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Don't label Muslims, but...

Don't label Muslims, but...

Author: Kanchan Gupta
Publication: The Pioneer
Date: July 8, 2007

The Prime Minister is worried, extremely worried, that the latest bombing plot to come unstuck in Britain could lead to "labelling of Muslims as terrorists". After watching television footage of tearful parents of the three Indians believed to have been part of the conspiracy to blow up Glasgow Airport and targets in London, Mr Manmohan Singh has been having sleepless nights; he has been worrying his head off about people attaching the terror tag to the Muslim community.

Mr Singh can't be faulted for harbouring such concerns. And he is right in suggesting that it's unfair to tar all Muslims with the terror brush. At the same time, it is absurd to deny the simple fact that those committing horrendous acts of terrorism across the world, including suicide bombers who think nothing of blowing up innocent people (on Saturday 73 Iraqis were killed in a string of suicide bombings) are Muslims. The Prime Minister is welcome to indulge in clichés like "terrorists have no religion", which is a nice trick played by 'secularists' to ward off honest debate, but the 'soldiers of god' see themselves as true believers, unflinching in their faith. To contest this claim would be tantamount to questioning the very essence of Islam.

Let there be no mistake. There is nothing accidental or coincidental about the religious identity of those who plotted to blow up Glasgow Airport and a night club in London. Just as there was nothing accidental about Mohammed Atta and his men having been pious Muslims who proudly flaunted their faith in fundamentalist Islam. From the Sudan where rapacious marauders known as janjaweed stand accused of committing horrendous crimes against Christians in Darfur, to Spain where north African immigrants set off bombs in commuter trains causing widespread death and fear; from Mumbai where the wounds inflicted on those who survived last year's July 11 bombings are yet to heal, to Bali where tourists were massacred by blowing up night clubs; from Gaza where Hamas encourages men and women to blow themselves up, to Cambridge, the new hub of jihadis - the perpetrators of terror share a common identity: They are all Muslims.

Yet, it would be grossly unfair to even remotely suggest that all Muslims subscribe to Islamist terrorism or encourage radicalism that uses faith as a veil to commit murder and create mayhem. When Kafeel and Sabeel Ahmed, two of the plotters who masterminded the failed attacks in Glasgow and London, told the maulana of the masjid near their house in Bangalore that it was un-Islamic to light up the mosque for Eid, they were sternly ticked off and shooed away. Despite being the custodian of Islam's holiest shrine, King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia is ruthless in exterminating those who seek to emulate Osama bin Laden. Eighty per cent of Muslims in the US aspire to a better life and couldn't care less for shari'ah. The corresponding figure for Muslims in India would probably be higher. With the mullahs scurrying for cover in Bangladesh and the military-backed regime despatching Banglabhai and his cohorts to the other world, liberalism is back with a bang. In Pakistan, there's not even a whimper of protest over the blasting of Lal Masjid by the Army. In Egypt, Muslim peasants proudly recall how they chased the Luxor killers on donkeys.

Despite this overwhelming repudiation of terrorism in the name of Islam by Muslims, the other truth cannot be wished away. As Abdel Rahman al-Rashed, noted commentator on Arab and Islamic issues, famously wrote in the pan-Arabic newspaper, Al-Sharq Al-Awsat, "It is a certain fact that not all Muslims are terrorists, but it is equally certain, and exceptionally painful, that almost all terrorists are Muslims." In a scintillating article published by The Australian after investigators trailed one of the Glasgow/London plotters to Down Under, Tanveer Ahmed, a Bangladeshi immigrant, carries forward Abdel Rahman al-Rashed's thesis: "At its core, Islam is deeply sceptical of the idea of a secular state. There is no rendering unto Caesar because state and religion are believed to be inseparable. This idea then interacts with centuries-old edicts of Islamic jurists about how the land of Islam should interact with the world of unbelievers, known as dar ul-kufr. The modern radicals then take it further, declaring that since, with the exception perhaps of Pakistan and Iran, there are no Islamic states, the whole world is effectively the land of the unbelievers. As a result, some radicals believe waging war on the whole world is justified to re-create it as an Islamic state."

It is this warped worldview rooted in fundamentalist Islam that drives the force of Islamist terror and gives it a pan-Islamic identity. The imagined grievances that are touted - Muslim alienation in a rapidly modernising world, economic deprivation, educational backwardness, political discrimination, Israeli occupation of Palestinian territory, absence of democracy in Arab countries and denigration of Islam - by apologists of radical Islamism are so much bunkum and no more. Mohammed Atta was neither poor nor illiterate; the would be bombers of Glasgow and those who bombed the London Underground two years ago on July 7 had access to quality education and had not known economic deprivation or political discrimination. It is ironical that faced with a potential backlash, the Muslim United Coalition of Britain should have placed advertisements in major dailies on Friday, declaring, "Terrorism - Not in our name", turning the spurious slogan against the war on terror on its head.

Such posturing is unlikely to either deter jihadis in the making or assuage those who have suffered on account of Islamist terrorism or live in fear of falling prey to this blood-thirsty monster. Every time Islamists strike terror into our lives, negationists like our Prime Minister are quick to remind us that the Quran says, "Whoever kills an innocent soul, it is as if he killed the whole of humankind. And whoever saves one, it is as if he saved the whole of humankind." The jihadis, obviously, are not touched by such injunctions, inspired as they are by portions of the book that urge war not peace.

"Let's avoid presumptions," said Daud Abdullah, deputy secretary-general of the Muslim Council of Britain, when asked if Islamists were behind the car bombs in Glasgow and London. "It can be the work of Christians, Jews or Buddhists," he added. It's not surprising that the Prime Minister does not stay up nights agonising over the plight of Pandits forced to flee Kashmir. Who knows, their tormentors may have been Buddhists from Ladakh!


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