim to be combating each other, the reality is
that they are working in unison, one providing the justifications the
other desperately needs for its fanaticism, ferocity and savagery.
No wonder, it didn't take the neo-conservative world supremacists
long to spot the immense opportunities 11 September handed them.
Their puritanical missionary belief in being God's instruments on
earth and grand imperial ambitions could now be realised through
shameless emotional blackmail and bogus moral claims.
The two share a shallow, myopic, dualistic conception of the world
populated by 'us' and 'them' in Bush's language, 'believers' and 'non-
believers' in Bin Laden's. Al-Zarqawi and his fellows then brandish
the sword of excommunication (takfir) against the Muslim body itself
in an endless orgy of maiming and mutilation.
Some are to be expelled, because they are Shia, others because they
are Sufis, or Mu'tazilites (rationalists) and so on in a perpetual
elimination process that spares no one but a handful of puritan
elects from its deadly reach.
The vast stock of common denominators is ignored, that which tears
and divides is sought. These would rather see the world turn into an
ever- raging battlefield, Muslim societies into blazing scenes of
sectarian schism and civil war in a region rich in ethnic, religious,
sectarian and linguistic diversity.
I daily use London's trains and buses and could have been one of
Thursday bombings' victims. I hardly think that killing or maiming me
would have aided the causes the bombers claim to defend. The truth is
that these narrow-minded fanatics are a scourge to the causes they
purport to champion.
Ask any Iraqi or Palestinian if the bombing of the innocent in Bali,
Casablanca, or London has helped alleviate their suffering. If
anything, they have handed their oppressors with an open permit to
butcher and destroy, safe in the knowledge that blame has been
shifted from them to their victims.
Just causes, unjust means
So, Sharon demolishes the homes of Palestinians, expropriates their
lands and sends his helicopters to massacre them in their hundreds in
the name of combating terrorism. Arab regimes stifle dissenting
voices, imprison and assassinate in the name of resisting terrorism.
American tanks and gunships invade, occupy, kill and rampage, all in
the name of terrorism.
Al-Qaida's mindless acts have turned the aggressor, who colonises,
massacres and pillages, into a victim. For all their material
vulnerability, victims have a very powerful asset: their moral case
as innocent victims. Perhaps, this is the cruellest dimension to
these senseless crimes: That the powerless has been stripped even of
his victimhood. Even this has been appropriated by the powerful.
The causes al-Qaida extremists speak for are certainly just causes.
The sanctioning of genocide and occupation in Palestine, slaughter of
hundreds of thousands in Iraq through exposure to depleted Uranium
and years of barbaric sanctions first, then through bombing and
shelling without bothering to count the dead, brutal invasion of the
country, destruction of its infrastructure and humiliation of its
people undoubtedly rank among modern history's bloodiest crimes and
darkest tragedies.
But the mindless killing of the innocent in Madrid, or New York is
the wrong answer to these real grievances. These are illegitimate
responses to legitimate causes. Just as occupation is morally and
politically deplorable, so, too, is this blind aggression
masquerading as Jihad.
Soumayya Ghannoushi is a researcher in the history of ideas at the
School of Oriental & African Studies, University of London.
The opinions expressed here are the author's and do not necessarily
reflect the editorial position or have the endorsement of Aljazeera.
Aljazeera
By Soumayya Ghannoushi
You can find this article at:
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/25D45C98-471B-4A36-8253-
F2120BEA180F.htm
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