"Juggling Figures, Ignoring Facts"

Ray · 08-24-2005, 10:21 AM

Quote:

"Juggling Figures, Ignoring Facts"
response by Samina Ahmed to new Madrasa report

7 March 2005

There is no end to what can be achieved through the juggling of numbers, as a recent World Bank-funded paper on madrasas in Pakistan demonstrates only too well.

If the findings of this paper, entitled “Religious School Enrolment in Pakistan: a Look at the Data”, are to be taken at face value, then Pakistan and the international community, have little cause to worry about an educational sector that glorifies jihad and indoctrinates Pakistani children in religious intolerance and extremism.

Questioning the validity of madrasa enrolment statistics provided by the International Crisis Group and other expert analysts, Tahir Andrabi et al. argue that madrasas account for less than one per cent of all school enrolment in Pakistan, and that there is no evidence of a dramatic increase in enrolment in recent years.

This is directly at odds with the official source, the Pakistan Ministry of Education’s 2003 directory of madrasas, which indicates that the number of madrasa has increased from 6,996 in 2001 to 10,430. Madrasa unions themselves put the figure at 13,000 with the total number of students enrolled at 1.5-1.7 million, but of course they may have reasons for inflating their numbers. Taking the Ministry of Education figure of an additional 3,434 madrasa since 2001, it is highly implausible that enrolment in madrasas has also not grown.

The authors insist there are at most 475,000 children in Pakistani madrasa, yet Ejazul Haq, Pakistan’s Federal Minister for Religious Affairs, says that the country’s madrasas impart religious education to 1,000,000 children.

The trouble is that the authors base their analysis on three questionable sources: the highly controversial 1998 census; household surveys that were neither designed nor conducted to elicit data on madrasa enrolment; and a limited, village-based, household educational census, conducted by the researchers themselves in only three of 102 districts.

The 1998 census is not only out-of-date, as the authors themselves admit, but their 2003 educational census is also of little value because it is based on a representative sample of villages, suggesting that the madrasa is mainly a rural phenomenon. In fact, urban cities and towns tend to have the largest clusters of madrasas; most villages seldom have more than one. The authors might have learnt more about the madrasa phenomenon had they conducted their field research in urban centres, and on institutions such as the Binori Town madrasa and its affiliates in Karachi.

Interestingly, the authors also downplay the linkage between poverty and madrasa education. Yet a 2002 survey conducted by the Institute of Policy Studies (Deeni Madaris: Problems and Prospects, Institute of Policy Studies, Islamabad, 2002), and a 2002-2003 survey conducted by Tariq Rehman (reproduced in IPRI Journal, Winter 2004) found that a majority of madrasa students came from economically deprived backgrounds.

The authors’ insist that the Pakistani madrasa sector is a by-product of geographical proximity to Afghanistan and the geopolitics of Pakistan’s western neighbour, but intriguingly overlook its domestic and international implications. Since General Muhammad Zia ul-Haq ruled Pakistan (1977-88), the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam and other Deobandi parties have, with state patronage, used their madrasas to recruit party members as well as volunteers for domestic and regional jihads.

The rise of jihadi and sectarian violence in Pakistan is closely linked to the madrasa boom. And the close ties between local and transnational extremists will continue to pose a threat to the Pakistani state, and to regional and international security, till such time that the country’s decision-makers acknowledge they have a problem that has to be dealt with, and urgently. Juggling figures is unlikely to help.

Samina Ahmed is the South Asia Project Director for the International Crisis Group, www.crisisgroup.org

Much has been said on the madrassa issue.

Even butter cookies seem to have sprouted from the blues.

However, it would be ostrich like to reject that terrorism is a fact of life and madrassas are the fountainhead of the disease.

This article contains statistics that are important for analysis whenever madrassas and their effect are discussed.

We have nmadrassas in India too. If one talks to such folks who are madrassa trained, it is as if talking to aliens. I wonder what they teach in these madrushas.

The rocking children reading the Koran in a monotonous chant does put one to slumber. Good as a lullaby.

Karthik · 08-24-2005, 10:41 AM

If old habits die hard, deeply entreched ideologies are even harder to set right.

The link between poverty and the madrassas proves once again that nothing is going to happen until there is more economic development in Pakistan. They're currently at 8% ( many people are convinced that this figure is fudged).

But on the other side, growth cannot happen in a climate of madrassa education. Vicious circle. Where does one start?

Samudra · 08-24-2005, 11:10 AM

While it is true that poverty does help the recruiters of terrorists one must remember that the 7/7 bombers were far from being poor.

It is religious indoctrination.

Dude , its a misconception that development can things drastically.None of the 9/11 bombers or 7/7 bombers were from a family who cannot make their ends meet.

There is a frigging problem with the religion.

Karthik · 08-24-2005, 12:31 PM

Well since majority of those going to madrassa's come from poverty stricken families, if there is economic growth, that might prompt them to send their children to proper schools. And with increased growth, more schools might open.

As for those 9/11 and 7/7 bombers, their education was useless I guess. The thing is, some people do get brainwashed, poverty stricken or not. You're right.

Sameer · 08-24-2005, 12:36 PM

Which is why a strong Pakistani economy is in the interest of India.

If trade wasopen to India, there would be around 240B USD of trade after 4 years, this would transform the Pakistani economy but they are too busy living in the middle ages and tryuing to get Kashmir rather than to reduce poverty levels. Heck Kashmir could become a borderless point where free trade could occur, I think that the Kashmiris would not mind becoming the richest people in the sub continent overnight.

**Lunatock** · 08-24-2005, 13:34 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Samudra

While it is true that poverty does help the recruiters of terrorists one must remember that the 7/7 bombers were far from being poor.

It is religious indoctrination.

Dude , its a misconception that development can things drastically.None of the 9/11 bombers or 7/7 bombers were from a family who cannot make their ends meet.

There is a frigging problem with the religion.

Perhaps one should merely repeat the title of a news article that came and went, as news does. "Al-Qaeda attracts the best & brightest". Just look at the September 11th hijackers and post info about any of the poor dirtfarmers in that group.

Ray · 08-24-2005, 13:52 PM

That is an interesting observation that those who are the guys who exploded the bombs in the UG or were on the aircrafts that ploughed into WTC and Pentgon were not really the impoverished from the madrassas!

I presume the Talibans of Afghanistan alone comes to mind when one thinks of the archtypical terrorists and hence one forgets the acutality of facts.

The question then comes to mind as to what motivates them to become terrorists and resort to suicide!

Islam does not condone suicides.

Therefore, while the acts of terror through suicide are part of their weapons to further the terrorist ideology, yet it is unIslamic!

It does get confusing.

What motivates the well to do or moderately well to do to commit suicide and thereby further Islam through an unIslamic method is what one must try to understand to analyse.

Any views or links to this mindset?

Samudra · 08-24-2005, 23:39 PM

sexual starvation ? 72 ?

lemontree · 08-25-2005, 01:57 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ray

That is an interesting observation that those who are the guys who exploded the bombs in the UG or were on the aircrafts that ploughed into WTC and Pentgon were not really the impoverished from the madrassas!

I presume the Talibans of Afghanistan alone comes to mind when one thinks of the archtypical terrorists and hence one forgets the acutality of facts.

Sir,
The 9/11 or 7/7 type of jihadis are the educated ones since they blend with the 'enemy', speak the 'enemy's' language, and can fly planes. The madarsa jihadis are the ones who form the back bone of Ak-47 and "salwar-kameez" hordes. The madarsa types are the foot soldiers, that form the tanzeems that fight for the Jamat-i-Islami's ideology in India and Afghanistan.

Quote:

The question then comes to mind as to what motivates them to become terrorists and resort to suicide!

A $64k question.

Karthik · 08-25-2005, 02:20 AM

Here are the links that might be an interesting read :

Quote:

Many suicide bombers are educated, come from well-off families: Little evidence of mental instability

October 8, 2004
By Sharon Begley

To understand why people do as they do, you need to look at the group with which they identify at the time. That realization is shaping scientists' understanding of suicide bombers, whose numbers have soared.

In study after study, social psychologists have shown that it is the group, not individual personality, that often determines behavior, said Robert Cialdini of Arizona State University.

Scientists have found that suicide bombers are not the cowardly psychopaths or sociopaths you might expect.

"There is little to no evidence that they are mentally unbalanced," said Todd Stewart, a retired Air Force general who now directs the Program for International and Homeland Security at Ohio State University. From the Sept. 11 attackers to Palestinian suicide bombers to al-Qaeda terrorists, they are educated, fairly well off and "not necessarily from fanatically religious families," he said.

This alarmingly normal profile is why the National Science Foundation gave anthropologist Scott Atran, a research director at the National Center for Scientific Research in Paris, emergency funding to study groups that sponsor suicide attacks. He just spent three weeks in Gaza and the West Bank, where he spoke to counterterrorism strategists, fugitive Hamas leaders, would-be suicide bombers and families of "martyrs."

"None of the supporters of suicide terrorism I interviewed, especially at al-Najah University, were poor, uneducated, socially estranged or psychologically deranged," said Atran. "They are idealistic and compassionate, and think they can change the world. That makes the whole thing more frightening than if they were just crazies off the street."

In a study of al-Qaeda recruits, forensic psychiatrist Marc Sageman of the University of Pennsylvania found a similar pattern: Many attended college and are economically better off than most Palestinians or European Muslims, and they are often "the elite of their countries," he said.

But suicide terrorists are not rational in the way science understands the term. They do not weigh risks and benefits or winning and losing strategies. For the suicide bomber, said Atran, " 'sacred values' and fervor trump rational interest." For instance, when he asked young Hamas supporters whether a martyr is "more deserving" if he kills 10 of the enemy or 100, all responded that it would not matter if the martyr killed no one but himself. He also asked, if your father were dying and your mother asked you to delay your suicide operation, would you? All answered that "duty to God" cannot be delayed for even a minute.

Yet when Atran got aspiring martyrs alone, "there was a lot more nuance, flexibility and doubt," he said. "They're not so sure anymore, whereas in the group they're convinced of what they're saying."

That's why insights into suicide attackers will have to come from understanding group dynamics, not individual psychology, said Stewart.

"Group norms are more important than individual traits" in creating a suicide bomber, he said. Terrorist leaders make recruits view the group, terrorist cell or larger society, as a pseudofamily for whom they will give their life. That manipulation can trump individual personality to produce horrific behavior in ordinary people.

We won't prevent suicide attacks by trying to profile terrorists; they're not different enough from everyone else. The best hope, said Stewart, may be to understand how terrorist groups "socialize" recruits and exploit their desire for status and belonging, and then offer these young people an alternative. The group a person identifies with is not set in stone.

The Wall Street Journal

Karthik · 08-25-2005, 02:26 AM

Here's another

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God and Mammon: Does Poverty Cause Militant Islam?

by Daniel Pipes
National Interest
Winter 2002

The events of September 11 have intensified a long-standing debate: What causes Muslims to turn to militant Islam? Some analysts have noted the poverty of Afghanistan and concluded that herein lay the problem. Jessica Stern of Harvard University wrote that the United States "can no longer afford to allow states to fail." If it does not devote a much higher priority to health, education and economic development abroad, she writes, "new Osamas will continue to arise." Susan Sachs of the New York Times observes: "Predictably, the disappointed youth of Egypt and Saudi Arabia turn to religion for comfort." More colorfully, others have advocated bombarding Afghanistan with foodstuffs not along with but instead of explosives.

Behind these analyses lies an assumption that socioeconomic distress drives Muslims to extremism. The evidence, however, does not support this expectation. Militant Islam (or Islamism) is not a response to poverty or impoverishment; not only are Bangladesh and Iraq not hotbeds of militant Islam, but militant Islam has often surged in countries experiencing rapid economic growth. The factors that cause militant Islam to decline or flourish appear to have more to do with issues of identity than with economics.

All Other Problems Vanish

The conventional wisdom-that economic stress causes militant Islam and that economic growth is needed to blunt it-has many well-placed adherents. Even some Islamists themselves accept this connection. In the words of a fiery sheikh from Cairo, "Islam is the religion of bad times." A Hamas leader in Gaza, Mahmud az-Zahar, says, "It is enough to see the poverty-stricken outskirts of Algiers or the refugee camps in Gaza to understand the factors that nurture the strength of the Islamic Resistance Movement." In this spirit, militant Islamic organizations offer a wide range of welfare benefits in an effort to attract followers. They also promote what they call an "Islamic economy" as the "most gracious system of solidarity in a society. Under such a system, the honorable do not fall, the honest do not perish, the needy do not suffer, the handicapped do not despair, the sick do not die for lack of care, and people do not destroy one another."

Many secular Muslims also stress militant Islam's source in poverty as an article of faith. Süleyman Demirel, the former Turkish president, says, "As long as there is poverty, inequality, injustice, and repressive political systems, fundamentalist tendencies will grow in the world." Turkey's former prime minister, Tansu Çiller, finds that Islamists did so well in the 1994 elections because "People reacted to the economy." The chief of Jordanian Army Intelligence holds, "Economic development may solve almost all of our problems [in the Middle East]." Including militant Islam, he was asked? Yes, he replied: "The moment a person is in a good economic position, has a job, and can support his family, all other problems vanish."

Leftists in the Middle East concur, interpreting the militant Islamic resurgence as "a sign of pessimism. Because people are desperate, they are resorting to the supernatural." Social scientists sign on as well: Hooshang Amirahmadi, an academic of Iranian origins, argues that "the roots of Islamic radicalism must be looked for outside the religion, in the real world of cultural despair, economic decline, political oppression, and spiritual turmoil in which most Muslims find themselves today." The academy, with its lingering Marxist disposition and disdain for faith, of course accepts this militant Islam-from-poverty thesis with near unanimity. Ervand Abrahamian holds that "the behavior of Khomeini and the Islamic Republic has been determined less by scriptural principles than by immediate political, social and economic needs." Ziad Abu-Amr, author of a book on militant Islam (and a member of the Palestine Legislative Council), ascribes a Palestinian turn toward religiosity to "the sombre climate of destruction, war, unemployment, and depression [which] cause people to seek solace, and they're going to Allah."

Western politicians also find the argument compelling. For former President Bill Clinton, "These forces of reaction feed on disillusionment, poverty and despair", and he advocates a socioeconomic remedy: "spread prosperity and security to all." Edward Djerejian, once a top State Department figure, reports that "political Islamic movements are to an important degree rooted in worsening socio-economic conditions in individual countries." Martin Indyk, another former high-ranking U.S. diplomat, warns that those wishing to reduce the appeal of militant Islam must first solve the economic, social and political problems that constitute its breeding grounds.

Militant Islam reflects "the economic, political, and cultural disappointment" of Muslims, according to former German Foreign Minister Klaus Kinkel. Former Interior Minister Charles Pasqua of France finds that this phenomenon "has coincided with despair on the part of a large section of the masses, and young people in particular." Prime Minister Eddie Fenech of Malta draws an even closer tie: "Fundamentalism grows at the same pace as economic problems." Israel's Foreign Minister Shimon Peres flatly asserts that "fundamentalism's basis is poverty" and that it offers "a way of protesting against poverty, corruption, ignorance, and discrimination."

Armed with this theory of cause and effect, businessmen on occasion make investments with an eye to political amelioration. The Virgin Group's chairman, Richard Branson, declared as he opened a music store in Beirut: "The region will become stable if people invest in it, create jobs and rebuild the countries that need rebuilding, not ignore them."

Somewhere Near the Stratosphere

But the empirical record evinces little correlation between economics and militant Islam. Aggregate measures of wealth and economic trends fall flat as predictors of where militant Islam will be strong and where not. On the level of individuals, too, conventional wisdom points to militant Islam attracting the poor, the alienated and the marginal-but research finds precisely the opposite to be true. To the extent that economic factors explain who becomes Islamist, they point to the fairly well off, not the poor.

Take Egypt as a test case. In a 1980 study, the Egyptian social scientist Saad Eddin Ibrahim interviewed Islamists in Egyptian jails and found that the typical member is "young (early twenties), of rural or small-town background, from the middle or lower middle class, with high achievement and motivation, upwardly mobile, with science or engineering education, and from a normally cohesive family." In other words, Ibrahim concluded, these young men were "significantly above the average in their generation"; they were "ideal or model young Egyptians." In a subsequent study, he found that out of 34 members of the violent group At-Takfir w'al-Hijra, fully 21 had fathers in the civil service, nearly all of them middle-ranking. More recently, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service found that the leadership of the militant Islamic group Al-Jihad "is largely university educated with middle-class backgrounds." These are not the children of poverty or despair.

Other researchers confirm these findings for Egypt. In a study on the country's economic troubles, Galal A. Amin, an economist at the American University in Cairo, concludes by noting "how rare it is to find examples of religious fanaticism among either the higher or the very lowest social strata of the Egyptian population." When her assistant in Cairo turned Islamist, the American journalist Geraldine Brooks tells of her surprise: "I'd assumed that the turn to Islam was the desperate choice of poor people searching for heavenly solace. But Sahar [the assistant] was neither desperate nor poor. She belonged somewhere near the stratosphere of Egypt's meticulously tiered society." And note this account by the talented journalist Hamza Hendawi: In Egypt,

a new breed of preachers in business suits and with cellular phones are attracting increasing numbers of the rich and powerful away from Western lifestyles and into religious conservatism. The modern imams hold their seminars over banquets in some of Cairo's most luxurious homes and in Egypt's seaside resorts to appeal to the wealthy's sense of style and comfort.
What is true of Egypt holds equally true elsewhere: Like fascism and Marxism-Leninism in their heydays, militant Islam attracts highly competent, motivated and ambitious individuals. Far from being the laggards of society, they are its leaders. Brooks, a much-traveled journalist, found Islamists to be "the most gifted" of the youth she encountered. Those "hearing the Islamic call included the students with the most options, not just the desperate cases. . . . They were the elites of the next decade: the people who would shape their nations' future."

Even Islamists who make the ultimate sacrifice and give up their lives fit this pattern of financial ease and advanced education. A disproportionate number of terrorists and suicide bombers have higher education, often in engineering and the sciences. This generalization applies equally to the Palestinian suicide bombers attacking Israel and the followers of Osama bin Laden who hijacked the four planes of September 11. In the first case, one researcher found by looking at their profiles that: "Economic circumstances did not seem to be a decisive factor. While none of the 16 subjects could be described as well-off, some were certainly struggling less than others." In the second case, as the Princeton historian Sean Wilentz sardonically put it, the biographies of the September 11 killers would imply that the root cause of terrorism is "money, education and privilege." More generally, Fathi ash-Shiqaqi, founding leader of the arch-murderous Islamic Jihad, once commented, "Some of the young people who have sacrificed themselves [in terrorist operations] came from well-off families and had successful university careers." This makes sense, for suicide bombers who hurl themselves against foreign enemies offer their lives not to protest financial deprivation but to change the world.

Those who back militant Islamic organizations also tend to be well off. They come more often from the richer city than the poorer countryside, a fact that, as Khalid M. Amayreh, a Palestinian journalist, points out, "refutes the widely-held assumption that Islamist popularity thrives on economic misery." And they come not just from the cities but from the upper ranks. At times, an astonishing one-quarter of the membership in Turkey's leading militant Islamic organization, now called the Saadet Party, have been engineers. Indeed, the typical cadre in a militant Islamic party is an engineer in his forties born in a city to parents who had moved from the countryside. Amayreh finds that in the Jordanian parliamentary elections of 1994, the Muslim Brethren did as well in middle-class districts as in poor ones. He generalizes from this that "a substantial majority of Islamists and their supporters come from the middle and upper socio-economic strata."

Martin Kramer, editor of the Middle East Quarterly, goes further and sees militant Islam as

the vehicle of counter-elites, people who, by virtue of education and/or income, are potential members of the elite, but who for some reason or another get excluded. Their education may lack some crucial prestige-conferring element; the sources of their wealth may be a bit tainted. Or they may just come from the wrong background. So while they are educated and wealthy, they have a grievance: their ambition is blocked, they cannot translate their socio-economic assets into political clout. Islamism is particularly useful to these people, in part because by its careful manipulation, it is possible to recruit a following among the poor, who make valuable foot-soldiers.
Kramer cites the so-called Anatolian Tigers, businessmen who have had a critical role in backing Turkey's militant Islamic party, as an example of this counter-elite in its purest form.

Not a Product of Poverty

The same pattern that holds for individual Islamists exists on the level of societies, as well. That social pattern can be expressed by four propositions.

First, wealth does not inoculate against militant Islam. Kuwaitis enjoy a Western-style income (and owe their state's very existence to the West) but Islamists generally win the largest bloc of seats in parliament (at present, twenty out of fifty). The West Bank is more prosperous than Gaza, yet militant Islamic groups usually enjoy more popularity in the former than the latter. Militant Islam flourishes in the member states of the European Union and in North America, where Muslims as a group enjoy a standard of living higher than the national averages. And of those Muslims, as Khalid Durán points out, Islamists have the generally higher incomes: "In the United States, the difference between Islamists and common Muslims is largely one between haves and have-nots. Muslims have the numbers; Islamists have the dollars."

Second, a flourishing economy does not inoculate against radical Islam. Today's militant Islamic movements took off in the 1970s, precisely as oil-exporting states enjoyed extraordinary growth rates. Muammar Qaddafi developed his eccentric version of proto-militant Islam then; fanatical groups in Saudi Arabia violently seized the Great Mosque of Mecca; and Ayatollah Khomeini took power in Iran (though, admittedly, growth had slacked off several years before he overthrew the Shah). In the 1980s, several countries that excelled economically experienced a militant Islamic boom. Jordan, Tunisia and Morocco all did well economically in the 1990s-as did their militant Islamic movements. Turks under Turgut Özal enjoyed nearly a decade of particularly impressive economic growth even as they joined militant Islamic parties in ever larger numbers.

Third, poverty does not generate militant Islam. There are many very poor Muslim states but few of them have become centers of militant Islam-not Bangladesh, not Yemen, and not Niger. As an American specialist rightly notes, "economic despair, the oft-cited source of political Islam's power, is familiar to the Middle East"; if militant Islam is connected to poverty, why was it not a stronger force in years and centuries past, when the region was poorer than it is today?

Fourth, a declining economy does not generate militant Islam. The 1997 crash in Indonesia and Malaysia did not spur a large turn toward militant Islam. Iranian incomes have gone down by half or more since the Islamic Republic came to power in 1979; yet, far from increasing support for the regime's militant Islamic ideology, impoverishment has caused a massive alienation from Islam. Iraqis have experienced an even more precipitous drop in living standards: Abbas Alnasrawi estimates that per capita income has plummeted by nearly 90 percent since 1980, returning it to where it was in the 1940s. While the country has witnessed an increase in personal piety, militant Islam has not surged, nor is it the leading expression of anti-regime sentiments.

Noting these patterns, at least a few observers have drawn the correct conclusion. The outspoken Algerian secularist, Saïd Sadi, flatly rejects the thesis that poverty spurs militant Islam: "I do not adhere to this view that it is widespread unemployment and poverty which produce terrorism." Likewise, Amayreh finds that militant Islam "is not a product or by-product of poverty."

Providing a Decent Living

If poverty causes militant Islam, broad-based economic growth is the solution. And indeed, in countries as varied as Egypt and Germany, officials argue for a focus on building prosperity and fostering job formation to combat militant Islam. At the height of the crisis in Algeria during the mid-1990s, when the government pled for Western economic aid, it implicitly threatened that without this aid, the Islamists would prevail. This interpretation has practical results: for example, the government in Tunisia has taken some steps toward a free market but has not privatized for fear that the swollen ranks of the unemployed would provide fodder for militant Islamic groups. The same goes for Iran, where Europe and Japan mold policies premised on the notion that their economic ties to the Islamic Republic tame it and discourage military adventurism.

This emphasis on jobs and wealth creation also transformed efforts to end the Arab-Israeli conflict during the Oslo era. Prior to 1993, Israelis had insisted that a resolution would require Arabs to recognize that the Jewish state is a permanent fact of life. Achieving that was thought to lie in winning acceptance of the Jewish state and finding mutually acceptable borders. Then, post-1993, came a major shift: increasing Arab prosperity became the goal, hoping that this would diminish the appeal of militant Islam and other radical ideologies. A jump start for the economy was expected to give Palestinians a stake in the peace process, thereby reducing the appeal of Hamas and Islamic Jihad. In this context, Serge Schmemann of the New York Times wrote (without providing evidence) that Arafat "knows that eradicating militancy will ultimately depend more on providing a decent living than on using force."

The Israeli analyst Meron Benvenisti agreed: Islam's "militant character derived from its being an expression of the deep frustration of the underprivileged. . . . Hamas's rise was directly linked to the worsening economic situation and to the accumulated frustration and degradation of the ongoing occupation." Shimon Peres weighed in as well: "Islamic terror cannot be fought militarily but by eradicating the hunger which spawns it." Guided by this theory, the Western states and Israel contributed billions of dollars to the Palestinian Authority. Even more remarkably, the Israeli government fought against efforts by pro-Israel activists in the United States to make U.S. aid to the PLO contingent on Arafat's fulfilling his formal written promises to Israel.

At this late date, one hardly needs to point out the falsehood of Oslo's assumptions. Wealth does not resolve hatreds; a prosperous enemy may simply be one more capable of making war. Westerners and Israelis assumed that Palestinians would make broad economic growth their priority, whereas this has been a minor concern. What has counted instead are questions of identity and power, but so strong is the belief in the militant Islam-from-poverty thesis that Oslo's failure has not managed to discredit the faith in the political benefits of prosperity. Thus, in August 2001, a senior Israeli officer endorsed the building of a power station in northern Gaza on the grounds that it would supply jobs, "and every [Palestinian] working is one less pair of hands for Hamas."

A Different Argument

If poverty is not the driving force behind militant Islam, several policy implications follow. First, prosperity cannot be looked to as the solution to militant Islam and foreign aid cannot serve as the outside world's main tool to combat it. Second, Westernization also does not a provide a solution. To the contrary, many outstanding militant Islamic leaders are not just familiar with Western ways but are expert in them. In particular, a disproportionate number of them have advanced degrees in technology and the sciences. It sometimes seems that Westernization is a route to hating the West. Third, economic growth does not inevitably lead to improved relations with Muslim states. In some cases (for example, Algeria), it might help; in others (Saudi Arabia), it might hurt.

Could it be, quite contrarily, that militant Islam results from wealth rather than poverty? It is possible. There is, after all, the universal phenomenon that people become more engaged ideologically and active politically only when they have reached a fairly high standard of living. Revolutions take place, it has often been noted, only when a substantial middle class exists. Birthe Hansen, an associate professor at the University of Copenhagen, hints at this when she writes that "the spread of free market capitalism and liberal democracy . . . is probably an important factor behind the rise of political Islam."

Moreover, there is a specifically Islamic phenomenon of the faith having been associated with worldly success. Through history, from the Prophet Muhammad's time to the Ottoman Empire a millennium later, Muslims usually had more wealth and more power than other peoples, and were more literate and healthy. With time, Islamic faith came to be associated with worldly well-being-a kind of Muslim Calvinism, in effect. This connection appears still to hold. For example, as noted in the formulation known as Issawi's law ("Where there are Muslims, there is oil; the converse is not true"), the 1970s oil boom mainly benefited Muslims; it is probably no coincidence that the current wave of militant Islam began then. Seeing themselves as "pioneers of a movement that is an alternative to Western civilization", Islamists need a strong economic base. As Galal Amin writes, "There may be a strong relationship between the growth of incomes that have the nature of economic rent and the growth of religious fanaticism."

Conversely, poor Muslims have tended to be more impressed by alternative affiliations. Over the centuries, for example, apostasy from the religion has mostly occurred when things have gone badly. That was the case when Tatars fell under Russian rule or when Sunni Lebanese lost power to the Maronites. It was also the case in 1995 in Iraqi Kurdistan, a region under double embargo and suffering from civil war:

Trying to live their lives in the midst of fire and gunpowder, Kurdish villagers have reached the point where they are prepared to give up anything to save themselves from hunger and death. From their perspective, changing their religion to get a visa to the West is becoming an increasingly more important option.

There are, in short, ample reasons for thinking that militant Islam results more from success than from failure.

The Elevator to Power

That being the likely case, it is probably more fruitful to look less to economics and more to other factors when seeking the sources of militant Islam. While material reasons deeply appeal to Western sensibilities, they offer little guidance in this case. In general, Westerners attribute too many of the Arab world's problems, observes David Wurmser of the American Enterprise Institute, "to specific material issues" such as land and wealth. This usually means a tendency "to belittle belief and strict adherence to principle as genuine and dismiss it as a cynical exploitation of the masses by politicians. As such, Western observers see material issues and leaders, not the spiritual state of the Arab world, as the heart of the problem." Or, in Osama bin Laden's ugly formulation, "Because America worships money, it believes that [other] people think that way too."

Indeed, if one turns away from the commentators on militant Islam and instead listens to the Islamists themselves, it quickly becomes apparent that they rarely talk about prosperity. As Ayatollah Khomeini memorably put it, "We did not create a revolution to lower the price of melon." If anything, they look at the consumer societies of the West with distaste. Wajdi Ghunayim, an Egyptian Islamist, sees it as "the reign of décolleté and moda [fashion]" whose common denominator is an appeal to the bestial instincts of human nature. Economic assets for Islamists represent not the good life but added strength to do battle against the West. Money serves to train cadres and buy weapons, not to buy a bigger house or a late-model car. Wealth is a means, not an end.

Means toward what? Toward power. Islamists care less about material strength than about where they stand in the world. They talk incessantly of this. In a typical statement, 'Ali Akbar Mohtashemi, the leading Iranian hard-liner, predicts that "ultimately Islam will become the supreme power." Similarly, Mustafa Mashhur, an Egyptian Islamist, declares that the slogan "God is Great" will reverberate "until Islam spreads throughout the world." Abdessalam Yassine, a Moroccan Islamist, asserts "We demand power"-and the man standing in his way, the late King Hassan, concluded that for Islamists, Islam is "the elevator to take power." He was right. By reducing the economic dimension to its proper proportions, and appreciating the religious, cultural and political dimensions, we may actually begin to understand what causes militant Islam.

June 24, 2002 update: Alan B. Krueger and Jitka Maleckova confirm my argument above in "Does Poverty Cause Terrorism? The economics and the education of suicide bombers," in the New Republic, dated today.

July 1, 2004 update: Most Arab terrorists are "well-educated, married men from middle- or upper-class families, in their mid-20s and psychologically stable"; that's how Knight Ridder Newspapers summarizes the findings of Marc Sageman, a psychiatrist at the University of Pennsylvania.

Link

Jay · 08-25-2005, 02:28 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Samudra

sexual starvation ? 72 ?

No, its sexual liberation with 72 after death

May be that looks attractive to these folks!

08-24-2005, 10:41 AM	#2 (permalink)
Karthik Seeker of Rivendell *Senior Contributor* Join Date: 12-15-04 Posts: 1,569 Country:	If old habits die hard, deeply entreched ideologies are even harder to set right. The link between poverty and the madrassas proves once again that nothing is going to happen until there is more economic development in Pakistan. They're currently at 8% ( many people are convinced that this figure is fudged). But on the other side, growth cannot happen in a climate of madrassa education. Vicious circle. Where does one start? __________________ "There is no excellence in all this world that can be separated from right living." - David Star Jordan My Blog

08-24-2005, 11:10 AM	#3 (permalink)
Samudra *Senior Contributor* Join Date: 09-01-04 Location: North London Posts: 4,310 Country:	While it is true that poverty does help the recruiters of terrorists one must remember that the 7/7 bombers were far from being poor. It is religious indoctrination. Dude , its a misconception that development can things drastically.None of the 9/11 bombers or 7/7 bombers were from a family who cannot make their ends meet. There is a frigging problem with the religion. Last edited by Samudra : 08-24-2005 at 11:12 AM.

08-24-2005, 23:39 PM	#8 (permalink)
Samudra *Senior Contributor* Join Date: 09-01-04 Location: North London Posts: 4,310 Country:	sexual starvation ? 72 ? Last edited by Samudra : 08-24-2005 at 23:42 PM.

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08-24-2005, 12:31 PM	#4 (permalink)
Karthik Seeker of Rivendell *Senior Contributor* Join Date: 12-15-04 Posts: 1,569 Country:	Well since majority of those going to madrassa's come from poverty stricken families, if there is economic growth, that might prompt them to send their children to proper schools. And with increased growth, more schools might open. As for those 9/11 and 7/7 bombers, their education was useless I guess. The thing is, some people do get brainwashed, poverty stricken or not. You're right.

08-24-2005, 12:36 PM	#5 (permalink)
Sameer Banished *Senior Contributor* Join Date: 07-12-05 Posts: 2,541	Which is why a strong Pakistani economy is in the interest of India. If trade wasopen to India, there would be around 240B USD of trade after 4 years, this would transform the Pakistani economy but they are too busy living in the middle ages and tryuing to get Kashmir rather than to reduce poverty levels. Heck Kashmir could become a borderless point where free trade could occur, I think that the Kashmiris would not mind becoming the richest people in the sub continent overnight.

08-24-2005, 13:52 PM	#7 (permalink)
Ray Postmaster General *Military Professional* Join Date: 08-20-03 Posts: 26,149 Country:	That is an interesting observation that those who are the guys who exploded the bombs in the UG or were on the aircrafts that ploughed into WTC and Pentgon were not really the impoverished from the madrassas! I presume the Talibans of Afghanistan alone comes to mind when one thinks of the archtypical terrorists and hence one forgets the acutality of facts. The question then comes to mind as to what motivates them to become terrorists and resort to suicide! Islam does not condone suicides. Therefore, while the acts of terror through suicide are part of their weapons to further the terrorist ideology, yet it is unIslamic! It does get confusing. What motivates the well to do or moderately well to do to commit suicide and thereby further Islam through an unIslamic method is what one must try to understand to analyse. Any views or links to this mindset?

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