Author: Udayan Namboodiri
Publication: The Pioneer
Date: August 20, 2006
After the Mumbai blasts and the uncovering
of the conspiracy to blow up 10 aircraft over the Atlantic, the situation
is vastly different. The anti-Iraq war lobby, the defenders of Iran and the
root cause wallahs, who on past occasions have displayed remarkable dexterity
at propping up barricades against the forces of anti-terror, do appear a little
shell shocked by the latest round of jihadi violence
In the July 30, 2005, issue of Saturday Special
(then known as Thinkpad), the theme was Islamophobia. Its backdrop was provided
by the post-7/7 fierce intellectual struggle which had resulted from the Left-Liberal's
tendency to defend the indefensible --the so-called "root cause"
fuelling jihad. We had invited Sheikh Mohammad Iqbal, an author of 30 titles
on Islamic history and Arabic issues, who addressed the vital issue then sweeping
the world, namely, are intolerance and violence seminal to the world's fastest
growing faith. Iqbal argued that Islam was not like this always and though
he admitted the phenomenon of terror, sought out some extenuating factors.
His central message was that Muslims must be left free to live by their book
and not seen through the prism of the Western morality. I quote here a passage
which more or less sums up his chagrin at even the propensity of some Muslims
to break out of their medieval value system. The Kashmiri scholar wrote:
"Islam preaches Al-Tawhid (Allah is one
and omnipotent) which implies total surrender of man to God. That way a Muslim
cannot and must not encourage disorder and anarchy. The supremacy of this
theory or principle guarantees order and amity in the world. It undoes the
unwarranted ambitions of the pseudo-democrats and socio-materialistic liberties."
The texture was frankly irreconcilable and
even held out grim portents. But, when after 10/29, 7/11, Varanasi, the averted
7/21 and numerous other bombings resulting in the losses of hundreds of lives,
intervened, there was an inevitable polarisation. It would seem today that
there are no longer Muslims and Others, but Terrorists and Victims. The demand
this time, therefore, was no longer for a guided tour down the universe of
Islamic ethos, but for specific answers to some pointed queries on what the
saner elements among Muslims are doing or what are they proposing to do to
isolate the fundamentalists. This perhaps springs from a sense of angst now
sweeping non-Muslims at the reticence displayed by Muslims when it comes to
condemning the murder of innocent civilians, while, at the same time, never
shying from occupying the moral high ground on Palestine, Iraq and Iran. Those
who deny that there is anger are obviously content on watching for the typical
signs: Post-Godhra ty pe riots and other acts of retribution. Just because
these are not happening, it would be nave to suppose that the global society
of victims of terror is unconcerned about, say, the result of a survey carried
out in Britain which showed that most British Muslims, including neo-converts,
justified the tube and bus killings.
Spectator, the British magazine, editorialised
last week under the title, Now it's time for action, not words: "There
is now a clear pattern evolving in the process that creates the enemy within:
Young Muslim men (including some recent converts), usually from honest and
hard-working families - more middle-class than under-class - are radicalised
after exposure to extreme Islamist elements in Britain and during subsequent
and inevitable trips to Pakistan. Their Islamist certainties are then fanned
by the fact that they live in a country increasingly hated by its own political,
media, legal and cultural elites whose predominant relativist philosophy eschews
moral judgements and allows crime, social decay, feckless welfare dependency
and widespread educational failure to eat away at society from within, convincing
alienated Muslim youth that they really do live in a sick and disgusting society
that deserves to be bombed."
This clearly shows that there is a groundswell
of opinion against jihad and its perceived accessory, the Left-Liberal establishment,
which has ensured its domination over almost strand of Britain's public intellectual
life. Today, after the Mumbai blasts and the uncovering of the conspiracy
to blow up 10 aircraft over the Atlantic, the situation is vastly different.
The anti-Iraq war lobby + defenders of Iran + root cause wallahs who on past
occasions have displayed remarkable dexterity at propping up barricades against
the forces of anti-terror, do appear a little shell shocked by the latest
round. Which explains their flaccid response to George W Bush's "Islamic
fascists" remark. In 2001, when a new-in-office Dubya recalled the Crusades,
they combined to come down on him like a ton of bricks, thereby distracting
the collective will of humanity.
In this issue, we are happy to present Khwaja
Ekhram, an academic from New Delhi's Jawaharlal Nehru University (that manufactory
of root causes) who is bold enough to beseech India's Muslims to look within.
He describes the entrenched Muslim leadership, spread all over the secular
polity, as well as the clergy, as impediments to the development of Muslim
society. The Indian State, and its institutions, offer the world's second
national largest Islamic grouping few excuses to take to the jihad factory
for redress of its grievances. Besides, he exhorts them to think of themselves
as Indians first and not get excited over incidents affecting pan-Islam. Few
intellectuals, even Hindus among them, show such rare honesty these days.
On the other hand, Hussain Randathani, one
of the leading clerics of Kerala, maintains that the fault lines caused by
aggressive Occidentalism distorts the cultural mosaic which is so dear to
Muslims. He condemns the American President and, generally, keeps the stereotype
of the Indian Muslim alive.
