Author: Irshad Manji
Publication: The New York Times
Date: August 16, 2006
Last week, the luminaries of the British Muslim
mainstream - lobbyists, lords and members of Parliament - published an open
letter to Prime Minister Tony Blair, telling him that the "debacle"
of both Iraq and Lebanon provides "ammunition to extremists who threaten
us all." In increasingly antiwar America, a similar argument is gaining
traction: The United States brutalizes Muslims, which in turn foments Islamist
terror.
But violent jihadists have rarely needed foreign
policy grievances to justify their hot heads. There was no equivalent to the
Iraq debacle in 1993, when Islamists first tried to blow up the World Trade
Center, or in 2000, when they attacked the American destroyer Cole. Indeed,
that assault took place after United States-led military intervention saved
thousands of Muslims in Bosnia and Kosovo.
If Islamists cared about changing Iraq policy,
they would not have bothered to abduct two journalists from France - probably
the most antiwar, anti-Bush nation in the West. Even overt solidarity with
Iraqi suffering did not prevent Margaret Hassan, who ran a world-renowned
relief agency in Baghdad, from being executed by insurgents.
Meanwhile, at least as many Muslims are dying
at the hands of other Muslims as under the boots of any foreign imperial power.
In Sudan, black Muslims are starved, raped, enslaved and slaughtered by Arab
militias, with the consent of an Islamic government. Where is the "official"
Muslim fury against that genocide? Do Muslim lives count only when snuffed
out by non-Muslims? If not, then here is an idea for Muslim representatives
in the West: Go ahead and lecture the politicians that their foreign policies
give succor to radicals. At the same time, however, challenge the educated
and angry young Muslims to hold their own accountable, too.
This means reminding them that in Pakistan,
Sunnis hunt down Shiites every day; that in northern Israel, Katuysha rockets
launched by Hezbollah have ripped through the homes of Arab Muslims as well
as Jews; that in Egypt, the riot police of President Hosni Mubarak routinely
club, rape, torture and murder Muslim activists promoting democracy; and,
above all, that civil wars have become hallmarks of the Islamic world.
Muslim figureheads will not dare be so honest.
They would sooner replicate the very sins for which they castigate the Bush
and Blair governments - namely, switching rationales and pretending integrity.
In the wake of the London bombings on July
7, 2005, Iqbal Sacranie, then the head of the influential Muslim Council of
Britain, insisted that economic discrimination lay at the root of Islamist
radicalism in his country. When it came to light that some of the suspects
enjoyed middle-class upbringings, university educations, jobs and cars, Mr.
Sacranie found a new culprit: foreign policy. In so doing, he boarded the
groupthink express steered by Muslim elites.
The good news is that ordinary people of faith
are capable of self-criticism. Two months ago, 65 percent of British Muslims
polled believed that their communities should increase efforts to integrate.
The same poll also produced troubling results: 13 percent lionized the July
7 terrorists, and 16 percent sympathized. Still, these figures total 29 percent
- less than half the number who sought to belong more fully to British society.
Whether in Britain or America, those who claim
to speak for Muslims have a responsibility to the majority, which wants to
reconcile Islam with pluralism. Whatever their imperial urges, it is not for
Tony Blair or George W. Bush to restore Islam's better angels. That duty -
and glory - goes to Muslims.
Irshad Manji, a fellow at Yale University,
is the author of "The Trouble with Islam Today: A Muslim's Call for Reform
in Her Faith."
