DENY FOOTHOLD TO RADICAL ISLAM

By Kazi Anwarul Masud( former Secretary and ambassador)

FOR PUBLICATION ON  FRIDAY 3RD OCTOBER 2014

Ross Douthat in an op-ed in The New York Times (The Cult Deficit

Sept  27, 2014) writes among others of Peter Thiel, the PayPal co-founder, venture capitalist and controversialist, who includes an interesting aside about the decline of cults in his new book, “Zero to One” who appear to support cult worship on the ground that " Not only religious vitality but the entirety of human innovation depends on the belief that there are major secrets left to be uncovered, insights that existing institutions have failed to unlock (or perhaps forgotten), better ways of living that a small group might successfully embrace. This means that every transformative business enterprise, every radical political movement, every truly innovative project contains some cultish elements and impulses — and the decline of those impulses may be a sign that the innovative spirit itself is on the wane". Strange argument indeed. Cult worship reminds one of the disastrous Jonestown episode in the 1970s frightening fringe groups and their charismatic leaders seemed like an essential element of the American religious landscape. The personality cult of the Kims in North Korea has only succeeded in pushing under the carpet a famine-plagued economy that has dissenters sent to gulags or even killed. The nation has been playing truant to an emerging new world order through its nuclear gambit realizing very little that the country is, if it has not already, sliding into a failed state. Equally the cult that grew up around Osama bin Laden under the guise of leading the world, the Islamic world in particular, to the practice of 6th century "pristine" Islam remains yet to be uprooted as the possibility of the return of al-Qaida in Afghanistan after the withdrawal  of the US forces remains a distinct possibility. The emergence of ISIS or ISIL  in Iraq and Syria bringing with it the brutality that  any Hitlerite or Stalinist regime   is accompanied by has now become a serious threat to the civilized world. That ISIS should be destroyed is not even debatable. The US and UK along with some Arab countries in the region are engaged in a fight to deny ISIS the benefits it draws from the territories it has occupied to become a sustainable "caliphate" that challenges the core values of the world order and the UN structure sanctifying the inviolability and sovereignty of the member states. Some in the West have asked questions about the "silence" of the Muslim world to the atrocities committed, in particular the beheading of the two American journalists,  by ISIS. Lest the Western world unknowingly blames the Muslim countries of complicity through silence in the brutalities committed it would be pertinent to bring to notice  the reaction given by the Muslims. Two of the leading voices in the Muslim world denounced the persecution of Christians in Iraq, at the hands of extremists proclaiming a caliphate under the name Islamic State. The most explicit condemnation came from Iyad Ameen Madani, the Secretary General for the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, the group representing 57 countries, and1.4 billion Muslims. In a statement, he officially denounced the “forced deportation under the threat of execution” of Christians, calling it a “crime that cannot be tolerated.” The Secretary General also distanced Islam from the actions of the militant group known as ISIS, saying they “have nothing to do with Islam and its principles that call for justice, kindness, fairness, freedom of faith and coexistence.”Meanwhile, Turkey’s top cleric, the spiritual successor to the caliphate under the Ottoman Empire, also touched on the topic during a peace conference of Islamic scholars. In a not-so-veiled swipe at ISIS, Mehmet Gormez declared that “an entity that lacks legal justification has no authority to declare war against a political gathering, any country or community.” He went on to say that Muslims should not be hostile towards “people with different views, values and beliefs, and regard them as enemies.”Gormez said death threats against non-Muslims made by the group, formerly known as Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), were hugely damaging. In this milieu or mélange of disorder allegations have been made of Turkish and Israeli assistance to ISIS with funds and medical treatment. While the veracity of such claims are yet to be established one should not lose sight of the fact that Sunni and Shia clerics in Iraq jointly drafted and distributed a religious edict to over 50,000 mosques declaring ISIS as an un-Islamic terrorist organization. Sheikh Taha al Karkhi, grand preacher in Baghdad, declared that resisting and standing up against ISIS is a religious duty. Over 80 Muslim intellectuals, activists and religious leaders in India jointly urged    the United Nations to hold ISIS accountable for its brutality, which they termed as a "crime against humanity" and "religious cleansing." Over 100 British Sunni and Shia Imams also urged Muslim youth to stay away from ISIS, which they branded as an illegitimate and vicious group. In the current UN General Assembly session both the Bangladesh and Indian  Prime Ministers expressed unreserved determination to fight  terrorism in all its forms. Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina told the UNGA that "My Government maintains a 'zero-tolerance' policy to all forms of terrorism, violent extremism, radicalization and religion-based politics. We remain firm in our resolve not to allow any terrorist individual or entity to use our territory against any state. The anti-liberation forces continue to remain active in destroying the progressive and secular fabric of our nation. They resort to religious militancy and violent extremism in every opportunity." Apart from the fact that Prime Minister Hasina's  stated  policy accords with that of the  civilized world this policy would not adversely affect the employment of thousands of Bangladeshis working in the Middle East as the US-UK war on ISIS is being supported by the GCC countries as well.  In the same vein Narendra Modi said " In West Asia, extremism and fault lines are growing. Our own region continues to face the destabilizing threat of terrorism. Africa faces the twin threat of rising terrorism and a health crisis. Terrorism is taking new shape and new name. No country, big or small, in the north or the south, east or west, is free from its threat. Are we really making concerted international efforts to fight these forces, or are we still hobbled by our politics, our divisions, our discrimination between countries. We welcome efforts to combat terrorism's resurgence in West Asia, which is affecting countries near and far. The effort should involve the support of all countries in the region". Analyzing Narendra Modi's UNGA speech The New York Times( 27th September 2014) observed  that  he   reminded the world  of his country’s abiding battle against extremist groups, and took a swipe at countries that give them shelter. Prime Minister Modi, without naming names, hinted at India’s longstanding contention that its rival, Pakistan, backs groups that have carried out terrorist attacks on Indian soil. “Some countries are giving refuge to international terrorists,” he said. “They consider terrorism to be a tool of their policy.”He  signaled his support for the US' renewed determination to fight terrorism.   Peter Bergen, CNN's National Security Analyst in an article ( should we still fear al-Qaida-Feb 3 2013) downgraded the possibility of terrorism's victory over liberal democracy. Bergen opined that radical Islamists refusal to accept pluralism diminishes  its appeal to general people. Besides  this refusal  is invariably a recipe for irrelevance or defeat. In not one nation in the Muslim world since 9/11 has a jihadist militant group seized control of a country. And al Qaeda and its allies' record of effective attacks in the West has been non-existent since 2005.With threats like these, Bergen continues,  we can all sleep soundly at night. One hopes Peter Bergen's optimism would not be that of Neville Chamberlain's  advice to the British people to go to bed after signing the Munich Agreement in 1938 that Winston Churchill described as a choice between war and shame and Britain having chosen shame would go to war. At the same time one would like to believe that the West in particular would not be gullible to believe in  the anti-Muslim crusade waged by neo-cons like Robert Kagan, Princeton historian Bernard Lewis and Samuel Huntington of The Clash of Civilizations fame  rekindling the idea of a crusade between the "defeated Islam and the victorious "Christianity" and the superiority of one faith over the other. Columbia Professor late Edward Said,  best known for the book Orientalism (1978), an analysis of the cultural representations that are the bases of Orientalism, a term he redefined to mean the Western study of Eastern cultures and, in general, the framework of how The West perceives and represents The East. In an article ( The Clash of Ignorance-The Nation) he scathingly critiqued both Lewis and Huntington of being opportunistic for supplying  the Americans with   a thesis about "a new phase" in world politics after the end of the cold war. Said accused both of " the personification of enormous entities called "the West" and "Islam"  recklessly affirmed, as if hugely complicated matters like identity and culture existed in a cartoonlike world where Popeye and Bluto bash each other mercilessly, with one always more virtuous pugilist getting the upper hand over his adversary. In the ultimate analysis the international community, and in particular the Muslim world, must maintain unflinching opposition to radical Islam and deny them any opportunity to disturb peace and order in the world.