After a Decade of 9-11 and the So-called 'War on Terror': Islam Now
By Sadia Dehlvi
As America raises the pitch on being "troubled" over Pakistan's military and intelligence agencies' links with extremists, one is compelled to revisit the truth, lies, war, peace, fears and hopes that have come and gone in the decade of 9/11 and the so-called 'war on terror'.
Osama bin Laden is dead, holding the unique position of being trained by the CIA and wanted by the FBI. The truth is that the official website of the FBI, which now says 'Deceased', under his picture, has never and still does not list 9/ 11 as one of the crimes for which the man was wanted.
In 2006, FBI spokesman Rex Tomb said, "The reason why 9/11 is not mentioned on Osama Bin Laden's Most Wanted page is because the FBI has no hard evidence connecting Bin Laden to 9/11."
In 2008, a U.N. Human Rights Council official assigned to monitor Israel called for an official commission to study the role of neoconservatives in the 9/11 attacks. Meanwhile, a growing number of American and European scholars, intellectuals and citizens have been challenging the official 9/11 reports, raising fears of official complicity that provided the pretext for strategically useful wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
As America chose 'good over evil', a heady mix of politics, terror and religion spread across the subcontinent. America will eventually wriggle out of Afghanistan, differentiating between the ' Good Taliban' and 'Bad Taliban'. But India, Pakistan and other countries in our region will continue to suffer the consequences of radical madrasas sponsored by the CIA in cooperation with the Pakistani state, originally set up to drive the Russians away. Together they supported the call for an armed 'jihad' - something the Islamic world hadn't seen for almost a century, and just a few times in the whole1400 years of Islamic history.
While America and Europe have ageing populations, youths dominate in most Muslim countries
Thousands of innocents continue to die in terror attacks by terrorists trained in madrasas where Islam is taught as primarily a political calling. These madrasas were provided with books designed by American Universities under USAID grants; and these books exhort Muslim children to violence. Although that particular program ran from 1986 to 1994, books teaching mathematics using the speed of Kalashnikov guns and the distance of Russian soldiers remain in circulation.
The media hysteria of 9/11 and political rhetoric of 'Islamic terrorism' led to the false perception of Islam as an inherently violent religion. Professor Samuel Huntington's Islamophobic essay predicted a 'clash of civilizations' and fed the paranoia about Islam. Western countries that welcome regional, racial, ethnic and sexual diversity began to view Muslim diversity as problematic and even unacceptable.
The triumph of Western civilization was seen in its military might, powerful alliances, economic supremacy and corporate global markets. Unabashedly, 'other' civilizations were humiliated as areas of darkness. Their creative histories of art, architecture, science, astronomy, medicine, ethics and philosophy were ignored.
Osama Bin Laden appears on Al-Jazeera Television praising the attacks of September 11 in a video aired on October 17, 2001
No great world religion can survive centuries unless it is spiritually and morally coherent. Between the 8th and 16th centuries, Islam with its universal character remained the world's dominant civilization in terms of its demography, diversity, economic, cultural and scientific growth.
Unfortunately, the history of Islam is currently linked to the Arabs' history; and the peculiar and prohobitive Saudi version of Islam often thrust upon diverse Muslim communities at that. This has kept Islamic discourse from a more open and intelligent engagement with modernity.
Demography is an important determining factor in the political and cultural history of the world. Surprisingly, conversions to Islam quadrupled in America after 9/11. Out of its estimated six million Muslims, 25% have embraced the faith through conversions. African Americans and white American women form the bulk of new converts.
According to the Oxford encyclopedia of world religions, Muslims formed 12 % of the world's population in 1900, the figure rising to 19.2%, in 2002, an extraordinary increase as compared to the growth of Christianity, which is placed at 0.1%. While around sixty countries have Muslim majority populations, 38% of the one billion plus Muslims worldwide live as religious minorities in countries that include India, China, Europe, Russia, Japan, Europe and America.
While America and Europe have ageing populations, youths dominate in most Muslim countries. They are actively rejecting radical oppressive monarchies and dictatorships while aspiring for participatory politics.
Islam, like other religions, is experiencing an inner turmoil and revivalism. 9/11 has triggered a vibrant debate between Muslim modernists, reformers, feminists, fundamentalists and liberalists. These includes key issues of suicide bombing, shariah laws, democracy, rights of women and of minorities living in Muslim majority countries, defining terror and how to combat militancy. It is apparent that the future of the world will largely be determined by how Muslims exploit this revivalism and how Western powers react to this development.
Sadia Dehlvi lives in Delhi. She is the author of: 'Sufism, The Heart of Islam'.
Source: The Friday Times, Lahore
URL: https://newageislam.com/war-terror/after-decade-9-11-so/d/5787