Only the US Can Tame This Monster

View from Dubai

Only the US Can Tame This Monster

Aijaz Zaka Syed

Watching the mind-numbing savagery unleashed on Gaza in utter helplessness with the rest of the world and listening to the statements of Israeli and Western leaders over the past few days, I’ve often wondered: ‘Are we all on the same planet?’

On Monday, Israel’s Shimon Peres told visiting French President Nicolas Sarkozy that Israel was committed to peace. At that precise moment, Israeli jets were bombing the daylights out of Gaza, literally.

While the Peres-Sarkozy meeting was shown live on CNN with the Israeli leader singing paeans to world peace, Al Jazeera English showed how the peaceful state of Israel has been promoting peace in Gaza.

The narrow strip, the world’s largest prison, has been on the fire for the past two weeks with Israeli jets constantly raining death and destruction on the ‘terrorists’ below. And on the ground, Israeli tanks take care of those escaping the punishment from skies. Hospitals are deluged with those who have ended up as another faceless number, another statistic in the Zionist war for total supremacy in the Middle East.

While Sarkozy and other EU worthies hold forth on the virtues of peace during their whistle-stop tour of the Middle East, the heart-rending scenes of wailing parents with dead children in their arms are too disturbing to watch even from the comfort and safety of one’s drawing room. Even though camera swiftly pans across the Shifa hospital in Gaza, you can’t help notice men, women and children with their limbs blown off all over the place. One farmer carries a dead toddler in one arm as he points television cameras to his two other dead children in the hall.

Why did those children die? What was their crime? Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, locked in a battle for power with Labour’s Ehud Barak, sweetly points out this is something every civilised country has to do to protect its people.

What civilised country? Protecting what? What’s she talking about? You first occupy someone’s home by force and then kill his children to protect yourselves!

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who used to visit the Middle East almost every week, is not to be seen now. In any case, even if Condi had decided to honour us with her visit, you need no foreign policy experts to tell you which side she would take.

Speaking after Israeli attacks killed more than 300 people on the day after Christmas, Condi said: “We are deeply concerned about the escalating violence. We strongly condemn the attacks on Israel and hold Hamas responsible!”

As British stand up comedian and activist Mark Steel says it’s like being asked to comment on teenage knife-crime in UK and saying: “I strongly condemn the people who’ve been stabbed, and until they abandon their practice of wandering around clutching their sides and bleeding, there’s no hope for peace.”

As for Condi’s irrepressible boss, he remains as steadfast as ever in his devotion to Israel. Rejecting calls for ceasefire, Bush said: “I understand Israel’s desire to protect itself. The situation now taking place in Gaza was caused by Hamas.”

I wonder if there are any television sets in the White House and whether W watches any of them when he gets a break from his gym and bicycle regime. Does the world’s most powerful man ever pause and ponder when he sees those children crying for their dead parents? Does he ever wonder where those kids will go and who’ll take care of them? Does he ever watch Palestinian parents grieve for their kids and think of his own?

But then as far as the born-again believers and the Zionists are concerned, the Palestinians are not human. They don’t even exist, as Israel’s first woman leader Golda Meir famously said. And who cares if they are exterminated and expended if it will save and protect the great state of Israel? Israel’s security is all that matters.

Okay, we never had any expectations from this administration. But why is Bush’s successor silent?

Where’s the man whose message of hope and promise of change had electrified the entire Middle East and the world only weeks ago? I remember Palestinian children and students in Gaza plumping for Obama in the run up to the November 4 election. Raising slogans for Obama as if they were voting for him, Palestinian kids would shout, ‘Inshaallah’ with their fingers making victory sign.

Was it because Obama’s middle name happens to be Hussain? No. The Palestinians, like the Americans themselves, believed in Obama’s extraordinary message. They believed, like many others in the Muslim world did and still do, that someone who promised change and a fair deal to all Americans would be fair to the Middle East too and could correct historical injustices.

Which is why Obama’s deafening silence on Gaza is most intriguing. (He broke his silence Tuesday night by expressing ‘grave concern’ on civilian casualties ‘in Gaza and in Israel’. But we expect more from Obama!)

Since Israel’s brave forces, armed to the teeth with the world’s deadliest weapons, unleashed their awesome firepower on a population that can’t defend itself, the Middle East has been asking this question time and again: ‘Where’s Obama?’

The Palestinian children who cheered and prayed for your victory are waiting for you, Mr Obama. They need you and they need you to speak out against this shameless aggression against a 
besieged people terrorised from all sides.

As I key in this, UN-run school has become the latest casualty of Israel’s so-called quest for security. Forty-two people, most of them children, have been killed in the Tuesday night attack on the UNWRA compound that has been a shelter for hundreds of uprooted Palestinian families uprooted by this war.

Meanwhile Arabs are once again pushing for another UN resolution on Gaza. But even if the UN manages to pass such a resolution, where’s the guarantee that Israel will heed it? The UN has passed many such worthless resolutions in the past, including the one asking Israel to end occupation and return to its pre-1967 war borders. They have been consigned to the dustbin of history. So what difference will this one make?

Let’s face it. If anyone can tame this monster, it’s only those who created it in the first place. If the US puts its foot down, there’s no reason it can’t rein in Israel. So if the Arab and Muslim states really want to stop the Palestinian holocaust, they should be pushing the US, not the UN.

The buck stops in Washington. And please don’t tell me the Muslims with all their numbers, resources and oil wealth cannot persuade the US to 
deal with the Frankenstein it has created. They can —  if they really want that is!

(Aijaz Zaka Syed is Opinion Editor of Khaleej Times, Dubai. He can be reached at aijaz@khaleejtimes.com)

Gaza: We are all guilty

Gaza: Are we all not guilty? Aijaz Zaka Syed

Just when you think the Palestinians have suffered enough and nothing more can test their fortitude, trust Israel to come up with more ingenious ways of winning hearts and minds. Just look at the shock and awe of the Gaza offensive. What perfect timing and what a surprise to spring on a fatigued and famished people. A perfect Christmas present from Israel when the whole world is either away on holiday or in a general celebratory mood to ring in the New Year. The weather is great. This is perhaps the best time to be in the Middle East and Holy Land — the land of olives, peace and prophets. At a time like this, the Palestinians are burying their dead. They’ve already buried hundreds of them. And by the time Israel is done dealing with “Hamas terrorists,” they might have buried thousands of their loved ones. What Israel has unleashed on Gaza is outrageous even by Israeli standards. Amira Haas, a correspondent for the Israeli daily Haaretz, in her dispatch aptly titled, “Christmas in Gaza: No More Room in the Morgue”, says: “There are many corpses and wounded, every moment another casualty is added to the list of the dead, and there is no more room in the morgue. Relatives search among the bodies and the wounded in order to bring the dead quickly to burial. A mother whose three school-age children were killed, and are piled one on top of the other in the morgue, screams and then cries, screams again and then is silent.” Another first person account by Safa Joudeh for an online publication talks of a “surreal” experience comparing deluged Gaza hospitals to slaughterhouses: “Never had we imagined anything like this. It all happened so fast but the amount of death and destruction is inconceivable. The streets are strewn with bodies, their arms, legs, feet, some with shoes and some without. Hospitals and morgues are packed and some of the dead are still lying in the streets with their families gathered around them. And even after the dead are identified, doctors are having a hard time gathering the right body parts in order to hand them over to their families. The hospital hallways look like a slaughterhouse. It’s truly worse than any horror movie you could ever imagine.” Israel of course assures the world that all these victims were “Hamas terrorists” and they deserved to die. Even the young children and infants dying in the arms of their parents were a clear and present danger to Israel. Like the family of Anwar Balusha who lost five of his daughters when Israel bombed a mosque in Beit Hanoun. The five sisters were asleep when one of the mosque walls collapsed on to their small asbestos-roofed home and they were all killed in sleep. The eldest one was 17 and the youngest just four. But of course their death was necessary for Israel’s safety. Tzipi Livni, the “moderate” successor of Ehud Olmert, reminds the international community that Israel has to protect itself. “We need to give a better life of peace and quiet to our citizens,” pointed out Ms. Livni after two days of bombing that killed nearly 300 Palestinians. Killing Palestinians and flattening Palestinian towns and cities is the only way of protecting the Jewish state that was carved out of Palestinian land. And as always, Israel’s loyal American friends second her view. The honorable US Ambassador to UN Zalmay Khalilzad holds Hamas responsible for the whole thing. “Sequence wise,” Khalilzad pointed out after another of those pointless UN Security Council meetings, “it’s the Palestinian rockets that started this!” If we are talking of “sequence” and history, Ambassador Khalilzad, why not go back a bit more in time and look what started those homemade, rudimentary rockets in the first place? The answer is Israeli occupation of the past six decades. By the way, over the past seven years, 14 Israelis have been killed by those rockets made from fertilizer while more than 5,000 Palestinians have been killed by Israel with the weapons given in aid by the US. The Europeans are more nuanced in urging “restraint by all sides.” In other words, victims are once again to blame for inviting this upon themselves. The familiar charade! There has been no Western denunciation of the Israeli slaughter. Such aerial destruction is after all routinely visited on Iraq and Afghanistan. As for the UN, that boneless wonder and handmaiden of big powers, the less said the better. Three days after Israel unleashed its blitz on Gaza, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon stirred out of his slumber to call for an end to violence! When it comes to standing up for the Palestinians, the world body’s record has never been spectacular. But under Ban, it has truly been a headless chicken. It knows not what it’s doing or where it’s headed. As for the Arab and Muslim world, it has yet to prove it exists and is alive. Let alone confront Israel or respond to the Palestinian suffering, for the first three days the Arab and Muslim states couldn’t even agree on when and where to meet to discuss the crisis. So while Israel relentlessly pummels and pulverizes Gaza and the world watches in silent indifference, all the Arabs and Muslim countries can do is condemn the Jewish state for its “flagrant violations of the principles of international humanitarian law.” As if Israel cares for what Arabs and Muslim think about it! But then what’s new? This is how it has always been in this utterly one-sided conflict. Israel kills, burns and brutalizes Palestinians at will and the world watches in morbid fascination as if it was a Hollywood production; as if it wasn’t real people of flesh and blood dying in front of our eyes but actors on silver screen play-acting to entertain us. Where’s the civilized world for God’s sake when we need it? Where is the international community with all its hallowed institutions and august organizations? Where are all those human rights agencies and NGOs that never tire of talking of all kinds of rights and charters and conventions? And where are the Arabs and Muslims? What is the point of their trillions of dollars of wealth if it cannot protect a tiny, helpless and homeless community? What’s the point of their swelling numbers — a billion plus of them — if they cannot stand up to a ruthless killer and prevent it from killing innocent children sleeping in their homes? Don’t we realize that by remaining silent and doing nothing to stop these crimes against a literally starving and long terrorized people, we actually prove our guilt by complicity? As Edmund Burke warned, all that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. The world is watching the Arabs. If they fail to act now, history will never forgive them.

No Time to Hide for Muslims

30 November 2008

View from Dubai

Aijaz Zaka Syed

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Watching the terror nightmare unfold in Mumbai over the past three days with me on television, my kids have repeatedly asked me: “Who are these terrorists and why are they doing this?” And every time I wished I could offer them a convincing answer. 

 

What could I tell them? For one, I was equally clueless why these guys had taken over India’s financial and cultural capital and were targeting people who had nothing to do with them and had done nothing to harm them.  

For two, I was too ashamed to tell them these guys were ostensibly Muslims and came from a country that was created in the name of Islam.  

At work, while my colleagues went about covering the madness in Mumbai and laying out special pages with the images of the incredibly beautiful hotel, Taj, with its Islamic arches and domes, go up in smoke, I find it hard to look my colleagues in the eye. 

And this happens all the time. Every time innocents are targeted in the name of Islam around the world, one can’t face one’s non-Muslim friends and colleagues.  I feel like burying myself in the ground.  Growing up in a religious family, one never thought one would see the day when being a Muslim could be a source of shame. 

A distraught friend who has devoted her life to speaking and fighting on behalf of Arabs and Muslims wrote in yesterday saying “I’ve had it with the Arabs and Muslims and Islamic militancy. Forgive me but I am throwing in the towel.”

I couldn’t write back to her but understood her pain.  She grew up in Mumbai and is understandably upset. 

My friend went on to say: “The Muslims and Islam have a problem and only they can solve it.  If they do not, the whole world will turn against them.”

If this is how our most loyal friends feel, imagine the sentiments and reactions of the rest of the world.  Can you blame the world if it’s turning against Muslims? What do you expect when not a single day passes without the name of our faith being dragged through the mud by fellow believers around the world? 

How many innocents have to die in the name of Islam before Muslim leaders and countries take effective action to deal with the nuts, who are out to destroy us all with their nihilistic cult?

I know that the Muslim leaders including those in the highest echelons of power have lately started speaking out against the extremists. 

Darul Uloom Deoband in India, one of the oldest and most respected centres of learning in the Muslim world, issued a fatwa against terrorism at a large gathering of Islamic scholars and leaders in June.  Last month, nearly 5,000 scholars backed the edict at a huge congregation in Hyderabad. 

The OIC, the organisation of Muslim states, and Saudi Arabia, the leader of the Arab-Islamic world, have of late been equally vehement in condemning these repulsive acts of violence targeting innocents. 

Eminent Muslim intellectuals and journalists like Tariq Ramadan, a grandson of Muslim Brotherhood founder Hasan Al Banna, and India’s MJ Akbar and numerous others too have repeatedly protested this distortion of Islamic teachings and spirit.  

These calls of conscience on behalf of mainstream Islam have however proved voices in the wilderness.  Clearly, we need to do more to be heard by the world and to stop this shameful victimisation of innocent people in the name of religion.

The great irony of the Mumbai attacks is the killing of Anti-Terrorism Squad chief Hemant Karkare and his colleagues.  Karkare, a brave and decorated officer investigating the Malegaon blasts and other recent terror attacks that he established to be the handiwork of Hindu extremists, not Muslim groups like SIMI, was killed by the terrorists outside Cama hospital Wednesday night.   Obviously, Muslims do not know who their real friends and enemies are. And, pray, why is India increasingly being singled out for this savagery?  What do they think this country is? A Hindu country or an anti-Muslim nation? 

Do the ignorant dummies repeatedly being sent out on the so-called jihad know that this great country is home to the world’s largest Muslim population? Almost twice the size of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan!  India’s greatest superstar is a Muslim, not to mention the countless achievers in other fields. 

Why are our friends across the border bent on destroying the whole world with themselves? Is this what Islam and the noble Prophet teach and stand for?

It’s all very well for us to say Islam has nothing to do with extremism and terrorism.  We can go on deluding ourselves these psychopaths do not represent us. 

However, the world finds it hard to accept this line of argument because it sees the extremists increasingly assert themselves and take the centre-stage while the mainstream Islam remains silent.   

The great religion that preaches and celebrates universal brotherhood, equality of men and peace and justice for all has been hijacked by a demented, miniscule minority. And, as my friend says, only Muslims can solve this problem.  Only Muslims can confront these anarchists in their midst. 

Only they can get their faith freed from the clutches of extremism. This is no time to hide. It’s time to stand up and speak out. For the terrorists will continue to speak on our behalf, until we do not speak up.  This is no time for silence.  Enough is enough!

c. Khaleej Times

No Time to Hide for Muslims (Der Spiegel article)

 

SPIEGEL ONLINE

12. Dezember 2008, 18:30 Uhr

ISLAMISTISCHE GEWALT

“Die Muslime müssen gegen den Terror aufstehen”

Kaum eine Woche vergeht, ohne dass islamistische Terroristen irgendwo auf der Welt zuschlagen. Wirkungsvoll gegen die Gewalt vorgehen können nur die Muslime selbst, glaubt der Journalist Aijaz Zaka Syed. Auf SPIEGEL ONLINE fordert er von seinen Glaubensgenossen mehr Engagement gegen den Terror.

In den drei Tagen, in denen wir am Fernseher dabei zuschauten, wie Mumbai vom Terror-Alptraum heimgesucht wurde, fragten mich meine Kinder immer wieder: “Wer sind diese Terroristen und warum tun sie das?” Jedes Mal wünschte ich mir, ich könnte ihnen eine überzeugende Antwort geben.

Was hätte ich ihnen sagen sollen? Zum einen war ich selbst ratlos, warum diese Leute Indiens finanzielles und kulturelles Zentrum erobert hatten und Menschen angriffen, die nichts mit ihnen zu tun und ihnen nichts getan hatten. Zum anderen war ich zu beschämt, ihnen zu sagen, dass diese Leute augenscheinlich Muslime waren und aus einem Land kamen, das im Namen des Islam gegründet wurde.

Eine verzweifelte Freundin, die ihr Leben dem Engagement für Araber und Muslime gewidmet hat, schrieb mir vor einigen Tagen: “Ich habe genug von den Arabern und Muslimen und der islamischen Militanz. Vergib mir, aber ich gebe auf.”

Ich konnte ihr nicht antworten – aber verstand ihren Schmerz. Sie ist in Mumbai aufgewachsen und ist verständlicherweise aufgebracht.

Meine Freundin schrieb weiter: “Die Muslime und der Islam haben ein Problem, das nur sie selbst lösen können. Sollten sie es nicht tun, wird sich die ganze Welt gegen sie wenden.”

Wenn sich schon unsere loyalsten Freunde so fühlen, dann stelle man sich erst mal die Empfindungen und Reaktionen des Rests der Welt vor. Kann man die Welt tadeln, falls sie sich gegen die Muslime stellt? Was ist zu erwarten, wenn kein einziger Tag mehr vergehen sollte, ohne dass der Name unserer Religion von Glaubensgenossen rund um die Welt in den Dreck gezogen wird?

Wie viele Unschuldige müssen im Namen des Islams sterben, bevor muslimische Führer und Staaten wirksame Schritte einleiten, um gegen die Verrückten vorzugehen, die uns mit ihrem nihilistischen Kult zerstören wollen?

Ich weiß, dass muslimische Führer – darunter jene in den höchsten Machträngen – in jüngster Zeit begonnen haben, sich gegen Extremisten auszusprechen. Das Dar ul-Ulum Deoband in Indien, eines der ältesten Bildungszentren der muslimischen Welt, hat im Juni bei einer großen Versammlung islamischer Gelehrter und Führer eine Fatwa (ein islamisches Rechtsgutachten, Anm. d. Red.) gegen Terrorismus veröffentlicht. Vergangenen Monat stellten sich rund 5000 Gelehrte bei einer Zusammenkunft im indischen Hyderabad hinter dieses Gutachten.

Die Organisation der Islamischen Konferenz sowie Saudi-Arabien haben zuletzt ähnlich vehement Angriffe gegen Unschuldige verurteilt. Muslimische Intellektuelle und Journalisten wie Tarik Ramadan – ein Enkel des Gründers der Muslimbruderschaft -, der Inder MJ Akbar und viele andere haben wiederholt gegen diese Verzerrung von islamischer Lehre und Geist protestiert.

Doch diese Rufe zur Besinnung im Interesse des Islams haben sich als einsame Stimmen herausgestellt. Wir müssen eindeutig mehr tun, um von der Welt gehört zu werden und diese beschämenden Attacken auf unschuldige Menschen im Namen der Religion zu stoppen.

Die große Ironie der Attacken von Mumbai liegt im Tod des Anti-Terror-Chefs Hemant Karkare und seiner Kollegen. Karkare war ein tapferer Offizier. Er hatte die Malegaon-Anschläge (dabei starben im September 2006 in Nordindien über 30 Menschen, überwiegend Muslime, Anm. d. Red.) und andere Terrorattacken der jüngeren Vergangenheit untersucht, die er Hindu-Extremisten zuschrieb – nicht muslimischen Gruppen wie Simi (Studenten der islamischen Bewegung Indiens). Karkare wurde von den Terroristen unweit des Cama-Krankenhauses in Mumbai umgebracht. Zweifellos wussten sie nicht, wer ihre wirklichen Freunde und Feinde sind.

Und bitteschön: Warum wird immer öfter Indien für diesen Irrsinn ausgewählt? Denken die Terroristen, dieser Staat sei ein reines Hindu-Land oder eine Anti-Muslim-Nation?

Wissen die Ignoranten, die in den sogenannten Dschihad geschickt werden, dass dieses großartige Land die weltweit größte muslimische Bevölkerungsgruppe beherbergt – fast doppelt so groß wie die Islamische Republik Pakistan? Indiens größter Superstar ist ein gebürtiger Muslim (der Bollywood-Schauspieler Shahrukh Khan, Anm. d. Red.), nicht zu vergessen zahllose erfolgreiche indische Muslime in anderen Branchen. Warum sind diese Menschen versessen darauf, die ganze Welt und sich selbst zu zerstören? Ist es das, was der Islam und der edle Prophet lehren?

Zu sagen, dass der Islam nichts mit Extremismus und Terrorismus zu tun habe, ist ja schön und gut. Wir können uns weiter mit dem Argument benebeln, dass diese Psychopathen uns nicht repräsentieren. Nur: Die Welt kann diese Argumentation schwer nachvollziehen, weil sie sieht, wie sich Extremisten immer stärker durchsetzen und in den Mittelpunkt drängen – während der Mainstream-Islam stumm bleibt.

Diese großartige Religion, die universelle Brüderlichkeit, Gleichheit, Frieden und Gerechtigkeit für alle predigt, ist von einer verrückten, winzigen Minderheit als Geisel genommen worden. Wie schon meine Bekannte sagt: Nur Muslime können dieses Problem lösen. Nur Muslime können diesen Anarchisten in ihrer Mitte entgegentreten. Nur sie können ihren Glauben den Klauen des Extremismus entreißen. Es ist jetzt nicht die Zeit, sich zu verstecken. Es ist an der Zeit, aufzustehen und Stellung zu beziehen. Denn die Terroristen werden weiter in unserem Namen agieren – solange, bis wir selbst für uns sprechen.

Dies ist keine Zeit zum Schweigen. Genug ist genug!

Übersetzung: Florian Gathmann

Hand on heart, Blair’s right!

“NEVER part with your illusions,” advised Mark Twain. “When they are gone you may still exist, but you have ceased to live.”

I am reminded of the inimitable American and his earthy wisdom every time I hear Bush and Blair, the two illustrious leaders of the coalition of the willing, hold forth on the war on terror and why they are still fighting it.

As his departure day approaches, Blair appears particularly desperate to ‘protect’ his legacy. Like the proverbial cat on a hot tin roof, he is hopping from London to Washington to Baghdad to leave a lasting impression that will outlast his successor Brown.

Conservative leader David Cameron is spot on in likening Blair to a fading pop star on a farewell tour. But then Blair has always been a pop star. He has always been there to engage and entertain the media while his friend Bush went about the business of ruling the world.

But if you thought the British leader would shed a tear or two before his departure over the mess in Iraq, think again. In his farewell speech to the Labour party earlier this month, there was no hint of remorse over Iraq: “I did what I thought was right,” said the prime minister with a smirk and without batting an eye.

The next stop was Washington where Bush, ever in awe of his smooth-talking ally from across the Atlantic, rolled out a red carpet for him.

And there he was on the White House lawn defending the indefensible even as Bush watched his friend’s gift of the gab with uninhibited veneration: “We took a decision that we thought was very difficult,” Blair told the almost reverential reporters. “I thought then, and I think now, it was the right decision.”

And while you are at it, how could you miss Iraq? There couldn’t be a more appropriate, more picturesque photo opportunity than shaking hands with the boys in Basra. Ah! What perfect way to say adieu to a beautiful war. And what better way to sign off from 10, Downing Street.

Brown will never be able to claim this war as his own. This will only be remembered as his and of course Bush’s war.

So there Blair was in Baghdad shaking hands with Nuri Al-Maliki and Jalal Talabani and grinning into the camera. Again, if simpletons like you and me thought a chastened Blair would perhaps make a mention of making ‘mistakes’ over Iraq, they were in for a disappointment. “I have no regrets about removing Saddam, no,” a smiling Blair told a news conference with Maliki and Talabani.

But this one really takes the cake.

Blasting Iraq’s ‘interfering’ and ‘uncooperative’ neigbhours, the British leader thundered: “The future of Iraq should be determined by Iraqis in accordance with their wishes and it is important that all the neighbouring countries understand and respect that.”

Can you better that? Never mind the bitchy critics like me who wonder if Blair, Bush and other worthy members of the ‘coalition of the willing’ had done the same — that is, respect the wishes of Iraqi people allowing them to determine their own future when they invaded Iraq?

I for one find it difficult to forget the fact that the coalition invaded Iraq to bring down the regime, ignoring all appeals by the United Nations, OIC and Arab League for giving diplomacy a chance to resolve the issue.

Iraq was attacked despite the protestations by the IAEA teams that their inspections had failed to turn up a smoking gun or the so-called Weapons of Mass Destruction.

Even the unprecedented peace marches around the world — largest ever to take place before a war — failed to dissuade those who wanted to make an ‘example’ of Iraq for the Arab and Muslim world. And oil, of course! Oil was the big bonus, the real incentive for going to Iraq.

I know the successful politicians like Blair can take any thing in their stride. They wouldn’t allow any inconvenient pangs of their conscience to affect their never-ending reverie. As far as they are concerned, what is happening in Iraq is but a stream of lifeless images, to be observed from a safe distance — from London or Washington.

But it beats me how you could sleep in peace at night when you know that you have sent nearly a million people to their deaths?

Announcing his retirement in Sedgefield, his constituency in northern England, earlier this month, Blair had declared: “Hand on heart, I did what I thought was right!”

Is lying to your people, and the rest of the world — hand on heart — that Iraq has the ability to unleash a WMD attack on Britain within ‘45 minutes’ and attacking a defenceless nation ‘right’?

According to Britain’s own health journal, Lancet, more than 655,000 Iraqis had died in this war until last year, when this report appeared. Hand on heart, is this the ‘right’ thing to do, Mr Blair?

Okay, even if you give the invaders benefit of the doubt that they genuinely believed Saddam’s Iraq posed a ‘clear and present danger’ to the civilised West, has nothing changed over the past four years?

Now that we know Saddam’s WMD were indeed a figment of the neocon imagination, you would think Iraq’s liberators would squirm in their seats before insisting what they did was the ‘right thing’ to do. The fact that all those hundreds of thousands of Iraqi people — and the US and UK soldiers — died for a lie and continue to die doesn’t seem to have made any difference to the world Blair and Bush inhabit.

If the Bush administration is guilty of initiating this unjust and unreasonable war on Iraq, Blair’s Britain is responsible for aiding and executing it.

As former president Jimmy Carter has argued, it’s almost certain that the US wouldn’t have gone to war on its own, if Britain hadn’t joined the invasion. No wonder Carter describes Blair’s support for Bush as, “Abominable. Loyal. Blind. Subservient.”

The honourable members of the coalition may be too vain to own up their guilt. But can they really escape the consequences of their crimes against humanity?

There is undeniable evidence to suggest that some sort of divine justice has already come into play. All those responsible for or associated with this most unjust of all wars have begun paying for their crimes.

Pentagon chief Don Rumsfeld, who had dismissed Abu Ghraib and other crimes against Iraqi people shrugging off, “stuff happens,” is out in the cold despite Bush’s best efforts to save him.

Ditto his lieutenant and fellow architect of Iraq disaster Paul Wolfowitz. The White House picked up Wolfie to head the World Bank ignoring all protests from human rights groups. He had to go equally ignominiously last week, albeit for different reasons — for mistaking the World Bank to be his love nest.

Even secretary of state Colin Powell, who was not part of the neocon inner circle and is said to have opposed the invasion, is paying for his now infamous argument before the UN calling for the war.

And CIA chief George Tenet, who sat next to Powell in the UN even as he claimed to have ‘credible’ evidence that Iraq posed a clear threat to the civilised world, is gone with the wind too.

Scooter Libby, the chief of staff of Vice President Dick Cheney and another high profile member of the neocon brigade, is currently facing a long prison sentence for his role in CIA leak case.

And Lord Blair of Kut al-Amara, King George’s most cavalier knight, is going to be history soon too. The only remaining dramatis personae on history’s stage are Bush and Cheney, the original players of this absurd play. As Shakespeare tells us in Julius Caesar, “the fault, Brutus, lies not in our stars but in ourselves.”

If one player after another is falling from grace in the tragedy called Iraq, the fault is not in their stars, but in themselves.

Although the jury is still out on this administration, which Carter terms as the most unpopular in US history, this president already holds the unique record of the first White House occupant with the lowest ever popularity ratings.

But it’s not history’s verdict that Iraqi people — fighting for survival every single day, every single minute — are interested in. All they are asking and waiting for is justice — justice for those who have denied them justice.

Aijaz Zaka Syed is Opinion Editor of Khaleej Times and a commentator based in Dubai. He can be reached at aijaz@khaleejtimes.com

Jinnah’s dream

View from Dubai

BY AIJAZ ZAKA SYED

20 May 2007

SOME of my closest friends and colleagues are from Pakistan. Which is hardly surprising in a multicultural melting pot like Dubai where you get to meet and work with some of the best and brightest people from around the world.

We Indians and Pakistanis share a unique, emotional relationship that is not easy to understand for the rest of the world. There are hundreds of thousands of families who have their loved ones on both sides of the divide.

Hundreds of families in Hyderabad Deccan, where I come from, have ties beyond the border. I have no relatives on Pakistani side. But someone close to my heart — closer than blood relations — prides herself on being a Pakistani.

It’s little surprising then that millions of Indian and Pakistani families are affected by political and social upheavals on the either side of the line drawn by Sir Henry McMahon.

So if Indian Muslims closely follow developments in Pakistan, they are only being human. And this isn’t limited to Muslims. There are thousands of Hindu and Sikh families who care for what goes on in what was once their homeland or the land of their ancestors.

This occasional expression of concern doesn’t make us in any way unfaithful to India, as our Shiva Sena and RSS friends in India suggest.

I don’t want to get into a Partition debate here. Pakistan is a reality and all of us, whether we like it or not, have to accept it as such.

We Indian Muslims love our motherland, as much as anyone else. But we do not hate Pakistan, if that’s what our saffron friends want. And we would like the country that was created in the name of Islam and Muslims to prosper and do well as a modern state that stands for all that is celebrated by Islam and humanity: Peace, truth, justice, equality and freedom.

Unfortunately, what has been going on in Pakistan over the past few weeks and months does little to promote the ideals and objectives of the architects of the “land of the pure”.

I know my Pakistani friends wouldn’t like this — especially coming this as it does from an Indian Muslim. But as a friend and well wisher of their country, one has to say this.

The manner in which the Chief Justice episode has unfolded and been handled is most shocking, to say the least. But what has been really embarrassing to all Pakistanis and Muslims in general is the absurd drama that followed the suspension of Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry.

Soon after the CJ’s sack, writing in these columns I had commented that by taking on the judiciary, Musharraf might have made the biggest blunder of his political career.

And Chaudhry, I had the audacity to argue, might end up accomplishing what powerful politicians Benazir and Nawaz Sharif have tried and failed: That is, stop the Musharraf juggernaut.

Well, Musharraf is far from gone. But after what happened in Karachi, obviously with the blessings of the powers that be, no leader can survive long in power — even if he has the powerful military establishment behind him.

I doubt if the Generals waiting in line behind Musharraf would back their top gun in total defiance of the unprecedented public anger and frustration.

After the 24-hour long march from Islamabad to Lahore during which Chaudhry was mobbed like a rock star and welcomed with rose petals, drums and firecrackers along the way, no general or politician with any sense of self-preservation would find it easy to stand alongside the regime.

What began as an initiative seeking justice for the chief justice has turned into a powerful, nationwide movement for the restoration of democracy and against all that this regime has come to symbolise.

And I have an uneasy feeling that the cheap show of muscle and plain hooliganism in Karachi, organised by a party that claims to champion the cause of Mohajirs (migrants from India), may have driven the last nail in the regime’s coffin.

The spectacle of young men lying on the streets like dead flies all over the city making Karachi look like a war zone has repulsed and disgusted many diehard supporters of the MQM.

This shocking display of lawlessness has dramatically eroded Musharraf’s support base in and outside Pakistan. Many in the Muslim world and elsewhere were once drawn to the General for the manner in which he constantly rose to meet the challenging situations — from the ever-tumultuous relations with India to the impossible pressure from the United States.

We in India respected him for his bold approach to improving relations with the old and uneasy neighbour and making genuine progress on the issue of Kashmir.

If thousands of Indians and Pakistanis are freely moving across the border including the Line of Control in Kashmir, the credit should go to Musharraf.

I particularly liked his initiative for dialogue between the West and Muslim world. Acting as a bridge between the two worlds, the General put across the idea of Enlightened Moderation calling on both Muslims and the West to address each other’s concerns for a better and peaceful world.

Watching Musharraf address a poorly-attended public rally in Islamabad last week, in response to Chaudhry’s Karachi rally, I wondered whatever happened to that thinking, sensitive leader who once seemed to have his finger on the public pulse.

For the tough talking man in salwar kameez, who constantly waved his arms and jutted out his chin like a Punjabi movie hero, wasn’t the Musharraf we all knew.

This Musharraf was different from the one who won hearts and minds in most trying circumstances wherever he went — from New Delhi to Washington to United Nations.

What happened? Was this Musharraf or unchallenged power speaking? Perhaps, the General has come to convince himself that he is essential to the future and survival of Pakistan.

This is unfortunate considering Musharraf didn’t take power by force like others. It was thrust on him, as Shakespeare would put it.

This is a familiar phenomenon across the Muslim world. The old and corrupt power structures built and perpetuated by colonial powers continue to make good governance and democracy an impossible dream.

This is all the more tragic in the case of Pakistan. The architects of this utopia intended it to be a citadel of Islam and a modern, progressive and model Islamic state.

I can’t help recalling the incredible sacrifices made by the proponents of Pakistan and their followers. Believing in those ideals, millions of people gave up the land of their ancestors and everything in it to call themselves the citizens of Pakistan in 1947.

At least, a million people died on both sides in what was to be the biggest and bloodiest migration in human history. As Qurratulain Haider portrayed in her seminal novel, Aag Ka Darya, travelling to this ‘promised land’ was indeed like crossing a mighty river of fire.

So whatever happened to Mohammed Ali Jinnah’s dream? Unfortunately, after Jinnah and Liaqat Ali Khan, the first prime minister, Pakistan did not get the leaders who really understood or identified with the lofty ideals of the country they were chosen to lead.

And the country that was created on the basis of a democratic mandate — the legislatures of Muslim-majority provinces in undivided India voted for Pakistan — has not seen democracy — real democracy, that is. In its short history of 60 years, Pakistan has been ruled for at least three decades by the army.

The result has been the acute political and institutional instability that continues to rock the country from time to time.

While India had veterans like Nehru, Azad and Patel to lead from the front and build a united, strong new India, Pakistan lost Quaid-e-Azam and Liaqat Ali Khan within a couple of years of each other.

Well, this brief history may help you make sense of upheavals in Pakistan. But this cannot be an excuse for Pakistani leaders to take their people for granted and play around with national institutions.

Imagine what a democratic, modern and peaceful Pakistan with its infinite natural and human resources and strategic location can do to help the Muslim world. Remember it’s the only Muslim country that possesses nuclear weapons and boasts a powerful, world-class army. Not only a peaceful, moderate and forward-looking Pakistan can be a source of inspiration and guidance to the rest of the Muslim world, but it can also help restore the battered image of Islam and its besieged followers.

Aijaz Zaka Syed is Opinion Editor of Khaleej Times and a commentator based in Dubai. He can be reached at aijaz@khaleejtimes.com

Inside Europe

View from Dubai

BY AIJAZ ZAKA SYED

What is El Emara? asks my Belarusian friend and journalist with a beatific smile that never seems to touch his deep-set, sad blue eyes. Andrej Dynko has had a far from pleasant experience in his native Belarus. He had to spend some time in his country’s notorious prisons for hurling too many uncomfortable questions at the powers that be. That hasn’t stopped him from coming up with more questions though.

We are taking a late evening stroll along the sleepy boulevard next to our hotel in Brussels. It’s half past eight. Yet the sun doesn’t appear to have gone home. There is so much light it looks as if it’s still 5 in the evening. And there’s a reinvigorating nip in the pleasantly caressing, fragrant air. Having spent the past couple of weeks back home in a typical Indian summer, it is refreshing to be in Brussels.

The city is home to the headquarters of the European Union, the powerful economic club of 27 nations and the world’s biggest free trade zone. Dynko, who edits a political weekly Nasha Niva, is visiting Brussels like me in connection with EU’s Lorenzo Natali Journalism Prize ceremony. He obviously thinks coming from the Middle East I could have the answer to his query.

Unfortunately, yours truly is as familiar with the glory of Arabic language as Bush had been with Musharraf and Vajpayee before his election by the US Supreme Court.

Which is a real disgrace. Having lived and worked in Dubai for years, one should be ashamed of oneself if one’s familiarity with the Arabs and their rich language and culture doesn’t go beyond the regulation shawarma, sheesha, desert safaris and a mindless emphasis on ‘khallas’ and ‘maafi mushkil’.

The trouble is, you may live and work in the UAE for years without ever really bothering or requiring to learn the local language. Which is what most expatriates from India, Pakistan and the West do. They live, work and move often all their lives in the limited spheres of their communities, without ever trying to understand the host country or society.

This says something about this great country and its amazing people, especially their tradition of tolerance and respect towards guests and guest workers. Returning to Brussels, I told Dynko that El Emara was perhaps an improvisation on Amara, a common Arab and Muslim female name. And in this Brussels neighbourhood, from where the EU parliament and headquarters are only a stone’s throw away, you come across hundreds of Arab and Muslim sounding names of cafes, shops and fast food joints.

Watching roadside cafes with animatedly chatting North African Arabs enjoying their steaming Turkish coffee or kebab, you would think you have stepped back in time or landed in Cairo or Casablanca thanks to your pilot’s error of judgment. Indian and Pakistani takeaways greet you as soon as you step out of Brussels’ Midi Station, where our high speed train had taken us, promising you ‘Islamic’ food. My apprehensions about ‘halal’ food had been clearly far from justified. Unlike the rest of Europe, this great city steeped in history and tradition somehow managed to escape the destruction of the two World Wars thanks to Belgian leaders’ clever diplomacy and business sense.

Having been repeatedly invaded by almost all its big neighbours, especially by the French, the Belgians have over the centuries mastered the fine art of diplomacy and political tightrope walking.

Which is perhaps why Brussels has for over the past century or so remained the economic and political hub of Europe. The birth and success of the European Community and later the EU have only ensured and emphasised this unchallenged preeminence of Brussels.

Not for nothing Brussels is considered Europe’s heart. And the large Arab and Muslim community in Belgium, especially in Brussels, is working hard to win it over. There are more than 200,000 Muslims in Brussels alone, a city of one million people who appear to be remarkably at peace with themselves and their incredibly serene city.

From flight and train attendants of North African descent to hotel receptionists of South Asian origin, the Muslims are everywhere. And there are plenty of headscarves too.

If you thought the 9/11 events and Bush’s war on Muslims have forced the believers to lie low or recede to the margins of European society, think again.

Far from retiring to the oblivion of their ghettos, Arabs and Muslims form a healthy part of the mainstream and host societies in this part of the world. At the same time, they are comfortable with their religious and cultural identity.

And it’s a proud and assertive Islam that continues to spread its wings, constantly conquering new territory in what is considered the citadel of Christian Europe. The Muslims, after Christians, are already the largest religious community and Islam is the fastest growing faith across Europe. No wonder Pope Benedict XVI is getting increasingly concerned over the changing religious profile of the continent and his flock.

But whether Europeans love or hate Muslims, they are there to stay and the hosts can do little about it. Besides, if the Muslims and other immigrants continue to pour into Europe in droves looking for jobs and a better life, the aging Europe too needs the young arrivals.

Not only the continent is not getting any younger, constantly falling birth rates in the indigenous, Caucasian populations pose a serious challenge to the continent’s future. The immigrants fill this vacuum. So this is a mutually benefiting, win-win relationship.

But it would be a disservice to countries like Belgium if you don’t recognize the fact that they have gone out of their way to welcome the never-ending stream of visitors.

Although Belgium doesn’t have an awfully good record in Africa in its colonies like Congo, it hasn’t been bad to Arab and Muslim immigrants. It wooed hundreds of thousands of North African Arabs and Muslims after the World War II to work in its coalmines.

The present generation of Arabs and Muslims in Belgium are mostly the children of those miners. Significantly, instead of forcing their own culture and ethos on the new arrivals, the Belgians have allowed them to live and flourish in their own space retaining their distinct identity.

It’s this approach to integration that is at the heart of the EU experiment.

As a result, the modern Belgian Arabs and Muslims are equally at ease with both Arabic, the language of their forefathers, and Flemish, the language of the country of their choice. So contrary to what Kipling warned, the East and West not only meet in modern Europe but also appear to be enjoying the encounter.

And just as the large expatriate community in the UAE and other Middle Eastern countries has played a decisive role in building their host countries, Arabs and Muslims can proudly claim they have a stake in the progress and development of Europe, especially states like Belgium, France and Germany, the original architects of EU. If Belgium and France are home to Arabs, Germany hosts a huge community of Turkish Muslims.

It’s often noted with regret by Muslim historians that Europe would have been part of Muslim world if only the Turks had persisted in their siege of Vienna in the 16th century. The powerful Ottoman army had swept through the Balkans, Greece and Asia Minor to reach Vienna by 1529. The long siege of Vienna, the gateway to Europe, however failed to open the way for Islam. The Turks returned in 1683, under the leadership of Mustafa Pasha, to knock at the gate of Vienna once again.

The second attempt too failed to succeed despite the perseverance and huge losses suffered by the Turks. The Muslim armies were faced with an impregnable wall of resistance largely built by the Pope Innocent XI. The Pope managed to unite the Christian Europe against the ‘infidels’ in the name of God and the survival of Christendom.

As a result, the Muslim armies were forced to retreat from Vienna once again. The Ottoman tide turned at the Gates of Vienna and receded gradually, beginning its long withdrawal through the Balkans and Greece into Asia Minor over the next two centuries.

But, you know, history has an annoying habit of repeating itself. For what the Turks failed to accomplish four centuries ago — conquer Europe — by force appears possible today. The Muslims are winning Europe, not by force as the Ottoman Caliphate had repeatedly sought to do and failed. The once all-white, all-Christian continent is being changed from within.

The Europe that steeled itself against the onslaught of invading Turkish armies four centuries ago is opening itself to the soft power of Islam. The continent that once proudly stood its ground in the face of the legendary Muslim firepower has submitted itself to Islam’s power of persuasion. Never underestimate the power of faith.

Aijaz Zaka Syed is Opinion Editor of Khaleej Times and a commentator based in Dubai. He can be reached at aijaz@khaleejtimes.com

Iran is not Iraq

View from Dubai

By Aijaz Zaka Syed

BEING based in Dubai offers you a rare, vantage point view over the Middle East. And Iran is not far from where we are.

The Bushehr nuclear power plant — at the heart of Iran’s standoff with the West — and the strategic port of Bandar Abbas are a stone’s throw away from Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Doha and many Gulf cities.

We are too close to the Persian giant for comfort. We can often feel the currents and shocks of geopolitical upheavals in Iran — almost literally. Which explains why we are more than apprehensive about the shape of things to come.

Not surprisingly Iran is currently the favourite subject of small talk as well as media chatter in our part of the world. This despite the fact that UAE has always been an oasis of peace and security in the volatile region, even during the successive Gulf wars. And journalist friends from around the world breathlessly ask us: “What do you think? Is the war imminent?” Like all good, old-fashioned hacks, they are secretly hoping for bad news. After all, there’s nothing like a good war to boost your circulation figures or viewer ratings. In fact, what would we journalists do without leaders like Bush and Ahmadinejad? Life would be so dull without the shenanigans of the two gentlemen. Of course, you can’t put the two in the same league. Indeed, they live on different planets. All good journalists love bad news. And the current leaders of Iran and US generate enough of it. While Bush’s own party, American people and the US allies and friends are at their wits’ end making sense of the royal mess that he has unleashed at home and abroad, the leader of the free world himself appears to revel in it. Ahmadinejad, on the other hand, wouldn’t miss any opportunity to beat the ‘Big Satan’ and the rest of his allies with the big stick of fiery rhetoric and cold reason he always carries with him.There are many like me who find it hard not to admire the Iran leader for his courage to take on the big bullies of our world. And trust me, it is not only in the Muslim world that Ahmadinejad strikes a receptive chord. In a remarkably short period, the ordinarily dressed, diminutive leader has built himself a constituency that is not limited to the Middle East or Muslim world. Okay, Ahmadinejad is unreasonable to the point of being absurd in denying the Holocaust and suffering of Jewish people. It’s not easy defending him when he talks of rubbing Israel off the map — although he is alluding to the historical injustice the creation of Israel has inflicted on Palestinians. He is of course playing to the gallery. But he has endeared himself to Muslims and oppressed people everywhere by standing up for a wronged people.

At the same time, I can’t close my eyes to the reality that the Iranian president, by his un-diplomatic and hawkish posturing, has managed to earn more enemies for Iran during the past year and half than all the leaders of the Islamic republic have over the past quarter century or so. If the US and its ever-willing allies are today spoiling for a duel with Iran, Ahmadinejad’s style of leadership has played not too insignificant a role in it. But the Iran leader is not entirely to blame for the current confrontation with the West and tensions in the neighbourhood.Bush and his neocon pals never needed an invitation to take on the Islamist Iran. Just as they didn’t require a provocation to strike at Saddam Hussein’s Iraq. Iran had been one of the key targets of the neocons, according to the blueprint unveiled during Bush’s first year in office. The ambitious plan for a new American century seeks to reshape the Middle East and the Muslim world by taking out the regimes in Saudi Arabia, Iran, Pakistan and others. Iraq, part of Bush’s original axis of evil, has already been liberated and democratised, in accordance with the neocon-Zionist worldview. Iran, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan may be next in line. That plan is still on the table, as Bush would put it, despite the series of humiliating defeats the neocons have suffered and all-round havoc they have wreaked. So the attack on Iran — absolutely nutty as the idea may sound — may still be coming. In fact, the possibility of a US-Israel combine strike on the Islamic republic is growing by the day and the hour. So it’s not a matter of IF but WHEN Iran is likely to get hit by the Coalition of the Willing. The Iran-UK row over the 15 British sailors is only a tiny piece of the Middle East jigsaw that will unravel in the days and months to come. So don’t be surprised if Blair is ‘disgusted’ at Iran’s ‘behaviour’ that made the sailors sing on Iran TV admitting they were indeed in Iranian waters. Indeed, Blair has every right to protest Iran’s treatment of the detained Britons. For God’s sake, don’t the mullahs know how to treat the enemy combatants? When will the Arabs and Muslims learn the rules of engagement of the civilised world? Why there were no hoods, no dogs or leashes! Instead the British sailors were given new suits and traditional gifts by the Iranians before their release. Is this the way to treat the enemy? It seems the Iranians drew no lessons from Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay. It’s understandable then as soon as the sailors landed in Britain, Blair slammed the Iranian regime for its ‘involvement in terrorism’. Looks like the Iranians will have to learn it the hard way. Just as the Iraqis have. But Iran is no Iraq. For one, the Islamic republic is not the toothless tiger that Iraq had become in the twilight years of Saddam. The long war with Iran, the invasion of Kuwait and then the subsequent attack by the US and its allies under Bush senior had reduced the Baathist Iraq to a hallowed, cardboard country. Let alone the Weapons of Mass Destruction that Bush claimed Saddam had and the late dictator pretended to possess, Iraq didn’t even have enough conventional arms or men to defend the country. No wonder the regime collapsed under the weight of its own contradictions at the mere touch of the invader. But Bush and company would be committing a historic blunder — even bigger than Iraq – if they went ahead and attacked Iran. Iranians are a young nation with over sixty per cent of its population being born after the 1979 Revolution. Fiercely patriotic and proud of their ancient past as well as Islamic identity, the 70-million strong people have never been more united as a nation. And they would fight with their lives to defend every inch of their territory. Not only would an attack on Iran add to the overstretched US coalition’s troubles in Iraq and Afghanistan, it is certain to inflame the already restive Middle East and rest of the Muslim world.
Although Iran doesn’t have nuclear weapons – at least not yet – to stave off aggression, it has other options of retaliating. It boasts a standing army of 450,000 troops as well as long-range missiles that could hit Israel and even Europe. More importantly, a desperate Iran can play havoc with the global economy by blocking the Strait of Hormuz through which much of the world’s oil supply is routed. Just a few missiles or gunboats could bring down vessels and block the channel, hitting the global oil supplies with untold negative consequences for our world. Then there is the humanitarian suffering of epic proportions that is sure to follow such a dangerous, pointless and unjust war. The Oxford Research Group has warned that up to 10,000 people would die immediately if the US bombed Iran’s nuclear sites, and that an attack on the Bushehr nuclear reactor could send a radioactive cloud over the Gulf. If the US uses nuclear weapons, such as earth-penetrating bunker buster bombs, radioactive fallout would become even more disastrous. Which is why I wonder how the American people can allow their administration to undertake such a disastrous campaign after all that it has done over the past seven years? Especially when Iraq and Afghanistan, the two other fronts in America’s war, are still burning.

Is there no one who can stop Bush from visiting this madness on us all?

(Aijaz Zaka Syed writes a weekly column on the Middle East and Muslim world affairs in Khaleej Times published from Dubai. He can be reached at Aijaz.Syed@hotmail.com)

View from Dubai: Why the West must engage Islamists

By Aijaz Zaka Syed

International Herald Tribune

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 29, 2005

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates Three developments in the Middle East test America’s claim to be championing democracy in the Muslim world: The elections this month in Lebanon, the postponed parliamentary polls in the Palestinian territories and the upcoming presidential election in Egypt.How the United States chooses to respond to these democratic processes in the Arab-Muslim heartland may determine the future of America’s relationship with the Muslim world.When President George W. Bush vowed in his second inauguration speech to break with the traditional U.S. policy of backing authoritarian regimes in the Muslim world, he may have heralded a new era. Bush promised to support genuine democratic movements in the Middle East and elsewhere even if it meant dumping America’s traditional friends and allies. Since then, Bush has repeatedly argued, rightly, that it is the suppression of democratic urges and rights that is at the heart of Muslim extremism.

Democracy may indeed be the cure-all for most problems confronting the Muslim world. But the question is, can the United States take the bold steps that are needed to give concrete shape to its promises? Can it allow democracy to take its natural course in the Muslim world, given that across the region, from Lebanon to Egypt, Islamists are emerging as a political force the West can no longer ignore?

Promotion of democracy in Muslim countries is likely to see the empowerment of those predominant political players who turn to Islam for inspiration and guidance in public life.

Earlier this month, Hezbollah, the powerful Shiite resistance movement that Washington condemns as a terrorist group, swept the elections in southern Lebanon. In the Palestinian territories, Mahmoud Abbas had to postpone parliamentary elections scheduled for next month when his Fatah party – Palestinians’ sole political representative for half a century – realized to its horror that the Islamists of Hamas are set to dislodge it from power.

In Egypt, the corrupt and repressive regime of President Hosni Mubarak, under pressure from Washington to hold free and fair elections, has turned its ire on the Muslim Brotherhood. This powerful Islamist organization, with a massive support base in Egypt and elsewhere in Arab world, has been excluded from the elections in September for fear that it could wrest power from Mubarak.

If Bush were serious in his commitment to democracy, he would tell his “friends” in the Middle East to allow truly free and fair polls, even if that means Islamists coming to power.

As Islamists move to center stage in many parts of the Arab world, it’s time that the United States and the rest of the Western world accepted the idea of dealing with them as legitimate representatives of the people.

In the past half century, the West has sided with tyrants as they victimized the Islamists. In Egypt, grave human rights abuses by successive regimes have been ignored by the West. In Algeria, the military prevented the Islamic Salvation Front from taking office after it swept the 1991 parliamentary elections – with the blessing of the West, which saw the rise of Islamists as a threat to its interests. The consequence was a decade-long civil war.

As democracy has been mocked elsewhere in the Islamic world, the West has consistently looked the other way. No wonder many Muslims blame the West for the suffering inflicted by their dictators. Yet Western leaders appear surprised when Al Qaeda extremists attack Western targets.

Washington’s stance that Islamist groups like Hezbollah, Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood are terrorist organizations is out of sync with new realities of the region. Terrorists do not take part in elections and political processes, as Hamas and Hezbollah are doing. And the Muslim Brotherhood is the most popular grass-roots organization in the Arab world.

If Bush wants to usher in a new era of democracy and peace in the Muslim world, he should be prepared to deal with Muslims’ genuine and legitimate representatives. He would do well to recognize the fact that Islamists are emerging as the leading political players in the Middle East and engage them as such.

(Aijaz Zaka Syed is the opinion page editor of The Khaleej Times in Dubai.)

View from Dubai: Time to look East

By Aijaz Zaka Syed

WASN’T it the British politician, Benjamin Disraeli, who argued that there are no permanent friends or permanent enemies in the world of diplomacy, only permanent interests? The late British prime minister should know. For there is no other nation that has practised the mantra with greater success and panache than the British.

Watching Saudi Arabia roll out the red carpet for President Putin of Russia last week, I was reminded of England’s first Jewish prime minister and his earthy wisdom. King Abdullah canonised the former KGB chief and martial art expert as a ‘man of peace and justice.’ Nothing wrong with that, of course. Except Saudi Arabia happens to be a staunch ally of the United States and this is the first ever visit by a Russian leader to the home of Islam.

Saudi Arabia refused to have diplomatic relations with Russia or the late Soviet Union for its treatment of the large Muslim population in the country and neighbouring Central Asian republics. It was not long ago that Saudi Arabia had supported and encouraged the decade-long resistance against Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. Without doubt, the Afghan jihad, actively supported by both Saudi Arabia and America, played a critical role in bringing down the Soviet empire. But things are changing now. And how.

Clearly both Saudi Arabia and Russia, two of the world’s largest oil producing nations, are in a hurry to make up for the last time. So it was no coincidence that just ahead of his visit to the Middle East, Putin unveiled a blistering attack on the US leadership accusing it of inflaming the Middle East and undermining world peace with its clumsy handling of Iraq. Don’t be surprised if Saudi Arabia, the leader of the Arab-Muslim world and oil producing nations, today is seeking defence cooperation with Russia. Moscow will also launch six telecommunication and remote sensing satellites for Saudi Arabia later this year. But what really takes the cake in this budding relationship is Putin’s offer to help Saudi Arabia develop nuclear energy. What is going on? The world is changing folks. That’s what is going on. And about time too. The Arab and Muslim world has depended for far too long on its traditional allies in the West. And what has it got in return? Only contempt and wanton indifference to their concerns and problems.

In fact, most of those concerns and problems are a legacy of our Western friends who through their long association with and colonisation of the Middle East have transformed the cradle of the world civilisation into the battleground of big powers. I hate going on and on about the Palestinian dispossession and how it makes the Middle East and greater Muslim world politically and psychologically volatile. It’s an undeniable reality though that the continuing suffering of Palestinian people remains the single source of Muslim anger and growing extremism around the world. The Arabs and Muslims find it hard to ignore the fact that colonial powers played a decisive role in driving the Palestinians out of their homeland to gift it to the Jews, a people historically persecuted across the Christian Europe.

Iran’s Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, shockingly politically incorrect as he may sound, has really got a point when he demands to know why should the Palestinians and Muslim world pay for the wrongs committed by the West.It’s hardly a state secret how the victors of the World War I and II divided the greater Middle East among themselves over the last century. Winston Churchill of Britain is said to have drawn up the map of the new Middle East on a breakfast napkin at the Yalta summit of 1945 with FD Roosevelt of United States and Joseph Stalin of Soviet Union. The Arab and Muslim world continues to pay a daily price for that mutilation at the crossroads of history on a daily basis. From the ever-festering Palestine-Israel conflict to Lebanon civil war to the current mess in Iraq, which one of our problems is not the legacy of the big powers?

The Arab and Muslims have got nothing but condescension and derision from the West for their genuine friendship and fawning admiration. The least the Arabs could have got was a note of acknowledgment, if not gratitude, for the critical role their oil has played in the West’s —indeed the world’s —economic progress and development. Instead all they’ve got is relentless exploitation and old- fashioned conspiracies.In fact, it was this mindset that originally forced the Saudis and Iranians to sever their economic ties with the manipulative British in the beginning of the last century and reach out to the new world power, America, in the first place. The two oil producing neighbours had got sick and tired of sheer dishonesty and the games played by British oil companies in their dealings with the simple and uninitiated leaders of the two countries. Unfortunately, the Arabs’ experience with Uncle Sam despite their uninhibited admiration for all that America stands for —or once did —has been equally disappointing. The Arab regimes’ political, emotional and strategic dependence on the US over the past half a century or so has only made this relationship all the more complex and frustrating. This has encouraged and emboldened the US to take its Arab allies for granted while constantly appeasing their bete noire Israel.Which is why the Arab and Muslim world needs to make some bold and strategic decisions and choices, and soon, to introduce a much-needed equilibrium in their relationship with the world powers. The Middle East has to gradually and decisively curtail its hopeless dependence on the West in general and US in particular. This is in their mutual interest and necessary for the long-term health of their relationship. The world is undergoing dramatic changes. And as our friend Tom Friedman of the New York Times insists, it is not a flat world anymore. It will not forever remain a US-controlled and West-dominated world. The new Russia under comrade Putin with its new money to splurge has not only got its old, superpower confidence back, but it is keen to play a more assertive role on the world stage. On the other hand, the emergence of new Asian players like China and India with their incredibly-fast booming economies and rich human resources has forced the whole world to sit up and take notice.

The Arab and Muslim world would ignore these historic changes at its own cost. It has to break free of its American and Western fixation. The Arab countries must not only diversify their economies from oil and gas but also reach out to new and more dependable allies and friends in nations such as Russia, China and India. It is time to look East. Saudi Arabia and some other Gulf countries have already taken some tentative steps in this direction.

King Abdullah’s very first foreign visit after taking over as the leader of the world’s largest oil producing nation took him to China and India last year. Saudi Arabia has already clinched some major energy cooperation deals with China and is planning to build a major storage-refinery facility in the country. This is encouraging. But as the leader of the Arab-Islamic world, Saudi Arabia will have to do more to make its foreign policy less US-centric. And others in the neighbourhood must follow suit. They must evolve a foreign policy that is more nuanced and balanced, in tune with the phenomenal changes that are taking place around them. This is the least they can do to salvage their dignity and independence. Never again must the Arabs and Muslims put all their eggs in one basket. That’s not good diplomacy. And it’s risky too. They must do everything possible to cut their dependence on big players altogether and look inwards for solutions to their problems. The Makkah peace summit of the last week that brought peace to the Palestinian Territories —and the Taif peace accord before that, in 1989, put an end to the civil war in Lebanon —have demonstrated that the Arabs and Muslims are capable of solving their own problems. They only have to try.

Aijaz Zaka Syed is Opinion Editor of Khaleej Times and a commentator based in Dubai. He can be reached at aijaz@khaleejtimes.com