Author: Fawaz A. Gerges
Publication: The New York Times
Date: October 8, 2001
Bronxville, N.Y. -- For Muslims
of the Middle East and south and central Asia, the moment of reckoning
arrived yesterday. The Bush administration has made what are, for an American
government, extraordinary efforts to show that the war that began Sept.
11 will not be the war Osama bin Laden wants: a battle between Islam and
the rest of the world, particularly the United States. Whether Muslims
in the region accept, encourage and further this American effort will determine
much of their fate in coming years. It will also determine how effective
the war against terrorism will be.
The outlook does not, for the moment,
seem bright. A week ago I participated in a conference in Beirut on how
Arabs and Muslims should respond to the campaign against terrorism. Present
were leading political activists and politicians representing the broad
spectrum of public opinion in the Muslim world. Despite the efforts of
President George W. Bush to allay the fears of Arabs and Muslims by stressing
that the United States will wage a relentless war on terrorism and its
state sponsors, not on Islam and its adherents, the American message seemed
to have fallen on deaf ears. Liberals, leftists and Arab nationalists sounded
as suspicious of American war aims as the representative from Hezbollah.
Most participants claimed that the
United States aims at far more than destroying Osama bin Laden's Al Qaeda
organization and toppling the Taliban regime. These representatives of
the Muslim world were almost unanimously suspicious of America's intentions,
believing that the United States has an overarching strategy which includes
control of the oil and gas resources in Central Asia, encroachment on Chinese
and Russian spheres of influence, destruction of the Iraqi regime, and
consolidation of America's grip on the oil-producing Persian Gulf regimes.
Many Muslims suspected the Bush
administration of hoping to exploit this tragedy to settle old scores and
assert American hegemony in the world. This was despite the fact, unacknowledged
by the conference participants, that the terror attack has forced the young
president to shift focus from his domestic agenda to the world arena and
that he has been dragged to war against his own will.
Compounding the discrepancy between
American and Middle Eastern perspectives is a genuine skepticism about
the culpability of Muslims in the terror attacks. Engrained suspicions
raised by Muslim opinion makers reflect deeply held sentiments among the
general public.
Many Middle Easterners with whom
I spoke advanced conspiracy theories to explain what had happened. A Christian
director of a Western bank in Beirut claimed that only "international Zionism
possessed the means and the will to undertake this hideous act." These
nonsensical views are held by both the man on the street and some in the
intelligentsia. It remains to be seen whether the pitilessly aggressive
statements by Mr. bin Laden and Al Qaeda spokesman Sulaiman Abu Ghaith
will erase such beliefs among the Muslim public.
Those individuals who did accept
the culpability of the Arab perpetrators usually drew a comparison between
the terror attacks on America and shortsighted, unjust American policies
that have alienated and antagonized most of the rising social classes in
the region. In short, they believed America has reaped what it sowed.
Most of the participants, who represent
the pulse of mainstream Muslim public opinion, strongly cautioned their
governments against joining the American coalition on terrorism and warned
that people would oppose any sustained military assault on a Muslim country,
including Afghanistan.
To date, the United States' case
for war against terrorist networks has not been effectively communicated
to Arabs and Muslims. America's representatives abroad have yet to engage
civil society leaders and opinion makers in the Muslim world and fully
explain the nature and purpose of Washington's strategy. The earlier ambivalence
of Arab and Muslim governments, Egypt and Saudi Arabia in particular, to
participate aggressively in the American campaign against terrorism stems
from a legitimate fear that an escalation of hostilities would incense
their citizens and undermine their political stability. Now, after the
start of military action, American emissaries will need to convince all
Arabs and Muslims, not only their governments, that Muslim societies must
not allow a few fanatics to commandeer their political future.
As this war continues, the United
States cannot afford to neglect the painful and frustrating, but critical,
work of building bridges to Muslim peoples and societies. This task requires
cultural sensitivity, understanding and full political and economic engagement
with the Muslim world.
American diplomats, even on the
eve of war, have remained distracted and distant from the Muslim public.
American embassies in the Middle East have long been impenetrable castles
separated from the local communities. American ambassadors hardly venture
out to participate and interact with the intellectual and cultural life
in those countries. The United States would have benefitted from investing
in an Arabic-language media outlet similar to that of the BBC World Service.
As matters stand, the video statement by Osama bin Laden - that the events
of Sept. 11 and afterward "have divided the world into two parts, a part
that espouses faith and is devoid of hypocrisy, and an infidel part, may
God protect us from it" - comes as a culmination of years of anti-American
broadcasts.
It is not too late to show how important
questions of justice have been and will be in American foreign policy.
The United States needs to invest directly in Middle Eastern civil societies
to improve governance, education, health and quality of life. The challenge
in gaining greater understanding in those societies will not be easy, but
American diplomats can help by overcoming their own bunker mentality. The
use of force against the Taliban and Osama bin Laden was unavoidable given
the terrorist threat. But the long-term aim of reducing anti-American fervor
among Islamic extremists will still best be achieved by directly engaging
with the Muslim people. The military response that began yesterday only
makes the hard nonmilitary work, in the next weeks and years, more necessary
than ever.
Fawaz A. Gerges is a professor of
Middle East and international affairs at Sarah Lawrence College and author
of the forthcoming ``The Islamists and the West.''
