By: Munir Ahmed
Khalili
Extremism, Terrorism and Militancy are the terms perhaps
most common on the tongues now. The world might have many reasons to wail on
the terror acts today, but we hardly find any era of almost whole of the recorded
history with exception of this phenomenon.
We need not go far back. Keep only the second half of the last century
in consideration. Creation of a Jewish state in heart of the Middle East was
actually a manifestation of all for what these terms stand for. Ferocious
Zionist terror acts under the shadow of the British Imperialism and with
collaboration of other big Western Powers became preliminaries of the plan for
creation of Israel. It caused displacement of thousands of the Palestinians.
Hundreds of the families were forcefully driven away from their homes to miserably
live in the refugee camps in the neighboring countries. And those who remained
back remained in the worse. How contemptuously they are treated and ridiculed
by the settlers on the Palestinians lands and Zionist military personals, to
know this have a look only on the concerned chapter of ‘Great War for
Civilization’, a tremendous work by a seven times voted ‘International
Journalist of the Year’ and winner of many International Journalism Awards,
Robert Fisk. Was it not enough to enrage the Palestinians? The Palestinians
have all validation to fight for getting their homeland liberated from
viciousness of the Zionists, but they were and are still labeled the
terrorists.
After the Second World War, when the Western Powers felt injuriousness
of their mutual wars, they decided to shift the battle grounds to the East, and
unfortunately to the Muslim world. They mischievously created serious conflicts
in the Middle East and South Asia leading Arabs and Israel and India and
Pakistan to three deadly wars each from 1948 to very recent times. Iraq was twice
left belligerently downtrodden by the Americans, at first in the name of
liberation of Kuwait and the second time with unfounded allegations that it
kept weapons of mass destruction. Afghanistan
is, for last over thirty years, a hot battleground for unusual destruction and
bloodshed, giving a high rise to militancy and extremism. Who is to blame, the Muslims or the
aggressors?
In the recent times extremism and terrorism was largely
imputed to the Islamists and the world communities were mischievously made
believe this, while the Islamic Movements have been constantly disowning and
rejecting this unholy craft. They have their clear resolve of never resorting
to unconstitutional and unlawful methods for reaching their goal. Their invariably
repeated commitment to transform the society by discourse and dialogue is
actually in the light of the following verse of the Quran. ادع الى
سبيل ربك با لحكمة والموعظة الحسنة و جادلهم بالتى هى احسن ان ربك هو اعلم بمن ضل
عن سبيله و هو اعلم بالمهتدين “Invite (mankind O Muhammad) to the way of
your Lord with wisdom and fair preaching, and argue with them (the audiences)
in a way that is better. Truly, your Lord knows best who has gone astray from
His path and He is the Best Aware of those who are guided” (An-Nahl: 125). They
hardly ever deviated from their belief in legitimized activities for molding
the public opinion. Time and again they resolved and practically shown their
willingness to make democratic ways to win the support of masses.
The matter was not only that the Western Powers always had
been skeptical of the Islamic Movements. They were never ready to let them use
the tool of democracy to gain power and implement their plans. Take example of
Algeria. Islamic Salvation Front was winning in the first stage of the
elections there and on January 16, 1992 the world was waiting for much more
surprise in the second phase of the election. The colossal strength of the ISF
was not tolerable for the West. So, whole of the electoral plan was folded by
the military forces. Army, with clear buck up from the foreign masters, stepped
forward with its iron clamps. Top leadership of the ISF was thrown in the
jails. The country got plunged into a civil war.
Then what happened to Hamas? Since the establishment of the
Palestinian National Authority in 1994, the people were greatly fed up of
nepotism and corruption of PLO’s administration in the West Bank and Gaza. Hamas
was popular for its tremendous record of honestly and selflessly providing the
basic social services to the people, so naturally the people voted for it in the
elections held in January, 2006 and it existed to be in position of making its
government. Almost whole of the world showed its brows knitted on this development.
Israel, America, European Union and even the Arab States refused to accept
Hamas’s mandate. Sanctions were imposed and foreign aid was suspended. Desecration
of the democratic norms was by those who get not tired in loudly beating the
drums of democracy.
And now, snatching power from an elected president by
Egyptian military chief and defense minister Abdul Fatah Al-Sisi is the very
recent highly deplorable manoeuver. He has added a new hideous black page in
the history of the region by taking his country back to fifth, sixth and
seventh decade of the last century, the era of military coups in Arab
countries. Habib Bouraqiba and Zain el-Abidin Ali in Tunisia, Houari Boumediene
in Algeria, Col. Qadhafi in Libya, Jamal Abdul Naser and his successors Anwar
Al-Sadat and Hosni Mubarak in Egypt, Hafez al-Asad in Syria, Ali Saleh Abdullah
in Yemen and Saddam Hussain in Iraq became the symbols of horror for their
people by their tyrant policies of oppression, imprisonments, tortures and
murders. Hundreds of the political
opponents went missing during their cruel rule.
It is now clear that move of overthrowing of Morsi was in
concordance with Israeli and American plans. Thus American hypocritical irresolution
in denouncing this military coup is understandable. It has made America’s
hollowness regarding democracy much more manifest. Since long, America
developed its harmonious working relations with the monarchies, kingdoms,
sheikhdoms and even with the cruel dictators than any elected government around
that region. In Abraham Lincoln’s time democracy might have been defined as: ‘A government by the people, of the people
and for the people’. Later, its applied comprehension became far different from
its theoretical delineations. Democracy in America and almost whole of the West
has gone too much stale now. Retreatment from the democracy is evident in
numerous policies.
Democracy is now an
instrument for Western cultural and economic hegemony than granting the right
to all the communities of the world to form political system of their own and
constitute the governments ‘by the people, of the people and for the people’ and
live according to their religious, moral and cultural traditions. Every nation
has its right to define its culture by itself in the light of its own religious
teachings, moral values and social norms. But what happens now? Any point of
view critical of the Western cultural traits, bloomed in the name of democratic
rights in the West and contrasting with moral and religious values of many of
the communities, is thought synonymous with obnoxiousness.
Islamic Movements, in the Middle East and South Asia, agree
to benefit from the democracy for having elected governments through ballot box,
bringing economic progress and remodeling the societies in the light of the teachings
of Islam. But, unfortunately the ‘weapon’ of ballot box in hands of Islamists
is a thing excessively unpalatable for the America and its Western allies. They
fear if once the Islamic Movements are successful in creating peaceful, prosper
and educationally enlightened societies under their own cultural and moral
concepts and gain political and economic self-reliance, then the West will lose
all its wizardry.
What was the cost of
overthrowing Morsi? Egyptian economy went under the loss of 9 billion dollars only
during rebellious movement (تمرد ) against Morsi and
‘sit in’ at the Tehreer Square. America is alleged to had squandered not less
than billions to keep the flames of hatred and anger high against the
president. Here, what mattered greatly? It was Morsi’s strict commitment to his
cultural and religious traditions which got counted heavily. How? As gleeful prediction
of some members of Israeli Knesset about removal of the Egyptian elected
president appeared in the newspapers, the
military coup was justified because,
according to them, he wanted to push the Egyptian society centuries back while
in fact Egyptian people were lovers of songs, music, films and travel and tours.
Two more very serious questions arise here. When the impression
that new millennium would see no more military coups once proves vain, and killing
of democracy happens under the nose of its so-called sentry, America, will it not
encourage some others Sisis in different parts of the world to rise for the
same? And overlook not the matter of extremism, terrorism and militancy. Is
this not an unpalatable fact that these epidemics mostly started flourishing in
the countries where American favorite monarchs, kings, sheikhs and despotic rulers
were in power? Trace the belongings from where most of Al-Qaida leaders came
and who were those who were alleged to having their planes crashed into the New
York Twin Towers? Is it not a fact that Pakistan became hot spot of terrorism
since General Parvez Musharaf mortgaged this country for his personal gains?
Will military controlled Egypt not become again breeding place for many more
Ayman el-Zawahiris?
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