Evil in Return

The attack on Christians in Pakistan and the murder of the missionaries in Yemen has once again refocused the world's attention on the problem of "Islamic extremism" in the Muslim world. These two words are commonly offered as the succinct explanation for every instance of Muslim violence, whether it is the simplistic criminality of Abu Sayyaf or the independence struggle of the Chechen mujahideen. While this conflation of legitimate struggles for self-determination and freedom with acts of terror such as September 11 and Bali has delegitimised otherwise legitimate struggles, it also obfuscates attempts to understand the true causes of the violence and the solutions. The very subjectivity of this notion of "Islamic extremism" means that it is left ill-defined.

The defining feature that distinguishes the Islamic movements from the terrorist organizations is that the latter attacks non-combatant civilians; thus transgressing the laws set down by the Prophet (1) that prohibit attacking non-combatants. Even though some groups that claim to be Islamic may carry out such attacks, and even though there are some scholars who might permit such attacks, the irrefutable fact remains that the Prophet (1) made the prohibition on targeting non-combatants a non-negotiable feature of this religion.

The explanation most frequently offered in the West for such behavior is that of the ideological malady of "extremism". It is, of course, true that there is a strong ideological dimension to the contemporary terrorist groups: they invariably lack a proper understanding of Islamic law and have little contact with the Islamic scholars. However to limit the cause of terrorism to ideology, is to ignore reality.

It is a commonality of most all manifestations of extremist thought that it appears in environments that are politically or economically unstable . Extremist thought, and the terrorist behavior that flows on from it, is a reaction to external factors and not a proactive impulse.

The crucible of extremism is the belief that something is wrong - whether in reality or in perception. Whenever a person finds himself in a situation which he cannot possibly accept, he unconsciously seeks to resolve that situation by reacting in opposition to it. As the driving forces become stronger, so the reaction becomes stronger. If the opposing force is strong enough or escalates far enough, then the reaction may become one of radicalism and violence.

Most contemporary Islamic extremist movements have their empirical origins in the jails of Gamal Abdel Nasser. When the Muslim Brotherhood began making progress politically, posing a threat to Nasser's Arab Nationalist governance, Nasser began imprisoning and torturing the Muslim Brotherhood members and their families en masse. When they were released from prison, often after having witnessed atrocities committed on the female members of their family, many became violent and that violence was initially directed at the police who had been their torturers and imprisoners. These people went one to reject the method of peaceful socio-political reform favored by the Muslim Brotherhood, instead breaking away and resorting to violent means of 'reform'.

As the government cracked down further on the movements, the circle of legitimate targets widened to include anyone who worked for the government, including school teachers and nurses. Finally, the violence escalated to the horrific crescendo witnessed in the 1990s with the murder of the tourists at Luxor; the justification being that a fall in tourism would hurt the government. Ayman al-Zawahiri, right-hand man of Osama bin Laden and widely regarded as the brains behind September 11, is a graduate of this movement.

The suppression of democratic freedoms is a characteristic of most all Muslim countries. In 1992, Algerian elections were cancelled when it looked certain the Islamic opposition party was set to win. The Algerian army, backed by the French, brutally put down a popular uprising, escalating the violence into a civil war that left thousands dead. In the same year, the Turkish army overthrew the democratically elected Refah government when it became apparent that they would not toe the rabidly atheistic line demanded by Kemalism.

The anti-Western sentiment that permeates the Muslim world and the violence that is so often directed at Westerners can only be understood in this framework. As much as the West may impugn the Islamic world for not producing a fully-functioning democracy, such analysis overlooks the fact that the only real opposition to these despotic regimes is often the Islamists themselves. It is only through the military and economic support for the West, particularly America, that these bunker regimes can continue to brutally oppress their people with impunity. For Muslims in these societies, when their governments strangle their freedoms, they see American hands inside Muslim gloves.

The "War on Terror" cannot be won unless war is also declared on the oppression that Muslims endure from their governments throughout the so-called Muslim world. Anti-Western terrorism and sentiment will not abate until Western support and strengthening of these regimes ends. Until then, the world would do well to remember the ominous words of the poet Auden: "I and the public know, what every school child learns. Those to whom evil is done, do evil in return."