First, there is the conversion story of Usama Hassan, the Imam (religious leader) who recruited hundreds of others impressionable youths, including the man convicted for Daniel Pearl's beheading, to extreme Islamic fundamentalism. His conversion centered around the rejection of violent force:
He says the 7/7 bombings detonated a theological bomb in his mind: "How could this be justified? I began to wonder if parts of the Koran are actually metaphor, and parts of the Koran were actually just revealed for their time: seventh-century Arabia."
Once the foundation stone of literalism was broken, he had to remake the concepts that had led him to Islamism one-by-one. "Jihad has many levels in Islam – you have the internal struggle to be the best person you can be. But all we had been taught is military jihad. Today I regard any kind of campaigning for truth, for justice, as a type of Jihad." He signed up to the pacifist Movement for the Abolition of War. He redefined martyrdom as anybody who died in an honourable cause. "There were martyrs on 9/11," he says. "They were the firefighters – not the hijackers."
Next is Maajid Nawaz, once a leader and recruiter for the Islamist group Hizb ut-Tahrir:
He started to recruit other students, as he had done so many times before. But it was harder. "Everyone hated the [unelected] government [of Hosni Mubarak], and the US for backing it," he says. But there was an inhibiting sympathy for the victims of 9/11 – until the Bush administration began to respond with Guantanamo Bay and bombs. "That made it much easier. After that, I could persuade people a lot faster."
What was the catalyst for his conversion? Was it threat of war or torture? Quite the opposite, actually:
HT abandoned Maajid as a "fallen soldier" and barely spoke of him or his case. But when his family were finally allowed to see him, they told him he had a new defender. Although they abhorred his political views, Amnesty International said he had a right to free speech and to peacefully express his views, and publicised his case.
"I was just amazed," Maajid says. "We'd always seen Amnesty as the soft power tools of colonialism. So, when Amnesty, despite knowing that we hated them, adopted us, I felt – maybe these democratic values aren't always hypocritical. Maybe some people take them seriously ... it was the beginning of my serious doubts."
For Maajid, Islamism will fail only when its fundamentalist ideals are discredited:
"You know, back when I was an Islamist, I thought our ideology was like communism – and I still do. That makes me optimistic. Because what happened to communism? It was discredited as an idea. It lost. Who joins the Communist Party today?"
Continuing the theme of a battle of ideas, the writer then recounts the stories of a group of former Islamists:
But once they had made that leap to identify with the Umma – the global Muslim community – they got angrier the more abusive our foreign policy came. Every one of them said the Bush administration's response to 9/11 – from Guantanamo to Iraq – made jihadism seem more like an accurate description of the world. Hadiya Masieh, a tiny female former HT organiser, tells me: "You'd see Bush on the television building torture camps and bombing Muslims and you think – anything is justified to stop this. What are we meant to do, just stand still and let him cut our throats?"
But the converse was – they stressed – also true. When they saw ordinary Westerners trying to uphold human rights, their jihadism began to stutter. Almost all of them said that they doubted their Islamism when they saw a million non-Muslims march in London to oppose the Iraq War: "How could we demonise people who obviously opposed aggression against Muslims?" asks Hadiya.
Just as their journeys into the jihad were strikingly similar, so were their journeys out. All of them said doubt began to seep in because they couldn't shake certain basic realities from their minds. The first and plainest was that ordinary Westerners were not the evil, Muslim-hating cardboard kaffir presented by the Wahabis.
Johann Hari humbly closes his article with a series of statements and questions:
They have burned in this fire of certainty. They have felt it consume all doubt and incinerate all self-analysis. And they dared, at last, to let it go. Are they freakish exceptions – or the beginning of a great unclenching of the jihadi fist?
Andrew Sullivan adds the following thoughts after reading the piece:
It is also a very old story - the chastened revolutionary. The totalist identities that fundamentalists attach to are always fragile, because they are based on lies. And lies collapse suddenly. If we truly believe what we say we believe in the West - that these fundamentalist claims are lies and will be dispelled on day - then we need to remain confident that the West is right, and will prevail.
The more I witness this global struggle for freedom and meaning in the face of fundamentalism and denial, the more it seems to me that containment is the best strategy. Alongside this, we need a robust commitment to our own values, and a refusal to give in to the cant that treats evil as culture and fundamentalism as faith.
Of course this is hard. But there is no other way. And in this struggle the fate of our civilization lies.
And:
Guantanamo Bay was the biggest victory for Jihadism since 9/11. In fact, Cheney's war crimes have endangered our civilization more profoundly than 9/11. That disgraced and disgraceful vice-president gave Jihadism the symbol of Western evil it desperately needed to recruit and grow. Abu Ghraib and the vast web of the torture regime both destroyed our ability to prosecute Jihadists, destroyed the possibility for truly accurate intelligence and gave al Qaeda the critical oxygen it needed to flourish.
And the corollary is true. The more the West lives up to its values the more lethal an enemy we are.
This does not mean giving Islamism the slightest quarter; it does not mean avoiding an aggressive and persistent attempt to identify and monitor Jihadist groups and individuals; it does not mean softening a global campaign to find and target and if necessary kill Islamist enemies bent on our destruction. And it does not mean denying the real murderous intent of these people, or their vile anti-Semitism or their religious inspiration. It does mean using our strengths as a Western civilization to defang a corruption of true religious faith.
A tip of the hat to Glenn Greenwald's Salon piece on this article.
7 comments:
OK, I'll bite on this one.
The notion that Islamic jihadists are mad at us for fighting back so we should stop fighting back has always struck me as seriously flawed. We've already had that argument, so I'll focus on GITMO.
You quote Andrew Sullivan's remark that "Guantanamo Bay was the biggest victory for Jihadism since 9/11." It's very nice and easy to say that GITMO somehow reflects the loss of U.S. moral authority etc. The reality is that we needed some place to handle the people we were capturing on battlefields, and GITMO served that purpose. Even without GITMO, we would still need some vehicle to fulfill that purpose. The alternatives included killing the detainees on the spot (never seriously considered) and turning them over to their home governments. And, if those home governments were even willing to accept the detainees, then those detainees were more likely to encounter treatment far worse than anything GITMO was accused of.
Justus, I've had a couple thoughts in relation to both this post and other recent ones, but hadn't responded yet because I didn't have the time to sit down with a well thought out response. I still haven't taken the time for that, so here is a not well thought out response. (that has to be split)
The posts and comments are certainly food for thought and raise good points. It seems that over the last couple posts there are two primary issues (at least to me). The first is the current handling of our foreign affairs, and the second is the discussion of the validity of pacifism for a Christian.
To the first, I think most would agree that the U. S. has made some mistakes in its handling of the response to 9/11. That being said, I believe that there was some positive to the response also. Outside of that, we could probably go around for ever, and I'll admit to not knowing a great deal about all that transpired and the factors that contributed to it.
To the second, I look at it in this way. Only a fool (in my opinion) would argue that there is never a time when pacifism is the best response, and I will submit that after some of the thought you brought up that it is a course of action (not inaction) that should be considered more often than it is. There is also a balance of appropriateness that differs between a government and an individual.
From an individual perspective, I have to look at it spiritually, as you are. If the argument is that, as a Christian we should employ non-physical responses more often, I am on board with that. If the argument is that as a Christian God has called us (and if He's called us, He demands we follow) to only employ pacifism then I have some questions.
If the second argument is true (that God always asks us to respond in non-violence), then to ignore His direction would place us out of His will and plan, and would mean that violent responses are sin. Sin is sin regardless of what it is, and there is no gray area with sin. It either violates God's standard of Righteousness or it doesn't, and this standard is the same for Christians and non-Christians. To my knowledge there is no sin that is listed only for Christians. This being said, if non-pacifism is a sin for Christians it is also a sin for non-Christians. I have trouble finding this argument in scripture. There are times where a physical or even violent response is necessary, and for now, I'll stick to examples that call for the defense of others.
Aside from the inability to carry any sort of a military (an army's existence implies the ability to physically respond to threats), God would also consider it sin to have or be in a Police force. You could take it further to bring into question the authority of government to levy any punishment for any offense, or even the existence of government because without the ability to make and enforce laws, what are they?
I think about verses (loosely paraphrased) "if they ask you to go one mile, go two" and "turn the other cheek", and would submit some thoughts. All passages of this nature deal directly with the response of an individual to an affront or burden placed on them by another individual. It does not address governmental responsibiliity, but more importantly in my mind it does not say the following... "if a man strikes a friend, turn his other cheek" "if they ask someone to go one mile, tell them they ought to go two" "if they take a man's garmet, give them his coat also". I again go back to my thought that if you are personally the one offended, then in humility and in the grace of God deal with it and heap coals of fire on their head by returning evil for good. However, persecution for one's faith and refusing to come to the aid of one in need are not the same. If the Good Samaritan had walked by while the man was being beaten and robbed, what would have been the "good neighbor" thing to do. It might have required some physical action. And I don't know how much this applies, but if God always calls us to avoid physical confrontation then why did Christ aggressively turn over the money changers operation at the temple. I wouldn't qualify that as pacifist.
Okay, so not well thought out, and not proofread, so correct errors and misunderstandings. I'm sure they're there.
To John,
Your rationalization of GITMO don't really address Sullivan's point. A holding area for captured combatants is of course necessary. What is not necessary is degrading them and torturing them. What was also not necessary was the indefinite holding "suspects" that not only were never in a field of battle, but with no solid evidence of ties to terrorism. Had the prisoners been treated better, been given basic Geneva Convention rights, and limited to combatants from the beginning, I think GITMO would be viewed in an entirely differently light.
To Anon,
I am not trying to advocate for pure pacifism in these posts. I am also not trying to advocate against it.
Regardless of faith, too many people view pacifism as a position worthy scorn, contempt, and ridicule. That is where I disagree. Pacifism may be extreme and counter-intuitive, but I believe it to be very strategic, powerful, and likely the most successful way to bring about true lasting change.
Adding the spiritual element, again there is room for gray between the black and white, but one can certainly see Christ's words and modeled life as a paradigm shift from old ways to new in many areas, response to conflict and violence being one.
In the end what I am trying to say is that the answers and exceptions SHOULDN'T be easy. In too many instances, too many people reject non-violent engagement without the proper consideration it deserves, and that is a problem. There are things greater than political expediency, national/personal pride, and revenge.
Justus, I think we are pretty much on the same page here.
I would agree that pacifism is underrated by many, and should be employed by more. I get that you are addressing a line of thought that is farther to one side, but not advocating either extremism. In my opinion neither extreme is positive.
Agree, Christ was certainly teaching of a new life (which was made present by His death and the arrival of the Holy Spirit). We agree here. To be a little picky, I would say that God's law or righteousness is black and white, and gray is only a result of our error or blindness. Our actions either glorify Him or they don't. I would say the gray area is where we have differing opinions on a matter (amongst each other) or where we don't fully understand His will, but that is an us issue. (also not saying you disagree with that statement, just clarifying for my own sake).
Agree as well with the final paragraph. Any decisions of this magnitude should be examined carefully on either side, and revenge most of all is an atrocious motivator.
My friend, first we were not torturing them. That's the whole point of what were inaccurately called the "torture memos." These documents identified which treatment was appropriate and which was not
As to your second argument, that again fits my broader point: We didn't have a simple, clear-cut way to handle them. Geneva Convention rights hadn't previously been given to those in their position. And, ironically, the conditions at GITMO are far better than the battlefields and caves from which these terrorists were captured plotting against us.
As to the separate issue of pacifism, few serious leaders go looking for a fight. Our differences lie in how we evaluate threats and rarely in the threshold.
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