Those who are genuinely interested in countering Islamist terrorism need to encourage dissenting voices in the Muslim world
As Friday night’s terror attacks in Paris were unfolding, the reactions of many individuals and groups often betrayed preconceived, nay rehearsed, reactions.
Different Quranic verses were cited by both overly defensive Muslims and anti-Muslim bigots to prove how Islam is the religion of peace, and violence – respectively.
While many Muslims condemned the attacks in numbers, many well-meaning westerners seemed guilt-ridden about the fact that we Muslims were ‘forced’ to issue these condemnations.
All this was on display before the final death toll was announced and before anyone had claimed responsibility for the attack.
Clearly apprehensions over – and loyalty towards – one’s favourite narrative superseded any interest in focusing on the victims of terror and engaging in discussions to forestall similar attacks in the future.
As the hours went on, French President François Hollande issued a strong statement against the culprits. The French border was sealed and a curfew implemented in Paris, before ISIS claimed responsibility for the attack.
And then came the second wave of premeditated and repeated-to-death assertions.
They started off with ‘West is to blame’, discussed apprehensions about rise in ‘Islamophobia’, claimed that Islamist extremism isn’t a ‘Muslim problem’ and were exclamation-marked by the assertion that France was asking for it and should expect more of the same.
There was time for a reverse ‘all lives matter’ campaign as well, calling out ‘silence’ over recent blasts in Beirut in Baghdad, completely ignoring the role precedence plays in reactions and conveniently forgetting the global reaction to Peshawar attack and Boko Haram’s violence last year.
Evidently, those waiting for the overwhelming reaction to the Paris attack to generate noise for the Beirut or Baghdad bombings didn’t see the irony in their own delayed outrage.
This is not to suggest that amidst this tangential pool of self-serving narratives, no argument valid or relevant to the bigger picture was presented. Indeed, anti-Muslim bigotry is an ugly reality, as depicted by the Chapel Hill Shooting, PEGIDA, the anti-Islam rallies in Australia or by the many mosques becoming targets of hatred.
The same is true for Western states’ foreign policy blunders and the lack of Muslim/Arab communities’ integration.
But something somewhere is seriously wrong when prejudice against a community is one’s primary concern on the day a nation suffers the biggest acts of violence in decades. It’s almost as if racism is a bigger evil than terrorism, and that by correlation calling out anti-Muslim xenophobia a more pressing concern than Islamist violence.
The obsession some have with earmarking Western imperialism as the root of all global evil is paradoxically soft-racist. By putting the blame for the volatility of the Muslim world at large on the neocolonialist manoeuvres of the West, and not on the corrupt leaderships or religious fault-lines conspicuously manifested by the locals, these opinion-makers exhibit twenty-first century Orientalism, implicitly asserting that Muslims would readily act against their self-interest should a Western power sufficiently wish so.
This soft racism is also flagrantly displayed by anyone who claims Islamist terrorism is ‘not a Muslim issue’, which demonstrates complete denial of the simple reality that global imperialist jihadism (the kind of imperialism that isn’t quite factored by the self-pointing ‘critics’) is nourished in Muslim communities around the world, including the West. It also happens to affect the Muslims the most, both in terms of suffering from Islamist attacks, and the ensuing backlash.
But because the West trains, funds and arms jihadists for its self-interests, those militants that self-implode to kill Muslims and non-Muslims alike, and their domestic backers, get a pass as mere ‘tools’ or ‘creations’ of the West.
This is downright dehumanizing of Muslims, sold by sections of the left and bought by the right-wing resellers of the Muslim world to sketch the simplistic and convenient narrative that paints West as being historically responsible for the Muslim world’s predicaments.
ISIS’ statement claiming responsibility for the Paris attacks said they targeted “the capital of prostitution and obscenity, the carrier of the banner of the Cross in Europe”. There is no mention of ‘Western colonialism’, ‘economic disparity’ or ‘social alienation’, which some commentators keep asserting as the main motivation behind jihadists’ actions.
The statement is Exhibit A of jihadism, an expansionist terror drive carried forward by radical Islamists that seeks to destroy pluralism by holding a literal version of Islam as the sole rulebook for not just Muslims, but the entire world. Jihadism nourishes itself by painting Muslims as perpetual victims of the West’s actions – an idea perpetuated by regressive sections of the left and Islamists alike.
Those who are genuinely interested in countering Islamist terrorism need to encourage the dissenting voices in the Muslim world, the voices that critique the wrongs within their communities, leaderships and religio-political policymaking. If you keep vending the soft-bigoted idea that jihadism isn’t particularly a Muslim issue, Islamist extremism will continue to spread in the Muslim communities.
Why, after all, would we Muslims work on solving a problem that isn’t ours to being with?
As appreciable as the left’s self-critique regarding Western imperialism and anti-Muslim bigotry is, it shrouds the more pressing need for Muslim world’s self-reflection. Muslims taking ownership of jihadism won’t rid the West of its historic – and present – wrongs; but it would allow the Muslim world to finally catch up and reconcile with the modern ideals.
It’s a no-brainer that once Islamist extremism is curtailed, anti-Muslim bigotry will be gradually snuffed out in synchrony.
Kunwar Khuldune Shahid is a Friday Times journalist. Follow him on Twitter
74 Responses to “Paris attacks: Jihadism is an Islamic issue and twenty-first century Orientalists need to stop suggesting otherwise”
Glass Onion Dip
The problem is that you cannot separate the corrupt governments from the consequences of western intervention.
Saddam Hussein was a brutal dictator, but he wasn’t even the worst dictator in the Middle East, and he was certainly no Islamist. He was even a US ally until 1990. Removing him from power made the region far more unstable.
People also need to realize that even within a terrorist group the members have different motives. The suicide bombers probably truly believe they are working towards the destruction of the west. However, their leaders are not that stupid. (Anyone who can come up with tactics as effective as al Qaeda and ISIS has surely must understand strategy). Their real goal is to get the west so angered that they will attack. Hashtags about targeting all Muslims are ammunition for ISiS recruiters who want to turn this into a battle of Islam vs the west.
Bradley EC
Relations between Muslims and the West in 1966? Okay more or less. Algeria settling after the bloodbath and post-colonial relations muddling along.
Then Israel illegally occupies the West Bank after the Six Day War and unleashes a wave of hate towards the West which has cascaded down the generations spreading and growing as it is fed by stupid, insanely stupid, Western policies.
How do we step back from the precipice? We are in no position to change Saudi Arabia or the Gulf States from their secret support of extremism and their repressive ways. But we have to express our opinions much more honestly. We have to tell them what we think. Their treatment of foreign workers is dreadful. Western governments say very little.
The European Union should advise Israel it has five years to vacate the West Bank or experience a 100% boycott of goods and persons. To hell with American Zionism. EU must follow its own path.
We in the EU also have the right, indeed duty, to ensure that our homelands and our civilisation is safe. We should cooperate with USA and Russia and send in as many troops as it takes to wipe out ISIS.
bootsyjam
The problem is that silent majorities are irrelevant when there is a motivated violent minority. Hitler’s Germany, Stalinist Russia, Maoist China, Cambodia under Pol Pot. What do they have in common? The violent minorities prospered, and the silent majority (who just want to be left alone) suffer and are slaughtered.
If just 10% of Muslims believe in what isis are doing, then in the UK alone that is 200,000 people. An army.
And there is a severe problem with Islam, and it is not being debated (nor is it allowed on the news). Today I saw on the BBC the idea brought up the fact that the main problem is that these jihadists are not heretics. They are not some weird offshoot of Islam. They are the simple logical extreme of what is already an extreme religion. They are not some freakish minority. And he was shut down and talked over straight away and the conversation moved on without it being revisited. We must be honest and face facts that Isis and jihadists are not uncommon with Islam as a harder reading of the Quran, allied with politics, logically ends in these extreme beliefs. And you will not see that debated anywhere.
bootsyjam
Ae I’ve posted elsewhere, the peaceful majority mean nothing. Although it allows those people who don’t want to face the truth to sleep at night.
statchecker
The figure cited on the BBC this morning was of the responses to a poll taken after the Charlie Hebdo massacre specifically about those circumstances. Though most people abhor the murders there was a reasonably sized tranche of people, Muslim and non Muslim, who where less comfortable with endorsing some of the depths plunged to in the name of free speech, this is particularly the case in the UK among people not familiar with this brand of satire. This discussion was held in relation to the poll at the time. To use the outcome of this poll as an indicator of Muslims who support Jihadists is hugely misleading.