SOUTH ASIA ANALYSIS GROUP 

India and South Asia

Paper No. 6295                                     Dated 28-Aug-2017                            

 By Kazi Anwarul Masud

Why, one may ask, despite common cultural heritage and long bonds of history and added to these factors was Indian humanitarian intervention during  the Bangladesh Liberation War    Indo-Bangladesh relations, notwithstanding public diplomacy by the authorities of the two countries, a portion of the people of Bangladesh do not like  India’s “hegemonic” attitude towards this country.

Lacking the resources of Pew Research Center Polls it is difficult to find out the degree of anti-Indianism in Bangladesh. The ascendency of BJP in India (democratically elected and an entirely internal matter for the Indian people) it is difficult to remain indifferent  about political developments in a country that affects others’  life and no less almost every facet of the economy. Bangladesh cannot afford American “new sovereigntists” or “American exceptionalism” (neither could the USA in today’s multipolarism with the rising of the rest, particularly emerging economies of China and India).

Harish Khare, a former Media Advisor of the Indian Prime Minister who remained in Prime Minister's Office from June 2009 to January 2012).  wrote (“A Dangerous Arrogance of Power Is Setting on 14/07/2017) As democratic institutions – cabinet, bureaucracy, media, presidency and judiciary – weaken, the Modi establishment is riding high on overconfidence. This is bad news for the Indian polity.... Never before was such a convergence of timidity and opportunism seen as now among these three institutions; there seems to be a veritable race to reduce them to the role of a spear-carrier for the prime minister.” Another critic Promod K Nayar (University of Hyderabad- The Signs of a Dystopian Democracy Are All around Us  25/07/2017) writes: “Two possible forms of the dystopian turn are visible now. In one form, there is an enhanced emphasis on homogenisation and cultural standardisation in the ‘larger interests of the nation’.

This immediately brings to the fore the so-called problem of cultural differences. Ethnic, racial and cultural identities are constitutive of the very humanity of the members of those groups.... In another form, dystopian democracy is marked not by the fear of an across-the-border ‘other’, which would be the well-recognised xenophobia of all nationalisms. Rather, it is marked by what can only be thought of, clumsily, as endo-xenophobia, the cultivated and constructed fear of those citizens increasingly seen as ‘foreign’ by virtue of their diet, their taste in sporting teams or their preference for film stars and films of certain nationalities/ethnicities”.

Veteran Indian journalist Prem Shsankar Jha sees in Prime Minister Narendar Modi’s “grandiose” speeches a camouflage for  the creation of a state “ that  will confront, not accommodate, its neighbours; this state will not tolerate cultural heterogeneity, but seek to replace it with a single homogenised culture that Modi mistakenly believes to be Hindutva. Muslims, and other minorities, will be tolerated in this entity so long as they know their place. Religious pluralism will be tolerated (but not accepted), as former vice president Hamid Ansari pointed out in Banglalore but cultural pluralism will not. For the minorities, the path to success will be through cultural assimilation. In sum, Modi is intent upon changing the very idea of nationhood upon which India’s political identity has been based not just for the past 70, but the past 2,000 years.”  Jha adds that Narendra Modi is  leading India into deadly peril. If he continues down this road, India’s failure as a state is guaranteed (THE WIRE Modi Is Taking India to a Dangerous Place by Prem Shankar Jha on 17/08/2017). Should one assume that Bangladesh being a predominantly Muslim majority country Indian policy in South Asia will change (Nepal is predominantly Hindu and Bhutan is Buddhist while Pakistan and Afghanistan have Muslim population)? Public diplomacy does not give any credence that religion will have any impact on Indo-Bangladesh relations.

Could religion be an impediment in cementing Bangladesh- India relations? German philosopher Jurgen Habermas to the surprise of many has recently emphasized both religions’ prominence in the contemporary public sphere and its potential contributions to critical thought. Habermas argues that the once widely accepted hypothesis of progressive secularization fails to account for the multiple trajectories of modernization in the contemporary world. He calls attention to the contemporary significance of "post metaphysical" thought and "post secular" consciousness - even in Western societies that have embraced a rationalistic understanding of public reason. (November 2013).

In the Indian sub-continent one could try to trace the history of India since 7th century when Islam entered in the then India with the conquest of Sindh by Mohammed bin Quasem. While early Muslim rule was from 1206 to 1398 the Mughal era was from 1526 to 1857 when the first war on independence against the British ended in defeat. Despite protestation to the contrary Indo-Bangladesh relations can only be better.

For the critics or believers in ultra-nationalism/ (Islamist terrorists) the question facing Bangladesh authorities, irrespective of the fact whichever party remains in power, is whether Bangladesh can afford to follow an anti-India policy without thwarting its socio-economic development?  One can always argue that national interest should guide national policy even if the policy goes contrary to the policy of a powerful neighbor. It is easier said than done. In the case of Brexit almost half of the British people voted against the Brexit while the other half voted to remain. Each voter had the primacy of national interest in mind. Henry Kissinger defended his policy on Vietnam War as national interest dictated to him at that time. Henry Morgenthau described national interest as survival—the protection of physical, political and cultural identity against encroachments by other nation-states. Equally Brookings Institution defined national interest as “What a nation feels to be necessary to its security and well being … National interest reflects the general and continuing ends for which a nation acts.” In the ultimate analysis national interest may be defined as the policy adopted by the ruling elites at a particular time given a particular context.  

After Pakistan’s breakup consequent upon the liberation of Bangladesh India emerged as the leading power in South Asia and it has been most acutely felt by her immediate neighbors.  The argument proffered that Indian intervention was not totally altruistic but to deal a death blow to its greatest enemy can be explained in terms of “realism” in that India was never so scrupulous in honoring the sovereignty of others when its vital interests were involved. But then it is the nature of both established and emerging powers to flex their muscles as the US has done since the enunciation of Monroe Doctrine.  If diplomacy requires deceit and use of force or hard power as defined by Joseph Nye jr then India has been an able follower of Chanakya in her dealings with neighbors.

Disquiet in India’s relations with Bangladesh had begun with the non-implementation of  1974 Mujib-Indira agreement that was further aggravated by the construction of Farakka Barrage turning a significant part of Bangladesh into a desert, affecting navigation, agriculture, environmental degradation, and hurting the livelihood of millions of people. Farakka’s adverse effects have made a section of Bangladeshis suspicious of the proposed Tipaimukh Dam to be built on the river Barak in Manipur state of India. The proposed construction is controversial in both India and Bangladesh.  Many people were put off by huge imbalance in trade favoring India partly due to para- tariff and non-tariff barrier erected by India on exports from Bangladesh.   It is also believed that Indian bureaucracy is reluctant to open Indian market to Bangladeshi products. Non-demarcation of maritime boundary with India that had been taken to arbitration by Bangladesh has been resolved to the satisfaction of both the parties.

Many other agreements concluded recently have contributed to the strengthening of bilateral relations. A few mentionable are:

1. Framework Agreement on Cooperation for Development Agreement lays down a framework for enhancing bilateral cooperation, including trade, investment and economic cooperation; connectivity; water resources; management of natural disasters; generation, transmission and distribution of power, scientific, educational and cultural cooperation; people to people exchanges; environmental protection; sub regional cooperation in the power sector, water resources management, physical connectivity, environment and sustainable development.

2. Protocol to the 1974 Land Boundary Agreement

3. Facilitating Overland Transit Traffic between Bangladesh and Nepal 4. MOU on Fisheries and MOU in Renewable energy 5. MOU in Renewable energy.

Globalization in any case has forced even introvert nations to come out in the open. If  the main driver of the Arab Spring has been securing citizens political rights the civilianization of  reclusive Myanmar appears to be an admission that no nation in the globalized world can remain an island- be it one of plenty or underdeveloped. Changing nature of security threats from traditional to non-traditional ones makes it imperative for nations of the world to unite. Hence it has become necessary, more so now with the Western economies in deep trouble, to have G-20 nations to have summits and high level contacts to smooth out the wrinkles in global politics and economy. 

Ever since the end of the Cold War and fleeting US unipolar moment various scenarios are being constructed for the next world order. One such scenario urges Washington, Beijing and New Delhi to consider, if a war happens in the 21st century, it will be America-China or China-India. According to this scenario NATO intervention in Libya has shown lack of coherence of Western alliance that had   served the stability of the post-Second World War world. Besides neoconservatives like Robert Kagan are convinced of Europe’s lack of centrality in global politics if not the soft power that is essential for global peace. This school of thought considers China and India to be globalization’s lead integrating agents. Russia and Japan are not considered to be serious first tier candidates for global power. In this equation Europe too is discounted as is Brazil among the BRIC nations.

But the shining China may face impediment as in two decades or so China will lose considerable number of workers who will join the aging senior group of citizens. By contrast America will add few dozen million workers and India are expected to add 100 million to the workforce. In terms of per capita income by 2030 that of the US is expected to be $ 60000/- while that of China will be $ 20000/- and that of India is expected to be $ 10000/-. The US despite its indebtedness (US Federal Gross Debt to GDP ratio updated in August 2017 was 106.10) GDP   will reign over the others because both China and India will remain tethered to the proverbial ball and chain of impoverished rural poor.

Besides China may face developmental impediments in the forms of environmental damage, resource constraint, demographic aging, inequitable distribution of income among different sectors of the society, better standard of living leading people to demand greater voice in governance translated into weaker hold of the Communist Party over the people.

In case of India fractious domestic politics and inequitable division of the developmental benefit among the growing population may stay the rate of development of the economy. The inequity in the distribution of income can be gauged by the fact that both in China and India increase in per capita income has been flat between 1820 to 1950 but it increased by 68% by 1973 and 245% by 2002 and continues to grow despite global financial difficulties.  The situation has been no different if we take the case of the US where between 2002 and 2007 65% of all income growth went to the top 1% of the population. The world has virtually been divided into two classes--plutocrats and the rest.  Despite such skewed rich and poor equation demonstrated by occupy the Wall Street march in New York the policy makers in the Game Room of the powerful countries would be working on inclusion of China and India along with the US as future arbiters of global fate and guarantor of peace than the old alliances with Europe and Japan.

Zbigniew Brezinski and Fred Bergsten (Petersen Institute for International Economics) had advocated formation of G-2 with the US and China (The United State and China: a G-2 in the making Brookings-Oct 2011). The essence of the proposal is that these two biggest economies working together can provide global public good that the world required. The convergence between the two at present appears to be difficult because China saves too much and the US consumes too much creating disequilibrium in their economies and imbalance in trade. China uses its surplus cash to buy US Treasury bonds thus increasing American indebtedness. Unless the trade surplus countries like China starts buying and consuming more US made products the equilibrium will not be achieved. Politically and militarily G-2 appears to be a distant proposition because a rising power has the tendency to expand its influence, often through hard power, that an established power like the US would have to acquiesce in though such expansion may impinge on the areas of influence of the established power.  So far Chinese use of influence in global affairs has not caused any ripples in the world. But there can be no guarantee that with the passage of time power transition will remain smooth.

For example in the case of North Korea the verbal exchange going on between President Trump and Kim Jung-un using nuclear vocabulary has introduced a grave security concern for the world.  Besides disputed Spratly Islands remain unresolved and the world is not certain yet how the Chinese would finally react to the claims by other countries’ sovereignty over the Islands. Consequently as the established power cannot be sure of the real intent of the rising power it is likely to hedge its bet by roping in-In this case, countries like India, Japan, South Korea and Vietnam to counter China.

Relations with Bangladesh was bedevilled in the past with problems relating to maritime boundary demarcation ( now resolved through International Arbitration), land boundary disputes (resolved through exchange of enclaves in adverse possession), trade imbalance in favor of India and impediment imposed by India on Bangladeshi exports through para-tariff and non-tariff barrier, border killings of Bangladeshi nationals by Indian Border Security Force, Indian allegation of illegal Bangladeshi nationals entry and stay in India etc. Relations have taken a turn for the better after the assumption of power in Bangladesh by Awami League led combine of political parties. Relations with Nepal had been strained after the assumption of power as Prime Minister 2006-2009 and again 2016-2017 by Maoist leader Pushpa Kumar Dahal who openly blamed Indian machination for the downfall of his short lived government and subsequent failure to form a government. In a party conference he even urged his followers to free Nepal from Indian domination. Current Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba maintains good relations with India.  In early August Nepal’s Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister has categorically said that Nepal would not take side on the China-India-Bhutan Doklam border dispute. He told the media that Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba will visit India from August 23-August 27 while Chinese Vice Premier will come to Nepal on August 14 on an official visit. It is not known if the Doklam issue would be discussed in Delhi or in Kathmandu. Meanwhile Bhutan has protested to China, saying the area belonged to it and accused Beijing of violating agreements that aim to maintain the status quo until the boundary dispute is resolved. India says the Chinese action to lay the road was unilateral and changes the status quo. It fears the road would allow China to cut off India’s access to its north eastern states. Nepal, a landlocked country, is virtually dominated by India commercially where Indian currency can be used in the markets.

Bhutan, another landlocked country, is also heavily dependent on India but the people are ferociously independent minded and refuses to integrate with the globalized world and believe in Gross Domestic Happiness instead of GDP as is understood throughout the world. Bhutan, a country with seven hundred people, has extremely cordial relationship with India.

With Afghanistan India has developed special relationship much to the chagrin of Pakistan though it is believed that Indian efforts are directed to counter Chinese influence and not to contain Pakistani influence in Kabul. At the moment Pak-Afghan relations are going through rough waters as both the Afghan and the US government is highly critical of the safe heaven enjoyed by the Haqqani group in Pakistan from where the terrorists launch their operations. This issue was mentioned by President Trump during the recent visit to the US by the Indian Prime Minister.

It would, therefore, appear that that it would serve Indian interest to mend her fences with her neighbors enabling the US efforts to prop up India as a counter to China as would Indian ambition for a permanent seat in the UNSC. Though not at the same economic level India could  try to play the role in South Asia as Germany is playing in  helping out European countries i.e. Greece to get the country out of the economic difficulties she is facing at the moment. Use of hard power by India in South Asia is going to be counterproductive if she thinks the smaller neighbors have little option but to bow down to Indian dictates. The net result may be to push the South Asian countries into the arms of China as a hedge to counter Indian efforts to dominate the region. Indian policy planners may wish to consider that Indian democratic structure is more attractive to her South Asian neighbors for establishing fruitful bilateral relations with India than with China, albeit a rising power, but with an authoritarian system of governance China yet   remains inscrutable   to many countries having liberal political system. In the ultimate analysis the scenario of an India countering China in Asia may be a more theoretical than a realistic proposition US wish notwithstanding. The people in South Asia would prefer both giants to have complimentary than a competitive relationship that would help millions of people of this area to get out of the poverty trap and leave  a prosperous life  for their children and grand children.

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FINANCIAL EXPRESS 27TH AUGUST 2017

Hoping for a prosperous Bangladesh

 Kazi Anwarul Masud |  August 26, 2017 19:24:11

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As I was being driven by I looked through the car window and saw an evidently traumatised boy of indeterminate age (due to malnutrition perhaps) entering the confines of iron spiked  barricaded (terkata ghera) space in the middle of the road and fearfully eating some leftovers from a nearby dustbin. His fear was palpable as if someone would snatch away the "dog's food" he was relishing.

In newspapers and television programmes we   read and hear how Bangladesh has  become a model of development for many developing countries. World Bank, IMF, Pricewaterhouse Cooper have applauded our growth and have predicted that Bangladesh would be one of the countries to be watched. PwC reports that Bangladesh will be among the top three fastest growing economies by moving up to the 28th spot among the world's most powerful economies by 2030.The economic output of Bangladesh could grow from $628 billion in 2016 to $1.3 trillion in 2030, says  PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC). The report ranked 32 countries by their projected global gross domestic product (GDP) by purchasing power parity (PPP). PPP estimates of GDP adjust for price level differences across countries, providing a better measure of the volume of goods and services produced by an economy as compared to GDP at current market exchange rates, which is a measure of value. Bangladesh ranked 31st among the world's 32 largest economies in 2016, that together account for around 85 per cent of global GDP. Findings by the PWC, one of the world's largest professional-services firms, show that China, India and the US would be at the top of the table.

In a speech to the Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce in February last year a senior Bangladeshi bureaucrat brought out the strength of the Bangladesh economy. According to him, Bangladesh is a stable state with pluralistic democracy with politically conscious people and the economy running on a stable path. Bangladesh is least volatile among regional powers, receding poverty level (25 per cent in 2015) and increasing per capita income $1314 (2015). Apart from the strength of Bangladesh economy, he  had correctly identified the challenges that Bangladesh economy would face in the future by climate change, terrorism and violent extremism, limitations in adopting to rapid economic changes as well as evolving international norms, ethics and practices.

While all these may come to pass and Bangladesh may have an impressive GDP, it would be difficult to achieve any of such goals without institutional reforms. Geoffrey Sachs while reviewing the book by Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson-Why Nations Fail-wrote, "Their causal logic runs something like this: economic development depends on new inventions (such as the steam engine, which helped kick-start the Industrial Revolution), and inventions need to be researched, developed, and widely distributed. Those activities happen only when inventors can expect to reap the economic benefits of their work. The profit motive also drives division, as companies compete to spread the benefit of an invention to a wider population. The biggest obstacle to this process is vested interests, such as despotic rulers, who fear that a prosperous middle class could undermine their power, or owners of existing technologies, who want to stay in business. Often, these two groups belong to the same clique".

Economists generally agree that political centralisation is one of the main drivers of economic growth. China is a shining example of rapid economic growth. (Here is a comparison between China and India. The Chinese economy advanced 6.9 per cent year-on-year in the second quarter of 2017, the same pace as in the previous period while markets expected a 6.8 per cent expansion. Growth remained at its strongest level since the third quarter of 2015, as industrial output and retail sales picked up while fixed-asset investment remained strong. For 2017, the Chinese government expects the economy to grow by around 6.5 per cent, slightly below last year's 26-year low of 6.7 per cent. The Indian economy advanced 6.1 per cent year-on-year in the first quarter of 2017, slowing sharply from a 7.0 per cent expansion in the previous period.  It is the lowest growth rate since the last quarter of 2014, due to a slowdown in consumer spending and a drop in investment, following the demonetisation programme started in November of 2016 that removed 86 per cent of India's currency in circulation. GDP annual growth rate in India averaged 6.12 per cent from 1951 until 2017, reaching an all-time high of 11.40 per cent in the first quarter of 2010 and a record low of 5.20 per cent in the fourth quarter of 1979.)

If our target is to increase GDP then it is possible to achieve the target mentioned earlier. But if the authorities aim for fair distribution of increased wealth then political centralization, which in the final analysis breeds corruption of the elites, democracy appears to be more attractive option.  Many have mistaken Chinese rise due to the authoritarian character of the regime discarding the fact that "China did not take off because it was authoritarian. Rather, it took off because the liberal political reforms of the 1980s made the country less authoritarian. One of the first acts by the reformist leaders was to signal an improving environment for private property… The reformist leaders also began to embark on meaningful political changes. As scholar Minxin Pei has noted, every single important political reform-such as the mandatory retirement of government officials, the strengthening of the National People's Congress, legal reforms, experiments in rural self-government and loosening control of civil society groups-was instituted in the 1980s. The Chinese media became freer in the early reform era. The timing here is critical. This "directional liberalism" of China's politics either preceded or accompanied China's economic growth."  (Does democracy help or hurt economic growth?  CPE blog posted on June 30, 2008 by Anna Nadgrodkiewicz, Director Multiregional Programme at Wshington-based Centre for International Private Enterprise).

It is incontrovertible that infusion of foreign investment is absolutely necessary for the growth of an economy. Historically bulk of foreign investment is done by the developed countries in other developed countries mainly because of similar regulatory frameworks and beliefs and democratic ideals. Besides, similar skills they share with one another make it easier for them to trade in high-end products. It has been happening despite Raul Prebisch's scepticism about accretion of national wealth through foreign investment that often has high social cost.

The developing world is now confused whether in view of global meltdown Adam Smith's theory of minimalist role by the government can lead a country "to the highest degree of opulence from lowest degree of barbarism" is not now outdated. 

Advocates of capitalism ignored that perfect marriage between demand and supply is a theoretical concept, particularly in places where few firms forming syndicates control the supply and price  of commodities. In economies like ours often captains of industry and commerce dictate state economic policies either as pressure groups on the political authority or on their election as members of parliament. With the withering away of idealistic politics and the advent of commerce-based politics and expensive elections politicians in both the developed and developing worlds have increasingly become dependent on donations from industrialists to finance their elections. Donations being hardly given for altruistic reasons, the donors expect returns on their "investment". Such concentric relationship invariably leads to inequity and social stratification in terms of wealth and power.

One, nevertheless, hopes that in the case of Bangladesh the spirit of liberation war and people's abiding faith in democratic ideals would lead the country to prosperity as promised by our leaders.

The writer is a former Ambassador and Secretary

  

kamasud23@gmail.com

FINANCIAL EXPRESS 20TH AUGUST 2017

Published : 19 Aug 2017, 19:35:07

The ideological war is now between up and down

Kazi Anwarul Masud

In an article on tranhumanism, published in the July 31, 2017 issue of  The Conversation UK, Alexander Thomas, a PhD candidate in the University of East London, portrays a dystopian spectacle for the future generation. He describes transhumanism as "the idea that humans should transcend their current natural state and limitations through the use of technology - that we should embrace self-directed human evolution. If the history of technological progress can be seen as humankind's attempt to tame nature to better serves its needs, transhumanism is the logical continuation: the revision of humankind's nature to better serve its fantasies".

There can be very little debate over the continuity of human endeavour in improving technology which has given humanity so much and hopefully would continue to do so in future if humanity as we know it does not perish from this earth. Problem may arise when radically transformative technology is used to produce "super soldiers" or weapons to obliterate the opponent instead of its being used for building paradise on earth.

Alexander Thomas refers to bioethicist Julian Savelescu's argument that human beings have to develop themselves for its own survival to extricate itself from the Bermuda Triangle of Extinction-radical technological power, democracy and morals. Savelescu urges the powerful sect of humanity to extricate from the Hobbesian description of human nature of being "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short".

Undeniably the world has changed from Hobbes' 16th-- 17th century global environment and the people have more say in the way of the direction of their life. Yet a large part of the world is yet divided into least developed, developing and developed countries. The World Bank, IMF and other international institutions have their definitions of categorisation of countries.

Fareed Zakaria, on the other hand, points out in his book The Post-American World, the "rise of the rest" - the growth of countries like China, India, Brazil, Russia, and many others as the great story of our time, and one that will reshape the world.

But, though these countries would rise up to the level of developed countries (Singapore and South Korea have already attained that status), French economist Thomas Picketty argues that return on capital has historically been more the return on economic growth and as the rich has most of the capital they will accumulate more money than the others resulting in income inequality.

Alexander Thomas argues that the knowledge and information that transhumanist technologies will tend to create could strengthen existing power structures that cement the inherent logic of the system in which the knowledge arises. Unbridled capitalism controlled by 1 per cent or 10 per cent of the population would dictate the course of technological development unless regulated by the democratic institutions like parliament or the Congress and a free press.

Going by Tom Picketty's assertion that rate of return on capital would be more than the rate of return of other factors of production the ultra-capitalists, who practically elect the peoples' representatives with money and muscles (in many developing countries e.g. Venezuela and Kenya most recently), would, with the connivance of the members of Parliament/Congress, go for automation to save number of people to be employed. Unemployment and consequent loss of spending power would place large swaths of humanity at the mercy of the super rich who would spend their capital only to get richer because idle capital does not increase revenue in proportion to capital in use. People who do not possess the skills needed by transhumanist capitalists would remain unemployed and, in time, unemployable and totally dependent on handouts from the super rich. The US, the richest nation on earth, is the most unequal society among the industrialised countries where the top 20 per cent own 84 per cent of the wealth and the bottom 20 per cent only 0.3 per cent (Michael Norton and Dan Ariely, 2011).

It is surmised that indifference of the Americans to existing inequality lies in their cultural belief that it is possible to reach the American Dream through hard work. This optimistic view of Americans' presumed indifference has been countered by many well-credentialled authors who started the debate on Great Divergence of income among different segments of society. Nobel Laureate Joseph Stiglitz in an article (Climate change and poverty have not gone away, The Guardian, January 07, 2013) warned that "there is a worldwide crisis in inequality. The problem is not only that the top income groups are getting a larger share of the economic pie, but also that those in the middle are not sharing in economic growth, while in many countries poverty is increasing…..An economic and political system that does not deliver for most citizens is one that is not sustainable in the long run. Eventually, faith in democracy and the market economy will erode, and the legitimacy of existing institutions and arrangements will be called into question. The good news is that the gap between the emerging and advanced countries has narrowed greatly in the last three decades. Nonetheless, hundreds of millions of people remain in poverty, and there has been only a little progress in reducing the gap between the least developed countries and the rest".

It is difficult to foresee a bright future for the hard working young people to achieve the equivalent of the American Dream in their own countries because of reluctance of their governments to invest in education and health. In some countries the authorities are enamoured by the eluding prospects of becoming a middle-income country and in not so later date, a developed country. It is possible. But then, at what cost? Have we calculated the loss of territory and landless people due to climate change who have to be fed and clothed by the government whose coffers are getting less and less in real term and whose debt-GDP (gross domestic revenue) ratio is increasing?

President Trump has already decided to cut down the budget of the State Department, US AID and the Environmental Protection Agency.  Critics have sounded alarm at the loss of soft power of the US which had been using this instrument of diplomacy since the Marshall Plan evolved in April 1948. Trump's calculation is, perhaps, in transactional terms: what's the US getting in return? In the case of Pakistan, for example, US total aid obligated amounts to more than $78 billion until 2016. In return, some surveys have found that Pakistanis hate the US more than India, Pakistan's eternal enemy. Pakistani nuclear physicist Parvez Hoodbnoy reviewing Stephen Cohen's book The Idea of Pakistan asks the enigmatic question: "can Pakistan work?" This is because, he argues, the idea of Pakistan's founder Mohammed Ali Jinnah to form a secular country has been abandoned. He writes, "But with time Jinnah's Pakistan has become weaker, more authoritarian and increasingly theocratic. Now set to become the world's fourth most populous nation, it is all of several things: a client state of the United States yet deeply resentful of it, a breeding ground for jihad and al-Qaeda as well as a key US ally in the fight against international terrorism, an economy and society run for the benefit of Pakistan's warrior class, and an inward-looking society that is manifestly intolerant of minorities".

This article is not to dissect Pakistan's failure or otherwise as a state (expulsion of Nawaz Sharif   as Prime Minister by the Supreme Court notwithstanding). Time might have come to realise that current ideological war is not between left or right but between up and down, as Alexander Thomas is left with the thought that what the world is going to do with the people  unemployed by automation. "We would be left with the scenario of a small elite", he writes,  "that has an almost total concentration of wealth with access to the most powerfully transformative technologies in world history and a redundant mass of people, no longer suited to the evolutionary environment in which they find themselves and entirely dependent on the benevolence of that elite. The dehumanising treatment of today's expelled groups shows that prevailing liberal values in developed countries don't always extend to those who don't share the same privilege, race, culture or religion. In an era of radical technological power, the masses may even represent a significant security threat to the elite, which could be used to justify aggressive and authoritarian actions".

One hopes that we are not looking at the face of a nightmarish 'Brave New World' of Aldous Huxley (1931) where the author tries to exploit the revulsion of his readers of both the Soviet Communism and American Capitalism and Pavlovian-style of behavioural conditioning. One, instead, hopes that the coming era is going to be one of technologically advanced yet endowed with all the traits of liberal democracy.

The writer is a former Ambassador and Secretary, Government  of Bangladesh.

kamasud23@gmail.com

North Korean ConundrumSAAG PAPER

Paper No. 6291                             Dated 16-Aug-2017

By Kazi Anwarul Masud

One wonders where Robert Kagan, Niall Ferguson, Paul Wolfowitz and other neo-cons have disappeared when President Donald Trump is sounding “fire and fury” and “locked and loaded” at North Korean mad leader Kin Jung-un’s threats to attack Guam. True though Chairman of Joint Chiefs of Staff General Joseph Dunford jr’s current visit to China, South Korea and Japan is to reassure US’ allies that the US army is on the same page with Defense Secretary General Mattis and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson   who co-wrote an opinion column in The Wall Street Journal that the US and her allies wanted a peaceful resolution of the dispute. Without mentioning President Trump’s ‘fire and fury” threats the duo wrote “the administration was applying “diplomatic and economic pressure on North Korea to achieve the complete, verifiable and irreversible denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula and a dismantling of the regime’s ballistic-missile programs.” The world by now is well aware of President Trump’s often contradictory tweets which the global leaders try to decipher to find out the real US foreign policy.

 US administration got worried when the North Korea flight-tested two intercontinental ballistic missiles last month, the second of which appeared to have the capacity to reach the American mainland. Though the Americans are not certain of the technological knowhow of North Korea it is difficult for any US President to take a chance of being hit with nuclear weapons on the US mainland.  The Chinese who supposedly have the most influence on Kim Jong-un had to agree with the US and Russia to impose the toughest UNSC sanction on North Korea affecting the country to deprive it of almost a third of its external export revenue. China has announced fully banning imports of aquatic products, coal, iron, iron ore, lead and lead ore from North Korea.

Brooking’s Evans Revere’s assertion (The Trump administration’s North Korea policy: Headed for success or failure?  Monday, July 10, 2017) that US and Chinese interests in the diffusion of North Korean problem may have different angles. Revere contends that Beijing values North Korean stability and the preservation of the regime more than it fears the implications of a nuclear-armed DPRK. As Chinese interlocutors often remind the Americans that Beijing fears peninsular instability and the consequences of reunification under Seoul. China therefore has little interest in a U.S.-orchestrated “maximum pressure” campaign that could bring about exactly what China fears. But at the same time would the Chinese countenance a war devastated economy and survivors of a nuclear holocaust pouring into China which despite bright economic indices remains decades behind the US in wealth and military power?

Sino-Russian proposal that the US-South Korea suspend joint military exercises has already been rejected by the US administration. Could regime change be a possibility? China, Russia, Japan and South Korea could agree on a Korean reunification with a denuclearized Korea acceptable to China. Such a solution Trump could sell to the American people as his “victory” comparable to Bush era “New Sovereigntist,” a group of highly credentialed academics who has developed “a coherent blueprint for defending American institutions against the alleged encroachment of international ones”.

One of them Jeremy Rubkin (of Cornell University) advances the deterministic argument for safeguarding US sovereignty and security of the US constitution on the ground of the US being fully sovereign. They argue that the US sovereignty is absolute, illimitable and non-dissipatory as opposed to sovereignty of most countries of the world that is now pooled (in the EU), or circumscribed by international agreements/ covenants. The “new sovereigntists” do not apologize and on the contrary fully endorse US rejection of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, refusal to sign on to the Landmine Convention, Rome Treaty on International Criminal Court, and administration’s refusal to sign on to the Climate Change Agreement ( already agreed upon by President Barak Obama). They find most international laws as too amorphous to justify US consent, intrusive on domestic affairs, unenforceable, and the international law making process as unaccountable.

Perhaps the most dangerous aspect of “new sovereigntism” is the notion that the US can opt out of international regimes on ground of her unquestioned power and duty to the US constitution. That these arguments smack of arrogance and can be proved to be invalid have not impressed their proponents. They are convinced that the wealth and the might of the US offering market and other cooperative arrangements would compel the rest of the world to conform to American positions even if the US were to stand aloof from various international undertakings. Neither isolationalist nor afraid of international engagements but confident of unparalleled economic and military might they advocate an international order that would suit American preferences. But the twin mistake of the Trump--withdrawal from Climate Change Agreement---more than 190 nations agreed to the accord in December 2015 in Paris, and 147 have since formally ratified or otherwise joined it, including the United States — representing more than 80 percent of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions. It’s also heavily backed by U.S. and global corporations, including oil giants Royal Dutch Shell, ExxonMobil and BP and secondly withdrawal from Trans-Pacific Partnership—have raised questions in the minds of the allies of US leadership in global affairs and consequent filling up the vacuum by China.

 No wonder in another context Irving Kristol lamented “"It's too bad. I think it would be natural for the United States . . . to play a far more dominant role in world affairs . . . to command and to give orders as to what is to be done. People need that. There are many parts of the world -- Africa in particular -- where an authority willing to use troops can make . . . a healthy difference." Likewise Niall Ferguson in his book Colossus attempted to persuade, writes George Monbiot, a British writer and a columnist to The Guardian, the United States that it must take its imperial role seriously, becoming in the 21st century what Britain was in the 19th. "Many parts of the world," he claims, "would benefit from a period of American rule". The US should stop messing about with "informal empire," and assert "direct rule" over countries which "require the imposition of some kind of external authority." But it is held back by "the absence of a will to power." Ferguson would rather forget the horrors of colonialism and put the blame on misgovernment, corrupt and lawless government in Africa and completely miss out the role of International Monetary Fund who controlled their economies and virtually ran the economies for the US capital that made these countries as supplier of primary products at low prices only to buy back finished products at abnormally high prices.

The recent regrettable incident caused by white supremacists in Virginia and daily criticism of President Trump for his tweets and delayed responses( Virginia is an example) coupled with ordinary Americans rising up to protect their values give ample testimony that US is expected to remain a country where dreams may come true. Though since nineteen sixties post nationalist authors have rejected the claim of American Exceptionalism, popularized by Martin Seymour Lipset, on the grounds that the US had not broken off from  European history except that when Europe was under the shackle of monarchs the Americans had fought for republicanism, based its society not on inherited wealth, discarding of feudalism, puritan roots, democracy and immigration.

President Trump may wish to be reminded that the United States has the largest population of immigrants in the world—over 38.5 million people living in the United States are first-generation immigrants, although on a percentage basis the immigrant population ranks 48th in the world. On an annual basis, the United States naturalizes approximately 898,000 immigrants as new citizens, first in the world in absolute terms, and 8th in the world in per capita terms. From 1960 to 2005, the United States was ranked first in the world for every five year period but one for the total number of immigrants admitted—overall, since 1995, the United States has admitted over 1 million immigrants per year.

Critics of American Exceptionalism may quote Roger Cohen “"How exceptional can you be when every major problem you face, from terrorism to nuclear proliferation to gas prices, requires joint action?" In an article in New York Times Colin Powell wrote: “The idea that putting Americans “first” requires a withdrawal from the world is simply wrongheaded, because a retreat would achieve exactly the opposite for our citizens…With 95 percent of the world’s consumers outside our borders, it’s not “America first” to surrender the field to an ambitious China rapidly expanding its influence, building highways and railroads across Africa and Asia(American Leadership — We Can’t Do It for Free MAY 24, 2017)”. We have traversed a long way from North Korean crisis to American Exceptionalism to necessity of US leadership in global affairs in a coherent framework that allows for role for a multi-polar world. US by itself cannot solve a problem created by a tinpot dictator without the help of other great players. It is hoped that Trump administration would know where to draw the red line thus saving the world from unimaginable catastrophe.

(Tag ), index political, strategic and security, non proliferation.)

Paper no. 5180  SAAG PUBLICATION 28-Aug-2012 Rule of Law and 21st Century  By Kazi Anwarul Masud  Quintessentially great majority of the members of the international community would like to be counted as practicing democracy or a blend of it.  It is however debatable how far they have allowed the foundation of law and order­an essential precursor to institutionalization of democracy- to take place in their countries where people can aspire to get justice from the irrational and illegal, if so interpreted by  the court of law, of acts of the government and its supporters of the moment. In the progress of democracy the world has travelled a thorny path from Magna Carta to the British Bill of Rights to the US Bill of Rights to the end of colonization to UN Convention on Human Rights to a position which professes absolute predominance or supremacy of law and its application regardless of the socio-political station of the citizens of a country. Professor A. V. Dicey in his 1885 book 'Introduction To The Study Of Law Of The Constitution,' observed that it is based on three principles: (1) legal duties, and liability to punishment, of all citizens, is determined by the ordinary (regular) law and not by any arbitrary official fiat, government decrees, or wide discretionary-powers, (2) disputes between citizens and government officials are to be determined by the ordinary courts applying ordinary law, and the (3) fundamental rights of the citizens (freedom of the person, , freedom of association, freedom of speech) are rooted in the natural law, and are not dependent on any abstract constitutional concept, declaration or guarantee (Business Dictionary. Com). But then almost daily reports on crimes, some sensational and some involving important people which capture media attention are often forgotten because 15 minutes fame is not  infinite and some allegedly due to the corruption in the judiciary that automatically goes to the advantage of the rich.   The sources of law is equally important in the dispensation of justice. Among the sources are religion, ideology, social conditions prevailing in any particular society and the political system e.g. absolute monarchy, despotic rule under the garb of democracy. If, for example, under communism property rights are denied because the state owns all the property and people so deprived cannot go to courts because expropriation has already been legalized then the dispensation of law would be different from other countries yet perfectly legal in that country. If one were to take ideology as the source of law then it is no longer a science of ideas as claimed by nineteenth century French thinker Claude Destutt de Tracy but “Ideology today is generally taken to mean not a science of ideas, but the ideas themselves, and moreover ideas of a particular kind. Ideologies are ideas whose purpose is not epistemic, but political. Thus an ideology exists to confirm a certain political viewpoint, serve the interests of certain people, or to perform a functional role in relation to social, economic, political and legal institutions. Daniel Bell dubbed ideology ‘an action-oriented system of beliefs,’ and the fact that ideology is action-oriented indicates its role is not to render reality transparent, but to motivate people to do or not do certain things. Such a role may involve a process of justification that requires the obfuscation of reality” (Law and Ideology-Stanford Encyclopedia on Philosophy). A more critical appraisal of law’s relations with ideology was made by Marx and Engels who posited that ideas are shaped by material world and hence is subject to change. Marxists would argue that when legal ideology becomes the tool in the hands of the rich and the powerful then laws can be enacted to the detriment of the powerless and would result in the domination of one over the other. Such a situation can happen without ideological conflict where one organ of the state through extra-judicial process captures power and one of the first acts by the new rulers is the abrogation of the country’s constitution from which flows the fundamental laws of any nation.  Influence of religion as a source of law has been tremendous  throughout the history of the world. This has been keenly felt when scientific discoveries were found to be in conflict with canonical laws and depending on the strength of the religious leaders the “guilty” were punished.  When the scientists discovered that the earth and not the sun moves on its orbit it conflicted with then accepted “truth” that earth was the center of the universe and any pronouncement to the contrary was regarded as heresy. The on-going sectarian conflict between Shias and Sunnis in Islam for example has both political and legal dimensions. The sectarian struggle has been going on between the Catholics and the Protestants for ages and found legal expression even in secular world of the twentieth century where marriage of royalty, for example in England, could only take place when both parties belonged to the Church of England that was founded when British King Henry the eighth did not get papal sanction for annulment of his marriage. In today’s Saudi Arabia, branded by Bernard Lewis for its rejection of modernity in order to go back to its sacred past, the constitution is the Holy Quran and the laws are based on Sharia. The laws are immutable and sacrosanct and must be obeyed to the letter. But then of the 57 members of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation only a few follow the Sharia laws completely though by and large Muslims, as we have seen after the Arab Spring, generally prefer  Sharia laws to be the basis of judicial philosophy but with modification needed by the demands of modernity. For example, ban on women to drive cars or going out without being accompanied by male relatives are considered anomalous with modern life. The ‘purists” would argue that the compromise with “modernity” as they understand is a compromise with degenerate Western way of life and incompatible   with the true spirit of Islam. The struggle against Mullah Omar’s Afghanistan and against al-Qaida’s injunctions in North Waziristan should not be confused as war on Islam but as a fight against evil that has to be exterminated. But then question arises as to how laws are to be disregarded when such laws are based on centuries old tradition and revered by the society. Honor killings in some Muslim countries are accepted and the guilty is rarely punished though punishment for murder   remains on the statute book. Indeed the killers are feted for regaining the “lost prestige” of the family. If social backwardness depict horrendous picture of weird laws in practice one has to remember that laws instead of being stagnant is like a moving vehicle accommodating changing conditions of society. Laws have been changed to suit welfare of the people in need to make these as entitlements as citizens. Patient protection popularly known as Obama care or Patient Protection and Affordable Care(PPACA) signed into law in March 2010    has become one of the central points of controversy in 2012 Presidential election. Generally favored by the Democrats the law is opposed by the Republicans  on ground that the implementation of the law will increase federal deficit while the supporters contend that the law will reduce the number of uninsured Americans and make medical treatment available to them. The Republicans are also opposed to the law because they believe that it would increase federal bureaucracy. The point made here is not about the merits or demerits of the Obamacare but to show that legislation and law making are ever changing process suiting the exigencies of the situation of a country. Equally precedents of judgments given earlier are often considered in pronouncing judgments.  The increasing influence of religion in the decision making process is putting secularism and multiculturism in jeopardy. A case in point is the blasphemy law which carries death sentence if a person is found guilty. Despite international condemnation of the blasphemy law and Hudood ordinance on adultery as violation of internationally accepted conditions, albeit controversial, of free sex, same sex marriage, unmarried couples living together etc do exist in many countries. Yet some Muslim countries hesitate to strike the laws off their statute books because of hurting the feeling of “devout” Muslims who may constitute a small minority of the electorate but have large following of Islampasands in society. The Hudood ordinance has been criticized as leading to "hundreds of incidents where a woman subjected to rape, or even gang rape, was eventually accused of <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zina>Zina" (extramarital sex) and incarcerated, and defended as punishment ordained by God and victim of "extremely unjust propaganda"(Wikipedia ).  The question that one may ask is whether there can be universally accepted and enforceable laws in addition to international law. European Union has progressed in unifying laws to a certain degree by surrendering a portion of its sovereignty. But a universally enforceable set of laws do not appear to be possible for several reasons. One impediment will be “American Exceptionalism” that can be defined as, among other things, US refusal to accept extra-territorial jurisdiction over US citizens. It is note worthy that NATO never had a military chief who was not an American perhaps because the US is reluctant that its troops could be judged by laws of other countries. Other reasons inhibiting universal application of laws can be attributed to precedents, customs, legislation, societal structure, ideology, economic conditions, and other factors that differ from country to country.  The very fact of the constitution of the UNSC with five veto wielding members demonstrate the differences in global power structure and consequent subordination or otherwise of developed, emerging and other developing countries. Developing countries, or at least some of them, are reluctant to allow   foreign lawyers to appear in its court due to restrictions imposed by Bar Councils or absence of reciprocal arrangements between the host country and the country of origin of the foreign lawyers.    But then it would not be factual to state that surrender of sovereignty does not occur when countries enter into agreements with other countries and financial institutions or form customs union, free trade area or economic union. One may argue that international agreements that obligate the signing country to some rules and regulations have to be placed in parliament for ratification. Such ratification that confers legality are often a formality and not result of deep thoughts prior to the signing of the agreements. Given all these factors the international community should endeavor to have a transparent, enforceable, and non-discriminatory   international standard or code of conduct. Rouge states should be warned of consequences if international peace and stability are threatened. At the same time G-8 or its expanded version  should be made aware of its duties to avoid the temptation of short term  political or economic gains. Back to the top Home  | Papers  | Notes  | Forum  | Search  | Feedback  | Forward  | Links Copyright © South Asia Analysis Group  All rights reserved. Permission is given to refer this on-line document for use in research papers and articles, provided the source and the author's name  are acknowledged. Copies may not be duplicated for commercial purposes.

MARGINALIZATION OF MUSLIM POPULATION IN US PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION

(DRAFT FOR THE ARTICLE TO BE PUBLISHED ONSUNDAY THE  2^ND NOVEMBER 2008)

By Kazi Anwarul Masud( former Secretary and ambassador)

 

Lepers, untouchable, politically radioactive—Muslim Diaspora in the US  presently describe themselves  during the Presidential election to be held very soon. McCain camp reportedly tried to portray Barack Obama as a Muslim to scare away his supporters. Perhaps this was the  reason for Obama to reveal that his middle name is Stevens and not Hussein as was his father’s . He was brought up as a Christian. It is sad that in a multi-religious, multi-cultural nation of immigrants about 6 million Muslims have to prove their loyalty to a country where they are born and bred. According to American Muslim Council( AMC) there are three categories of Muslims: immigrants, American converts/reverts to Islam, and those born to first two groups as Muslims. California has about 20% Muslim population while New York 16%  of the total Muslim population. It is sadder that President Bush’s first Secretary of State General Colin Powell who broke with his party by endorsing Barak Obama for the Presidency was greatly disturbed by this anti-Muslim feeling. He told NBC’s Meet the Press: “Is there something wrong being a Muslim in this country? The answer is no, that’s not America”. Powell apparently felt very srongly about the canard about Muslims because he saw a photo he saw in The New Yorker magazine of a mother of a Muslim soldier embracing her son’s grave at Arlington Cemetery.    If Bush doctrine of preemption shocked the Europeans it shook the seemingly peaceful foundation of the Islamic world. Yet the entire Muslim world stood alongside the Americans in their grief after the terrorist attacks of 9/11. So when the Talibans were decimated and driven out of Afghanistan the Islamic world supported the NATO actions against the Talibans. But when Iraq was invaded on what now appears to be on untenable and illegal grounds the Muslims as no less the Europeans and the less xenophobic part of the American people    refused to sanction Anglo-American misadventure. Colin Powell’s assertion of Bush administration’s belief in a strategy of global partnership for the war on terror failed to calm the fear of a disbelieving world. Equally President Bush’s West Point address of June 2002 urging the governments of the Islamic countries to listen to the hopes of their citizens for the same freedoms and opportunities as available in the West did not elicit uniform enthusiasm. Historian Bernard Lewis interpreted the “Muslim Rage” in terms of millennial rivalry between the two world religions caused by the sense of humiliation felt by the Muslims over being defeated by the “inferior Christians and the Jews”. Lewis’ interpretation of inter-faith tension, despite his outstanding intellect, was criticized by Edward Said who accused Lewis of advancing political agenda under the cloak of scholarship .The Muslim point of view has been reflected in the recently published Arab Human Development Report (AHDR2003) which observed that the adoption of extreme security measures and policies by a number of western countries exceeded their original goals and led to the erosion of civil and political liberties diminishing the welfare of the Arabs and Muslims living in those countries. These freedom-constraining policies have also encouraged the adoption of THE ARAB CHARTER AGAINST TERRORISM allowing censorship, detention and torture. It is therefore not surprising that the American advocacy of redressing democracy deficit in the Islamic world is taken with a pinch of salt. Yet the second Bush administration is expected to press on with the Greater Middle East Initiative because it is believed that: - (a) US support for democracy is extended as a matter of principle, (b) US will prosper more in a world of democracies than in a world of authoritarian or chaotic regimes, (c) history testifies that democracies do not wage wars against other democracies, (d) quantitative increase in democracy leads to qualitative improvement in diplomacy, and (e) democracy is closely linked with prosperity for which peaceful and predictable transition  of power is essential. It is further surmised that the US will no longer tolerate “democratic exceptions” in parts of the Muslim world for the sake of its self-interest. But the most recent decision of President Parvez Musharraf to continue as the head of Pakistan army violating the agreement he had concluded with the opposition parties that he would relinquish the post of army head at the end of this year does not speak very highly of American determination to bring about democracy in the Islamic world. Given Pakistan’s close partnership with the US in the war on terror it is inconceivable that President Musharraf could have taken this decision without US blessings. It is therefore quite possible that one democratic exception could lead to many other autocrats to seek a way out of the American imposed pluralism.

 

It is generally accepted that one-size-fit-all cannot be a sustainable foreign policy option for any major power. However moralistic a policy can be it can never be purely altruistic and must always be self-interested. Therefore it is unlikely that the second Bush administration would push on with its mission of Greater Middle East Initiative if it were found to be in conflict with the war on terror. It is unfortunate but true that in the eyes of the ordinary Westerners al=Qaedist terrorism is seen as being inspired by Islamists. Religious profiling of the Muslims in the US, reported job discrimination, verbal and sometimes physical abuse suffered by the Muslims living in the West are undeniable facts fuelling “spiraling progressive alienation” of the Muslims from the mainstream western society. This has prompted some Western intellectuals to conclude that Huntington’s clash of civilization has already materialized. While another school of thought would deny that there is any clash of civilizations between Islam and the West. They argue that the real battle is being fought within the Muslim civilization between ultra-conservatives and moderates and democrats for the soul of the Muslims who are caught in the crossfire between a westernized elite but oligarchic in character who hold effective power and the oppressed political opposition who take the form of apocalyptic nihilism striking out violently to expel the “infidels” who they believe are sustaining the oligarchs. That there is a crying need to democratize these islands of autocracy is to state the obvious. This need has been reinforced by the findings of the Freedom House survey (2001-2002) of free countries around the world that while the number of “free” nations increased by nearly three dozens over the past 20 years not one of them was a Muslim majority state. Since lack of democratic pluralism has been identified as the primary cause behind Islamic extremism it is possible that the second Bush administration would not abandon its mission to bring meaningful freedom to the Muslim states whose population is still denied a voice in the governance in their own countries.

The Islamic world today is undeniably passing through a critical time in its history fuelled by prejudice, bigotry and various other forms of discrimination used by Western societies against Muslims worldwide. To blame the West for this kind of behavior will not be helpful. After all the Western response has been caused in order to confront al-Qaedist terrorism in the US, Europe, Africa and in several Islamic countries as well. A small venal group spreading lethality in the name of Islam has stigmatized Muslims. The depth of Western anger can be gauged by the fact that Senator Kerry is accused of waffling on Iraq and American public do not appear to see another Vietnam in Iraq yet despite increasing casualties of coalition forces. It is unlikely that the West would relent on the freedom-constraining regulations imposed on the Muslims or that Western society would feel comfortable with Muslims as neighbors and working in their societies along side them. It took Europeans almost fifty years to get comfortable with the Germans though Nazism was physically annihilated by the allied victors and totally rejected by the Germans in 1945. Despite German membership of NATO it took the Kosovo crisis for the NATO allies to invite Germany to participate in the Kosovo campaign.

 

One wonders whether Western rejection would not force the Islamic world, regardless of its lack of monolithic character and housing divergent philosophies, to be introverted and a part of it intuitively adopting violence as an expression of frustration. This grim scenario can become more terrifying if the West were to increase their violence, because the degree of violence is proportional to the instruments of violence used and the West has a surfeit of such instruments, by expanding their “area of operation” by including Iran, Syria and who knows which other country would be the next. The US has not fared well in Afghanistan and Iraq and is not expected to do so in future. What is essential to regain the lost confidence is to have inter-faith dialogue or something like the South African Truth Commission and opening doors to people of all races and religions and not to shut the door only because a few non-covenanted would sneak in through the open door.

 

POLITICAL LEFT AND ISLAMIC FUNDAMENTALISM

 (FOR PUBLICATION ON SUNDAY THE 11^TH MARCH 2007)

By Kazi Anwarul Masud (former Secretary and ambassador)

 

With the end of the cold war and the demise of the Soviet Union the appeal for communist ideology has diminished the world over. Even China practicing capitalism in its economy would be called revisionist if the “purists” among the practicetioners of communism had their way. It would, however, be a hasty conclusion that the wave of left philosophy, defined as “that current of thought, politics and policy that stresses social improvements over macroeconomic orthodoxy, egalitarian distribution of wealth over its creation, sovereignty over international cooperation, democracy over governmental effectiveness”, has lost its appeal completely in the world. Former Mexican Foreign Minister Jorge Castaneda   discerns two types of left in Latin America today: the first being modern, open minded, reformist and internationalist while the other is nationalist, strident and close-minded. In his view the disappearance of the USSR has led to a surge of leftism in Latin America because its supporters could no longer be accused by the United States as being lackeys of the Soviet Union. Extreme inequality, poverty, dispossession of power gave the majority of the poor people their voting right as the only instrument left to register protest and also to regain some role in the process of decision making. Brazil’s Lula, Chile’s Michelle Bachelet, Bolivia’s Evo Morales, and Nicaragua’s Daniel Ortega are examples of growing leftist power in America’s backyard. It would be erroneous to lump them together as cohabitants of Castro-Chavez trail of the left strand in the region. But nonetheless they all represent a no-confidence vote against the unrestrained capitalism raging in the globalized world ruled by the West whose power lies, according to political analyst  Ziauddin Sardar, not “in its economic muscle and technological might (but) in its power to define what is, for example, freedom, progress, civil behavior... The non-Western civilization has simply to accept   these definitions or be defined out of existence”.

 

The silent revolution taking place in many countries of the East, once described by late Edward Said as the colonies of the West yet its cultural contestant, can be compared with those taking place in Latin America. The reason for this opposition to the Western model of economic development while embracing its open and pluralistic political system is because the benefits from economic progress have eluded the great majority of the people, barring some vertical movement of fortunate few from destitution to opulence giving rise to debate on the immorality of their acquisition of wealth, remain mired in ultra-poverty with little light at the end of the tunnel. Low growth rates, writes Castaneda, have meant the persistence of dismal poverty, inequality, and high unemployment. “Democracy” he continues, “although welcomed and supported by broad swaths of Latin American societies did little to eradicate the region’s secular plagues: corruption, a weak or nonexistent rule of law, ineffective governance, and concentration of power in the hands of the few”.  This kind of scenery, common in the Third World, is no exception to Bangladesh where the ferocious rapacity of the four party alliance government in plundering the wealth of the people and the Orwellian tyranny let loose on the opposition and the minority community have induced in the people a craving for a government which yet remains to be given a proper constitutional form. But the people are happy that the extremely high possibility of the now displaced gang of politicians’ coming back to power through a manipulated election has become an impossibility and the corrupt who felt themselves to be above the law are being brought to account.

 

Democracy without the rule of law and more importantly without food on the table is meaningless. One has to decide whether the privilege of casting one’s vote once every five years while remaining ill-fed and ill-clad for the entire period carries the full meaning of democracy. But then again the fourth surge of democratization in former Eastern Europe following the disappearance of the Soviet empire strengthens anew the premise that deep down people, however poor they may be, is averse to be governed by an authority not of their own choosing.   Consequently we, in Bangladesh, are in a quandary. We do not know whether to press for an early election and risk electing a group of politicians, some of whom are likely to be corrupt, or to wait for a longer period for the Augean stable to be cleared up and then go for an election through which we can elect people who we can believe to deliver the goods.  

 

In this race, whenever it may take place, the political left has aligned itself with the progressive and secular elements in the country. If neighboring West Bengal is any example to be held aloft then one can safely say that unlike the Islamists who believe in one man- one vote- one time the political left is unlikely to abandon pluralism. But the stark reality is that the political left could not gain enough votes in elections to become a credible voice in the country’s politics. The reasons are not difficult to find.  While India after partition in 1947 chose to be non-aligned Pakistan in search of security against a powerful India chose to bind itself to US led military pacts (SEATO, CENTO etc) and consequently blindly followed American cold war dictates including ban on left political parties and persecution of left party leaders. In addition the rightists were able to convince the people that the left, particularly the Communists, were Godless people and should be abjured. Only after the liberation of Bangladesh in 1971 that the left political parties were allowed free participation in the political process. Jamat-e-Islami, the standard bearer of the fundamentalists, on the other hand, except for a brief period of ban due to their collaboration with the occupying Pakistani army, had a free hand in politics and through religious schools, now thought to number sixty four thousand, continued to profess political Islam aimed at establishing an Islamist nation  to be ruled according to the dictates of the Holy Quran and Sunnah. Under the present global context Bangladeshis would have to be careful while casting votes that they do not mix the professed benefits of the post-death world with the assuredly disadvantages that go with an Islamist rule in the present day world.

 

RELIGION AND POLITICS (FOR PUBLICATION ON SUNDAY THE 23^RD OCTOBER 2005)

 

By Kazi Anwarul Masud( former Secretary and ambassador)

 

Perhaps both the great Arab historian Ibn Khaldun and Scottish philosopher David Hume (who greatly influenced Skepticism and Empiricism school of thought) shared oscillation theory in their observation of religion. While Ibn Khaldun believed that popular religion in Muslim societies tended to oscillate between periods of strict religious observance and of devotional laxity; David Hume believed that men changed from polytheism to monotheism, not in a continuous unilineal change,  and back again because “men have a natural tendency to rise from idolatry to theism and sent again from theism to idolatry”. This oscillation, argues Hume, is not caused by thoughtful and considered reasoning but by politics of fear, uncertainty and a “kind of competitive sycophancy”. Hume was, therefore, not surprised that Hercules, Thesus, Hector and Romulus were replaced by Dominic, Francis, Anthony and Benedict. Hume was a protestant and a skeptic at that. His distance from Catholic philosophy, however interesting, does not form the core of our discussion. What is important is the relevance of the commonality in the perception of Hume and Ibn Khaldun of oscillating devotion of human beings between monotheism and polytheism and also differences in the character of devotees in both creeds which have plunged the world today into a black hole of  holocaust because a minuscule part of the adherents of one creed would repeatedly inflict upon the world their weapons of hatred. It has been surmised that Christianity’s urging of its followers to give unto Caesar what is Caesar’s is because it initially flourished among the politically disinherited, among those who were persecuted for their belief in a monotheistic religion when “competitive sycophancy” obliged most people to practice idolatry because Caesar  had both gold and sword which an unseen God in His wisdom did not chose to use to save His followers from the jaws of death. It took the Christians thousand years to get relief  till Emperor Constantine converted himself to Christianity and Emperor Charlemagne converted Europe to Christendom. Before that time a faith born without political power could hardly had been expected to preach otherwise. By contrast the initial success of Islam was so rapid that it did not have to give anything unto Caesar and it spread its wings often at point of sword and grew into a rich civilization dominating a large part of Europe. By the eighth century  Muslims had conquered North Africa, the eastern shores of the Mediterranean, most of Spain, established bases in Italy, substantially reduced the size of the Eastern Roman Empire and besieged its capital Constantinople. The Ottoman Empire’s assault on the gates of Vienna could perhaps provide a background to the stringent Austrian opposition, though mellowed down temporarily, to start European Union’s talks for Turkey’s entry into the EU. If historian Bernard Lewis’ clash of civilization denoting those between Muslims and   Christians and post-Christians, rigid theocratic hierarchy vs. permissive secular modernism is to be given credence then one could imagine that the seat of non-Catholic Christianity has now taken residence in the White House combining both temporal and spiritual powers( how can one forget President Bush’s communion with God ordering him to attack Afghanistan and Iraq and to establish the State of Palestine). Whether the Americans have reelected an evangelist and fundamentalist as President could have been ignored by the world had not that person also at the same time been the most powerful man in the world presiding over a country described by some as one which has so much economic, cultural and military power not accrued by any nation since the days of the Roman Empire. One hopes that despite the horrific terrorist transgression into America—both physical and psychological—President Bush would not be totally converted to Bernard Lewis’ perception of the Muslim world’s “downward spiral of hate and spite, rage and self-pity, poverty and oppression” having been caused by the defeat of the Muslims at hands of the Judeo-Christian civilization but would retain his belief in the conviction expressed by John F. Kennedy in his posthumously published book A NATION OF IMMIGRANTS that Jefferson and Madison’s America would not see immigrants as ethnically-hyphenated (e.g. Arab-American) or as ethnicity of origin(e.g. a Bangladeshi). In reality, however, the Muslim Diaspora in the West is seen through tinted glass by their predominantly white neighbors (a recent survey shows that a majority of both whites and African-Americans favor a decrease in the current level of immigration) reminiscent of the internment of the Japanese-Americans during the Second World War. In self-defense the Muslims have adopted, as Professor Kay Deaux points out, many taxi drivers in New York city (immediately after 9/11) who by appearance could be labeled as Arabs or Muslims pasted American flags on the windscreen of their cars. Another tendency displayed by the Diaspora is to turn inward, a tendency to “circle the wagon” in the face of unfriendly stares which a western liberal values imbibed modern person would have been loathe to do under ordinary circumstances. Yet the stigmata was generally stamped on the Muslim community despite the realization that terrorism is not and had never been a proprietorial  element of Muslim faith and had been and continues to be practiced by others in abandon. Undoubtedly the current discontent prevalent in the Middle East has been a scapegoat as a primary cause of global turbulence. A deeper analysis would reveal that the present discontent of  the Muslim youth is primarily due to the failure of Pan Arab nationalism not only to deliver basic political goods but also to hide their failure the leaders strangulated the voice of dissent. Added to this was the acquiescence or blatant support extended by the West to these despots due to the demands of the then Cold War situation which fuelled Muslim anger. And of course a constant source of Muslim frustration has been occasioned by the unqualified support given to the Israeli genocidal and expansionist policies in the Middle East. While the expression of this anger and frustration through terrorism can never be justified because terrorism even in its most expansive definition can only be abhorred, one has to address the root causes of this malignancy not in terms of “defeat” of one civilization by another but to secure a coherent globalized society where prosperity and poverty are not totally segmented. It is natural for the West as it for the victims of terrorism in some developing countries to attack the terrorist where ever they may be as Plato had advised centuries back that the price of civilization is the need to defend its own material preconditions by force of arms if necessary. Equally it is necessary to recognize that the Muslims of the world differ substantially not only in their religious views but also in their politico-cultural orientation. Islam is trans-ethnic, trans-social and trans-national yet it is far from being homogenous as the simplistic view would tend one to believe. Indeed as Professor Ernest Gellner points out Islam provides “a scriptural faith; a completed one is available and there is no room for further accretion or for new prophets; also, there is no warrant for clergy, and hence for differentiation, and there is no need to differentiate between the church and the state, between what is God’s and what is Caesar’s”. But there are cleavages between the Sunnis and the Shiias(the current situation in Iraq provides the most glaring example); between the Arab and non-Arab Muslims; between those who believe in hereditary and hierarchical system as Bernard Lewis put it “The Imam is central to the Ismaila system of doctrine…the Imams were divinely inspired and infallible” and those who believe that no intermediary is necessary between God and His devotees. These differences have arisen with the passage of time and have caused both social and political conflicts. The merchants of death today are exploiting these differences not only to promote sectarian violence within the Islamic world but also to deny the fruits of technological advancement to the Muslim subalterns of the yesteryears. Our misfortune is that these ideologues of hatred, semi-literate themselves, are convincing the illiterate( of secular education) madrasha students of their inerrant moral and intellectual “superiority”  over others to the extent that these “others” being moral degenerates need to be physically eliminated to purify the earth of apostates. This kind of Hitlerian menace( who believe in superiority of faith in place of racial superiority) has now assaulted our shores. As it is  according to Human Development Index, Growth Competitive Index, Failed States Index and Transparency International’s Corruption Perception Index Bangladesh has fared miserably. Unless our authorities can free themselves from the vortex of being a politician who can see only up to the next elections and graduate themselves to the statust of a statesman who thinks of the next generation Bangladeshis may have to account for their failure to the elders of the global village.

 

HOW REAL ARE EURO-US DIFFERENCES?  15^th May 2003

By Kazi Anwarul Masud

 

(Retired Secretary to the Bangladesh government and former ambassador)

 

Timothy Garten Ash of the Oxford University echoing Robert Kagan (who provides the intellectual benchmark—reflecting the views of the current administration and not inconsiderable part of the foreign policy establishment and scholarship) said that in matters of strategy the Americans were from the Mars and the Europeans are from the Venus. He saw no “clash of civilizations” between Europe and America

As both belonged to the same historical roots and shared most of the values. The Kantian, internationalist, law based European approach to foreign policy, argued Timothy Ash, had been repeatedly advocated and embraced by the US since the end of the Second World War and therefore to call on the US to shun neo-conservatism and return to multilateralism based on international law was not a call for conversion to Europeanism but for a return of the US to its best traditions. A strong and united Europe compromising between neo-Atlanticism spearheaded by Britain and neo-Gaullism of France is in the best interest of the United States. It has been argued that Europeans must not abandon those diplomatic tools dismissed by neo-conservative Americans as ineffective e.g. Negotiations, multilateral institutions and engagements through economic development because the US despite its overwhelming military power vis-a vis the rest of the world does not have the capacity to follow through as demonstrated in Bosnia, Kosovo, Afghanistan and almost inevitably in Iraq. The superiority of the European values have already been demonstrated in Greece, Ireland, Portugal and Spain who rose up from fascist or clerical rule; overwhelmingly rural based economies; and mired in incorrigibly corrupt administrations into what they are today because of the will of the European people to make them a part of the Union. In his most recent commencement address at the University of South Carolina President Bush informed his audience that the combined GDP of all Arab states was smaller than that of Spain. Many have rejected alleged attempts by the present US administration to undermine European coherence by proclaiming Europe’s division into two irreconcilable and hostile blocs—old Europe and new Europe—in order to forcefully project unrivalled American economic, political and military power to serve the narrow American national interests as depicted in the Bush Security Strategy to the detriment of the rest of the world. Such rejection was further fortified by former Irish Prime Minister John Burton when he pointed out the economic relationship was by far the most important in the entire world and that European investment in Texas alone was greater than all US investment in Japan. He recognized that the Bush doctrine of preemption/prevention war “ is a big and potentially dangerous departure from the existing norms of inter-state behavior”. So, he suggested that EU should establish a comprehensive and formalized dialogue with the US on linked questions of preemptive wars, WMD, and terrorism in order to develop a new, predictable, well understood and intellectually sustainable doctrine of managing the post- nine eleven world. Indeed if one were to listen to Colin Powell’s address to the American Foreign Policy Association (on May 7, 2003) one would come away with the impression that Euro-US differences were not only transient but also cosmetic. Powell reminded his audience that for more than half a century ties between the US and her European allies have been “ the sinews of security, democracy and prosperity in the transatlantic region” and praised the EU and NATO’s willingness to accept the concept of “out of the area” by accepting engagements from Kosovo to Kabul to Kirkuk (in Iraq). He conceded that sometimes the US and EU/NATO disagreed but mostly over means  and not ends. Powell was at one with European prerogative to disagree with the US because the consensus sought by them should be forged in “honest, open, rigorous debate (as) all is free and sovereign nations” entitled to their own opinion. At this consultative stage US has another decisive advantage over Europe that it can project its views through a single agency, the Presidency bolstered by the Congress, a process in which America’s fifty odd states have no say at all whereas the diverse interest of the EU members are always reflected in foreign policy (e.g. British neo-atlanticism and French particularism).

 

While Colin Powell’s reassurances are encouraging it would be imprudent to paper over EU-US differences. It is time to stop pretending, wrote Robert Kagan, that Europeans and Americans share a common view of the world or even occupy the same world. According to him Europe” is entering a post-historical paradise of peace and relative prosperity, the realization of Kant’s ‘perpetual paradise’. The United States, meanwhile, exercising power in the anarchic Hobbesian world where international laws and rules are unreliable and where true security and defense and promotion of liberal order still depend on the possession of military might. That is why on major strategic and international questions today, Americans are from Mars and Europeans are from Venus”. It is not difficult to find out the differences in this prismatic variant. They differ as to when diplomacy should end and bombs should start to fall. Europe largely remains unconvinced of the efficacy of the doctrine of preemption/prevention; marginalization of the UN by the US (Powell would ask the UN to play a vital role in Iraq while the major powers on the UNSC, NATO and EU would have a special role to play in facing the challenges of the new century); and assigning international law to a secondary role to military power (which the Europeans find alien and appalling).

 

Do the Americans have a case in their favor? Perhaps. Tomas Vaslek (Director, CDI, Brussels) argues that in the changed world of post-nine the UN system set up to regulate inter-state relations is now faced with the advent of globally organized terrorist groups or non-state actors. These non-state actors taking advantage of failing and failed states necessitated the adoption of UNSC resolution 748(1992) making states responsible for the actions of the terrorists. So when the Talibans were driven out of Afghanistan, in a way Law of War was revised, and the world concurred. Definition of self-defense as given in the UN Charter, some feel, needs revision due to change in technological nature of the threat. If the reaction time is too short then should the “intended victim” wait till it is attacked so that self-defense measures can be taken?Elihu Root, US Secretary of War(1899-1904) defined self-defense as “the right of every sovereign state to protect itself by preventing a condition of affairs in which it will be too late to protect itself”. Defense of the doctrine of preemption/prevention war was germane to Elihu Root’s definition as in the notes of Antonio Cassese; former President of ICC for Yugoslavia that current justification of self-defense against has become fuzzy because of the advent of non-state actors. Another factor was added by the dissolution of Yugoslavia and consequent Bosnia, Croatia and Kosovo crisis. The question arose whether state sovereignty should remain inviolable if large-scale human rights violations/genocide occur. Despite article 2(7) of the UN Charter relating to territorial integrity regardless of what is happening within the territory; 1999 NATO bombings of Serbia into submission established the principle that sovereignty does not allow waging war against one’s own people. So Slovodan Milasovich is now being tried as a war criminal by the Hague Tribunal This is breaking of new ground of the “humanitarian war” doctrine.

 

Given European (Britain excluded) reservation on Bush doctrine of preemption/preventive war coupled with their inability to stop the Americans to do as they please; Europe is left with the option of revising the Law of War in concert with those Americans who believe in the multilateral system. As Harvard professor Joseph Nye concluded that while the US was too powerful to be challenged by any nation state, it was not strong enough to solve new transnational problems by itself. US would therefore have to define its interests in congruence with those of other states particularly of Europe. It would therefore be fallacious to assume that US-Europe differences would be allowed to run deep to fracture the institutional and structural bonds already existing between these countries. Economic ties are too strong. Cultural ties are historical. Racially majority of the Europeans and Americans are Caucasians and by religion Christians. Kalypso Nicolaides of Oxford University advises both to learn to live together as they had been doing for so long despite their current differences; define a constructive and conscious division of labor; EU should not approach the US power in structural terms—unipolar or multipolar, friends or rivals; Europe must recognize that the world beyond Europe is closer to a pre-Kantian world with a great number if Hobbesian islands in the form of rogue states, failed or failing states, and local zones of conflict. Nicolaides feels that time has come to revisit the UN Charter regarding the link of enforcement of its fundamental norms (human rights, non-proliferation) and the use of force or coercive diplomacy which in any case has been used repeatedly from Kosovo to Sierra Leone.

 

While the West without great efforts may find consummation of their seemingly differing strands of behavior; the problem of any forcible revision of the UN Charter and norms of international law so long regarded as sacramental would be disastrous for the Third World. In a fluid and inconstant world where the behavior of the rich and the powerful may not be predictable and constrained by universal moral code of conduct, let alone international law, the small and the weak may face enslavement of sorts by the comparatively more powerful nations. In such situations North Korean aberrant nuclear policy may appear to some as a sound logic for providing ultimate defense against predator states. It is therefore necessary that people from Mars be aware of their limitations and act in concert with the people from Venus who have found over centuries the usefulness of compromise over conviction.

 

DANISH CARTOONS AND FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION( FOR PUBLICATION ON SUNDAY THE 12^TH FEBRUARY 2006)

 

By Kazi Anwarul Masud( former Secretary and ambassador)

 

Unsavory characterization of Prophet Mohammed(SM) in the cartoons published by a Danish newspaper and reproduced by several European newspapers have brought to the fore the modern debate on limits of freedom of expression and speech. It is generally accepted that freedom of expression is circumscribed by its adverse fall out on the dignity of the individual(libel) or the majesty of the divinity(blasphemy). Society by definition being a conglomeration of diverse individuals societal responsibility demands that rights of the members of the society not be intruded upon. Libel laws exist in a variety of forms to safeguard the individual honor. Similarly, blasphemy laws enacted in many countries, though increasingly falling into disuse, are aimed at protecting the majesty of God. Black’s Law Dictionary defines blasphemy as “ any oral or written reproach maliciously cast upon God, His name, attributes or religion”. Catholic Encyclopedia considers blasphemy as heretical when insult to God involves a declaration that is against the faith; imprecatory when it would cry a malediction upon Divinity; and contumacious when it is wholly made up of contempt or indignation towards God. Interestingly British Criminal law contains in its statute book law relating to blasphemy even today though it was developed mainly during the 18^th century to protect the Anglican version of Christianity. As late as 1979 the House of Lords upheld a prosecution on charge of blasphemy centering on the publication of an erotic homosexual poem about Jesus Christ in a British weekly. When the decision was challenged the European Court of Human Rights ruled that protection for religious freedom was superior in this case to protection of freedom of expression.

 

The arguments proffered in this essay are not for enacting blasphemy laws. On the contrary the First Amendment to the US Constitution insisting that “Congress shall make no laws respecting an establishment of religion”, a declaration powerfully pursued by the US Supreme Court to ensure separation of the Church from the State and generally emulated by developed economies, should act as beacon light to ships sailing against the tumultuous waves of the 21^st century seas.

 

With the virtual disappearance of communism from its European strongholds Karl Marx’s description of religion as opiate of man  has lost favor with majority of the people of the world. Dethronement of atheism has, perhaps, resulted in peoples’ greater devotion to established religions than what would have otherwise been expected to happen. Though an inverse relationship between wealth and religiosity is believed to be axiomatic yet the description of the US, the largest economy in the world, as “a poster child of super natural belief” is profoundly telling. Supernatural belief, according to anthropologist Edward Taylor, is the “minimum definition of religion”. Just about any American, blessed with the material advantages of technological age, believe in God in the biblical sense along with miracles, angels, devils and after life. This belief in the super natural is not confined to Christian Conservatives, once described by the Washington Post as “largely poor, the uneducated”, but for example, embraces about half of the scientific community of the US .

 

There is nothing inherently wrong in being wealthy and religious. Indeed some psychologists have concluded that belief in God is “bred in the bone”, it is instinctive and natural and not necessarily learnt. The problem is not in the contradiction between religiosity and atheism/agnosticism but in the continuing war between religions. Historian Webster’s description of the Thirty Years’ War as “the last great war of religion” could not have been more misplaced if one were to chronicle the persecution of the Jews at the hands of the Christians for centuries and the current tension between the Islamic and the Judeo-Christian civilizations. The terrorist attacks of 9/11 though carried out by a handful of renegades in the name of Islam and condemned by the whole Islamic world (along with the rest of the international community) have nonetheless reduced the Muslims, particularly the Muslim Diaspora living in the West, to negotiating the parameters of minority citizenship.

 

In Denmark the publication of the cartoons and the consequent Muslim outrage in Europe and in some parts of the world has increased the popularity of the populist anti-immigration Danish Peoples Party which openly says that Islam is not a religion but a terrorist organization. European antipathy towards Islam is grounded in history. The Crusades and the domination by the Ottoman Turks over a large part of European lands had fuelled anti-Islamic sentiments among the Europeans which had remained dormant as Christians of different denominations fought among themselves( not religious wars though) and in their struggle to colonize then pristine world unsullied by European lust and greed, and engineered the death and destruction of millions of people in the two Great Wars in the Twentieth century. Like infected blood anti-Muslim feelings flowing in the sub-terranean veins has now found renewed expressions. For example, when finally the issue of Turkey’s admission as a member of the European Union could not be delayed any longer some European nations have voiced opposition to Turkish membership. Austria which historically served as bulwark against Ottoman expansionism in Europe has suggested for a pan-European referendum on the question of Turkish membership. Former French President Valerie Giscard d’Estaing expressed the fear that Turkey’s membership would spell the end of Europe. Other opponents include Slovakia, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Malta and Cyprus. Prominent German politician Wolfgang Schauble was skeptical about an EU with Turkey as a member would continue to be able to build “an ever closer political union or speak with one voice”, and suggested limiting the size of the European Union. Late last year France witnessed religious-race riots between           Muslim youths and the French authorities and their escalation to other European countries. Though apparently caused by the accidental death by electrocution of two Arab Muslim youths fleeing from the pursuit of the French police , the riots were basically caused by decades long socio-economic exclusion of Muslim immigrants brought into France from North Africa to shore up the post-War sagging French economy. Generally immigration is determined by the demands of the advanced metropolitan capitalism weighed against the disadvantages of socio-cultural asymmetry caused by the refusal/inability of the immigrants to fully assimilate with the values of the host country. This gives rise to “us” versus “them” feeling resulting in sharp division in society and consequent violence in which the authorities tend to take the side of the host country population  against the immigrants forgetting that the second or third generation immigrants are no less citizens of the country as those belonging to the majority community. Additionally the “failure” of the immigrants to fully integrate themselves with the mainstream life results in gaining political territory by anti-immigration political parties who play on the unfounded fear of the host country voters about the immigrants.

 

In response to the Organization of Islamic Countries’ condemnation of the “printing of blasphemous and insulting caricatures of Prophet Mohammed(SM)” which the Organization thought to be a “trap set up by fundamentalists and foster acts of revenge”; Danish Prime Minister Rasmussen felt that “freedom of speech is absolute (and) not negotiable” while a prominent Danish academic expressed the view that “people are inclined to see Islam and political extremism as two sides of the same coin”. His subsequent apology for the publication of the cartoons and his description of Denmark as a country tolerant of different religions and having an open society is too little too late.

 

One wonders whether the repeated onslaught on Muslim sensibilities through cleverly disguised provocations are not aimed at perpetuating Western minds along the views expressed by Bernard Lewis, among others, of Islam being an intolerant religion. “Islam was never prepared” writes Lewis “either in theory or in practice, to accord full equality to those who held other beliefs and practiced other forms of worship”. Besides, adds Bernard Lewis, there exists millennial rivalry between Islam and Christianity—a competing world religion, a distinctive civilization inspired by that religion.... the struggle between these rival systems has now lasted for some fourteen centuries.. and has continued virtually to the present day”. The other school of thought less severe on Islam for example, Samuel Huntington of Clash of Civilization fame observes: “The West won the world not by supremacy of ideas or values or religion but rather by superiority in applying organized violence. Westerners often forget this fact, non-Westerners never do”.

 

The whole episode about the cartoons’ portrayal of Prophet Mohammed_(SM) in unflattering terms appears to be more by design than by accident. Had the Danish Prime Minister Rasmussen not refused to see the Arab ambassadors when they sought a meeting with him to discuss about the cartoons’ publication last September the current explosion in the Islamic world could have been avoided. The situation deteriorated with the repeat publication of the cartoons in January in a small evangelical Christian newspaper in Norway and in other European countries and with the EU backing of the Danish position on inviolability of freedom of expression at the cost of hurting the religious sentiment of more than one billion Muslims all over the world. This arrogant display of an “inerrant” interpretation of right to expression leads one to look for other views.  “For a society to claim universal desirability” wrote Irish anthropologist Vincent Tucker “while turning its back on others from whom it is convinced it has nothing to learn, is not only cultural elitism, but cultural racism”.

 It becomes difficult to comprehend the inherent contradictions in making Woodrow Wilsonian promises to democratize the world( made once again in Bush 2006 State of the Union address) and lack of Western comprehension of Islamic fundamentalism’s repeated attempt to transcend the boundary of quietism. The West, unless it opts to retreat into some fortified areas of affluence to escape the contagion of religious extremism( a doubtful venture in this age of globalism and fraught with risk to its own security), would be better advised to cooperate with the moderate elements in the Muslim world engaged in their struggle with those imbibed with absolutist, “ inerrant” and arrogant confidence in the supremacy of their belief, for the soul of Islam.

Friday, 10/24/2008= 23 Shawwal, 1429 AH  Home Page Islamic Theology Human Relations Select Disciplines Comparative Religion Select Disciplines>>History>>The Muslim Population In The United States   Archeology    Art  Economy  Health  History  Political System  Science  Sociology  Women  Email List Subscription  Search  Feedback " A Brief Statement " By Fareed H. Numan December 1992 Slave  From the beginning of the cotton veil I held an oath as they made sail in the belly of the wooden whale That I would not fail to reach my home again All tied to the same chains with our new names, we remained- till our counted days. Listen to our call and hear the screams and pleas that one day we could be set free. God's promise to me. Out of it all we would come with great substance. Knowledge of, THE ONE. OVERVIEW Muslim social scientists and researchers have spent a great deal of time trying to determine the number of Muslims in the United States. Most accept the estimate of from 5 million to 8 million. That is to say at least 5 million people in North America claim Islam as their religion and/or practice. What is represented in this report is based on estimates made in 1991, the World Almanac reports that Muslim in the United States number approximately 5,220,00. The total worldwide Muslim population is generally estimated at slightly more that 1 billion. David Barrett's publication, "International Bulletin of Missionary Research" cites a lower figure, 988,004,000.  An exact figure of Muslim population in the United States is very difficult to make. The figures presented here are based on available data.  In the United States, there are essentially three categories of Muslims: 1) immigrants; 2) American converts/reverts to Islam; and 3) those born to the first two groups as Muslims.  The immigrant population of the United States is relatively easy to document because the Immigration and Naturalization Service, the Census Bureau, and other government agencies have been keeping records of immigrants. In order to arrive at our figures, we researched the history of Muslim ethnic groups around the world and then determined their percentage as Muslim. We then correlated this percentage with the number of Muslims in the United States, which enabled us to determine the percentage represented in the overall population.  Determining the number of indigenous Muslims was more difficult. In most cases, records have not been kept by any single source. To arrive at the number of American converts to Islam, we had to look at various groups' conversion rates and compare them against their mortality and fertility rates.  This is an on-going project, and AMC will keep the reader informed of new statistics through our quarterly publication, the AMC Report. The figures cited here represent a starting point for serious research on demographic data about the Muslim population of the United States.  U.S. Muslim Population Table Ethnic Grouping  Population 1000 (1990)  Percent of Total Muslim Population  Definition of Terms  African-  American  2,100 42.0  African-Americans: Those persons of African descent native to the United States of America.  South Asians 1,220 24.4  South-Asians: Those of Indian/Pakistani, Bangladeshi, Sri Lankan, or Afghan descent now residing in the United States as citizens or permanent residents.  Arabs 620  12.4 Arabs: People from Arabic-speaking countries of the Middle East and North Africa who are permanent residents or citizens of the United States.  Africans 260  5.2 Africans: People from the African continent who are citizens or permanent residents of the United States  Iranians 180  3.6 Iranians: People of Persian descent, usually from Iran, who are citizens or permanent residents.  Turks 120  2.4 Turkish: People of Turkish descent who are citizens ro permanent residents.  South East Asians  100 2.0  South East Asians: People of Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, Indochina, or the Phillippines.  American Whites 80 1.6  American Whites: Those of West European descent, who are native to the United States.  East Europeans 40 0.8  East Europeans: People from various regions of Eastern Europe.  Other 280  5.6 Other: All other groups.  Totals  5,000  100  Geographical Distribution:  The table below represents a breakdown by states of the largest Muslim communities in the United States. It shows that there are an estimated 3.3. million Muslims in these states. The figure represents 62 percent of the estimated 5 million Muslims living in the United States.  Muslim State Population Table  State  Muslim Population   (1,000)  Percentage Total Muslim Population  Percent of Total State Population  California 1,000  20.0 3.4  New York 800  16.0 4.7  Illinois 420  8.4 3.6  New Jersey 200  4.0 2.5  Indiana 180  3.6 3.2  Michigan 170  3.4 1.8  Virginia 150  3.0 2.4  Texas 140  2.8 0.7  Ohio 130  2.6 1.2  Maryland 70  1.4 1.4  * Estimates under column 2 have been rounded to the nearest even number.  The list below shows the number of facilities used by Muslims for religious activities and community affairs:    Mosques/Islamic Centers  843 Islamic Schools  165 Associations  426 Publications  89 There are 165 Islamic Schools in the United States, of which 92 are full time. Figures here for Masjids/Islamic Centers are based on our directory listings.  Note: The exact number of businesses owned and operated by Muslims is unavailable, but they are estimated in the thousands. These preliminary finding represent data collected during 1986-1992.   Information Resources  African Presence in Early America by Ivan Van Sertima, 1987  Deeper Roots by Abdullah Hakim Quick, 1990  Arab America Today (A Demographic Profile of Arab Americans) By John Zogby, 1990  A Survey of North American Muslims by El Tigani A. Abugideiri, June 1977  A Century of Islam in America by Yvonne Y. Haddad, 1986  Ethnic Distribution of American Muslims and selected Socio Economic Characteristics by Arif Ghayrur, 1984  The Demography of Islamic Nations by John Weeks, 1988  Islam in the United States: Review of Sources by Dr. Sulayman S. Nyang, 1988  Demographic Consequences of Minority Consciousness: An analysis By Salaha M. Abedin, 1980  World Population Data Sheet Population Reference Bureau, Inc. Washington DC, 1990  Statistical Abstract of the United States U.S. Department of Commerce Bureau of the Census, 1990  Muslim Peoples , A World Ethnographic Survey Edited by Richard V. Weeks, 1984, vol. II  Muslim Peoples, a World Ethnographic Survey by Richard V. Weeks, 1978  The 1991 Almanac 44th Edition , by Houghnton Mifflin Company, 1991  The Islamic Society of North America Directory of Islamic Centers, Schools, Masjids, and MSA Chapters 1989 Revised Edition  The Islamic Struggle in America by Hijrah Magazine, Oct./Nov. 1985  Seven Muslim Slaves by Abdul Hakim Muhammad 1983  Prince Among Slaves by Terry Alford, 1977  Nature Knows no Color Line by J.A. Rogers, 1952  African Muslims in Antebellum American by Allen Austin, 1984  The Arab World Published by the Arab-American Press, 1945  The United States and the Sultanate of Oman Produce by the Sultan Qaboos Center, The Middle East Institute Washington DC, 1990  The University of Alabama, A Pictorial History by Suzanne Rau Wolfe History of the First Muslim Mosque of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania by Jameelah A. Hakim, 1989  Reference: American Muslim Council (AMC)

 

 

 MARGINALIZATION OF MUSLIM POPULATION IN US PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION

(DRAFT FOR THE ARTICLE TO BE PUBLISHED ONSUNDAY THE  2^ND NOVEMBER 2008)

By Kazi Anwarul Masud( former Secretary and ambassador)

 

Lepers, untouchable, politically radioactive—Muslim Diaspora in the US  presently describe themselves  during the Presidential election to be held very soon. McCain camp reportedly tried to portray Barack Obama as a Muslim to scare away his supporters. Perhaps this was the  reason for Obama to reveal that his middle name is Stevens and not Hussein as was his father’s . He was brought up as a Christian. It is sad that in a multi-religious, multi-cultural nation of immigrants about 6 million Muslims have to prove their loyalty to a country where they are born and bred. According to American Muslim Council( AMC) there are three categories of Muslims: immigrants, American converts/reverts to Islam, and those born to first two groups as Muslims. California has about 20% Muslim population while New York 16%  of the total Muslim population. It is sadder that President Bush’s first Secretary of State General Colin Powell who broke with his party by endorsing Barak Obama for the Presidency was greatly disturbed by this anti-Muslim feeling. He told NBC’s Meet the Press: “Is there something wrong being a Muslim in this country? The answer is no, that’s not America”. Powell apparently felt very srongly about the canard about Muslims because he saw a photo he saw in The New Yorker magazine of a mother of a Muslim soldier embracing her son’s grave at Arlington Cemetery.    If Bush doctrine of preemption shocked the Europeans it shook the seemingly peaceful foundation of the Islamic world. Yet the entire Muslim world stood alongside the Americans in their grief after the terrorist attacks of 9/11. So when the Talibans were decimated and driven out of Afghanistan the Islamic world supported the NATO actions against the Talibans. But when Iraq was invaded on what now appears to be on untenable and illegal grounds the Muslims as no less the Europeans and the less xenophobic part of the American people    refused to sanction Anglo-American misadventure. Colin Powell’s assertion of Bush administration’s belief in a strategy of global partnership for the war on terror failed to calm the fear of a disbelieving world. Equally President Bush’s West Point address of June 2002 urging the governments of the Islamic countries to listen to the hopes of their citizens for the same freedoms and opportunities as available in the West did not elicit uniform enthusiasm. Historian Bernard Lewis interpreted the “Muslim Rage” in terms of millennial rivalry between the two world religions caused by the sense of humiliation felt by the Muslims over being defeated by the “inferior Christians and the Jews”. Lewis’ interpretation of inter-faith tension, despite his outstanding intellect, was criticized by Edward Said who accused Lewis of advancing political agenda under the cloak of scholarship .The Muslim point of view has been reflected in the recently published Arab Human Development Report (AHDR2003) which observed that the adoption of extreme security measures and policies by a number of western countries exceeded their original goals and led to the erosion of civil and political liberties diminishing the welfare of the Arabs and Muslims living in those countries. These freedom-constraining policies have also encouraged the adoption of THE ARAB CHARTER AGAINST TERRORISM allowing censorship, detention and torture. It is therefore not surprising that the American advocacy of redressing democracy deficit in the Islamic world is taken with a pinch of salt. Yet the second Bush administration is expected to press on with the Greater Middle East Initiative because it is believed that: - (a) US support for democracy is extended as a matter of principle, (b) US will prosper more in a world of democracies than in a world of authoritarian or chaotic regimes, (c) history testifies that democracies do not wage wars against other democracies, (d) quantitative increase in democracy leads to qualitative improvement in diplomacy, and (e) democracy is closely linked with prosperity for which peaceful and predictable transition  of power is essential. It is further surmised that the US will no longer tolerate “democratic exceptions” in parts of the Muslim world for the sake of its self-interest. But the most recent decision of President Parvez Musharraf to continue as the head of Pakistan army violating the agreement he had concluded with the opposition parties that he would relinquish the post of army head at the end of this year does not speak very highly of American determination to bring about democracy in the Islamic world. Given Pakistan’s close partnership with the US in the war on terror it is inconceivable that President Musharraf could have taken this decision without US blessings. It is therefore quite possible that one democratic exception could lead to many other autocrats to seek a way out of the American imposed pluralism.

 

It is generally accepted that one-size-fit-all cannot be a sustainable foreign policy option for any major power. However moralistic a policy can be it can never be purely altruistic and must always be self-interested. Therefore it is unlikely that the second Bush administration would push on with its mission of Greater Middle East Initiative if it were found to be in conflict with the war on terror. It is unfortunate but true that in the eyes of the ordinary Westerners al=Qaedist terrorism is seen as being inspired by Islamists. Religious profiling of the Muslims in the US, reported job discrimination, verbal and sometimes physical abuse suffered by the Muslims living in the West are undeniable facts fuelling “spiraling progressive alienation” of the Muslims from the mainstream western society. This has prompted some Western intellectuals to conclude that Huntington’s clash of civilization has already materialized. While another school of thought would deny that there is any clash of civilizations between Islam and the West. They argue that the real battle is being fought within the Muslim civilization between ultra-conservatives and moderates and democrats for the soul of the Muslims who are caught in the crossfire between a westernized elite but oligarchic in character who hold effective power and the oppressed political opposition who take the form of apocalyptic nihilism striking out violently to expel the “infidels” who they believe are sustaining the oligarchs. That there is a crying need to democratize these islands of autocracy is to state the obvious. This need has been reinforced by the findings of the Freedom House survey (2001-2002) of free countries around the world that while the number of “free” nations increased by nearly three dozens over the past 20 years not one of them was a Muslim majority state. Since lack of democratic pluralism has been identified as the primary cause behind Islamic extremism it is possible that the second Bush administration would not abandon its mission to bring meaningful freedom to the Muslim states whose population is still denied a voice in the governance in their own countries.

The Islamic world today is undeniably passing through a critical time in its history fuelled by prejudice, bigotry and various other forms of discrimination used by Western societies against Muslims worldwide. To blame the West for this kind of behavior will not be helpful. After all the Western response has been caused in order to confront al-Qaedist terrorism in the US, Europe, Africa and in several Islamic countries as well. A small venal group spreading lethality in the name of Islam has stigmatized Muslims. The depth of Western anger can be gauged by the fact that Senator Kerry is accused of waffling on Iraq and American public do not appear to see another Vietnam in Iraq yet despite increasing casualties of coalition forces. It is unlikely that the West would relent on the freedom-constraining regulations imposed on the Muslims or that Western society would feel comfortable with Muslims as neighbors and working in their societies along side them. It took Europeans almost fifty years to get comfortable with the Germans though Nazism was physically annihilated by the allied victors and totally rejected by the Germans in 1945. Despite German membership of NATO it took the Kosovo crisis for the NATO allies to invite Germany to participate in the Kosovo campaign.

 

One wonders whether Western rejection would not force the Islamic world, regardless of its lack of monolithic character and housing divergent philosophies, to be introverted and a part of it intuitively adopting violence as an expression of frustration. This grim scenario can become more terrifying if the West were to increase their violence, because the degree of violence is proportional to the instruments of violence used and the West has a surfeit of such instruments, by expanding their “area of operation” by including Iran, Syria and who knows which other country would be the next. The US has not fared well in Afghanistan and Iraq and is not expected to do so in future. What is essential to regain the lost confidence is to have inter-faith dialogue or something like the South African Truth Commission and opening doors to people of all races and religions and not to shut the door only because a few non-covenanted would sneak in through the open door.

 

POLITICAL LEFT AND ISLAMIC FUNDAMENTALISM

 (FOR PUBLICATION ON SUNDAY THE 11^TH MARCH 2007)

By Kazi Anwarul Masud (former Secretary and ambassador)

 

With the end of the cold war and the demise of the Soviet Union the appeal for communist ideology has diminished the world over. Even China practicing capitalism in its economy would be called revisionist if the “purists” among the practicetioners of communism had their way. It would, however, be a hasty conclusion that the wave of left philosophy, defined as “that current of thought, politics and policy that stresses social improvements over macroeconomic orthodoxy, egalitarian distribution of wealth over its creation, sovereignty over international cooperation, democracy over governmental effectiveness”, has lost its appeal completely in the world. Former Mexican Foreign Minister Jorge Castaneda   discerns two types of left in Latin America today: the first being modern, open minded, reformist and internationalist while the other is nationalist, strident and close-minded. In his view the disappearance of the USSR has led to a surge of leftism in Latin America because its supporters could no longer be accused by the United States as being lackeys of the Soviet Union. Extreme inequality, poverty, dispossession of power gave the majority of the poor people their voting right as the only instrument left to register protest and also to regain some role in the process of decision making. Brazil’s Lula, Chile’s Michelle Bachelet, Bolivia’s Evo Morales, and Nicaragua’s Daniel Ortega are examples of growing leftist power in America’s backyard. It would be erroneous to lump them together as cohabitants of Castro-Chavez trail of the left strand in the region. But nonetheless they all represent a no-confidence vote against the unrestrained capitalism raging in the globalized world ruled by the West whose power lies, according to political analyst  Ziauddin Sardar, not “in its economic muscle and technological might (but) in its power to define what is, for example, freedom, progress, civil behavior... The non-Western civilization has simply to accept   these definitions or be defined out of existence”.

 

The silent revolution taking place in many countries of the East, once described by late Edward Said as the colonies of the West yet its cultural contestant, can be compared with those taking place in Latin America. The reason for this opposition to the Western model of economic development while embracing its open and pluralistic political system is because the benefits from economic progress have eluded the great majority of the people, barring some vertical movement of fortunate few from destitution to opulence giving rise to debate on the immorality of their acquisition of wealth, remain mired in ultra-poverty with little light at the end of the tunnel. Low growth rates, writes Castaneda, have meant the persistence of dismal poverty, inequality, and high unemployment. “Democracy” he continues, “although welcomed and supported by broad swaths of Latin American societies did little to eradicate the region’s secular plagues: corruption, a weak or nonexistent rule of law, ineffective governance, and concentration of power in the hands of the few”.  This kind of scenery, common in the Third World, is no exception to Bangladesh where the ferocious rapacity of the four party alliance government in plundering the wealth of the people and the Orwellian tyranny let loose on the opposition and the minority community have induced in the people a craving for a government which yet remains to be given a proper constitutional form. But the people are happy that the extremely high possibility of the now displaced gang of politicians’ coming back to power through a manipulated election has become an impossibility and the corrupt who felt themselves to be above the law are being brought to account.

 

Democracy without the rule of law and more importantly without food on the table is meaningless. One has to decide whether the privilege of casting one’s vote once every five years while remaining ill-fed and ill-clad for the entire period carries the full meaning of democracy. But then again the fourth surge of democratization in former Eastern Europe following the disappearance of the Soviet empire strengthens anew the premise that deep down people, however poor they may be, is averse to be governed by an authority not of their own choosing.   Consequently we, in Bangladesh, are in a quandary. We do not know whether to press for an early election and risk electing a group of politicians, some of whom are likely to be corrupt, or to wait for a longer period for the Augean stable to be cleared up and then go for an election through which we can elect people who we can believe to deliver the goods.  

 

In this race, whenever it may take place, the political left has aligned itself with the progressive and secular elements in the country. If neighboring West Bengal is any example to be held aloft then one can safely say that unlike the Islamists who believe in one man- one vote- one time the political left is unlikely to abandon pluralism. But the stark reality is that the political left could not gain enough votes in elections to become a credible voice in the country’s politics. The reasons are not difficult to find.  While India after partition in 1947 chose to be non-aligned Pakistan in search of security against a powerful India chose to bind itself to US led military pacts (SEATO, CENTO etc) and consequently blindly followed American cold war dictates including ban on left political parties and persecution of left party leaders. In addition the rightists were able to convince the people that the left, particularly the Communists, were Godless people and should be abjured. Only after the liberation of Bangladesh in 1971 that the left political parties were allowed free participation in the political process. Jamat-e-Islami, the standard bearer of the fundamentalists, on the other hand, except for a brief period of ban due to their collaboration with the occupying Pakistani army, had a free hand in politics and through religious schools, now thought to number sixty four thousand, continued to profess political Islam aimed at establishing an Islamist nation  to be ruled according to the dictates of the Holy Quran and Sunnah. Under the present global context Bangladeshis would have to be careful while casting votes that they do not mix the professed benefits of the post-death world with the assuredly disadvantages that go with an Islamist rule in the present day world.

 

RELIGION AND POLITICS (FOR PUBLICATION ON SUNDAY THE 23^RD OCTOBER 2005)

 

By Kazi Anwarul Masud( former Secretary and ambassador)

 

Perhaps both the great Arab historian Ibn Khaldun and Scottish philosopher David Hume (who greatly influenced Skepticism and Empiricism school of thought) shared oscillation theory in their observation of religion. While Ibn Khaldun believed that popular religion in Muslim societies tended to oscillate between periods of strict religious observance and of devotional laxity; David Hume believed that men changed from polytheism to monotheism, not in a continuous unilineal change,  and back again because “men have a natural tendency to rise from idolatry to theism and sent again from theism to idolatry”. This oscillation, argues Hume, is not caused by thoughtful and considered reasoning but by politics of fear, uncertainty and a “kind of competitive sycophancy”. Hume was, therefore, not surprised that Hercules, Thesus, Hector and Romulus were replaced by Dominic, Francis, Anthony and Benedict. Hume was a protestant and a skeptic at that. His distance from Catholic philosophy, however interesting, does not form the core of our discussion. What is important is the relevance of the commonality in the perception of Hume and Ibn Khaldun of oscillating devotion of human beings between monotheism and polytheism and also differences in the character of devotees in both creeds which have plunged the world today into a black hole of  holocaust because a minuscule part of the adherents of one creed would repeatedly inflict upon the world their weapons of hatred. It has been surmised that Christianity’s urging of its followers to give unto Caesar what is Caesar’s is because it initially flourished among the politically disinherited, among those who were persecuted for their belief in a monotheistic religion when “competitive sycophancy” obliged most people to practice idolatry because Caesar  had both gold and sword which an unseen God in His wisdom did not chose to use to save His followers from the jaws of death. It took the Christians thousand years to get relief  till Emperor Constantine converted himself to Christianity and Emperor Charlemagne converted Europe to Christendom. Before that time a faith born without political power could hardly had been expected to preach otherwise. By contrast the initial success of Islam was so rapid that it did not have to give anything unto Caesar and it spread its wings often at point of sword and grew into a rich civilization dominating a large part of Europe. By the eighth century  Muslims had conquered North Africa, the eastern shores of the Mediterranean, most of Spain, established bases in Italy, substantially reduced the size of the Eastern Roman Empire and besieged its capital Constantinople. The Ottoman Empire’s assault on the gates of Vienna could perhaps provide a background to the stringent Austrian opposition, though mellowed down temporarily, to start European Union’s talks for Turkey’s entry into the EU. If historian Bernard Lewis’ clash of civilization denoting those between Muslims and   Christians and post-Christians, rigid theocratic hierarchy vs. permissive secular modernism is to be given credence then one could imagine that the seat of non-Catholic Christianity has now taken residence in the White House combining both temporal and spiritual powers( how can one forget President Bush’s communion with God ordering him to attack Afghanistan and Iraq and to establish the State of Palestine). Whether the Americans have reelected an evangelist and fundamentalist as President could have been ignored by the world had not that person also at the same time been the most powerful man in the world presiding over a country described by some as one which has so much economic, cultural and military power not accrued by any nation since the days of the Roman Empire. One hopes that despite the horrific terrorist transgression into America—both physical and psychological—President Bush would not be totally converted to Bernard Lewis’ perception of the Muslim world’s “downward spiral of hate and spite, rage and self-pity, poverty and oppression” having been caused by the defeat of the Muslims at hands of the Judeo-Christian civilization but would retain his belief in the conviction expressed by John F. Kennedy in his posthumously published book A NATION OF IMMIGRANTS that Jefferson and Madison’s America would not see immigrants as ethnically-hyphenated (e.g. Arab-American) or as ethnicity of origin(e.g. a Bangladeshi). In reality, however, the Muslim Diaspora in the West is seen through tinted glass by their predominantly white neighbors (a recent survey shows that a majority of both whites and African-Americans favor a decrease in the current level of immigration) reminiscent of the internment of the Japanese-Americans during the Second World War. In self-defense the Muslims have adopted, as Professor Kay Deaux points out, many taxi drivers in New York city (immediately after 9/11) who by appearance could be labeled as Arabs or Muslims pasted American flags on the windscreen of their cars. Another tendency displayed by the Diaspora is to turn inward, a tendency to “circle the wagon” in the face of unfriendly stares which a western liberal values imbibed modern person would have been loathe to do under ordinary circumstances. Yet the stigmata was generally stamped on the Muslim community despite the realization that terrorism is not and had never been a proprietorial  element of Muslim faith and had been and continues to be practiced by others in abandon. Undoubtedly the current discontent prevalent in the Middle East has been a scapegoat as a primary cause of global turbulence. A deeper analysis would reveal that the present discontent of  the Muslim youth is primarily due to the failure of Pan Arab nationalism not only to deliver basic political goods but also to hide their failure the leaders strangulated the voice of dissent. Added to this was the acquiescence or blatant support extended by the West to these despots due to the demands of the then Cold War situation which fuelled Muslim anger. And of course a constant source of Muslim frustration has been occasioned by the unqualified support given to the Israeli genocidal and expansionist policies in the Middle East. While the expression of this anger and frustration through terrorism can never be justified because terrorism even in its most expansive definition can only be abhorred, one has to address the root causes of this malignancy not in terms of “defeat” of one civilization by another but to secure a coherent globalized society where prosperity and poverty are not totally segmented. It is natural for the West as it for the victims of terrorism in some developing countries to attack the terrorist where ever they may be as Plato had advised centuries back that the price of civilization is the need to defend its own material preconditions by force of arms if necessary. Equally it is necessary to recognize that the Muslims of the world differ substantially not only in their religious views but also in their politico-cultural orientation. Islam is trans-ethnic, trans-social and trans-national yet it is far from being homogenous as the simplistic view would tend one to believe. Indeed as Professor Ernest Gellner points out Islam provides “a scriptural faith; a completed one is available and there is no room for further accretion or for new prophets; also, there is no warrant for clergy, and hence for differentiation, and there is no need to differentiate between the church and the state, between what is God’s and what is Caesar’s”. But there are cleavages between the Sunnis and the Shiias(the current situation in Iraq provides the most glaring example); between the Arab and non-Arab Muslims; between those who believe in hereditary and hierarchical system as Bernard Lewis put it “The Imam is central to the Ismaila system of doctrine…the Imams were divinely inspired and infallible” and those who believe that no intermediary is necessary between God and His devotees. These differences have arisen with the passage of time and have caused both social and political conflicts. The merchants of death today are exploiting these differences not only to promote sectarian violence within the Islamic world but also to deny the fruits of technological advancement to the Muslim subalterns of the yesteryears. Our misfortune is that these ideologues of hatred, semi-literate themselves, are convincing the illiterate( of secular education) madrasha students of their inerrant moral and intellectual “superiority”  over others to the extent that these “others” being moral degenerates need to be physically eliminated to purify the earth of apostates. This kind of Hitlerian menace( who believe in superiority of faith in place of racial superiority) has now assaulted our shores. As it is  according to Human Development Index, Growth Competitive Index, Failed States Index and Transparency International’s Corruption Perception Index Bangladesh has fared miserably. Unless our authorities can free themselves from the vortex of being a politician who can see only up to the next elections and graduate themselves to the statust of a statesman who thinks of the next generation Bangladeshis may have to account for their failure to the elders of the global village.

 

HOW REAL ARE EURO-US DIFFERENCES?  15^th May 2003

By Kazi Anwarul Masud

 

(Retired Secretary to the Bangladesh government and former ambassador)

 

Timothy Garten Ash of the Oxford University echoing Robert Kagan (who provides the intellectual benchmark—reflecting the views of the current administration and not inconsiderable part of the foreign policy establishment and scholarship) said that in matters of strategy the Americans were from the Mars and the Europeans are from the Venus. He saw no “clash of civilizations” between Europe and America

As both belonged to the same historical roots and shared most of the values. The Kantian, internationalist, law based European approach to foreign policy, argued Timothy Ash, had been repeatedly advocated and embraced by the US since the end of the Second World War and therefore to call on the US to shun neo-conservatism and return to multilateralism based on international law was not a call for conversion to Europeanism but for a return of the US to its best traditions. A strong and united Europe compromising between neo-Atlanticism spearheaded by Britain and neo-Gaullism of France is in the best interest of the United States. It has been argued that Europeans must not abandon those diplomatic tools dismissed by neo-conservative Americans as ineffective e.g. Negotiations, multilateral institutions and engagements through economic development because the US despite its overwhelming military power vis-a vis the rest of the world does not have the capacity to follow through as demonstrated in Bosnia, Kosovo, Afghanistan and almost inevitably in Iraq. The superiority of the European values have already been demonstrated in Greece, Ireland, Portugal and Spain who rose up from fascist or clerical rule; overwhelmingly rural based economies; and mired in incorrigibly corrupt administrations into what they are today because of the will of the European people to make them a part of the Union. In his most recent commencement address at the University of South Carolina President Bush informed his audience that the combined GDP of all Arab states was smaller than that of Spain. Many have rejected alleged attempts by the present US administration to undermine European coherence by proclaiming Europe’s division into two irreconcilable and hostile blocs—old Europe and new Europe—in order to forcefully project unrivalled American economic, political and military power to serve the narrow American national interests as depicted in the Bush Security Strategy to the detriment of the rest of the world. Such rejection was further fortified by former Irish Prime Minister John Burton when he pointed out the economic relationship was by far the most important in the entire world and that European investment in Texas alone was greater than all US investment in Japan. He recognized that the Bush doctrine of preemption/prevention war “ is a big and potentially dangerous departure from the existing norms of inter-state behavior”. So, he suggested that EU should establish a comprehensive and formalized dialogue with the US on linked questions of preemptive wars, WMD, and terrorism in order to develop a new, predictable, well understood and intellectually sustainable doctrine of managing the post- nine eleven world. Indeed if one were to listen to Colin Powell’s address to the American Foreign Policy Association (on May 7, 2003) one would come away with the impression that Euro-US differences were not only transient but also cosmetic. Powell reminded his audience that for more than half a century ties between the US and her European allies have been “ the sinews of security, democracy and prosperity in the transatlantic region” and praised the EU and NATO’s willingness to accept the concept of “out of the area” by accepting engagements from Kosovo to Kabul to Kirkuk (in Iraq). He conceded that sometimes the US and EU/NATO disagreed but mostly over means  and not ends. Powell was at one with European prerogative to disagree with the US because the consensus sought by them should be forged in “honest, open, rigorous debate (as) all is free and sovereign nations” entitled to their own opinion. At this consultative stage US has another decisive advantage over Europe that it can project its views through a single agency, the Presidency bolstered by the Congress, a process in which America’s fifty odd states have no say at all whereas the diverse interest of the EU members are always reflected in foreign policy (e.g. British neo-atlanticism and French particularism).

 

While Colin Powell’s reassurances are encouraging it would be imprudent to paper over EU-US differences. It is time to stop pretending, wrote Robert Kagan, that Europeans and Americans share a common view of the world or even occupy the same world. According to him Europe” is entering a post-historical paradise of peace and relative prosperity, the realization of Kant’s ‘perpetual paradise’. The United States, meanwhile, exercising power in the anarchic Hobbesian world where international laws and rules are unreliable and where true security and defense and promotion of liberal order still depend on the possession of military might. That is why on major strategic and international questions today, Americans are from Mars and Europeans are from Venus”. It is not difficult to find out the differences in this prismatic variant. They differ as to when diplomacy should end and bombs should start to fall. Europe largely remains unconvinced of the efficacy of the doctrine of preemption/prevention; marginalization of the UN by the US (Powell would ask the UN to play a vital role in Iraq while the major powers on the UNSC, NATO and EU would have a special role to play in facing the challenges of the new century); and assigning international law to a secondary role to military power (which the Europeans find alien and appalling).

 

Do the Americans have a case in their favor? Perhaps. Tomas Vaslek (Director, CDI, Brussels) argues that in the changed world of post-nine the UN system set up to regulate inter-state relations is now faced with the advent of globally organized terrorist groups or non-state actors. These non-state actors taking advantage of failing and failed states necessitated the adoption of UNSC resolution 748(1992) making states responsible for the actions of the terrorists. So when the Talibans were driven out of Afghanistan, in a way Law of War was revised, and the world concurred. Definition of self-defense as given in the UN Charter, some feel, needs revision due to change in technological nature of the threat. If the reaction time is too short then should the “intended victim” wait till it is attacked so that self-defense measures can be taken?Elihu Root, US Secretary of War(1899-1904) defined self-defense as “the right of every sovereign state to protect itself by preventing a condition of affairs in which it will be too late to protect itself”. Defense of the doctrine of preemption/prevention war was germane to Elihu Root’s definition as in the notes of Antonio Cassese; former President of ICC for Yugoslavia that current justification of self-defense against has become fuzzy because of the advent of non-state actors. Another factor was added by the dissolution of Yugoslavia and consequent Bosnia, Croatia and Kosovo crisis. The question arose whether state sovereignty should remain inviolable if large-scale human rights violations/genocide occur. Despite article 2(7) of the UN Charter relating to territorial integrity regardless of what is happening within the territory; 1999 NATO bombings of Serbia into submission established the principle that sovereignty does not allow waging war against one’s own people. So Slovodan Milasovich is now being tried as a war criminal by the Hague Tribunal This is breaking of new ground of the “humanitarian war” doctrine.

 

Given European (Britain excluded) reservation on Bush doctrine of preemption/preventive war coupled with their inability to stop the Americans to do as they please; Europe is left with the option of revising the Law of War in concert with those Americans who believe in the multilateral system. As Harvard professor Joseph Nye concluded that while the US was too powerful to be challenged by any nation state, it was not strong enough to solve new transnational problems by itself. US would therefore have to define its interests in congruence with those of other states particularly of Europe. It would therefore be fallacious to assume that US-Europe differences would be allowed to run deep to fracture the institutional and structural bonds already existing between these countries. Economic ties are too strong. Cultural ties are historical. Racially majority of the Europeans and Americans are Caucasians and by religion Christians. Kalypso Nicolaides of Oxford University advises both to learn to live together as they had been doing for so long despite their current differences; define a constructive and conscious division of labor; EU should not approach the US power in structural terms—unipolar or multipolar, friends or rivals; Europe must recognize that the world beyond Europe is closer to a pre-Kantian world with a great number if Hobbesian islands in the form of rogue states, failed or failing states, and local zones of conflict. Nicolaides feels that time has come to revisit the UN Charter regarding the link of enforcement of its fundamental norms (human rights, non-proliferation) and the use of force or coercive diplomacy which in any case has been used repeatedly from Kosovo to Sierra Leone.

 

While the West without great efforts may find consummation of their seemingly differing strands of behavior; the problem of any forcible revision of the UN Charter and norms of international law so long regarded as sacramental would be disastrous for the Third World. In a fluid and inconstant world where the behavior of the rich and the powerful may not be predictable and constrained by universal moral code of conduct, let alone international law, the small and the weak may face enslavement of sorts by the comparatively more powerful nations. In such situations North Korean aberrant nuclear policy may appear to some as a sound logic for providing ultimate defense against predator states. It is therefore necessary that people from Mars be aware of their limitations and act in concert with the people from Venus who have found over centuries the usefulness of compromise over conviction.

 

DANISH CARTOONS AND FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION( FOR PUBLICATION ON SUNDAY THE 12^TH FEBRUARY 2006)

 

By Kazi Anwarul Masud( former Secretary and ambassador)

 

Unsavory characterization of Prophet Mohammed(SM) in the cartoons published by a Danish newspaper and reproduced by several European newspapers have brought to the fore the modern debate on limits of freedom of expression and speech. It is generally accepted that freedom of expression is circumscribed by its adverse fall out on the dignity of the individual(libel) or the majesty of the divinity(blasphemy). Society by definition being a conglomeration of diverse individuals societal responsibility demands that rights of the members of the society not be intruded upon. Libel laws exist in a variety of forms to safeguard the individual honor. Similarly, blasphemy laws enacted in many countries, though increasingly falling into disuse, are aimed at protecting the majesty of God. Black’s Law Dictionary defines blasphemy as “ any oral or written reproach maliciously cast upon God, His name, attributes or religion”. Catholic Encyclopedia considers blasphemy as heretical when insult to God involves a declaration that is against the faith; imprecatory when it would cry a malediction upon Divinity; and contumacious when it is wholly made up of contempt or indignation towards God. Interestingly British Criminal law contains in its statute book law relating to blasphemy even today though it was developed mainly during the 18^th century to protect the Anglican version of Christianity. As late as 1979 the House of Lords upheld a prosecution on charge of blasphemy centering on the publication of an erotic homosexual poem about Jesus Christ in a British weekly. When the decision was challenged the European Court of Human Rights ruled that protection for religious freedom was superior in this case to protection of freedom of expression.

 

The arguments proffered in this essay are not for enacting blasphemy laws. On the contrary the First Amendment to the US Constitution insisting that “Congress shall make no laws respecting an establishment of religion”, a declaration powerfully pursued by the US Supreme Court to ensure separation of the Church from the State and generally emulated by developed economies, should act as beacon light to ships sailing against the tumultuous waves of the 21^st century seas.

 

With the virtual disappearance of communism from its European strongholds Karl Marx’s description of religion as opiate of man  has lost favor with majority of the people of the world. Dethronement of atheism has, perhaps, resulted in peoples’ greater devotion to established religions than what would have otherwise been expected to happen. Though an inverse relationship between wealth and religiosity is believed to be axiomatic yet the description of the US, the largest economy in the world, as “a poster child of super natural belief” is profoundly telling. Supernatural belief, according to anthropologist Edward Taylor, is the “minimum definition of religion”. Just about any American, blessed with the material advantages of technological age, believe in God in the biblical sense along with miracles, angels, devils and after life. This belief in the super natural is not confined to Christian Conservatives, once described by the Washington Post as “largely poor, the uneducated”, but for example, embraces about half of the scientific community of the US .

 

There is nothing inherently wrong in being wealthy and religious. Indeed some psychologists have concluded that belief in God is “bred in the bone”, it is instinctive and natural and not necessarily learnt. The problem is not in the contradiction between religiosity and atheism/agnosticism but in the continuing war between religions. Historian Webster’s description of the Thirty Years’ War as “the last great war of religion” could not have been more misplaced if one were to chronicle the persecution of the Jews at the hands of the Christians for centuries and the current tension between the Islamic and the Judeo-Christian civilizations. The terrorist attacks of 9/11 though carried out by a handful of renegades in the name of Islam and condemned by the whole Islamic world (along with the rest of the international community) have nonetheless reduced the Muslims, particularly the Muslim Diaspora living in the West, to negotiating the parameters of minority citizenship.

 

In Denmark the publication of the cartoons and the consequent Muslim outrage in Europe and in some parts of the world has increased the popularity of the populist anti-immigration Danish Peoples Party which openly says that Islam is not a religion but a terrorist organization. European antipathy towards Islam is grounded in history. The Crusades and the domination by the Ottoman Turks over a large part of European lands had fuelled anti-Islamic sentiments among the Europeans which had remained dormant as Christians of different denominations fought among themselves( not religious wars though) and in their struggle to colonize then pristine world unsullied by European lust and greed, and engineered the death and destruction of millions of people in the two Great Wars in the Twentieth century. Like infected blood anti-Muslim feelings flowing in the sub-terranean veins has now found renewed expressions. For example, when finally the issue of Turkey’s admission as a member of the European Union could not be delayed any longer some European nations have voiced opposition to Turkish membership. Austria which historically served as bulwark against Ottoman expansionism in Europe has suggested for a pan-European referendum on the question of Turkish membership. Former French President Valerie Giscard d’Estaing expressed the fear that Turkey’s membership would spell the end of Europe. Other opponents include Slovakia, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Malta and Cyprus. Prominent German politician Wolfgang Schauble was skeptical about an EU with Turkey as a member would continue to be able to build “an ever closer political union or speak with one voice”, and suggested limiting the size of the European Union. Late last year France witnessed religious-race riots between           Muslim youths and the French authorities and their escalation to other European countries. Though apparently caused by the accidental death by electrocution of two Arab Muslim youths fleeing from the pursuit of the French police , the riots were basically caused by decades long socio-economic exclusion of Muslim immigrants brought into France from North Africa to shore up the post-War sagging French economy. Generally immigration is determined by the demands of the advanced metropolitan capitalism weighed against the disadvantages of socio-cultural asymmetry caused by the refusal/inability of the immigrants to fully assimilate with the values of the host country. This gives rise to “us” versus “them” feeling resulting in sharp division in society and consequent violence in which the authorities tend to take the side of the host country population  against the immigrants forgetting that the second or third generation immigrants are no less citizens of the country as those belonging to the majority community. Additionally the “failure” of the immigrants to fully integrate themselves with the mainstream life results in gaining political territory by anti-immigration political parties who play on the unfounded fear of the host country voters about the immigrants.

 

In response to the Organization of Islamic Countries’ condemnation of the “printing of blasphemous and insulting caricatures of Prophet Mohammed(SM)” which the Organization thought to be a “trap set up by fundamentalists and foster acts of revenge”; Danish Prime Minister Rasmussen felt that “freedom of speech is absolute (and) not negotiable” while a prominent Danish academic expressed the view that “people are inclined to see Islam and political extremism as two sides of the same coin”. His subsequent apology for the publication of the cartoons and his description of Denmark as a country tolerant of different religions and having an open society is too little too late.

 

One wonders whether the repeated onslaught on Muslim sensibilities through cleverly disguised provocations are not aimed at perpetuating Western minds along the views expressed by Bernard Lewis, among others, of Islam being an intolerant religion. “Islam was never prepared” writes Lewis “either in theory or in practice, to accord full equality to those who held other beliefs and practiced other forms of worship”. Besides, adds Bernard Lewis, there exists millennial rivalry between Islam and Christianity—a competing world religion, a distinctive civilization inspired by that religion.... the struggle between these rival systems has now lasted for some fourteen centuries.. and has continued virtually to the present day”. The other school of thought less severe on Islam for example, Samuel Huntington of Clash of Civilization fame observes: “The West won the world not by supremacy of ideas or values or religion but rather by superiority in applying organized violence. Westerners often forget this fact, non-Westerners never do”.

 

The whole episode about the cartoons’ portrayal of Prophet Mohammed_(SM) in unflattering terms appears to be more by design than by accident. Had the Danish Prime Minister Rasmussen not refused to see the Arab ambassadors when they sought a meeting with him to discuss about the cartoons’ publication last September the current explosion in the Islamic world could have been avoided. The situation deteriorated with the repeat publication of the cartoons in January in a small evangelical Christian newspaper in Norway and in other European countries and with the EU backing of the Danish position on inviolability of freedom of expression at the cost of hurting the religious sentiment of more than one billion Muslims all over the world. This arrogant display of an “inerrant” interpretation of right to expression leads one to look for other views.  “For a society to claim universal desirability” wrote Irish anthropologist Vincent Tucker “while turning its back on others from whom it is convinced it has nothing to learn, is not only cultural elitism, but cultural racism”.

 It becomes difficult to comprehend the inherent contradictions in making Woodrow Wilsonian promises to democratize the world( made once again in Bush 2006 State of the Union address) and lack of Western comprehension of Islamic fundamentalism’s repeated attempt to transcend the boundary of quietism. The West, unless it opts to retreat into some fortified areas of affluence to escape the contagion of religious extremism( a doubtful venture in this age of globalism and fraught with risk to its own security), would be better advised to cooperate with the moderate elements in the Muslim world engaged in their struggle with those imbibed with absolutist, “ inerrant” and arrogant confidence in the supremacy of their belief, for the soul of Islam.

Friday, 10/24/2008= 23 Shawwal, 1429 AH  Home Page Islamic Theology Human Relations Select Disciplines Comparative Religion Select Disciplines>>History>>The Muslim Population In The United States   Archeology    Art  Economy  Health  History  Political System  Science  Sociology  Women  Email List Subscription  Search  Feedback " A Brief Statement " By Fareed H. Numan December 1992 Slave  From the beginning of the cotton veil I held an oath as they made sail in the belly of the wooden whale That I would not fail to reach my home again All tied to the same chains with our new names, we remained- till our counted days. Listen to our call and hear the screams and pleas that one day we could be set free. God's promise to me. Out of it all we would come with great substance. Knowledge of, THE ONE. OVERVIEW Muslim social scientists and researchers have spent a great deal of time trying to determine the number of Muslims in the United States. Most accept the estimate of from 5 million to 8 million. That is to say at least 5 million people in North America claim Islam as their religion and/or practice. What is represented in this report is based on estimates made in 1991, the World Almanac reports that Muslim in the United States number approximately 5,220,00. The total worldwide Muslim population is generally estimated at slightly more that 1 billion. David Barrett's publication, "International Bulletin of Missionary Research" cites a lower figure, 988,004,000.  An exact figure of Muslim population in the United States is very difficult to make. The figures presented here are based on available data.  In the United States, there are essentially three categories of Muslims: 1) immigrants; 2) American converts/reverts to Islam; and 3) those born to the first two groups as Muslims.  The immigrant population of the United States is relatively easy to document because the Immigration and Naturalization Service, the Census Bureau, and other government agencies have been keeping records of immigrants. In order to arrive at our figures, we researched the history of Muslim ethnic groups around the world and then determined their percentage as Muslim. We then correlated this percentage with the number of Muslims in the United States, which enabled us to determine the percentage represented in the overall population.  Determining the number of indigenous Muslims was more difficult. In most cases, records have not been kept by any single source. To arrive at the number of American converts to Islam, we had to look at various groups' conversion rates and compare them against their mortality and fertility rates.  This is an on-going project, and AMC will keep the reader informed of new statistics through our quarterly publication, the AMC Report. The figures cited here represent a starting point for serious research on demographic data about the Muslim population of the United States.  U.S. Muslim Population Table Ethnic Grouping  Population 1000 (1990)  Percent of Total Muslim Population  Definition of Terms  African-  American  2,100 42.0  African-Americans: Those persons of African descent native to the United States of America.  South Asians 1,220 24.4  South-Asians: Those of Indian/Pakistani, Bangladeshi, Sri Lankan, or Afghan descent now residing in the United States as citizens or permanent residents.  Arabs 620  12.4 Arabs: People from Arabic-speaking countries of the Middle East and North Africa who are permanent residents or citizens of the United States.  Africans 260  5.2 Africans: People from the African continent who are citizens or permanent residents of the United States  Iranians 180  3.6 Iranians: People of Persian descent, usually from Iran, who are citizens or permanent residents.  Turks 120  2.4 Turkish: People of Turkish descent who are citizens ro permanent residents.  South East Asians  100 2.0  South East Asians: People of Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, Indochina, or the Phillippines.  American Whites 80 1.6  American Whites: Those of West European descent, who are native to the United States.  East Europeans 40 0.8  East Europeans: People from various regions of Eastern Europe.  Other 280  5.6 Other: All other groups.  Totals  5,000  100  Geographical Distribution:  The table below represents a breakdown by states of the largest Muslim communities in the United States. It shows that there are an estimated 3.3. million Muslims in these states. The figure represents 62 percent of the estimated 5 million Muslims living in the United States.  Muslim State Population Table  State  Muslim Population   (1,000)  Percentage Total Muslim Population  Percent of Total State Population  California 1,000  20.0 3.4  New York 800  16.0 4.7  Illinois 420  8.4 3.6  New Jersey 200  4.0 2.5  Indiana 180  3.6 3.2  Michigan 170  3.4 1.8  Virginia 150  3.0 2.4  Texas 140  2.8 0.7  Ohio 130  2.6 1.2  Maryland 70  1.4 1.4  * Estimates under column 2 have been rounded to the nearest even number.  The list below shows the number of facilities used by Muslims for religious activities and community affairs:    Mosques/Islamic Centers  843 Islamic Schools  165 Associations  426 Publications  89 There are 165 Islamic Schools in the United States, of which 92 are full time. Figures here for Masjids/Islamic Centers are based on our directory listings.  Note: The exact number of businesses owned and operated by Muslims is unavailable, but they are estimated in the thousands. These preliminary finding represent data collected during 1986-1992.   Information Resources  African Presence in Early America by Ivan Van Sertima, 1987  Deeper Roots by Abdullah Hakim Quick, 1990  Arab America Today (A Demographic Profile of Arab Americans) By John Zogby, 1990  A Survey of North American Muslims by El Tigani A. Abugideiri, June 1977  A Century of Islam in America by Yvonne Y. Haddad, 1986  Ethnic Distribution of American Muslims and selected Socio Economic Characteristics by Arif Ghayrur, 1984  The Demography of Islamic Nations by John Weeks, 1988  Islam in the United States: Review of Sources by Dr. Sulayman S. Nyang, 1988  Demographic Consequences of Minority Consciousness: An analysis By Salaha M. Abedin, 1980  World Population Data Sheet Population Reference Bureau, Inc. Washington DC, 1990  Statistical Abstract of the United States U.S. Department of Commerce Bureau of the Census, 1990  Muslim Peoples , A World Ethnographic Survey Edited by Richard V. Weeks, 1984, vol. II  Muslim Peoples, a World Ethnographic Survey by Richard V. Weeks, 1978  The 1991 Almanac 44th Edition , by Houghnton Mifflin Company, 1991  The Islamic Society of North America Directory of Islamic Centers, Schools, Masjids, and MSA Chapters 1989 Revised Edition  The Islamic Struggle in America by Hijrah Magazine, Oct./Nov. 1985  Seven Muslim Slaves by Abdul Hakim Muhammad 1983  Prince Among Slaves by Terry Alford, 1977  Nature Knows no Color Line by J.A. Rogers, 1952  African Muslims in Antebellum American by Allen Austin, 1984  The Arab World Published by the Arab-American Press, 1945  The United States and the Sultanate of Oman Produce by the Sultan Qaboos Center, The Middle East Institute Washington DC, 1990  The University of Alabama, A Pictorial History by Suzanne Rau Wolfe History of the First Muslim Mosque of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania by Jameelah A. Hakim, 1989  Reference: American Muslim Council (AMC)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

.MARGINALIZATION OF MUSLIM POPULATION IN US PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION

(DRAFT FOR THE ARTICLE TO BE PUBLISHED ONSUNDAY THE  2^ND NOVEMBER 2008)

By Kazi Anwarul Masud( former Secretary and ambassador)

 

Lepers, untouchable, politically radioactive—Muslim Diaspora in the US  presently describe themselves  during the Presidential election to be held very soon. McCain camp reportedly tried to portray Barack Obama as a Muslim to scare away his supporters. Perhaps this was the  reason for Obama to reveal that his middle name is Stevens and not Hussein as was his father’s . He was brought up as a Christian. It is sad that in a multi-religious, multi-cultural nation of immigrants about 6 million Muslims have to prove their loyalty to a country where they are born and bred. According to American Muslim Council( AMC) there are three categories of Muslims: immigrants, American converts/reverts to Islam, and those born to first two groups as Muslims. California has about 20% Muslim population while New York 16%  of the total Muslim population. It is sadder that President Bush’s first Secretary of State General Colin Powell who broke with his party by endorsing Barak Obama for the Presidency was greatly disturbed by this anti-Muslim feeling. He told NBC’s Meet the Press: “Is there something wrong being a Muslim in this country? The answer is no, that’s not America”. Powell apparently felt very srongly about the canard about Muslims because he saw a photo he saw in The New Yorker magazine of a mother of a Muslim soldier embracing her son’s grave at Arlington Cemetery.    If Bush doctrine of preemption shocked the Europeans it shook the seemingly peaceful foundation of the Islamic world. Yet the entire Muslim world stood alongside the Americans in their grief after the terrorist attacks of 9/11. So when the Talibans were decimated and driven out of Afghanistan the Islamic world supported the NATO actions against the Talibans. But when Iraq was invaded on what now appears to be on untenable and illegal grounds the Muslims as no less the Europeans and the less xenophobic part of the American people    refused to sanction Anglo-American misadventure. Colin Powell’s assertion of Bush administration’s belief in a strategy of global partnership for the war on terror failed to calm the fear of a disbelieving world. Equally President Bush’s West Point address of June 2002 urging the governments of the Islamic countries to listen to the hopes of their citizens for the same freedoms and opportunities as available in the West did not elicit uniform enthusiasm. Historian Bernard Lewis interpreted the “Muslim Rage” in terms of millennial rivalry between the two world religions caused by the sense of humiliation felt by the Muslims over being defeated by the “inferior Christians and the Jews”. Lewis’ interpretation of inter-faith tension, despite his outstanding intellect, was criticized by Edward Said who accused Lewis of advancing political agenda under the cloak of scholarship .The Muslim point of view has been reflected in the recently published Arab Human Development Report (AHDR2003) which observed that the adoption of extreme security measures and policies by a number of western countries exceeded their original goals and led to the erosion of civil and political liberties diminishing the welfare of the Arabs and Muslims living in those countries. These freedom-constraining policies have also encouraged the adoption of THE ARAB CHARTER AGAINST TERRORISM allowing censorship, detention and torture. It is therefore not surprising that the American advocacy of redressing democracy deficit in the Islamic world is taken with a pinch of salt. Yet the second Bush administration is expected to press on with the Greater Middle East Initiative because it is believed that: - (a) US support for democracy is extended as a matter of principle, (b) US will prosper more in a world of democracies than in a world of authoritarian or chaotic regimes, (c) history testifies that democracies do not wage wars against other democracies, (d) quantitative increase in democracy leads to qualitative improvement in diplomacy, and (e) democracy is closely linked with prosperity for which peaceful and predictable transition  of power is essential. It is further surmised that the US will no longer tolerate “democratic exceptions” in parts of the Muslim world for the sake of its self-interest. But the most recent decision of President Parvez Musharraf to continue as the head of Pakistan army violating the agreement he had concluded with the opposition parties that he would relinquish the post of army head at the end of this year does not speak very highly of American determination to bring about democracy in the Islamic world. Given Pakistan’s close partnership with the US in the war on terror it is inconceivable that President Musharraf could have taken this decision without US blessings. It is therefore quite possible that one democratic exception could lead to many other autocrats to seek a way out of the American imposed pluralism.

 

It is generally accepted that one-size-fit-all cannot be a sustainable foreign policy option for any major power. However moralistic a policy can be it can never be purely altruistic and must always be self-interested. Therefore it is unlikely that the second Bush administration would push on with its mission of Greater Middle East Initiative if it were found to be in conflict with the war on terror. It is unfortunate but true that in the eyes of the ordinary Westerners al=Qaedist terrorism is seen as being inspired by Islamists. Religious profiling of the Muslims in the US, reported job discrimination, verbal and sometimes physical abuse suffered by the Muslims living in the West are undeniable facts fuelling “spiraling progressive alienation” of the Muslims from the mainstream western society. This has prompted some Western intellectuals to conclude that Huntington’s clash of civilization has already materialized. While another school of thought would deny that there is any clash of civilizations between Islam and the West. They argue that the real battle is being fought within the Muslim civilization between ultra-conservatives and moderates and democrats for the soul of the Muslims who are caught in the crossfire between a westernized elite but oligarchic in character who hold effective power and the oppressed political opposition who take the form of apocalyptic nihilism striking out violently to expel the “infidels” who they believe are sustaining the oligarchs. That there is a crying need to democratize these islands of autocracy is to state the obvious. This need has been reinforced by the findings of the Freedom House survey (2001-2002) of free countries around the world that while the number of “free” nations increased by nearly three dozens over the past 20 years not one of them was a Muslim majority state. Since lack of democratic pluralism has been identified as the primary cause behind Islamic extremism it is possible that the second Bush administration would not abandon its mission to bring meaningful freedom to the Muslim states whose population is still denied a voice in the governance in their own countries.

The Islamic world today is undeniably passing through a critical time in its history fuelled by prejudice, bigotry and various other forms of discrimination used by Western societies against Muslims worldwide. To blame the West for this kind of behavior will not be helpful. After all the Western response has been caused in order to confront al-Qaedist terrorism in the US, Europe, Africa and in several Islamic countries as well. A small venal group spreading lethality in the name of Islam has stigmatized Muslims. The depth of Western anger can be gauged by the fact that Senator Kerry is accused of waffling on Iraq and American public do not appear to see another Vietnam in Iraq yet despite increasing casualties of coalition forces. It is unlikely that the West would relent on the freedom-constraining regulations imposed on the Muslims or that Western society would feel comfortable with Muslims as neighbors and working in their societies along side them. It took Europeans almost fifty years to get comfortable with the Germans though Nazism was physically annihilated by the allied victors and totally rejected by the Germans in 1945. Despite German membership of NATO it took the Kosovo crisis for the NATO allies to invite Germany to participate in the Kosovo campaign.

 

One wonders whether Western rejection would not force the Islamic world, regardless of its lack of monolithic character and housing divergent philosophies, to be introverted and a part of it intuitively adopting violence as an expression of frustration. This grim scenario can become more terrifying if the West were to increase their violence, because the degree of violence is proportional to the instruments of violence used and the West has a surfeit of such instruments, by expanding their “area of operation” by including Iran, Syria and who knows which other country would be the next. The US has not fared well in Afghanistan and Iraq and is not expected to do so in future. What is essential to regain the lost confidence is to have inter-faith dialogue or something like the South African Truth Commission and opening doors to people of all races and religions and not to shut the door only because a few non-covenanted would sneak in through the open door.

 

POLITICAL LEFT AND ISLAMIC FUNDAMENTALISM

 (FOR PUBLICATION ON SUNDAY THE 11^TH MARCH 2007)

By Kazi Anwarul Masud (former Secretary and ambassador)

 

With the end of the cold war and the demise of the Soviet Union the appeal for communist ideology has diminished the world over. Even China practicing capitalism in its economy would be called revisionist if the “purists” among the practicetioners of communism had their way. It would, however, be a hasty conclusion that the wave of left philosophy, defined as “that current of thought, politics and policy that stresses social improvements over macroeconomic orthodoxy, egalitarian distribution of wealth over its creation, sovereignty over international cooperation, democracy over governmental effectiveness”, has lost its appeal completely in the world. Former Mexican Foreign Minister Jorge Castaneda   discerns two types of left in Latin America today: the first being modern, open minded, reformist and internationalist while the other is nationalist, strident and close-minded. In his view the disappearance of the USSR has led to a surge of leftism in Latin America because its supporters could no longer be accused by the United States as being lackeys of the Soviet Union. Extreme inequality, poverty, dispossession of power gave the majority of the poor people their voting right as the only instrument left to register protest and also to regain some role in the process of decision making. Brazil’s Lula, Chile’s Michelle Bachelet, Bolivia’s Evo Morales, and Nicaragua’s Daniel Ortega are examples of growing leftist power in America’s backyard. It would be erroneous to lump them together as cohabitants of Castro-Chavez trail of the left strand in the region. But nonetheless they all represent a no-confidence vote against the unrestrained capitalism raging in the globalized world ruled by the West whose power lies, according to political analyst  Ziauddin Sardar, not “in its economic muscle and technological might (but) in its power to define what is, for example, freedom, progress, civil behavior... The non-Western civilization has simply to accept   these definitions or be defined out of existence”.

 

The silent revolution taking place in many countries of the East, once described by late Edward Said as the colonies of the West yet its cultural contestant, can be compared with those taking place in Latin America. The reason for this opposition to the Western model of economic development while embracing its open and pluralistic political system is because the benefits from economic progress have eluded the great majority of the people, barring some vertical movement of fortunate few from destitution to opulence giving rise to debate on the immorality of their acquisition of wealth, remain mired in ultra-poverty with little light at the end of the tunnel. Low growth rates, writes Castaneda, have meant the persistence of dismal poverty, inequality, and high unemployment. “Democracy” he continues, “although welcomed and supported by broad swaths of Latin American societies did little to eradicate the region’s secular plagues: corruption, a weak or nonexistent rule of law, ineffective governance, and concentration of power in the hands of the few”.  This kind of scenery, common in the Third World, is no exception to Bangladesh where the ferocious rapacity of the four party alliance government in plundering the wealth of the people and the Orwellian tyranny let loose on the opposition and the minority community have induced in the people a craving for a government which yet remains to be given a proper constitutional form. But the people are happy that the extremely high possibility of the now displaced gang of politicians’ coming back to power through a manipulated election has become an impossibility and the corrupt who felt themselves to be above the law are being brought to account.

 

Democracy without the rule of law and more importantly without food on the table is meaningless. One has to decide whether the privilege of casting one’s vote once every five years while remaining ill-fed and ill-clad for the entire period carries the full meaning of democracy. But then again the fourth surge of democratization in former Eastern Europe following the disappearance of the Soviet empire strengthens anew the premise that deep down people, however poor they may be, is averse to be governed by an authority not of their own choosing.   Consequently we, in Bangladesh, are in a quandary. We do not know whether to press for an early election and risk electing a group of politicians, some of whom are likely to be corrupt, or to wait for a longer period for the Augean stable to be cleared up and then go for an election through which we can elect people who we can believe to deliver the goods.  

 

In this race, whenever it may take place, the political left has aligned itself with the progressive and secular elements in the country. If neighboring West Bengal is any example to be held aloft then one can safely say that unlike the Islamists who believe in one man- one vote- one time the political left is unlikely to abandon pluralism. But the stark reality is that the political left could not gain enough votes in elections to become a credible voice in the country’s politics. The reasons are not difficult to find.  While India after partition in 1947 chose to be non-aligned Pakistan in search of security against a powerful India chose to bind itself to US led military pacts (SEATO, CENTO etc) and consequently blindly followed American cold war dictates including ban on left political parties and persecution of left party leaders. In addition the rightists were able to convince the people that the left, particularly the Communists, were Godless people and should be abjured. Only after the liberation of Bangladesh in 1971 that the left political parties were allowed free participation in the political process. Jamat-e-Islami, the standard bearer of the fundamentalists, on the other hand, except for a brief period of ban due to their collaboration with the occupying Pakistani army, had a free hand in politics and through religious schools, now thought to number sixty four thousand, continued to profess political Islam aimed at establishing an Islamist nation  to be ruled according to the dictates of the Holy Quran and Sunnah. Under the present global context Bangladeshis would have to be careful while casting votes that they do not mix the professed benefits of the post-death world with the assuredly disadvantages that go with an Islamist rule in the present day world.

 

RELIGION AND POLITICS (FOR PUBLICATION ON SUNDAY THE 23^RD OCTOBER 2005)

 

By Kazi Anwarul Masud( former Secretary and ambassador)

 

Perhaps both the great Arab historian Ibn Khaldun and Scottish philosopher David Hume (who greatly influenced Skepticism and Empiricism school of thought) shared oscillation theory in their observation of religion. While Ibn Khaldun believed that popular religion in Muslim societies tended to oscillate between periods of strict religious observance and of devotional laxity; David Hume believed that men changed from polytheism to monotheism, not in a continuous unilineal change,  and back again because “men have a natural tendency to rise from idolatry to theism and sent again from theism to idolatry”. This oscillation, argues Hume, is not caused by thoughtful and considered reasoning but by politics of fear, uncertainty and a “kind of competitive sycophancy”. Hume was, therefore, not surprised that Hercules, Thesus, Hector and Romulus were replaced by Dominic, Francis, Anthony and Benedict. Hume was a protestant and a skeptic at that. His distance from Catholic philosophy, however interesting, does not form the core of our discussion. What is important is the relevance of the commonality in the perception of Hume and Ibn Khaldun of oscillating devotion of human beings between monotheism and polytheism and also differences in the character of devotees in both creeds which have plunged the world today into a black hole of  holocaust because a minuscule part of the adherents of one creed would repeatedly inflict upon the world their weapons of hatred. It has been surmised that Christianity’s urging of its followers to give unto Caesar what is Caesar’s is because it initially flourished among the politically disinherited, among those who were persecuted for their belief in a monotheistic religion when “competitive sycophancy” obliged most people to practice idolatry because Caesar  had both gold and sword which an unseen God in His wisdom did not chose to use to save His followers from the jaws of death. It took the Christians thousand years to get relief  till Emperor Constantine converted himself to Christianity and Emperor Charlemagne converted Europe to Christendom. Before that time a faith born without political power could hardly had been expected to preach otherwise. By contrast the initial success of Islam was so rapid that it did not have to give anything unto Caesar and it spread its wings often at point of sword and grew into a rich civilization dominating a large part of Europe. By the eighth century  Muslims had conquered North Africa, the eastern shores of the Mediterranean, most of Spain, established bases in Italy, substantially reduced the size of the Eastern Roman Empire and besieged its capital Constantinople. The Ottoman Empire’s assault on the gates of Vienna could perhaps provide a background to the stringent Austrian opposition, though mellowed down temporarily, to start European Union’s talks for Turkey’s entry into the EU. If historian Bernard Lewis’ clash of civilization denoting those between Muslims and   Christians and post-Christians, rigid theocratic hierarchy vs. permissive secular modernism is to be given credence then one could imagine that the seat of non-Catholic Christianity has now taken residence in the White House combining both temporal and spiritual powers( how can one forget President Bush’s communion with God ordering him to attack Afghanistan and Iraq and to establish the State of Palestine). Whether the Americans have reelected an evangelist and fundamentalist as President could have been ignored by the world had not that person also at the same time been the most powerful man in the world presiding over a country described by some as one which has so much economic, cultural and military power not accrued by any nation since the days of the Roman Empire. One hopes that despite the horrific terrorist transgression into America—both physical and psychological—President Bush would not be totally converted to Bernard Lewis’ perception of the Muslim world’s “downward spiral of hate and spite, rage and self-pity, poverty and oppression” having been caused by the defeat of the Muslims at hands of the Judeo-Christian civilization but would retain his belief in the conviction expressed by John F. Kennedy in his posthumously published book A NATION OF IMMIGRANTS that Jefferson and Madison’s America would not see immigrants as ethnically-hyphenated (e.g. Arab-American) or as ethnicity of origin(e.g. a Bangladeshi). In reality, however, the Muslim Diaspora in the West is seen through tinted glass by their predominantly white neighbors (a recent survey shows that a majority of both whites and African-Americans favor a decrease in the current level of immigration) reminiscent of the internment of the Japanese-Americans during the Second World War. In self-defense the Muslims have adopted, as Professor Kay Deaux points out, many taxi drivers in New York city (immediately after 9/11) who by appearance could be labeled as Arabs or Muslims pasted American flags on the windscreen of their cars. Another tendency displayed by the Diaspora is to turn inward, a tendency to “circle the wagon” in the face of unfriendly stares which a western liberal values imbibed modern person would have been loathe to do under ordinary circumstances. Yet the stigmata was generally stamped on the Muslim community despite the realization that terrorism is not and had never been a proprietorial  element of Muslim faith and had been and continues to be practiced by others in abandon. Undoubtedly the current discontent prevalent in the Middle East has been a scapegoat as a primary cause of global turbulence. A deeper analysis would reveal that the present discontent of  the Muslim youth is primarily due to the failure of Pan Arab nationalism not only to deliver basic political goods but also to hide their failure the leaders strangulated the voice of dissent. Added to this was the acquiescence or blatant support extended by the West to these despots due to the demands of the then Cold War situation which fuelled Muslim anger. And of course a constant source of Muslim frustration has been occasioned by the unqualified support given to the Israeli genocidal and expansionist policies in the Middle East. While the expression of this anger and frustration through terrorism can never be justified because terrorism even in its most expansive definition can only be abhorred, one has to address the root causes of this malignancy not in terms of “defeat” of one civilization by another but to secure a coherent globalized society where prosperity and poverty are not totally segmented. It is natural for the West as it for the victims of terrorism in some developing countries to attack the terrorist where ever they may be as Plato had advised centuries back that the price of civilization is the need to defend its own material preconditions by force of arms if necessary. Equally it is necessary to recognize that the Muslims of the world differ substantially not only in their religious views but also in their politico-cultural orientation. Islam is trans-ethnic, trans-social and trans-national yet it is far from being homogenous as the simplistic view would tend one to believe. Indeed as Professor Ernest Gellner points out Islam provides “a scriptural faith; a completed one is available and there is no room for further accretion or for new prophets; also, there is no warrant for clergy, and hence for differentiation, and there is no need to differentiate between the church and the state, between what is God’s and what is Caesar’s”. But there are cleavages between the Sunnis and the Shiias(the current situation in Iraq provides the most glaring example); between the Arab and non-Arab Muslims; between those who believe in hereditary and hierarchical system as Bernard Lewis put it “The Imam is central to the Ismaila system of doctrine…the Imams were divinely inspired and infallible” and those who believe that no intermediary is necessary between God and His devotees. These differences have arisen with the passage of time and have caused both social and political conflicts. The merchants of death today are exploiting these differences not only to promote sectarian violence within the Islamic world but also to deny the fruits of technological advancement to the Muslim subalterns of the yesteryears. Our misfortune is that these ideologues of hatred, semi-literate themselves, are convincing the illiterate( of secular education) madrasha students of their inerrant moral and intellectual “superiority”  over others to the extent that these “others” being moral degenerates need to be physically eliminated to purify the earth of apostates. This kind of Hitlerian menace( who believe in superiority of faith in place of racial superiority) has now assaulted our shores. As it is  according to Human Development Index, Growth Competitive Index, Failed States Index and Transparency International’s Corruption Perception Index Bangladesh has fared miserably. Unless our authorities can free themselves from the vortex of being a politician who can see only up to the next elections and graduate themselves to the statust of a statesman who thinks of the next generation Bangladeshis may have to account for their failure to the elders of the global village.

 

HOW REAL ARE EURO-US DIFFERENCES?  15^th May 2003

By Kazi Anwarul Masud

 

(Retired Secretary to the Bangladesh government and former ambassador)

 

Timothy Garten Ash of the Oxford University echoing Robert Kagan (who provides the intellectual benchmark—reflecting the views of the current administration and not inconsiderable part of the foreign policy establishment and scholarship) said that in matters of strategy the Americans were from the Mars and the Europeans are from the Venus. He saw no “clash of civilizations” between Europe and America

As both belonged to the same historical roots and shared most of the values. The Kantian, internationalist, law based European approach to foreign policy, argued Timothy Ash, had been repeatedly advocated and embraced by the US since the end of the Second World War and therefore to call on the US to shun neo-conservatism and return to multilateralism based on international law was not a call for conversion to Europeanism but for a return of the US to its best traditions. A strong and united Europe compromising between neo-Atlanticism spearheaded by Britain and neo-Gaullism of France is in the best interest of the United States. It has been argued that Europeans must not abandon those diplomatic tools dismissed by neo-conservative Americans as ineffective e.g. Negotiations, multilateral institutions and engagements through economic development because the US despite its overwhelming military power vis-a vis the rest of the world does not have the capacity to follow through as demonstrated in Bosnia, Kosovo, Afghanistan and almost inevitably in Iraq. The superiority of the European values have already been demonstrated in Greece, Ireland, Portugal and Spain who rose up from fascist or clerical rule; overwhelmingly rural based economies; and mired in incorrigibly corrupt administrations into what they are today because of the will of the European people to make them a part of the Union. In his most recent commencement address at the University of South Carolina President Bush informed his audience that the combined GDP of all Arab states was smaller than that of Spain. Many have rejected alleged attempts by the present US administration to undermine European coherence by proclaiming Europe’s division into two irreconcilable and hostile blocs—old Europe and new Europe—in order to forcefully project unrivalled American economic, political and military power to serve the narrow American national interests as depicted in the Bush Security Strategy to the detriment of the rest of the world. Such rejection was further fortified by former Irish Prime Minister John Burton when he pointed out the economic relationship was by far the most important in the entire world and that European investment in Texas alone was greater than all US investment in Japan. He recognized that the Bush doctrine of preemption/prevention war “ is a big and potentially dangerous departure from the existing norms of inter-state behavior”. So, he suggested that EU should establish a comprehensive and formalized dialogue with the US on linked questions of preemptive wars, WMD, and terrorism in order to develop a new, predictable, well understood and intellectually sustainable doctrine of managing the post- nine eleven world. Indeed if one were to listen to Colin Powell’s address to the American Foreign Policy Association (on May 7, 2003) one would come away with the impression that Euro-US differences were not only transient but also cosmetic. Powell reminded his audience that for more than half a century ties between the US and her European allies have been “ the sinews of security, democracy and prosperity in the transatlantic region” and praised the EU and NATO’s willingness to accept the concept of “out of the area” by accepting engagements from Kosovo to Kabul to Kirkuk (in Iraq). He conceded that sometimes the US and EU/NATO disagreed but mostly over means  and not ends. Powell was at one with European prerogative to disagree with the US because the consensus sought by them should be forged in “honest, open, rigorous debate (as) all is free and sovereign nations” entitled to their own opinion. At this consultative stage US has another decisive advantage over Europe that it can project its views through a single agency, the Presidency bolstered by the Congress, a process in which America’s fifty odd states have no say at all whereas the diverse interest of the EU members are always reflected in foreign policy (e.g. British neo-atlanticism and French particularism).

 

While Colin Powell’s reassurances are encouraging it would be imprudent to paper over EU-US differences. It is time to stop pretending, wrote Robert Kagan, that Europeans and Americans share a common view of the world or even occupy the same world. According to him Europe” is entering a post-historical paradise of peace and relative prosperity, the realization of Kant’s ‘perpetual paradise’. The United States, meanwhile, exercising power in the anarchic Hobbesian world where international laws and rules are unreliable and where true security and defense and promotion of liberal order still depend on the possession of military might. That is why on major strategic and international questions today, Americans are from Mars and Europeans are from Venus”. It is not difficult to find out the differences in this prismatic variant. They differ as to when diplomacy should end and bombs should start to fall. Europe largely remains unconvinced of the efficacy of the doctrine of preemption/prevention; marginalization of the UN by the US (Powell would ask the UN to play a vital role in Iraq while the major powers on the UNSC, NATO and EU would have a special role to play in facing the challenges of the new century); and assigning international law to a secondary role to military power (which the Europeans find alien and appalling).

 

Do the Americans have a case in their favor? Perhaps. Tomas Vaslek (Director, CDI, Brussels) argues that in the changed world of post-nine the UN system set up to regulate inter-state relations is now faced with the advent of globally organized terrorist groups or non-state actors. These non-state actors taking advantage of failing and failed states necessitated the adoption of UNSC resolution 748(1992) making states responsible for the actions of the terrorists. So when the Talibans were driven out of Afghanistan, in a way Law of War was revised, and the world concurred. Definition of self-defense as given in the UN Charter, some feel, needs revision due to change in technological nature of the threat. If the reaction time is too short then should the “intended victim” wait till it is attacked so that self-defense measures can be taken?Elihu Root, US Secretary of War(1899-1904) defined self-defense as “the right of every sovereign state to protect itself by preventing a condition of affairs in which it will be too late to protect itself”. Defense of the doctrine of preemption/prevention war was germane to Elihu Root’s definition as in the notes of Antonio Cassese; former President of ICC for Yugoslavia that current justification of self-defense against has become fuzzy because of the advent of non-state actors. Another factor was added by the dissolution of Yugoslavia and consequent Bosnia, Croatia and Kosovo crisis. The question arose whether state sovereignty should remain inviolable if large-scale human rights violations/genocide occur. Despite article 2(7) of the UN Charter relating to territorial integrity regardless of what is happening within the territory; 1999 NATO bombings of Serbia into submission established the principle that sovereignty does not allow waging war against one’s own people. So Slovodan Milasovich is now being tried as a war criminal by the Hague Tribunal This is breaking of new ground of the “humanitarian war” doctrine.

 

Given European (Britain excluded) reservation on Bush doctrine of preemption/preventive war coupled with their inability to stop the Americans to do as they please; Europe is left with the option of revising the Law of War in concert with those Americans who believe in the multilateral system. As Harvard professor Joseph Nye concluded that while the US was too powerful to be challenged by any nation state, it was not strong enough to solve new transnational problems by itself. US would therefore have to define its interests in congruence with those of other states particularly of Europe. It would therefore be fallacious to assume that US-Europe differences would be allowed to run deep to fracture the institutional and structural bonds already existing between these countries. Economic ties are too strong. Cultural ties are historical. Racially majority of the Europeans and Americans are Caucasians and by religion Christians. Kalypso Nicolaides of Oxford University advises both to learn to live together as they had been doing for so long despite their current differences; define a constructive and conscious division of labor; EU should not approach the US power in structural terms—unipolar or multipolar, friends or rivals; Europe must recognize that the world beyond Europe is closer to a pre-Kantian world with a great number if Hobbesian islands in the form of rogue states, failed or failing states, and local zones of conflict. Nicolaides feels that time has come to revisit the UN Charter regarding the link of enforcement of its fundamental norms (human rights, non-proliferation) and the use of force or coercive diplomacy which in any case has been used repeatedly from Kosovo to Sierra Leone.

 

While the West without great efforts may find consummation of their seemingly differing strands of behavior; the problem of any forcible revision of the UN Charter and norms of international law so long regarded as sacramental would be disastrous for the Third World. In a fluid and inconstant world where the behavior of the rich and the powerful may not be predictable and constrained by universal moral code of conduct, let alone international law, the small and the weak may face enslavement of sorts by the comparatively more powerful nations. In such situations North Korean aberrant nuclear policy may appear to some as a sound logic for providing ultimate defense against predator states. It is therefore necessary that people from Mars be aware of their limitations and act in concert with the people from Venus who have found over centuries the usefulness of compromise over conviction.

 

DANISH CARTOONS AND FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION( FOR PUBLICATION ON SUNDAY THE 12^TH FEBRUARY 2006)

 

By Kazi Anwarul Masud( former Secretary and ambassador)

 

Unsavory characterization of Prophet Mohammed(SM) in the cartoons published by a Danish newspaper and reproduced by several European newspapers have brought to the fore the modern debate on limits of freedom of expression and speech. It is generally accepted that freedom of expression is circumscribed by its adverse fall out on the dignity of the individual(libel) or the majesty of the divinity(blasphemy). Society by definition being a conglomeration of diverse individuals societal responsibility demands that rights of the members of the society not be intruded upon. Libel laws exist in a variety of forms to safeguard the individual honor. Similarly, blasphemy laws enacted in many countries, though increasingly falling into disuse, are aimed at protecting the majesty of God. Black’s Law Dictionary defines blasphemy as “ any oral or written reproach maliciously cast upon God, His name, attributes or religion”. Catholic Encyclopedia considers blasphemy as heretical when insult to God involves a declaration that is against the faith; imprecatory when it would cry a malediction upon Divinity; and contumacious when it is wholly made up of contempt or indignation towards God. Interestingly British Criminal law contains in its statute book law relating to blasphemy even today though it was developed mainly during the 18^th century to protect the Anglican version of Christianity. As late as 1979 the House of Lords upheld a prosecution on charge of blasphemy centering on the publication of an erotic homosexual poem about Jesus Christ in a British weekly. When the decision was challenged the European Court of Human Rights ruled that protection for religious freedom was superior in this case to protection of freedom of expression.

 

The arguments proffered in this essay are not for enacting blasphemy laws. On the contrary the First Amendment to the US Constitution insisting that “Congress shall make no laws respecting an establishment of religion”, a declaration powerfully pursued by the US Supreme Court to ensure separation of the Church from the State and generally emulated by developed economies, should act as beacon light to ships sailing against the tumultuous waves of the 21^st century seas.

 

With the virtual disappearance of communism from its European strongholds Karl Marx’s description of religion as opiate of man  has lost favor with majority of the people of the world. Dethronement of atheism has, perhaps, resulted in peoples’ greater devotion to established religions than what would have otherwise been expected to happen. Though an inverse relationship between wealth and religiosity is believed to be axiomatic yet the description of the US, the largest economy in the world, as “a poster child of super natural belief” is profoundly telling. Supernatural belief, according to anthropologist Edward Taylor, is the “minimum definition of religion”. Just about any American, blessed with the material advantages of technological age, believe in God in the biblical sense along with miracles, angels, devils and after life. This belief in the super natural is not confined to Christian Conservatives, once described by the Washington Post as “largely poor, the uneducated”, but for example, embraces about half of the scientific community of the US .

 

There is nothing inherently wrong in being wealthy and religious. Indeed some psychologists have concluded that belief in God is “bred in the bone”, it is instinctive and natural and not necessarily learnt. The problem is not in the contradiction between religiosity and atheism/agnosticism but in the continuing war between religions. Historian Webster’s description of the Thirty Years’ War as “the last great war of religion” could not have been more misplaced if one were to chronicle the persecution of the Jews at the hands of the Christians for centuries and the current tension between the Islamic and the Judeo-Christian civilizations. The terrorist attacks of 9/11 though carried out by a handful of renegades in the name of Islam and condemned by the whole Islamic world (along with the rest of the international community) have nonetheless reduced the Muslims, particularly the Muslim Diaspora living in the West, to negotiating the parameters of minority citizenship.

 

In Denmark the publication of the cartoons and the consequent Muslim outrage in Europe and in some parts of the world has increased the popularity of the populist anti-immigration Danish Peoples Party which openly says that Islam is not a religion but a terrorist organization. European antipathy towards Islam is grounded in history. The Crusades and the domination by the Ottoman Turks over a large part of European lands had fuelled anti-Islamic sentiments among the Europeans which had remained dormant as Christians of different denominations fought among themselves( not religious wars though) and in their struggle to colonize then pristine world unsullied by European lust and greed, and engineered the death and destruction of millions of people in the two Great Wars in the Twentieth century. Like infected blood anti-Muslim feelings flowing in the sub-terranean veins has now found renewed expressions. For example, when finally the issue of Turkey’s admission as a member of the European Union could not be delayed any longer some European nations have voiced opposition to Turkish membership. Austria which historically served as bulwark against Ottoman expansionism in Europe has suggested for a pan-European referendum on the question of Turkish membership. Former French President Valerie Giscard d’Estaing expressed the fear that Turkey’s membership would spell the end of Europe. Other opponents include Slovakia, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Malta and Cyprus. Prominent German politician Wolfgang Schauble was skeptical about an EU with Turkey as a member would continue to be able to build “an ever closer political union or speak with one voice”, and suggested limiting the size of the European Union. Late last year France witnessed religious-race riots between           Muslim youths and the French authorities and their escalation to other European countries. Though apparently caused by the accidental death by electrocution of two Arab Muslim youths fleeing from the pursuit of the French police , the riots were basically caused by decades long socio-economic exclusion of Muslim immigrants brought into France from North Africa to shore up the post-War sagging French economy. Generally immigration is determined by the demands of the advanced metropolitan capitalism weighed against the disadvantages of socio-cultural asymmetry caused by the refusal/inability of the immigrants to fully assimilate with the values of the host country. This gives rise to “us” versus “them” feeling resulting in sharp division in society and consequent violence in which the authorities tend to take the side of the host country population  against the immigrants forgetting that the second or third generation immigrants are no less citizens of the country as those belonging to the majority community. Additionally the “failure” of the immigrants to fully integrate themselves with the mainstream life results in gaining political territory by anti-immigration political parties who play on the unfounded fear of the host country voters about the immigrants.

 

In response to the Organization of Islamic Countries’ condemnation of the “printing of blasphemous and insulting caricatures of Prophet Mohammed(SM)” which the Organization thought to be a “trap set up by fundamentalists and foster acts of revenge”; Danish Prime Minister Rasmussen felt that “freedom of speech is absolute (and) not negotiable” while a prominent Danish academic expressed the view that “people are inclined to see Islam and political extremism as two sides of the same coin”. His subsequent apology for the publication of the cartoons and his description of Denmark as a country tolerant of different religions and having an open society is too little too late.

 

One wonders whether the repeated onslaught on Muslim sensibilities through cleverly disguised provocations are not aimed at perpetuating Western minds along the views expressed by Bernard Lewis, among others, of Islam being an intolerant religion. “Islam was never prepared” writes Lewis “either in theory or in practice, to accord full equality to those who held other beliefs and practiced other forms of worship”. Besides, adds Bernard Lewis, there exists millennial rivalry between Islam and Christianity—a competing world religion, a distinctive civilization inspired by that religion.... the struggle between these rival systems has now lasted for some fourteen centuries.. and has continued virtually to the present day”. The other school of thought less severe on Islam for example, Samuel Huntington of Clash of Civilization fame observes: “The West won the world not by supremacy of ideas or values or religion but rather by superiority in applying organized violence. Westerners often forget this fact, non-Westerners never do”.

 

The whole episode about the cartoons’ portrayal of Prophet Mohammed_(SM) in unflattering terms appears to be more by design than by accident. Had the Danish Prime Minister Rasmussen not refused to see the Arab ambassadors when they sought a meeting with him to discuss about the cartoons’ publication last September the current explosion in the Islamic world could have been avoided. The situation deteriorated with the repeat publication of the cartoons in January in a small evangelical Christian newspaper in Norway and in other European countries and with the EU backing of the Danish position on inviolability of freedom of expression at the cost of hurting the religious sentiment of more than one billion Muslims all over the world. This arrogant display of an “inerrant” interpretation of right to expression leads one to look for other views.  “For a society to claim universal desirability” wrote Irish anthropologist Vincent Tucker “while turning its back on others from whom it is convinced it has nothing to learn, is not only cultural elitism, but cultural racism”.

 It becomes difficult to comprehend the inherent contradictions in making Woodrow Wilsonian promises to democratize the world( made once again in Bush 2006 State of the Union address) and lack of Western comprehension of Islamic fundamentalism’s repeated attempt to transcend the boundary of quietism. The West, unless it opts to retreat into some fortified areas of affluence to escape the contagion of religious extremism( a doubtful venture in this age of globalism and fraught with risk to its own security), would be better advised to cooperate with the moderate elements in the Muslim world engaged in their struggle with those imbibed with absolutist, “ inerrant” and arrogant confidence in the supremacy of their belief, for the soul of Islam.

Friday, 10/24/2008= 23 Shawwal, 1429 AH  Home Page Islamic Theology Human Relations Select Disciplines Comparative Religion Select Disciplines>>History>>The Muslim Population In The United States   Archeology    Art  Economy  Health  History  Political System  Science  Sociology  Women  Email List Subscription  Search  Feedback " A Brief Statement " By Fareed H. Numan December 1992 Slave  From the beginning of the cotton veil I held an oath as they made sail in the belly of the wooden whale That I would not fail to reach my home again All tied to the same chains with our new names, we remained- till our counted days. Listen to our call and hear the screams and pleas that one day we could be set free. God's promise to me. Out of it all we would come with great substance. Knowledge of, THE ONE. OVERVIEW Muslim social scientists and researchers have spent a great deal of time trying to determine the number of Muslims in the United States. Most accept the estimate of from 5 million to 8 million. That is to say at least 5 million people in North America claim Islam as their religion and/or practice. What is represented in this report is based on estimates made in 1991, the World Almanac reports that Muslim in the United States number approximately 5,220,00. The total worldwide Muslim population is generally estimated at slightly more that 1 billion. David Barrett's publication, "International Bulletin of Missionary Research" cites a lower figure, 988,004,000.  An exact figure of Muslim population in the United States is very difficult to make. The figures presented here are based on available data.  In the United States, there are essentially three categories of Muslims: 1) immigrants; 2) American converts/reverts to Islam; and 3) those born to the first two groups as Muslims.  The immigrant population of the United States is relatively easy to document because the Immigration and Naturalization Service, the Census Bureau, and other government agencies have been keeping records of immigrants. In order to arrive at our figures, we researched the history of Muslim ethnic groups around the world and then determined their percentage as Muslim. We then correlated this percentage with the number of Muslims in the United States, which enabled us to determine the percentage represented in the overall population.  Determining the number of indigenous Muslims was more difficult. In most cases, records have not been kept by any single source. To arrive at the number of American converts to Islam, we had to look at various groups' conversion rates and compare them against their mortality and fertility rates.  This is an on-going project, and AMC will keep the reader informed of new statistics through our quarterly publication, the AMC Report. The figures cited here represent a starting point for serious research on demographic data about the Muslim population of the United States.  U.S. Muslim Population Table Ethnic Grouping  Population 1000 (1990)  Percent of Total Muslim Population  Definition of Terms  African-  American  2,100 42.0  African-Americans: Those persons of African descent native to the United States of America.  South Asians 1,220 24.4  South-Asians: Those of Indian/Pakistani, Bangladeshi, Sri Lankan, or Afghan descent now residing in the United States as citizens or permanent residents.  Arabs 620  12.4 Arabs: People from Arabic-speaking countries of the Middle East and North Africa who are permanent residents or citizens of the United States.  Africans 260  5.2 Africans: People from the African continent who are citizens or permanent residents of the United States  Iranians 180  3.6 Iranians: People of Persian descent, usually from Iran, who are citizens or permanent residents.  Turks 120  2.4 Turkish: People of Turkish descent who are citizens ro permanent residents.  South East Asians  100 2.0  South East Asians: People of Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, Indochina, or the Phillippines.  American Whites 80 1.6  American Whites: Those of West European descent, who are native to the United States.  East Europeans 40 0.8  East Europeans: People from various regions of Eastern Europe.  Other 280  5.6 Other: All other groups.  Totals  5,000  100  Geographical Distribution:  The table below represents a breakdown by states of the largest Muslim communities in the United States. It shows that there are an estimated 3.3. million Muslims in these states. The figure represents 62 percent of the estimated 5 million Muslims living in the United States.  Muslim State Population Table  State  Muslim Population   (1,000)  Percentage Total Muslim Population  Percent of Total State Population  California 1,000  20.0 3.4  New York 800  16.0 4.7  Illinois 420  8.4 3.6  New Jersey 200  4.0 2.5  Indiana 180  3.6 3.2  Michigan 170  3.4 1.8  Virginia 150  3.0 2.4  Texas 140  2.8 0.7  Ohio 130  2.6 1.2  Maryland 70  1.4 1.4  * Estimates under column 2 have been rounded to the nearest even number.  The list below shows the number of facilities used by Muslims for religious activities and community affairs:    Mosques/Islamic Centers  843 Islamic Schools  165 Associations  426 Publications  89 There are 165 Islamic Schools in the United States, of which 92 are full time. Figures here for Masjids/Islamic Centers are based on our directory listings.  Note: The exact number of businesses owned and operated by Muslims is unavailable, but they are estimated in the thousands. These preliminary finding represent data collected during 1986-1992.   Information Resources  African Presence in Early America by Ivan Van Sertima, 1987  Deeper Roots by Abdullah Hakim Quick, 1990  Arab America Today (A Demographic Profile of Arab Americans) By John Zogby, 1990  A Survey of North American Muslims by El Tigani A. Abugideiri, June 1977  A Century of Islam in America by Yvonne Y. Haddad, 1986  Ethnic Distribution of American Muslims and selected Socio Economic Characteristics by Arif Ghayrur, 1984  The Demography of Islamic Nations by John Weeks, 1988  Islam in the United States: Review of Sources by Dr. Sulayman S. Nyang, 1988  Demographic Consequences of Minority Consciousness: An analysis By Salaha M. Abedin, 1980  World Population Data Sheet Population Reference Bureau, Inc. Washington DC, 1990  Statistical Abstract of the United States U.S. Department of Commerce Bureau of the Census, 1990  Muslim Peoples , A World Ethnographic Survey Edited by Richard V. Weeks, 1984, vol. II  Muslim Peoples, a World Ethnographic Survey by Richard V. Weeks, 1978  The 1991 Almanac 44th Edition , by Houghnton Mifflin Company, 1991  The Islamic Society of North America Directory of Islamic Centers, Schools, Masjids, and MSA Chapters 1989 Revised Edition  The Islamic Struggle in America by Hijrah Magazine, Oct./Nov. 1985  Seven Muslim Slaves by Abdul Hakim Muhammad 1983  Prince Among Slaves by Terry Alford, 1977  Nature Knows no Color Line by J.A. Rogers, 1952  African Muslims in Antebellum American by Allen Austin, 1984  The Arab World Published by the Arab-American Press, 1945  The United States and the Sultanate of Oman Produce by the Sultan Qaboos Center, The Middle East Institute Washington DC, 1990  The University of Alabama, A Pictorial History by Suzanne Rau Wolfe History of the First Muslim Mosque of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania by Jameelah A. Hakim, 1989  Reference: American Muslim Council (AMC)

 

 

 

 

 

 

MARGINALIZATION OF MUSLIM POPULATION IN US PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION

(DRAFT FOR THE ARTICLE TO BE PUBLISHED ONSUNDAY THE  2^ND NOVEMBER 2008)

By Kazi Anwarul Masud( former Secretary and ambassador)

 

Lepers, untouchable, politically radioactive—Muslim Diaspora in the US  presently describe themselves  during the Presidential election to be held very soon. McCain camp reportedly tried to portray Barack Obama as a Muslim to scare away his supporters. Perhaps this was the  reason for Obama to reveal that his middle name is Stevens and not Hussein as was his father’s . He was brought up as a Christian. It is sad that in a multi-religious, multi-cultural nation of immigrants about 6 million Muslims have to prove their loyalty to a country where they are born and bred. According to American Muslim Council( AMC) there are three categories of Muslims: immigrants, American converts/reverts to Islam, and those born to first two groups as Muslims. California has about 20% Muslim population while New York 16%  of the total Muslim population. It is sadder that President Bush’s first Secretary of State General Colin Powell who broke with his party by endorsing Barak Obama for the Presidency was greatly disturbed by this anti-Muslim feeling. He told NBC’s Meet the Press: “Is there something wrong being a Muslim in this country? The answer is no, that’s not America”. Powell apparently felt very srongly about the canard about Muslims because he saw a photo he saw in The New Yorker magazine of a mother of a Muslim soldier embracing her son’s grave at Arlington Cemetery.    If Bush doctrine of preemption shocked the Europeans it shook the seemingly peaceful foundation of the Islamic world. Yet the entire Muslim world stood alongside the Americans in their grief after the terrorist attacks of 9/11. So when the Talibans were decimated and driven out of Afghanistan the Islamic world supported the NATO actions against the Talibans. But when Iraq was invaded on what now appears to be on untenable and illegal grounds the Muslims as no less the Europeans and the less xenophobic part of the American people    refused to sanction Anglo-American misadventure. Colin Powell’s assertion of Bush administration’s belief in a strategy of global partnership for the war on terror failed to calm the fear of a disbelieving world. Equally President Bush’s West Point address of June 2002 urging the governments of the Islamic countries to listen to the hopes of their citizens for the same freedoms and opportunities as available in the West did not elicit uniform enthusiasm. Historian Bernard Lewis interpreted the “Muslim Rage” in terms of millennial rivalry between the two world religions caused by the sense of humiliation felt by the Muslims over being defeated by the “inferior Christians and the Jews”. Lewis’ interpretation of inter-faith tension, despite his outstanding intellect, was criticized by Edward Said who accused Lewis of advancing political agenda under the cloak of scholarship .The Muslim point of view has been reflected in the recently published Arab Human Development Report (AHDR2003) which observed that the adoption of extreme security measures and policies by a number of western countries exceeded their original goals and led to the erosion of civil and political liberties diminishing the welfare of the Arabs and Muslims living in those countries. These freedom-constraining policies have also encouraged the adoption of THE ARAB CHARTER AGAINST TERRORISM allowing censorship, detention and torture. It is therefore not surprising that the American advocacy of redressing democracy deficit in the Islamic world is taken with a pinch of salt. Yet the second Bush administration is expected to press on with the Greater Middle East Initiative because it is believed that: - (a) US support for democracy is extended as a matter of principle, (b) US will prosper more in a world of democracies than in a world of authoritarian or chaotic regimes, (c) history testifies that democracies do not wage wars against other democracies, (d) quantitative increase in democracy leads to qualitative improvement in diplomacy, and (e) democracy is closely linked with prosperity for which peaceful and predictable transition  of power is essential. It is further surmised that the US will no longer tolerate “democratic exceptions” in parts of the Muslim world for the sake of its self-interest. But the most recent decision of President Parvez Musharraf to continue as the head of Pakistan army violating the agreement he had concluded with the opposition parties that he would relinquish the post of army head at the end of this year does not speak very highly of American determination to bring about democracy in the Islamic world. Given Pakistan’s close partnership with the US in the war on terror it is inconceivable that President Musharraf could have taken this decision without US blessings. It is therefore quite possible that one democratic exception could lead to many other autocrats to seek a way out of the American imposed pluralism.

 

It is generally accepted that one-size-fit-all cannot be a sustainable foreign policy option for any major power. However moralistic a policy can be it can never be purely altruistic and must always be self-interested. Therefore it is unlikely that the second Bush administration would push on with its mission of Greater Middle East Initiative if it were found to be in conflict with the war on terror. It is unfortunate but true that in the eyes of the ordinary Westerners al=Qaedist terrorism is seen as being inspired by Islamists. Religious profiling of the Muslims in the US, reported job discrimination, verbal and sometimes physical abuse suffered by the Muslims living in the West are undeniable facts fuelling “spiraling progressive alienation” of the Muslims from the mainstream western society. This has prompted some Western intellectuals to conclude that Huntington’s clash of civilization has already materialized. While another school of thought would deny that there is any clash of civilizations between Islam and the West. They argue that the real battle is being fought within the Muslim civilization between ultra-conservatives and moderates and democrats for the soul of the Muslims who are caught in the crossfire between a westernized elite but oligarchic in character who hold effective power and the oppressed political opposition who take the form of apocalyptic nihilism striking out violently to expel the “infidels” who they believe are sustaining the oligarchs. That there is a crying need to democratize these islands of autocracy is to state the obvious. This need has been reinforced by the findings of the Freedom House survey (2001-2002) of free countries around the world that while the number of “free” nations increased by nearly three dozens over the past 20 years not one of them was a Muslim majority state. Since lack of democratic pluralism has been identified as the primary cause behind Islamic extremism it is possible that the second Bush administration would not abandon its mission to bring meaningful freedom to the Muslim states whose population is still denied a voice in the governance in their own countries.

The Islamic world today is undeniably passing through a critical time in its history fuelled by prejudice, bigotry and various other forms of discrimination used by Western societies against Muslims worldwide. To blame the West for this kind of behavior will not be helpful. After all the Western response has been caused in order to confront al-Qaedist terrorism in the US, Europe, Africa and in several Islamic countries as well. A small venal group spreading lethality in the name of Islam has stigmatized Muslims. The depth of Western anger can be gauged by the fact that Senator Kerry is accused of waffling on Iraq and American public do not appear to see another Vietnam in Iraq yet despite increasing casualties of coalition forces. It is unlikely that the West would relent on the freedom-constraining regulations imposed on the Muslims or that Western society would feel comfortable with Muslims as neighbors and working in their societies along side them. It took Europeans almost fifty years to get comfortable with the Germans though Nazism was physically annihilated by the allied victors and totally rejected by the Germans in 1945. Despite German membership of NATO it took the Kosovo crisis for the NATO allies to invite Germany to participate in the Kosovo campaign.

 

One wonders whether Western rejection would not force the Islamic world, regardless of its lack of monolithic character and housing divergent philosophies, to be introverted and a part of it intuitively adopting violence as an expression of frustration. This grim scenario can become more terrifying if the West were to increase their violence, because the degree of violence is proportional to the instruments of violence used and the West has a surfeit of such instruments, by expanding their “area of operation” by including Iran, Syria and who knows which other country would be the next. The US has not fared well in Afghanistan and Iraq and is not expected to do so in future. What is essential to regain the lost confidence is to have inter-faith dialogue or something like the South African Truth Commission and opening doors to people of all races and religions and not to shut the door only because a few non-covenanted would sneak in through the open door.

 

POLITICAL LEFT AND ISLAMIC FUNDAMENTALISM

 (FOR PUBLICATION ON SUNDAY THE 11^TH MARCH 2007)

By Kazi Anwarul Masud (former Secretary and ambassador)

 

With the end of the cold war and the demise of the Soviet Union the appeal for communist ideology has diminished the world over. Even China practicing capitalism in its economy would be called revisionist if the “purists” among the practicetioners of communism had their way. It would, however, be a hasty conclusion that the wave of left philosophy, defined as “that current of thought, politics and policy that stresses social improvements over macroeconomic orthodoxy, egalitarian distribution of wealth over its creation, sovereignty over international cooperation, democracy over governmental effectiveness”, has lost its appeal completely in the world. Former Mexican Foreign Minister Jorge Castaneda   discerns two types of left in Latin America today: the first being modern, open minded, reformist and internationalist while the other is nationalist, strident and close-minded. In his view the disappearance of the USSR has led to a surge of leftism in Latin America because its supporters could no longer be accused by the United States as being lackeys of the Soviet Union. Extreme inequality, poverty, dispossession of power gave the majority of the poor people their voting right as the only instrument left to register protest and also to regain some role in the process of decision making. Brazil’s Lula, Chile’s Michelle Bachelet, Bolivia’s Evo Morales, and Nicaragua’s Daniel Ortega are examples of growing leftist power in America’s backyard. It would be erroneous to lump them together as cohabitants of Castro-Chavez trail of the left strand in the region. But nonetheless they all represent a no-confidence vote against the unrestrained capitalism raging in the globalized world ruled by the West whose power lies, according to political analyst  Ziauddin Sardar, not “in its economic muscle and technological might (but) in its power to define what is, for example, freedom, progress, civil behavior... The non-Western civilization has simply to accept   these definitions or be defined out of existence”.

 

The silent revolution taking place in many countries of the East, once described by late Edward Said as the colonies of the West yet its cultural contestant, can be compared with those taking place in Latin America. The reason for this opposition to the Western model of economic development while embracing its open and pluralistic political system is because the benefits from economic progress have eluded the great majority of the people, barring some vertical movement of fortunate few from destitution to opulence giving rise to debate on the immorality of their acquisition of wealth, remain mired in ultra-poverty with little light at the end of the tunnel. Low growth rates, writes Castaneda, have meant the persistence of dismal poverty, inequality, and high unemployment. “Democracy” he continues, “although welcomed and supported by broad swaths of Latin American societies did little to eradicate the region’s secular plagues: corruption, a weak or nonexistent rule of law, ineffective governance, and concentration of power in the hands of the few”.  This kind of scenery, common in the Third World, is no exception to Bangladesh where the ferocious rapacity of the four party alliance government in plundering the wealth of the people and the Orwellian tyranny let loose on the opposition and the minority community have induced in the people a craving for a government which yet remains to be given a proper constitutional form. But the people are happy that the extremely high possibility of the now displaced gang of politicians’ coming back to power through a manipulated election has become an impossibility and the corrupt who felt themselves to be above the law are being brought to account.

 

Democracy without the rule of law and more importantly without food on the table is meaningless. One has to decide whether the privilege of casting one’s vote once every five years while remaining ill-fed and ill-clad for the entire period carries the full meaning of democracy. But then again the fourth surge of democratization in former Eastern Europe following the disappearance of the Soviet empire strengthens anew the premise that deep down people, however poor they may be, is averse to be governed by an authority not of their own choosing.   Consequently we, in Bangladesh, are in a quandary. We do not know whether to press for an early election and risk electing a group of politicians, some of whom are likely to be corrupt, or to wait for a longer period for the Augean stable to be cleared up and then go for an election through which we can elect people who we can believe to deliver the goods.  

 

In this race, whenever it may take place, the political left has aligned itself with the progressive and secular elements in the country. If neighboring West Bengal is any example to be held aloft then one can safely say that unlike the Islamists who believe in one man- one vote- one time the political left is unlikely to abandon pluralism. But the stark reality is that the political left could not gain enough votes in elections to become a credible voice in the country’s politics. The reasons are not difficult to find.  While India after partition in 1947 chose to be non-aligned Pakistan in search of security against a powerful India chose to bind itself to US led military pacts (SEATO, CENTO etc) and consequently blindly followed American cold war dictates including ban on left political parties and persecution of left party leaders. In addition the rightists were able to convince the people that the left, particularly the Communists, were Godless people and should be abjured. Only after the liberation of Bangladesh in 1971 that the left political parties were allowed free participation in the political process. Jamat-e-Islami, the standard bearer of the fundamentalists, on the other hand, except for a brief period of ban due to their collaboration with the occupying Pakistani army, had a free hand in politics and through religious schools, now thought to number sixty four thousand, continued to profess political Islam aimed at establishing an Islamist nation  to be ruled according to the dictates of the Holy Quran and Sunnah. Under the present global context Bangladeshis would have to be careful while casting votes that they do not mix the professed benefits of the post-death world with the assuredly disadvantages that go with an Islamist rule in the present day world.

 

RELIGION AND POLITICS (FOR PUBLICATION ON SUNDAY THE 23^RD OCTOBER 2005)

 

By Kazi Anwarul Masud( former Secretary and ambassador)

 

Perhaps both the great Arab historian Ibn Khaldun and Scottish philosopher David Hume (who greatly influenced Skepticism and Empiricism school of thought) shared oscillation theory in their observation of religion. While Ibn Khaldun believed that popular religion in Muslim societies tended to oscillate between periods of strict religious observance and of devotional laxity; David Hume believed that men changed from polytheism to monotheism, not in a continuous unilineal change,  and back again because “men have a natural tendency to rise from idolatry to theism and sent again from theism to idolatry”. This oscillation, argues Hume, is not caused by thoughtful and considered reasoning but by politics of fear, uncertainty and a “kind of competitive sycophancy”. Hume was, therefore, not surprised that Hercules, Thesus, Hector and Romulus were replaced by Dominic, Francis, Anthony and Benedict. Hume was a protestant and a skeptic at that. His distance from Catholic philosophy, however interesting, does not form the core of our discussion. What is important is the relevance of the commonality in the perception of Hume and Ibn Khaldun of oscillating devotion of human beings between monotheism and polytheism and also differences in the character of devotees in both creeds which have plunged the world today into a black hole of  holocaust because a minuscule part of the adherents of one creed would repeatedly inflict upon the world their weapons of hatred. It has been surmised that Christianity’s urging of its followers to give unto Caesar what is Caesar’s is because it initially flourished among the politically disinherited, among those who were persecuted for their belief in a monotheistic religion when “competitive sycophancy” obliged most people to practice idolatry because Caesar  had both gold and sword which an unseen God in His wisdom did not chose to use to save His followers from the jaws of death. It took the Christians thousand years to get relief  till Emperor Constantine converted himself to Christianity and Emperor Charlemagne converted Europe to Christendom. Before that time a faith born without political power could hardly had been expected to preach otherwise. By contrast the initial success of Islam was so rapid that it did not have to give anything unto Caesar and it spread its wings often at point of sword and grew into a rich civilization dominating a large part of Europe. By the eighth century  Muslims had conquered North Africa, the eastern shores of the Mediterranean, most of Spain, established bases in Italy, substantially reduced the size of the Eastern Roman Empire and besieged its capital Constantinople. The Ottoman Empire’s assault on the gates of Vienna could perhaps provide a background to the stringent Austrian opposition, though mellowed down temporarily, to start European Union’s talks for Turkey’s entry into the EU. If historian Bernard Lewis’ clash of civilization denoting those between Muslims and   Christians and post-Christians, rigid theocratic hierarchy vs. permissive secular modernism is to be given credence then one could imagine that the seat of non-Catholic Christianity has now taken residence in the White House combining both temporal and spiritual powers( how can one forget President Bush’s communion with God ordering him to attack Afghanistan and Iraq and to establish the State of Palestine). Whether the Americans have reelected an evangelist and fundamentalist as President could have been ignored by the world had not that person also at the same time been the most powerful man in the world presiding over a country described by some as one which has so much economic, cultural and military power not accrued by any nation since the days of the Roman Empire. One hopes that despite the horrific terrorist transgression into America—both physical and psychological—President Bush would not be totally converted to Bernard Lewis’ perception of the Muslim world’s “downward spiral of hate and spite, rage and self-pity, poverty and oppression” having been caused by the defeat of the Muslims at hands of the Judeo-Christian civilization but would retain his belief in the conviction expressed by John F. Kennedy in his posthumously published book A NATION OF IMMIGRANTS that Jefferson and Madison’s America would not see immigrants as ethnically-hyphenated (e.g. Arab-American) or as ethnicity of origin(e.g. a Bangladeshi). In reality, however, the Muslim Diaspora in the West is seen through tinted glass by their predominantly white neighbors (a recent survey shows that a majority of both whites and African-Americans favor a decrease in the current level of immigration) reminiscent of the internment of the Japanese-Americans during the Second World War. In self-defense the Muslims have adopted, as Professor Kay Deaux points out, many taxi drivers in New York city (immediately after 9/11) who by appearance could be labeled as Arabs or Muslims pasted American flags on the windscreen of their cars. Another tendency displayed by the Diaspora is to turn inward, a tendency to “circle the wagon” in the face of unfriendly stares which a western liberal values imbibed modern person would have been loathe to do under ordinary circumstances. Yet the stigmata was generally stamped on the Muslim community despite the realization that terrorism is not and had never been a proprietorial  element of Muslim faith and had been and continues to be practiced by others in abandon. Undoubtedly the current discontent prevalent in the Middle East has been a scapegoat as a primary cause of global turbulence. A deeper analysis would reveal that the present discontent of  the Muslim youth is primarily due to the failure of Pan Arab nationalism not only to deliver basic political goods but also to hide their failure the leaders strangulated the voice of dissent. Added to this was the acquiescence or blatant support extended by the West to these despots due to the demands of the then Cold War situation which fuelled Muslim anger. And of course a constant source of Muslim frustration has been occasioned by the unqualified support given to the Israeli genocidal and expansionist policies in the Middle East. While the expression of this anger and frustration through terrorism can never be justified because terrorism even in its most expansive definition can only be abhorred, one has to address the root causes of this malignancy not in terms of “defeat” of one civilization by another but to secure a coherent globalized society where prosperity and poverty are not totally segmented. It is natural for the West as it for the victims of terrorism in some developing countries to attack the terrorist where ever they may be as Plato had advised centuries back that the price of civilization is the need to defend its own material preconditions by force of arms if necessary. Equally it is necessary to recognize that the Muslims of the world differ substantially not only in their religious views but also in their politico-cultural orientation. Islam is trans-ethnic, trans-social and trans-national yet it is far from being homogenous as the simplistic view would tend one to believe. Indeed as Professor Ernest Gellner points out Islam provides “a scriptural faith; a completed one is available and there is no room for further accretion or for new prophets; also, there is no warrant for clergy, and hence for differentiation, and there is no need to differentiate between the church and the state, between what is God’s and what is Caesar’s”. But there are cleavages between the Sunnis and the Shiias(the current situation in Iraq provides the most glaring example); between the Arab and non-Arab Muslims; between those who believe in hereditary and hierarchical system as Bernard Lewis put it “The Imam is central to the Ismaila system of doctrine…the Imams were divinely inspired and infallible” and those who believe that no intermediary is necessary between God and His devotees. These differences have arisen with the passage of time and have caused both social and political conflicts. The merchants of death today are exploiting these differences not only to promote sectarian violence within the Islamic world but also to deny the fruits of technological advancement to the Muslim subalterns of the yesteryears. Our misfortune is that these ideologues of hatred, semi-literate themselves, are convincing the illiterate( of secular education) madrasha students of their inerrant moral and intellectual “superiority”  over others to the extent that these “others” being moral degenerates need to be physically eliminated to purify the earth of apostates. This kind of Hitlerian menace( who believe in superiority of faith in place of racial superiority) has now assaulted our shores. As it is  according to Human Development Index, Growth Competitive Index, Failed States Index and Transparency International’s Corruption Perception Index Bangladesh has fared miserably. Unless our authorities can free themselves from the vortex of being a politician who can see only up to the next elections and graduate themselves to the statust of a statesman who thinks of the next generation Bangladeshis may have to account for their failure to the elders of the global village.

 

HOW REAL ARE EURO-US DIFFERENCES?  15^th May 2003

By Kazi Anwarul Masud

 

(Retired Secretary to the Bangladesh government and former ambassador)

 

Timothy Garten Ash of the Oxford University echoing Robert Kagan (who provides the intellectual benchmark—reflecting the views of the current administration and not inconsiderable part of the foreign policy establishment and scholarship) said that in matters of strategy the Americans were from the Mars and the Europeans are from the Venus. He saw no “clash of civilizations” between Europe and America

As both belonged to the same historical roots and shared most of the values. The Kantian, internationalist, law based European approach to foreign policy, argued Timothy Ash, had been repeatedly advocated and embraced by the US since the end of the Second World War and therefore to call on the US to shun neo-conservatism and return to multilateralism based on international law was not a call for conversion to Europeanism but for a return of the US to its best traditions. A strong and united Europe compromising between neo-Atlanticism spearheaded by Britain and neo-Gaullism of France is in the best interest of the United States. It has been argued that Europeans must not abandon those diplomatic tools dismissed by neo-conservative Americans as ineffective e.g. Negotiations, multilateral institutions and engagements through economic development because the US despite its overwhelming military power vis-a vis the rest of the world does not have the capacity to follow through as demonstrated in Bosnia, Kosovo, Afghanistan and almost inevitably in Iraq. The superiority of the European values have already been demonstrated in Greece, Ireland, Portugal and Spain who rose up from fascist or clerical rule; overwhelmingly rural based economies; and mired in incorrigibly corrupt administrations into what they are today because of the will of the European people to make them a part of the Union. In his most recent commencement address at the University of South Carolina President Bush informed his audience that the combined GDP of all Arab states was smaller than that of Spain. Many have rejected alleged attempts by the present US administration to undermine European coherence by proclaiming Europe’s division into two irreconcilable and hostile blocs—old Europe and new Europe—in order to forcefully project unrivalled American economic, political and military power to serve the narrow American national interests as depicted in the Bush Security Strategy to the detriment of the rest of the world. Such rejection was further fortified by former Irish Prime Minister John Burton when he pointed out the economic relationship was by far the most important in the entire world and that European investment in Texas alone was greater than all US investment in Japan. He recognized that the Bush doctrine of preemption/prevention war “ is a big and potentially dangerous departure from the existing norms of inter-state behavior”. So, he suggested that EU should establish a comprehensive and formalized dialogue with the US on linked questions of preemptive wars, WMD, and terrorism in order to develop a new, predictable, well understood and intellectually sustainable doctrine of managing the post- nine eleven world. Indeed if one were to listen to Colin Powell’s address to the American Foreign Policy Association (on May 7, 2003) one would come away with the impression that Euro-US differences were not only transient but also cosmetic. Powell reminded his audience that for more than half a century ties between the US and her European allies have been “ the sinews of security, democracy and prosperity in the transatlantic region” and praised the EU and NATO’s willingness to accept the concept of “out of the area” by accepting engagements from Kosovo to Kabul to Kirkuk (in Iraq). He conceded that sometimes the US and EU/NATO disagreed but mostly over means  and not ends. Powell was at one with European prerogative to disagree with the US because the consensus sought by them should be forged in “honest, open, rigorous debate (as) all is free and sovereign nations” entitled to their own opinion. At this consultative stage US has another decisive advantage over Europe that it can project its views through a single agency, the Presidency bolstered by the Congress, a process in which America’s fifty odd states have no say at all whereas the diverse interest of the EU members are always reflected in foreign policy (e.g. British neo-atlanticism and French particularism).

 

While Colin Powell’s reassurances are encouraging it would be imprudent to paper over EU-US differences. It is time to stop pretending, wrote Robert Kagan, that Europeans and Americans share a common view of the world or even occupy the same world. According to him Europe” is entering a post-historical paradise of peace and relative prosperity, the realization of Kant’s ‘perpetual paradise’. The United States, meanwhile, exercising power in the anarchic Hobbesian world where international laws and rules are unreliable and where true security and defense and promotion of liberal order still depend on the possession of military might. That is why on major strategic and international questions today, Americans are from Mars and Europeans are from Venus”. It is not difficult to find out the differences in this prismatic variant. They differ as to when diplomacy should end and bombs should start to fall. Europe largely remains unconvinced of the efficacy of the doctrine of preemption/prevention; marginalization of the UN by the US (Powell would ask the UN to play a vital role in Iraq while the major powers on the UNSC, NATO and EU would have a special role to play in facing the challenges of the new century); and assigning international law to a secondary role to military power (which the Europeans find alien and appalling).

 

Do the Americans have a case in their favor? Perhaps. Tomas Vaslek (Director, CDI, Brussels) argues that in the changed world of post-nine the UN system set up to regulate inter-state relations is now faced with the advent of globally organized terrorist groups or non-state actors. These non-state actors taking advantage of failing and failed states necessitated the adoption of UNSC resolution 748(1992) making states responsible for the actions of the terrorists. So when the Talibans were driven out of Afghanistan, in a way Law of War was revised, and the world concurred. Definition of self-defense as given in the UN Charter, some feel, needs revision due to change in technological nature of the threat. If the reaction time is too short then should the “intended victim” wait till it is attacked so that self-defense measures can be taken?Elihu Root, US Secretary of War(1899-1904) defined self-defense as “the right of every sovereign state to protect itself by preventing a condition of affairs in which it will be too late to protect itself”. Defense of the doctrine of preemption/prevention war was germane to Elihu Root’s definition as in the notes of Antonio Cassese; former President of ICC for Yugoslavia that current justification of self-defense against has become fuzzy because of the advent of non-state actors. Another factor was added by the dissolution of Yugoslavia and consequent Bosnia, Croatia and Kosovo crisis. The question arose whether state sovereignty should remain inviolable if large-scale human rights violations/genocide occur. Despite article 2(7) of the UN Charter relating to territorial integrity regardless of what is happening within the territory; 1999 NATO bombings of Serbia into submission established the principle that sovereignty does not allow waging war against one’s own people. So Slovodan Milasovich is now being tried as a war criminal by the Hague Tribunal This is breaking of new ground of the “humanitarian war” doctrine.

 

Given European (Britain excluded) reservation on Bush doctrine of preemption/preventive war coupled with their inability to stop the Americans to do as they please; Europe is left with the option of revising the Law of War in concert with those Americans who believe in the multilateral system. As Harvard professor Joseph Nye concluded that while the US was too powerful to be challenged by any nation state, it was not strong enough to solve new transnational problems by itself. US would therefore have to define its interests in congruence with those of other states particularly of Europe. It would therefore be fallacious to assume that US-Europe differences would be allowed to run deep to fracture the institutional and structural bonds already existing between these countries. Economic ties are too strong. Cultural ties are historical. Racially majority of the Europeans and Americans are Caucasians and by religion Christians. Kalypso Nicolaides of Oxford University advises both to learn to live together as they had been doing for so long despite their current differences; define a constructive and conscious division of labor; EU should not approach the US power in structural terms—unipolar or multipolar, friends or rivals; Europe must recognize that the world beyond Europe is closer to a pre-Kantian world with a great number if Hobbesian islands in the form of rogue states, failed or failing states, and local zones of conflict. Nicolaides feels that time has come to revisit the UN Charter regarding the link of enforcement of its fundamental norms (human rights, non-proliferation) and the use of force or coercive diplomacy which in any case has been used repeatedly from Kosovo to Sierra Leone.

 

While the West without great efforts may find consummation of their seemingly differing strands of behavior; the problem of any forcible revision of the UN Charter and norms of international law so long regarded as sacramental would be disastrous for the Third World. In a fluid and inconstant world where the behavior of the rich and the powerful may not be predictable and constrained by universal moral code of conduct, let alone international law, the small and the weak may face enslavement of sorts by the comparatively more powerful nations. In such situations North Korean aberrant nuclear policy may appear to some as a sound logic for providing ultimate defense against predator states. It is therefore necessary that people from Mars be aware of their limitations and act in concert with the people from Venus who have found over centuries the usefulness of compromise over conviction.

 

DANISH CARTOONS AND FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION( FOR PUBLICATION ON SUNDAY THE 12^TH FEBRUARY 2006)

 

By Kazi Anwarul Masud( former Secretary and ambassador)

 

Unsavory characterization of Prophet Mohammed(SM) in the cartoons published by a Danish newspaper and reproduced by several European newspapers have brought to the fore the modern debate on limits of freedom of expression and speech. It is generally accepted that freedom of expression is circumscribed by its adverse fall out on the dignity of the individual(libel) or the majesty of the divinity(blasphemy). Society by definition being a conglomeration of diverse individuals societal responsibility demands that rights of the members of the society not be intruded upon. Libel laws exist in a variety of forms to safeguard the individual honor. Similarly, blasphemy laws enacted in many countries, though increasingly falling into disuse, are aimed at protecting the majesty of God. Black’s Law Dictionary defines blasphemy as “ any oral or written reproach maliciously cast upon God, His name, attributes or religion”. Catholic Encyclopedia considers blasphemy as heretical when insult to God involves a declaration that is against the faith; imprecatory when it would cry a malediction upon Divinity; and contumacious when it is wholly made up of contempt or indignation towards God. Interestingly British Criminal law contains in its statute book law relating to blasphemy even today though it was developed mainly during the 18^th century to protect the Anglican version of Christianity. As late as 1979 the House of Lords upheld a prosecution on charge of blasphemy centering on the publication of an erotic homosexual poem about Jesus Christ in a British weekly. When the decision was challenged the European Court of Human Rights ruled that protection for religious freedom was superior in this case to protection of freedom of expression.

 

The arguments proffered in this essay are not for enacting blasphemy laws. On the contrary the First Amendment to the US Constitution insisting that “Congress shall make no laws respecting an establishment of religion”, a declaration powerfully pursued by the US Supreme Court to ensure separation of the Church from the State and generally emulated by developed economies, should act as beacon light to ships sailing against the tumultuous waves of the 21^st century seas.

 

With the virtual disappearance of communism from its European strongholds Karl Marx’s description of religion as opiate of man  has lost favor with majority of the people of the world. Dethronement of atheism has, perhaps, resulted in peoples’ greater devotion to established religions than what would have otherwise been expected to happen. Though an inverse relationship between wealth and religiosity is believed to be axiomatic yet the description of the US, the largest economy in the world, as “a poster child of super natural belief” is profoundly telling. Supernatural belief, according to anthropologist Edward Taylor, is the “minimum definition of religion”. Just about any American, blessed with the material advantages of technological age, believe in God in the biblical sense along with miracles, angels, devils and after life. This belief in the super natural is not confined to Christian Conservatives, once described by the Washington Post as “largely poor, the uneducated”, but for example, embraces about half of the scientific community of the US .

 

There is nothing inherently wrong in being wealthy and religious. Indeed some psychologists have concluded that belief in God is “bred in the bone”, it is instinctive and natural and not necessarily learnt. The problem is not in the contradiction between religiosity and atheism/agnosticism but in the continuing war between religions. Historian Webster’s description of the Thirty Years’ War as “the last great war of religion” could not have been more misplaced if one were to chronicle the persecution of the Jews at the hands of the Christians for centuries and the current tension between the Islamic and the Judeo-Christian civilizations. The terrorist attacks of 9/11 though carried out by a handful of renegades in the name of Islam and condemned by the whole Islamic world (along with the rest of the international community) have nonetheless reduced the Muslims, particularly the Muslim Diaspora living in the West, to negotiating the parameters of minority citizenship.

 

In Denmark the publication of the cartoons and the consequent Muslim outrage in Europe and in some parts of the world has increased the popularity of the populist anti-immigration Danish Peoples Party which openly says that Islam is not a religion but a terrorist organization. European antipathy towards Islam is grounded in history. The Crusades and the domination by the Ottoman Turks over a large part of European lands had fuelled anti-Islamic sentiments among the Europeans which had remained dormant as Christians of different denominations fought among themselves( not religious wars though) and in their struggle to colonize then pristine world unsullied by European lust and greed, and engineered the death and destruction of millions of people in the two Great Wars in the Twentieth century. Like infected blood anti-Muslim feelings flowing in the sub-terranean veins has now found renewed expressions. For example, when finally the issue of Turkey’s admission as a member of the European Union could not be delayed any longer some European nations have voiced opposition to Turkish membership. Austria which historically served as bulwark against Ottoman expansionism in Europe has suggested for a pan-European referendum on the question of Turkish membership. Former French President Valerie Giscard d’Estaing expressed the fear that Turkey’s membership would spell the end of Europe. Other opponents include Slovakia, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Malta and Cyprus. Prominent German politician Wolfgang Schauble was skeptical about an EU with Turkey as a member would continue to be able to build “an ever closer political union or speak with one voice”, and suggested limiting the size of the European Union. Late last year France witnessed religious-race riots between           Muslim youths and the French authorities and their escalation to other European countries. Though apparently caused by the accidental death by electrocution of two Arab Muslim youths fleeing from the pursuit of the French police , the riots were basically caused by decades long socio-economic exclusion of Muslim immigrants brought into France from North Africa to shore up the post-War sagging French economy. Generally immigration is determined by the demands of the advanced metropolitan capitalism weighed against the disadvantages of socio-cultural asymmetry caused by the refusal/inability of the immigrants to fully assimilate with the values of the host country. This gives rise to “us” versus “them” feeling resulting in sharp division in society and consequent violence in which the authorities tend to take the side of the host country population  against the immigrants forgetting that the second or third generation immigrants are no less citizens of the country as those belonging to the majority community. Additionally the “failure” of the immigrants to fully integrate themselves with the mainstream life results in gaining political territory by anti-immigration political parties who play on the unfounded fear of the host country voters about the immigrants.

 

In response to the Organization of Islamic Countries’ condemnation of the “printing of blasphemous and insulting caricatures of Prophet Mohammed(SM)” which the Organization thought to be a “trap set up by fundamentalists and foster acts of revenge”; Danish Prime Minister Rasmussen felt that “freedom of speech is absolute (and) not negotiable” while a prominent Danish academic expressed the view that “people are inclined to see Islam and political extremism as two sides of the same coin”. His subsequent apology for the publication of the cartoons and his description of Denmark as a country tolerant of different religions and having an open society is too little too late.

 

One wonders whether the repeated onslaught on Muslim sensibilities through cleverly disguised provocations are not aimed at perpetuating Western minds along the views expressed by Bernard Lewis, among others, of Islam being an intolerant religion. “Islam was never prepared” writes Lewis “either in theory or in practice, to accord full equality to those who held other beliefs and practiced other forms of worship”. Besides, adds Bernard Lewis, there exists millennial rivalry between Islam and Christianity—a competing world religion, a distinctive civilization inspired by that religion.... the struggle between these rival systems has now lasted for some fourteen centuries.. and has continued virtually to the present day”. The other school of thought less severe on Islam for example, Samuel Huntington of Clash of Civilization fame observes: “The West won the world not by supremacy of ideas or values or religion but rather by superiority in applying organized violence. Westerners often forget this fact, non-Westerners never do”.

 

The whole episode about the cartoons’ portrayal of Prophet Mohammed_(SM) in unflattering terms appears to be more by design than by accident. Had the Danish Prime Minister Rasmussen not refused to see the Arab ambassadors when they sought a meeting with him to discuss about the cartoons’ publication last September the current explosion in the Islamic world could have been avoided. The situation deteriorated with the repeat publication of the cartoons in January in a small evangelical Christian newspaper in Norway and in other European countries and with the EU backing of the Danish position on inviolability of freedom of expression at the cost of hurting the religious sentiment of more than one billion Muslims all over the world. This arrogant display of an “inerrant” interpretation of right to expression leads one to look for other views.  “For a society to claim universal desirability” wrote Irish anthropologist Vincent Tucker “while turning its back on others from whom it is convinced it has nothing to learn, is not only cultural elitism, but cultural racism”.

 It becomes difficult to comprehend the inherent contradictions in making Woodrow Wilsonian promises to democratize the world( made once again in Bush 2006 State of the Union address) and lack of Western comprehension of Islamic fundamentalism’s repeated attempt to transcend the boundary of quietism. The West, unless it opts to retreat into some fortified areas of affluence to escape the contagion of religious extremism( a doubtful venture in this age of globalism and fraught with risk to its own security), would be better advised to cooperate with the moderate elements in the Muslim world engaged in their struggle with those imbibed with absolutist, “ inerrant” and arrogant confidence in the supremacy of their belief, for the soul of Islam.

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