sparten

Fundamentalism is often a form of nationalism in religious disguise

Karen Armstrong
Monday July 11, 2005
The Guardian

Last year I attended a conference in the US about security and
intelligence in the so-called war on terror and was astonished to hear
one of the more belligerent participants, who as far as I could tell
had nothing but contempt for religion, strongly argue that as a purely
practical expedient, politicians and the media must stop referring to
"Muslim terrorism". It was obvious, he said, that the atrocities had
nothing to do with Islam, and to suggest otherwise was not merely
inaccurate but dangerously counterproductive.

Rhetoric is a powerful weapon in any conflict. We cannot hope to
convert Osama bin Laden from his vicious ideology; our priority must
be to stem the flow of young people into organisations such as
al-Qaida, instead of alienating them by routinely coupling their
religion with immoral violence. Incorrect statements about Islam have
convinced too many in the Muslim world that the west is an implacable
enemy. Yet, as we found at the conference, it is not easy to find an
alternative for referring to this terrorism; however, the attempt can
be a salutary exercise that reveals the complexity of what we are up
against.

We need a phrase that is more exact than "Islamic terror". These acts
may be committed by people who call themselves Muslims, but they
violate essential Islamic principles. The Qur'an prohibits aggressive
warfare, permits war only in self-defence and insists that the true
Islamic values are peace, reconciliation and forgiveness. It also
states firmly that there must be no coercion in religious matters, and
for centuries Islam had a much better record of religious tolerance
than Christianity.

Like the Bible, the Qur'an has its share of aggressive texts, but like
all the great religions, its main thrust is towards kindliness and
compassion. Islamic law outlaws war against any country in which
Muslims are allowed to practice their religion freely, and forbids the
use of fire, the destruction of buildings and the killing of innocent
civilians in a military campaign. So although Muslims, like Christians
or Jews, have all too often failed to live up to their ideals, it is
not because of the religion per se.

We rarely, if ever, called the IRA bombings "Catholic" terrorism
because we knew enough to realise that this was not essentially a
religious campaign. Indeed, like the Irish republican movement, many
fundamentalist movements worldwide are simply new forms of nationalism
in a highly unorthodox religious guise. This is obviously the case
with Zionist fundamentalism in Israel and the fervently patriotic
Christian right in the US.

In the Muslim world, too, where the European nationalist ideology has
always seemed an alien import, fundamentalisms are often more about a
search for social identity and national self-definition than religion.
They represent a widespread desire to return to the roots of the
culture, before it was invaded and weakened by the colonial powers.

Because it is increasingly recognised that the terrorists in no way
represent mainstream Islam, some prefer to call them jihadists, but
this is not very satisfactory. Extremists and unscrupulous politicians
have purloined the word for their own purposes, but the real meaning
of jihad is not "holy war" but "struggle" or "effort." Muslims are
commanded to make a massive attempt on all fronts - social, economic,
intellectual, ethical and spiritual - to put the will of God into
practice.

Sometimes a military effort may be a regrettable necessity in order to
defend decent values, but an oft-quoted tradition has the Prophet
Muhammad saying after a military victory: "We are coming back from the
Lesser Jihad [ie the battle] and returning to the Greater Jihad" - the
far more important, difficult and momentous struggle to reform our own
society and our own hearts.

Jihad is thus a cherished spiritual value that, for most Muslims, has
no connection with violence. Last year, at the University of Kentucky,
I met a delightful young man called Jihad; his parents had given him
that name in the hope that he would become not a holy warrior, but a
truly spiritual man who would make the world a better place. The term
jihadi terrorism is likely to be offensive, therefore, and will win no
hearts or minds.

At our conference in Washington, many people favoured "Wahhabi
terrorism". They pointed out that most of the hijackers on September
11 came from Saudi Arabia, where a peculiarly intolerant form of Islam
known as Wahhabism was the state religion. They argued that this
description would be popular with those many Muslims who tended to be
hostile to the Saudis. I was not happy, however, because even though
the narrow, sometimes bigoted vision of Wahhabism makes it a fruitful
ground for extremism, the vast majority of Wahhabis do not commit acts
of terror.

Bin Laden was not inspired by Wahhabism but by the writings of the
Egyptian ideologue Sayyid Qutb, who was executed by President Nasser
in 1966. Almost every fundamentalist movement in Sunni Islam has been
strongly influenced by Qutb, so there is a good case for calling the
violence that some of his followers commit "Qutbian terrorism." Qutb
urged his followers to withdraw from the moral and spiritual barbarism
of modern society and fight it to the death.

Western people should learn more about such thinkers as Qutb, and
become aware of the many dramatically different shades of opinion in
the Muslim world. There are too many lazy, unexamined assumptions
about Islam, which tends to be regarded as an amorphous, monolithic
entity. Remarks such as "They hate our freedom" may give some a
righteous glow, but they are not useful, because they are rarely
accompanied by a rigorous analysis of who exactly "they" are.

The story of Qutb is also instructive as a reminder that militant
religiosity is often the product of social, economic and political
factors. Qutb was imprisoned for 15 years in one of Nasser's vile
concentration camps, where he and thousands of other members of the
Muslim Brotherhood were subjected to physical and mental torture. He
entered the camp as a moderate, but the prison made him a
fundamentalist. Modern secularism, as he had experienced it under
Nasser, seemed a great evil and a lethal assault on faith.

Precise intelligence is essential in any conflict. It is important to
know who our enemies are, but equally crucial to know who they are
not. It is even more vital to avoid turning potential friends into
foes. By making the disciplined effort to name our enemies correctly,
we will learn more about them, and come one step nearer, perhaps, to
solving the seemingly intractable and increasingly perilous problems
of our divided world.

__________________
"Any relations in a social order will endure if there is infused into them some of that spirit of human sympathy, which qualifies life for immortality." ~ George William Russell

Shek

That's because there isn't footage of IRA bombers screaming "God is Great." I'm not the smartest man about the IRA movment, so somebody correct me if I am wrong, but IRA terrorism was about achieving a political victory over Great Britain and having them withdraw from Northern Ireland. On the other hand, if you look at the varying Islamic terrorist groups, "Allah Akhbar" is a common refrain in their videos and their views are derived nearly directly from their version of Islam.

I think the title for the article is a terrible one - it distracts the reader from the meat of the article.

__________________
"So little pains do the vulgar take in the investigation of truth, accepting readily the first story that comes to hand." Thucydides 1.20.3

Amled

Semantics!
The people carrying out the terrorist attacks are Muslims. The organizations to which they belong are Islamic. They are fighting, killing and dying for Islam.
Therefore it is neither illogical nor wrong to call them Islamic terrorists.
Anyone in doubt as to their aims should refer to bin Ladens statement of intent which he sent to the American people.
– p.s. I lost my link to it when my computer crashed recently.

__________________
When we blindly adopt a religion, a political system, a literary dogma, we become automatons. We cease to grow. - Anais Nin

dave angel

the problem with your analysis is that for every bin laden saying x about islam you have ten other blokes saying y.

no religion is so fluid that it can encompass everyone who says they are an adherent regardless of their actions, yet the actions carried out by adherents of a particular religion can be mutually exclusive.

jesus's message was one of hope, faith and compassion, yet 'christians' burnt other christians for saying prayers in the wrong language and more recently, they wouldn't allow black folk to vote or sit on the same bus as them.

were these people christian, they described themselves as christian, but is that enough?

i could say i'm the spiritual light of the US army, but that doesn't make it true.

as for the IRA, while they publicly embraced marxism - mainly to secure funding and arms - the IRA's support comes from deeply conservative irish catholicism, which is a very statist form of catholicism that played a central role in the nationalist movement in Ireland.

__________________
before criticizing someone, walk a mile in their shoes.................... then when you do criticize them, you're a mile away and you have their shoes.

Amled

I believe it’s a matter of perception, Dave.
They perceive themselves to be Muslim, as does the world around them. That they violate some of the cardinal tenets of their creed is irrelevant.
After all how many adherents of the various religious and political creeds are pure in their faith and beliefs.
Christians, Jews and Muslims daily break the Ten Commandments; which are said to be the very word of God, simply as matter of expediency. Yet they still call themselves Christian, Jews and Muslims, and are preceived by their fellows as such.
These fanatics are still Islamist/Muslims, and trying to deny that fact is simply burying ones head in the sand and succumbing to a kind of political correctness.
Call a spade, a spade, Dave.

sparten

Most of these are political issues anyway.

If that is going to be your defination of a muslim than you are not gonna get very far. The fact they say "Allah -u-Akber" in their videos is irrelevent. In the West you have atheists who say "Thank God". People here (and that includes non-muslim) say Allah Akber in the same way as you may say "Thank God".

Samudra

same old , same old....

Islam is the perfect religion.
Or so my friends here say.

Conflict is unavoidable....

sparten,

Nobody says Thanks to God when they are beheading another chap.Not in India atleast.May be the evil kaffirs of the USA are doing it eh ?

dalem

The IRA blows up Brits for Ireland, Sendero Luminoso blows up Peruvians for their vision of Peru, Red Brigade blows up Italians for their version of Italy. Even though all three can technically be called Catholic groups because of the major religion where they originated, two of them are really atheists because of their adherence to Maoism and Marxism, and the IRA never claims to be lighting fuses for the Pope.

Whereas all over the world we have Muslims killing everyone who disagrees with their vision of Mulsimhood, and doing it often, and always doing it in Allah's name, no matter their location, nation, or religion of origin.

Anyone who denies that there is a real, and dangerous, MUSLIM FUNDAMENTALIST terrorist movement on the planet is a f*cking idiot.

-dale

sparten

Yes, the people who behead the poor bastards (including a Pakistani Citizen I might add) are doing it for the glory of Islam. Last I checked Osama Bin Laden' main beef with the US was the stationing of US troops in S.Arabia. And now Iraq. In Thiland it is for an independent state, ditto Phillipines. In Iraq it is to get rid of foriegn powers. Palestine end of occupation/ end of Israel (depend on group). In all cases it is a political dispute rather than a religious one. Not to say that the casue is just so to speak, but only to point out it is not "Islamic".


Nope, anyone who refuses to listen to anyother point of view besides his own, is a f"cking idiot.

Samudra

The most sorry thing is that you have posted the truth.

I'm yet to know why Osama clubbed the USA,Israel and India as enemies of "Islam" instead of Kashmir,Palestine or any region.

same old , same old....pious platitude.

sparten

Simple, the mulsim world has little in common besides itself. As a Pakistani Pathan I have almost nothing in common with say Somalis. Or Indonesins. And vice versa. The exception is religion. Osama and his kind need support from their cause. So they emphaisze the similarities. Fillial bias of a sort.

Same reason Russia jumped to Serbia's aid in 1914, fellow Slavs. THe IRA got support from Boston Irish. Why? Common roots

Just a convinient way to get support for your cause.

Shek

Samudra,
OBL and AQ became US-centric when the infidels stepped foot on holy territory to defend against Arab Musliims that had invaded and conquered another Arab Muslim country in 1990. When the Saudis revoked his citizenship and kicked him out of the country, it became an obsession for him.

Samudra

Very well, but I thought they went in to liberate Kuwait!
Surely it is the fault of Americans!

Shek

You're correct about the liberate Kuwait part, although the original scope was only to defend Saudi Arabia (I changed my post above to reflect).

Samudra

Shek,

They are not US Centric anymore.
India,Israel,UK and just about anyone that is a non-Muslim country is their enemy , right ?