Author: Prem Shankar Jha
Publication: Outlook
Date: October 29, 2001
Introduction: A distinctive feature
of the Islamic belt is that it doesn't have a single country that has benefited
from effects of globalisation.
In recent weeks, American and European
presidents, prime ministers and sundry other dignitaries have showered
praise on Pakistan for siding with the modern world and joining wholeheartedly
in the fight against terrorism. With dazzling speed, the US has lifted
all sanctions, begun providing military assistance and piloted the rescheduling,
which amounts to partial write-off, of $30 billion of Pakistan's $37 billion
foreign debt. The European Union has just announced trade concessions amounting
to $1,350 million, mostly on textiles and garments. And this is a concession
to Pakistan only.
But who exactly are they rewarding?
Is it the people of Pakistan or the generals who rule the country? A Newsweek
Gallup poll in the days after the bombing of Afghanistan began, showed
that they have made remarkably little dent in popular sentiment. Eighty-three
per cent of Pakistanis sympathise with Osama bin Laden in the current conflict
and only three per cent with the US. Not surprisingly, 75 per cent opposes
allowing the US use of Pakistani airbases and 82 per cent consider bin
Laden a mujahid (a holy warrior). Only eight per cent think he is a terrorist.
An overwhelming percentage of Pakistanis
resent the way the US strong-armed Pakistan into supporting it. That explains
why despite the above figures, 79 per cent of Pakistanis still think Musharraf
is doing an okay-to- good job of handling the crisis.
This is the situation inside a country
the West considers its strongest ally. What the bulk of the population
in Arab countries thinks of bin Laden and the US hardly needs to be spelt
out. Nor, judging from the riots in Indonesia, Philippines, Malaysia, Nigeria,
is the US much more popular elsewhere in the Islamic world.
The strong backlash it has provoked
has caused great consternation in the West and provoked a flurry of soul-searching
on the origins of this huge gap in perception and sentiment. The most liberal
of Americans, who have openly differed with US policies in the Middle East
in the past, simply cannot understand how, in a single short month, virtually
the entire Islamic world has forgotten the nearly 8,000 people whom the
terrorists killed in the US, and is bending over backwards to defend or
exonerate Osama bin Laden. Could the support for Osama arise from his being
a Muslim fundamentalist? Is there something in Islam that makes people
subordinate all other human values when it comes to defending their religion?
Or could it be, as Robert Fisk of The Independent put it in a recent television
programme, that the Israel-Palestine dispute has poisoned the well?
The Newsweek Gallup poll, however,
contains clinching evidence that Islam has very little to do with the support
bin Laden enjoys in Pakistan. Only 24 per cent of the respondents said
they believed that the attack on the US was an act of jehad. Fully 64 per
cent described it as an act of terrorism. Most of the respondents rationalised
their strong condemnation of the attack with their support for bin Laden
by insisting that he was not responsible-it was the Israelis, or a Far
Right hate group in the US itself. The rationalisation is familiar to anyone
who has covered terrorism and insurgency in Kashmir and Punjab.
The second explanation, that Muslims
are venting a deep-seated grievance against the injustices they have been
subjected to in Palestine, Iraq and elsewhere, has much greater validity,
and would explain why Osama is becoming somewhat of a cult figure in Arab
countries.It, however, cannot adequately explain why this feeling should
be shared by Muslims as culturally dissimilar to the Arabs as the people
of eastern Java or the Hausas of Kano in Nigeria.
The one explanation that no one
has considered is that it could be a backlash to Globalisation. In all
the countries mentioned above, the governments oppose terrorism and are
already cooperating to keep it in check. It is the people who are supporting
bin Laden. Even among the people, attitudes are coloured heavily by the
person's position in society.
Understanding of the US' trauma,
and support for its war on terrorism, is concentrated in the middle-classes
and the university-educated professionals. It is the working classes, the
semi-educated youth facing a jobless future, an insecure trader class and
the lower rungs of the bureaucracy, that are most vociferous in their support
for Osama.
What binds them is a shared sense
of being the victims of globalisation. As man-made barriers to trade and
investment are forced down; as competition intensifies and investment and
imports from the industrialised countries flood into hitherto protected
markets, local businesses are wiped out and jobs disappear. Those that
remain are poorly paid, and in any case too few to meet the needs of the
rising number of job-seekers. And when there is a recession in the developed
countries, the suffering in the interdependent poorer nations is out of
all proportion to the original turn-down in production.
The distinctive feature of the Islamic
belt is that it does not contain a single country which can be deemed to
have benefited from globalisation. The number of people here who have benefited
from the economy opening up is also disproportionately small. It is the
poor here, unable to pay for an education and ending up in madrassas, who
have lionised bin Laden. The West should not delude itself that sympathy
and admiration for bin Laden is confined to the Muslim countries. Today,
perverse though it is, he has become a symbol of revolt against oppression
and injustice.
Had the US had any inkling of this,
it would not have made the punishment of bin Laden a crusade. It would
have worked through the UN and through the countries to the north that
share its concerns-Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Russia, and Iran. Instead, it
has put insupportable pressure on Pakistan, and the country is about to
crack.
