A Bloody Friday in Ramadan
Eyad Abu Shakra/ASharq Al Awsat
Tuesday, 30 Jun, 2015
Last Friday was indeed a painful and sad day in the month of Ramadan, yet it is no more sufficient to merely express sorrow and abhorrence and call for national unity. As targeting mosques and murdering innocent people continue, all talk may be both useless and meaningless. Some may link the Al-Sadiq Mosque bombing in Kuwait to the escalating sectarian tensions in the Gulf region—a direct result of the Khomeinist revolution sowing the seeds of extremism only to make us all reap Al-Qaeda’s discourse and the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria’s (ISIS) atrocities.What happened in Tunisia may, in turn, be attributed to the accumulating bitterness within the country’s hardline religious communities against the era of Habib Bourguiba’s secularism. Such a phenomenon is given credence by the exceptionally high percentage of Tunisian nationals in the ranks of extremist groups fighting against the Bashar Al-Assad regime in Syria. In this instance it is worth mentioning, too, the effects of Libya’s chaos and tentacles of extremist current in the Sahara and Sahel.
As for the heinous atrocity committed in France, those still trying to defend it, and interpret crimes like it, may claim that it was a natural negative outcome of cultural alienation, a reaction against religious and racial prejudice, and a case of escapism from an ethnically rejectionist society.
There is little doubt that each of the three crimes committed in the same day across three continents has its own specific traits; however, the common denominator is much more significant and dangerous. Furthermore, it is the main issue while the rest are details. It is up to Muslims – particularly, Arabs – either to ignore the bitter truth and so leave the disease to get worse until it turns fatal, or to admit its existence as a first step to radically treating it. The three crimes are nothing but parts of a whole. They are examples of criminal actions committed in the name of the “true Islam” for years all over the world, without being firmly encountered, although they are pushing all Muslims in a real war against the whole world. What is even worse is that the criminals are either intent on provoking such a global war against those they label as the people of the “territory of war” (Dar Al-Harb); or they do not care about how the world would react. With the latter point in mind, it has to be said that the international community is quite capable of exterminating its enemies, but will stop short of that because it follows democratic processes and institutions and respects human rights. Murdering innocent men and women in Kuwait, Tunisia, and the Isère department in France must not be treated separately from crimes committed by several groups like ISIS, Al-Qaeda, its Syrian affiliate Al-Nusra Front, Boko Haram, Iraq’s Popular Mobilization, Hezbollah, Abu Al-Fadhl Al-Abbas Brigade, Al-Shabaab in Somalia, Taliban, and all other “Islamist,” Sunni and Shi’ite, militant groups operating under the “true Islam” slogan.
This reminds me of an article written by my friend and colleague Nadim Koteish in which he commented on the Charlie Hebdo attack in Paris last January, and the Muslim voices condemning it as being “not representative of the true Islam”!
Koteish asked in his brilliant comment: “What is this ‘true Islam’ those condemning crimes committed in the name of Islam are talking about, and where is the post-condemnation confrontation fought by the pro-‘true Islam’ since the demise of the Mu’tazilites that marked the defeat of rationalism in Islam, more than 1100 years ago?”
After giving several examples of crimes committed by extremist Sunnis and Shi’ites, Koteish said: “All perpetrators belonged to this ‘true Islam’ in its details, texts and margins. They belong to discourse and broad jurisprudence. Here is the battleground. The Islamic text itself, whether it is a Quranic text, Fiqh (Islamic jurisprudence), or Hadeeth (of the Prophet)” “Murderers are not murdering wantonly, but rather quoting books, religious fatwas (legal opinions) and a long heritage that is an inseparable part of ‘true Islam,’” Koteish said. He added: “They [the murderers] are Muslims in as much as they declare the two attestations, and that no religious authority is courageous enough to update and categorize the requirements that define what being a Muslim is all about. Those murderers are us. They are [representatives of our] religion in its extremist form. They are ‘our true Islam’ taken to its furthest limits. Those [in short] are not out of context.”
I think here is the gist of the matter.
There is a real problem lying at the core of our thinking, and it is engendering our bad actions, and pushing us from a setback to a defeat, and from a defeat to a disaster. In one way or another, this problem has also contributed to the negative international attitude towards our great causes. Why should the international community agree with our concepts and principles when we disagree with its concepts and principles? Subsequently, how could we ask it to side with us – from a standpoint of human rights and protection of civilians – when from our midst emerge individuals and gangs that monopolize belief, religion, virtue, legitimacy and patriotism? What right do we have to call upon the countries of the world to help us and alleviate our suffering when we harm not only our own interests, but also our own people, killing each other and declaring segments of our people apostates or traitors? What sort of logic makes us believe that our extremism is attractive to others and our insistence on exclusion and elimination may neutralize them?
We simply refuse to understand causality, and reaction and counter-reaction! In Iraq, where ISIS frontline is only 50 km from Baghdad, there are 7,000 Sunni Muslims facing execution if Parliament abolishes the requirement of presidential signature; and yet the Iran-backed leadership acts as if there is nothing wrong, with scant regard to potential sectarian consequences! In Syria, too, where the regime has become nothing but a tiny cog in Iran’s regional wheel, opposition groups are in a race against time to control their hardline elements who until this moment refuse to comprehend that their excesses have extended the life of a regime that has already lost its legitimacy and loyalty of the majority of the country’s population. And finally, in Lebanon and Yemen, Iran’s well-armed henchmen are driving the two countries to the brink of a sectarian abyss, as Hezbollah and the Houthis are presenting themselves to Washington as the avant-garde of its war against Sunni “takfirists” in their ISIS and Al-Qaeda versions. By doing so they seem oblivious to the inevitable bloody reactions which we have seen and continue to see everywhere, including the Gulf states that have long been the last bastion of moderation and stability in the Middle East.
The time for excuses and apologies has long gone; and what we need now is radical solutions.
Remote-Controlled Terrorism
Ali Ibrahim/Asharq Al Awsat
Wednesday, 1 Jul, 2015
Terrorism hit three continents on the same day last week, causing dozens of deaths on a beach in Tunisia and a mosque in Kuwait as well as the beheading of a man at a factory in France where the murderer posed for a selfie with his victim’s decapitated body—an act betraying his mental derangement. In fact, the triple attacks appear to have been committed by sick people exploited for the purpose of terrorizing the world in the name of an organization that has managed to establish a base in Iraq and Syria as a result of negligence on the part of the international community. This passivity has allowed thousands of militants from across the world to spread in those two countries in a bid to indulge in their sick hobbies, such as chopping peoples’ heads off and other disgusting acts of violence. Another fact is that despite the many acts of terrorism and violence that take place in Iraq and Syria, they do not resonate as much as the ones committed elsewhere, such as the ones carried out last Friday by individuals in their early twenties who escaped the state radar. The perpetrators fell victim to the sick propaganda promoted by advocates of extremism and followers of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS). Many of the techniques ISIS uses to recruit and brainwash people have started to unfold, something which opens the way to defeating the group which is keen on recruiting Westerners by spreading its propaganda on social media websites. It appears that many lost souls, who are looking for an identity, a sense of belonging, or even adventures, find in ISIS’s sick propaganda some sense of self-achievement. According to a New York Times report, many are willing to spend hours recruiting lost souls, such as a young American woman who found in her new friendships with terrorists she met online a refuge from loneliness. Many people said, according to another report, that boredom has led them to become attracted by ISIS’s propaganda, which aims at exploiting them to carry out suicide operations. Is there a way to stop the barrage of recruits and prevent ISIS’s ideology from igniting a sectarian war in the region and terrorizing the world? The answer is definitely ‘yes,’ providing that everybody acts seriously enough to cut ISIS’s supply routes, sources of recruits, and the funding it generates from the sales of oil and antiquities. As for its online recruitment methods, they can be countered but it will take a long time. Eliminating ISIS requires ideologically countering the worldview according to which it divides the world into Muslims and infidels who must be killed.
Restraining extremists protects Islam
Abdulrahman al-Rashed/Al Arabiya
Wednesday, 1 July 2015
Strict legislative and security measures against extremist groups, even if they have not committed violent acts, is in the interest of Islam and Muslims in the West. This is the only way to save millions of Muslims and protect Islam from Muslims who distort the religion.
When Western governments expel extremist preachers, shut down suspicious institutions or pursue religious groups, they are protecting Muslims from extremists among them, and from the anger of the non-Muslim majority. Instead of hurting the West, extremists have harmed moderate Muslims and Islam, which found itself a great status outside its original home We must not look at such measures as racist, despite the presence of racism in the West. We must also not underestimate the magnitude of the expected clash with society in the West, which is adopting more hatred and hostility toward Muslims due to the hideous crimes that Muslims commit in the name of Islam.
Europe
The battle in the West is on multiple fronts. In France, the number of Muslims is estimated at 5 million, and France is the European country that has suffered the most from terror attacks in the name of Islam. France, like other European countries, is confronting several religious, security, political and legal problems when dealing with Muslims. Since the threat is related to both security and culture, the state must use its authority to protect society. So how can it expel extremists if they are citizens? How can it deport legal residents if it is proven that they are engaged in extremist activity but have not taken up arms? The most important question is how can tens of thousands of Muslim youths in France be protected from extremists who want to turn them into enemies of the state that has become their home? The controversy is heating up in most European countries as citizens who fear for their countries and for themselves accuse their governments of inaction. However, these countries’ law-abiding Muslim citizens refuse discriminatory laws and government practises that target them due to popular pressure. Despite that, more strict laws are expected that will target extremist groups, and we hope these laws distinguish between the latter and the majority of Muslims, even if this will be at the expense of some rights and freedoms.
Arab states
The situation is not so different from that faced by Arab governments, which are forced to pursue extremists and try to convince citizens that exceptional situations require exceptional measures. Tunisia will lose its tourism industry due to last week’s attack, which succeeded in harming the government’s major financial resource as tourists worldwide will now boycott the country. Therefore, Tunis has had to announce a series of decisions, such as shutting down mosques affiliated with extremist groups and carrying out multiple arrests.
Meanwhile, Morocco has requested those working in the field of religion not to be involved in partisan and political work. Egypt has said it will confiscate extremist publications and only support moderate religion. Some Gulf countries have begun restraining activity on extremist podiums, and are expected to close inciting TV channels such as Wesal. Hesitant Arabs will follow suit as we will witness more crimes, and it is evident that there is a strong relation between extremism and terrorism.
France
There is a lot of pressure on the French government as society there has been shaken by a series of crimes committed in the name of Islam. The most recent is that of Yassine Salhi in Lyon, who beheaded his boss. People were shocked by this horrific crime as they felt that France has become like Syria. The crime made them protest in front of mosques, blaming Islam rather than Salhi or the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS). The interior minister tried to reassure people, saying: “Since 2012 [when Francois Hollande became president] we expelled 40 hate preachers and imams, while in the previous five years only 15 were expelled. We are currently investigating 22 other cases.” He also said they are in the process of shutting down many suspicious Islamic associations. This is a normal result of extremist ideology, which thought that tolerant societies in the West were fertile ground to reside, produce more extremists and change society. Instead of hurting the West, however, extremists have harmed moderate Muslims and Islam, which found itself a great status outside its original home.
