Making, Un-making political Islam

The roots of terrorism in the modern world do not necessarily lie in the expression of anti-imperialist sentiments, but rather in their suppression by the US and its puppet regimes

Javeed Alam Hyderabad

A surge of anger is sweeping the Muslim world against the West. But it is particularly focussed on the US and is also increasingly becoming widespread. Even countries that earlier considered themselves only nominally Muslim, such as Indonesia or Malaysia or Nigeria, are now experiencing religiously centred anti-Americanism. This has taken three forms: a resurgence of Islamic identity; growth of fundamentalism within this identity; and rise of terrorist networks and activity within some of the Muslim societies or ones with large Muslim populations like India. The case of India, though interesting, can be left out here because its specificity requires separate treatment. Instead, let us examine terrorism, as a degraded form of political activity, to unravel one important connection of the Muslim world with imperialism and its efforts to gain hegemony in the world through reactionary political regimes.

'Terrorism', in its modern form, began in 1972 when, during the Munich Olympics, some people belonging to an organised political force, the Palestinians, took recourse to killing innocent, unarmed Israeli athletes. Since then, such activities have continued and multiplied. Alongside this has also occurred the spread of political Islam—a form of fundamentalist assertion through religion for the fulfillment of secular political goals. Today, this has become the dominant form of politics of a large number of political organisations in many Muslim countries, so much so that they not only target the symbols of the US and its allies but are also at loggerheads with their own governments for being pro-US.

How and why did this come about? The answer is important because prior to 1972, in fact in the wake of de-colonisation, many leading countries like Egypt and Indonesia played a major role in anti-imperialist struggles. Of the four founding members of the Non-Aligned Movement, the leaders of two — Naaser of Egypt and Sukarno of Indonesia — together with Nehru and Tito, were in the forefront of creating this anti-imperialist front of newly independent countries. The anti-colonial struggle and the post-independence struggle against neo-colonialism (imperialism) were secular, democratic forms of anti-West sentiments. So, the suggestion that colonialism was the prime cause for the creation of political Islam is somewhat shaky. Orthodox versions of Islam with political impulses did emerge during colonialism but these were only ideological and not militant and given to violence like the terrorists of the times now.

The majority of terrorist groups, and those individuals who are recruited or join these groups, are from countries that are puppet regimes of the US. Note that no terrorist organisation like the Al-Qaeda operates from countries like Syria, Iran, Libya, Algeria and other such countries. Why? It's not because the governments in these countries are radical, but simply because they are not pro-US — they consistently take an anti-US position as a matter of policy even though some of them may be internally conservative and/or repressive like Iran. The bases of most of these organisations are found in countries like Pakistan, Yemen, Sudan, Indonesia, and/or their adherents are recruited from countries like Saudi Arabia — countries that are pronouncedly pro-US.

The fact of the matter is that people in Muslim countries, as in all third-world countries, have a deep resentment against the West. This resentment is there primarily for two reasons — a sense of humiliation inflicted during colonial depredations and the continuing extreme exploitation of their economies ever since. The exploitation is in fact becoming more intense in this era of globalisation. Given that the US is the global leader of imperialism and its military protector, the intensity of the anger is focussed on the US and those who are seen as its underlings. Therefore, in places where the governments channel this sentiment of the people in anti-imperialist strategies, the people do not have to necessarily express the sentiment in other ways like terrorism.

Jehad has become the slogan of the defeated political desperado seeking revenge for this defeat and humiliation. The jehadi cuts himself off from the community but thinks he is the community. He is immune to any reasoning from the community but insists on being the true agent of the community to which he has deafened his ears. So the pleas to the liberal, secular sections of the Muslim community to intercede and prevail upon this jehadi are impracticable because he thinks of himself as 'the community'. The rest of the community, to him, is the 'other' — lost in the pursuit of material interests, the dharia (dhair is the world and dharia is the word for everything of this world, like atheist or materialist).

Now, it often happens that such reactionary outbursts take place in countries where all the possibilities of organised anti-imperialist politics are choked. Many a country with an authoritarian regime and dictatorial repression of popular consciousness follows strong pro-US foreign policies and comes down heavily against the people when they organise in democratic modes of protest. These regimes can carry out repression in all social institutions but are afraid of entering mosques. Dissent, therefore, both against the US as well as against internal authoritarian politics, starts gathering strength in and around the institutions of mosques and organisations based on them or run by them. This slowly leads to dissent being made 'sacred' through persons with an orthodox bent of mind. It is here that the birth of 'political Islam' occurs as a mass force. This requires a little more elaboration.

Militancy, in protest against exploitation and the depredation of backward capitalism, is inherent to the popular political consciousness. In the immediate post-World War II era, this consciousness was channelled by radical anti-imperialist regimes led by charismatic leaders like Nasser or Nkruma or Sukarno and others. Popular anti-West sentiments found clear expression in anti-imperialism. People, though economically handicapped, felt their consciousness well represented in the foreign policies of their anti-imperialist regimes. They had hope for the future and trust in their leaders. Over time, the failures of these regimes on the domestic front slowly built up discontent among the people. The US entered them through the CaIA and using internal reactionary forces to batter the regimes. (Incidentally, the US for all its democratic credentials, has never been critical of reactionary Muslim regimes like Saudi Arabia. In fact, it has patronised them.) By providing support to internal reactionary forces and creating international conspiracies, the US succeeded in battering and defeating these regimes by the late 1960s and early 1970s, leading to, perhaps, the beginning of terrorist acts.

It is only after this that all nationally organised perialist protest got blocked. Where could all the anti-imperialist sentiments go? They found a new refuge in the religion called Islam, as the main channel of protest. Terrorism was another channel, although highly condemnable, because it is anti-human and also reinforces reaction. In 1972, at the Munich Olympics, the first main terrorist act was committed.

During all this time, the US continued to support Israeli aggression and occupation of Arab land. And it still uses Israel to silence the Palestinian democratic voices. I am not of the opinion that secular anti-US or anti-imperialist voices becoming dominant now will immediately erode political Islam or terrorism. Original causes can give rise to the ascendance of certain forces and once these acquire a mass base, they become autonomously powerful and req-uire a protracted, long struggle to overcome them — even when the initial reasons for their existence disappear. We can hope that they will be vanquished soon.

The wrier is a political scientist