In The Name Of Allah
Most Gracious Most Merciful
Assalaamu Alaykum Wa Rahmatuallahi wa barakatuhu
Why
the Militant West Fear Islam
Yamin Zakaria
Many would fume at the title and would argue that it is the
liberal West that rightly fears militant Islam. Iraq as an
example can perhaps shed some light on this issue of who is
really the militant one and then we can proceed to examine
the subject of fear. It is a fact that Saddam Hussein was
contained and disarmed since 1991. Indeed, nobody can deny
that no weapons of mass destruction (WMD) existed in Iraq
other than the ones that were used against her! Iraq’s
neighbours opposed the war as they did not consider Saddam
to be a threat but the mighty US across the ocean felt
threatened with its huge arsenal of the most lethal weapons
ever known to mankind!
A threat has two component, intent and capability. Iraq did
not issue any verbal or physical threats and was not in a
position to do so. Hence, the ‘threat’ was construed only by
assessing and exaggerating Iraq’s military capabilities. The
West even resorted to making absurd claims of Iraq’s ability
to hit UK interests (bases in Cyprus) within 45 minutes
using those mythical WMDs. The propaganda also ignored the
huge deterrence of the military firepower of the West, which
Iraq faced. Clearly the West was eager for war,
demonstrating their militant nature and accordingly they
went on to mass murder 100,000 or more innocent Iraqi
civilians.
This militancy of the West seems to be reserved only for the
much weaker opponents, so predictably the resolute North
Korean’s were avoided, even after they openly admitted
possessing Nuclear weapons! Historically, we witnessed this
Western militancy in the genocide of the defenceless people
of North and South America’s, Australia and Africa. In
recent times, the barbaric massacre of the retreating
civilians and soldiers on the road to Basra (inside Iraq,
1991 Gulf War) is another example of this militancy built on
sheer cowardice. It eventually led Colin Powell to describe
the act as not chivalrous and his military pride must have
forced him to call off the gruesome cowardly attack. The
carnage reminded me of a modern Roman army hacking their way
through a village using bombs and bullets instead of swords
and knives.
One of the most distasteful aspects that will linger in
people’s memory is the UN actually aided the aggressors by
removing the few antiquated missiles that Iraq possessed
while the US and UK prepared for war. Apart from cowardice,
this sounds like a bunch of criminal gangsters stripping and
tying their lone victim then slicing and beheading them with
their high-tech weaponry. Such criminal actions are sure to
generate the fear of some form of backlash. That brings us
to the issue of, who fears who. In order to understand this
point, let us examine the capabilities of the two opponents.
The military capabilities, technological know-how and
economic powers of the West are immense in comparison to the
impoverished and divided Islamic world. Despite the
historical feuds and the differences in language, culture
and religion the nation states within the Western block are
constantly converging towards greater unity; the US and
Europe has managed to secure peaceful co-existence for the
last 60 years. Also, the ideological threat of Communism has
also vanished from Russia.
In contrast, the leadership in the Islamic world has been
constantly moving in the direction of disunity, driven by
historical feuds, tribalism and nationalism, and no doubt
helped along by the former colonial powers wishing to
maintain these divisions and weaknesses. Corruption,
nepotism and depletion of the natural resources through
mismanagement have prevented significant economic growth.
One of the precious natural resources is oil, found in
abundance, but it is simply being exchanged for the imported
manufactured goods and building of shopping malls and
hotels. This is no different to the British Raj ‘importing’
the raw materials from India, using it to manufacture the
goods that are eventually sold in the Indian market. Even
the price of oil is dictated by the US to the OPEC (Organisation
of Petroleum Exporting Countries) to the extent that a
barrel of oil has become cheaper than a barrel of wine. Most
certainly, without a strong economy and without a competent
political leadership the military capabilities of the
Islamic world will remain poor.
Given the two contrasting factors it seems ludicrous to even
contemplate the idea of the powerful West, fearing the
weaker Islamic world. Human instincts dictate that we fear
the strong not the weak. It is the citizens of Baghdad, not
London or New York that live in fear of the state terrorism
delivered daily by the occupying forces. But what is the
source for the fear of Islam, is it entirely propaganda or
entirely true or a mixture of the two? The points below
elaborate upon the constituents of the ‘fear of Islam’:
1.Anticipation of a backlash
(Revenge).
Gangsters and criminals always live in fear in anticipation
of vengeance from their victims. Therefore, the guilt
accumulated due to the crimes committed by the militant
Western regimes in the Islamic world, they constantly fear
and anticipate some form of backlash. For sure, the children
of those who have perished in Iraq will seek vengeance and
justice. As expected, this fear of future reprisal
heightened after the retaliatory strikes of 9/11 assuming
that Muslims were behind the action.
At home, new measures have been introduced to persecute the
Muslims. Measures include draconian laws, internment,
torture and even executions. Those who are supposed to be
celibate politically like the Priests, Bishops and Popes are
finding a voice to encourage the suppression of Islam and
Muslims. In line with this fad, Denmark’s Queen, Margrethe,
recently stated that Islam poses a serious threat at global
and local level. In the language of some neo-Nazi party, she
stated that: “we should display no tolerance.” Yet, the West
expects tolerance from the Muslims, even from places like
Iraq, Afghanistan and Palestine where the blood of the
Muslims are split en masse.
2.Manipulation.
While many would anticipate some kind of backlash, Western
leaders are aware of the limitation of such reprisals from
the Muslims, if and when that materialises. The few
retaliatory bombings or attacks are hardly going to dent the
Western military firepower although it may dampen their
resolve to fight. Realising the limitations of the Muslims,
the West pursues a policy of exaggerating the ‘fear of
Islam’. The heightened fear gives the necessary
justification to their own masses to continue the
belligerent foreign policies towards the Islamic world.
As part of this process, the media in general, newspaper
editors, politicians, advisers and think-tanks are
constantly inventing pejorative terms and generating spin to
amplify the Islamic threat. In some instances, they are the
victims of disinformation themselves; think again of the
brazen “45 minutes” statement from the British government.
From across the pond, this climate of fear is stoked by the
Americans regularly sending out news “Terror threat
warnings” and increasing the “Threat Level”. Perhaps the
best illustration is; - fear manipulation of Iraq’s WMD’s,
it was entirely concocted and spin generated to justify the
cowardly aggression.
Just to digress a little, some have used the fear of Islam
to conceal their innate racist agenda. Columnist like
Richard LittleJohn, Kilroy Silk, Daniel Pipes and the likes
clearly illustrate their rabid anti-Islamic feeling to
conceal their ugly xenophobic racism.
3.Inability to contain Islam.
The fear of Islam is partly genuine and partly exaggerated,
but there is another important reason for this, the
resilience of Islam as an ideology. This is seen as
challenging the West by providing an alternative and
simultaneously exposing the weaknesses in the Western values
and thoughts. Islam is proving to be a far stronger
challenge than communism posed with its mighty armies.
Listed below are some of the points which illustrate this.
Resilience and Strength - The strength of Islam has
been its unquestionable resilience. It has extraordinary
ability to cope with the passage of time, place and
transcend all barriers, thus attracting people of all races.
Despite the huge anti-Islamic propaganda and with very
little organised activities, Islam continues to attract
people from all walks of life in the very heart of the West.
The Western propaganda of claiming that Islam attracts the
poor and the uneducated is failing to fool its own
population. It attracts the rich, middle class, the poor,
the educated and the uneducated. The Islamic movements are
in fact filled with educated professionals from all
different backgrounds. Everyone knows Usamah Bin Laden a
millionaire and his assistant Ayman Al-Zawahiri a medical
surgeon.
After decades of denial, even the most hostile of critics
are beginning to come to terms with the fact that despite
painting Islam as being anti-woman, it ironically attracts
more women than men. Again the mass media in desperation
constantly amplifies the isolated cases of a nominal Muslim
woman rebelling against Islamic values, but deafening
silence when so many liberated Western women enter Islam.
Despite the slogans of woman’s rights, gender equality and
emancipation, men and women in the West are finding
increasingly difficult to maintain stable relationships and
attain tranquillity. Divorce, mental breakdown, depression
and other related social problems are constantly increasing.
In fact recent research in the UK shows that despite being
economically poor, the Muslim women suffer the least in
terms of mental depression and were found to be the most
content group.
Similarly, the Russian bear for the last 80 years also could
not ensure the demise or the extinction of Islam. On the
contrary there has been a revival since the 1980s across the
entire region of the central Asian republics. If and when
the Muslims organise themselves in the region, the Russian
women are also likely to enter the fold of Islam as many of
them lose their husbands to vodka (BBC Documentary).
Demography – The Muslims in general are continuing to grow
demographically due to the stable family life and gaining
converts. In contrast many Western nations are facing a
decline in population. With the young the culture of freedom
has led to a decline in family life producing less children;
consequently the proportion of the younger generation are
declining, giving rise to the nascent problem of an aging
population. The old are eventually quarantined to old
people’s homes as they pose a burden on the freedom of the
younger members in society. The projected growth of the
Muslim population in some countries suggests that within the
next hundred years they would outnumber the native
population. This has led to calls for assimilation or
forceful repatriation and of course the Islamic threat
provides the perfect cover.
Spiritual Deficiency – Islam provides a comprehensive
meaning behind the life in this world. This life is test and
a step towards eternal life in the hereafter. Success and
failure depends on how we perform here. Hence there is
meaning and accountability for the actions, which are
moulded to attain success in the afterlife. This provides
contentment and creates stability in society.
Otherwise, disbelief in the hereafter means life began as an
accident and it simply ends here, so there is no higher
purpose in life and we are no different to the animals
around us in this respect. Consequently, humans and animals
have the sole objective of satisfying their needs and
instincts. When those are satisfied one gets bored and ask
what’s next or get depressed until the next fix is received.
The youth in particular release their boredom and depression
by other means e.g. drugs, juvenile delinquency. The
severity of the problem has led to further legislation
against anti-social behaviour in societies that had reached
the apex of material and technological success.
Humans have to attain material prosperity to full-fill their
needs and instincts. However, material success does not
bring about happiness. Despite the disparity in wealth,
material comfort and technological know-how with the West,
the Muslims are relatively far happier. A research led by a
Professor from the London School of Economics showed that
Bangladesh is the happiest society in the world with other
poorer countries also exceeding the richer nations of the
world. Further evidence of the spiritual discontentment in
the West is the increasing mental illness, depression and
suicides are constantly on the rise.
Political Islam - Islam continues to thrive without
an Islamic State, and despite the disunity of Muslims with
very little organised activities of Islamic propagation.
Thus, the impact from an organised Islamic State would be
far greater posing a challenge to the Western hegemony in
the Islamic world but eventually in the international arena
as a whole. The rise of the Islamic State would eventually
propel the unification of the Muslims, overthrowing the
criminal regimes that govern them. The fear is that such an
Islamic state would offer the real alternative to the cracks
showing in the west, which could potentially propel the
dissatisfied youths and masses of the West to eventually
embrace Islam or join the Islamic State.
This is why the militant West really fears Islam.
Therefore, all efforts are diverted towards the prevention
of the rise in Political Islam (Islamic State). As the West
is finding it difficult to face Islam ideologically with
their huge propaganda machine and it would struggle against
a genuine Islamic State which would expose their injustice
while providing an alternative. This is why the West is
spending millions trying to contain the rise of Islam by
attempting to reform it, to water it down, to manage it so
that a secular compatible Islam will be produced.
Indeed, the US is foolish to pursue some of the superficial
policies like funding and promoting some illiterate
moderates, sell-outs and even lewd women with Muslim
heritage hoping that they could initiate some kind of reform
in Islam. Islam is too well narrated and the call for reform
is always coming from those who oppose it and not from
within. Those within are usually calling for the revival of
Islam not reformation. Because they know very well that
Islam does not need to be reformed rather it has come to
reform humanity. It is humanity that needs to be reformed
given that the century of enlightened science has given us
the bloodiest century in human history and Islam played no
part in that.
Conclusion
Although the West do fear the potential Islamic backlash and
the rise of political Islam, but the ‘fear of Islam’ is
manipulated. It is represented by selectively highlighting
the retaliatory acts of the Muslims as unprovoked acts of
violence, thereby turning the victims into mindless
aggressors and the genuine aggressors into the victims. For
a clear example look at the plight of the Palestinians in
the face of overwhelming Zionist aggression, who is daily
portrayed as the victim? This ‘fear of Islam’ is used to
justify the continuing oppressive foreign policies in the
Islamic world, directly or indirectly through its oppressive
puppet regimes.
Furthermore, the aforementioned Western militancy built upon
xenophobic nationalism and greedy capitalism naturally leads
prey upon the weaker Islamic nations for its natural
resources. Accordingly the West has been waging wars on the
Islamic nations; the US has now established military bases
throughout the region with the puppet regimes ensuring
obedience to the US interests. While preaching democracy
vicious military dictators, cruel despots to illiterate
Bedouins disguised as kings are imposed on the Muslims
ensuring that the region remains divided. These regimes get
the publicity, depending on which side of US foreign policy
they sit on. So a murderous tyrant in Uzbekistan or Saudi is
tolerable but not the dictator in Iraq!
Now a new front has been opened, millions are being spent to
wage an ideological battle by disseminating sophisticated
and subtle anti-Islamic propaganda to the crude and vulgar
attacks against Islam and in particular Prophet (SAW)
Muhammad. Using vulgar language to personally attack the
Prophet (SAW) in fact shows that they are getting desperate
and perhaps such measures are also suitable for people who
have a vulgar mindset derived from a crude culture. However,
such activities will only generate further interest in Islam
and continue to attract more converts, like the increase in
conversion to Islam post 9/11. It is only a matter of time
for the rebirth of the Islamic Political entity, the
Khilafah.