Much has been made of George W.
Bush’s throwaway characterization of the US’s "war
on terrorism" as a ‘crusade’. To be fair, he was
probably using the word in the sense of a
determined, even zealous, pursuit of a cause, rather
than in any specifically anti-Islamic sense; it is
unlikely that he knew the origin of the word when he
used it, although he has undoubtedly been told
since. To balance that single careless comment, Bush
can boast of numerous statements in praise of Islam;
indeed, he even visited a mosque in Washington to
reassure Muslims that he knows Islam is a civilized,
peace-loving religion, and that the US has nothing
against it. At the same time Bush has repeatedly
said that, in the US’s war against terrorism, people
must be with the US or be counted as against it.
If all the US’s propaganda about itself, its values, its
democracy, its promotion of freedom, human rights, justice and the rule of
law, and its desire to establish all these in the world, were true, Bush’s
comments on Islam and his ultimatum to Muslims would merely be arrogant.
This, however, can safely be dismissed. So how do we take Bush’s
us-or-them stance? Taken with all his comments in praise of Muslims and
Islam, the message is clear: we don’t mind Muslims provided that they are
willing to support us in our war against terrorism; otherwise their
version of Islam is the ‘extremist’ one, the one we are determined to
eradicate, and they can expect no mercy. It is, in other words, a
declaration of war on any form of Islam that refuses to accept Western
political, economic and cultural hegemony, and refuses to bow down before
Western power.
This is not new, of course; the west has long been at war
with all anti-western political movements, in Muslim countries, Latin
America, southeast Asia or elsewhere. The ‘coalition against terrorism’
that Bush has brought together includes some of the most terrorist regimes
in the world, including Russia, China, India, Israel, Britain and of
course the US itself. What they all have in common is that they are
perfectly willing to join in a war against political Islamic movements,
many being individually involved in struggles against Islam, in Palestine,
Kashmir, Chechnya and elsewhere. Numerous Muslim regimes are also part of
the coalition, openly or not, having been bribed, threatened or
blackmailed into it.
What is new is the brazenness and intensity with which
this war will be fought from now on. The West’s claims to represent civil
and human rights have long rung hollow, but the pretence has been set
aside in relatively few cases, that of Shaikh Umar Abdur-Rahman being the
most obvious. From now on we can expect many more such cases in Western
countries, as well as assassinations and disappearances of Islamic
movement leaders, and the general toleration of brutal repression of all
forms of political Islamic activism on a far greater scale all over the
world. What Islamic movement activists in countries such as Algeria,
Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Iraq are used to will soon become equally familiar
to Muslims elsewhere, including Western countries.
The dangers and difficulties facing Western Muslims as the
Ummah’s struggle for independence from Western hegemony becomes
more open have often been discussed in these pages. We will now be
expected to be more loyal than the loyallest non-Muslims, and continually
to demonstrate our acceptance of Western values. Those who comply will be
accepted as ‘good’ Muslims, and promoted and rewarded for helping to
maintain the West’s claim not to be anti-Islamic. Among other things, they
will be recognised as the ‘legitimate’ leaders of the community, and
provided with resources with which to establish their positions and buy
the community off. Those Muslims who criticise the West’s role in the
world, meanwhile, and on speaking up for Islamic movements that the West
takes as enemies, can expect to have many problems, even if they say and
do no more than non-Muslim Western dissidents.
There are already signs that many Muslim organizations and
‘leaders’ will decide to be ‘good Muslims’. In Britain, the five Muslims
in Parliament (three in the House of Lords and two in the House of
Commons) have all supported the West’s ‘war’ in Afghanistan; all,
coincidentally or not, are members of the ruling Labour Party. Few
organizations have had the courage to condemn the war as strongly as they
did the attacks on the US. As the West’s war on Islam intensifies, more
and more Muslims are going to feel the pressure. The prospects of many
holding out and continuing to serve the movement are not good.
Mr. Iqbal Siddiqui is Editor of Crescent International and Research Fellow at the
Institute of Islamic Contemporary Thought.
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