Islam and Politics - The Stimson Center

More documents

Recommendations

Info

Amit Pandya | 79 desirable features is to ignore the significant intellectual resources of social change and reform already at work in the Muslim world. Violence and Terrorism Jihad has often been described by Muslims and Islamic scholars as a core principal of Islamic faith and ethics. For its part, the West today is preoccupied with the threat of violence emanating from the Muslim world and sees jihad as the intellectual source of that problem. In effect, the West holds distinctly Islamic culture and ideas responsible for an existential threat. The combined effect of these two perceptions is highly toxic. Muslims take offense at the calumny that their religion promotes violence, while Western opinion consciously or otherwise blames Islam as a religion for its own sense of insecurity and unease. This is the essence of the clash of civilizations. Political concerns poison cultural perception, and vice versa. It is necessary to carefully examine the nature of political violence in the Muslim world as well as the varieties of Muslim understanding of jihad. The discussion of terrorism is perhaps the most obvious example of how confusion of the political and the cultural poisons perceptions and creates mutual ill will. The Muslim world sees a crude and simplistic understanding of terrorism in the West. The West perceives a permissiveness and tolerance of violence among substantial segments of Muslim opinion. Quite apart from the shaping of mutual perceptions, these fixed views are also central to the shaping of political, diplomatic, and military behavior on both sides. Several factors lead many Muslims to discount Western concerns about the perceived tolerance of extremism in Muslim societies. Representative Muslim opinion considers the “global war on terror” a fig leaf for the political and economic goals of the West. Muslims note that terrorism is not the only significant form of political violence, and the West’s obsession with it obscures the pervasive violence found in Western societies and the extent to which Western states and private interests perpetrate violence in the Muslim world, and thereby spawn violence that is political in origin. 4 A wide swath of Muslims objects to the term “Islamic terrorists,” which seems to associate terrorism with the religious tradition. Many find this even more offensive than pairing “terrorist” with group origin, as in “Muslim terrorist.” There is no corresponding use of terms such as “Hindu terrorist” or “Jewish terrorism,” despite the practice of majoritarian 4 Less than 10 percent of Muslims polled consider the use of force against civilians legitimate, compared to more than 20 percent of Americans. There is a high degree of consensus among Muslims that the West’s condemnation of “Islamic violence” must be discounted as hypocrisy because of the West’s silence on Israeli “state terrorism,” the possession of nuclear weapons by the major Western powers, the terrorism inherent in nuclear deterrence theory itself, and the perceived double standards embodied in UN resolutions.
80 | Faith, Justice, and Violence: Islam in Political Context Hindutva and Terrorism Even as India reels under a spate of terrorist attacks likely perpetrated by Muslim or Islamist groups of various ideological hues, recent events suggest that the convergence of identity, religious ideology, and terrorism, and the acquiescence of cultural chauvinists in violence, extends to non-Muslim groups. On the eve of the attention-catching terrorist attacks in Mumbai in late 2008, the Anti-Terrorist Squad (ATS) in Mumbai uncovered a terrorist cell involved in a bombing plot in Malegaon against the extremist Students Islamic Movement of India. This cell included religious activists and active duty and retired army officers who were also members of Hindutva organizations. In 2006, two members of Bajrang Dal died in a bomb-making incident elsewhere in Maharashtra State. Bajrang Dal is part of the Hindutva family of organizations that includes the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the mainstream political voice of Hindu chauvinism. In mid- to late 2008, arrests were made of Hindus plotting bombing incidents in Maharashtra, or Hindus were killed in bomb-making accidents in Uttar Pradesh. Earlier in 2008, a nativist Hindu-chauvinist leader in Mumbai, India’s global city, had suggested the intriguing prospect of Hindus preparing to engage in suicide attacks for the defense of the community. Following the discovery of the Malegaon plot, leading figures in the BJP leapt to the defense of the plotters in various ways. The party suggested that the accusations were a calumny on Hindus, that Hindus were naturally immune to terrorism, and that the conspirators were framed on insufficient evidence. These arguments in defense were particularly ironic in view of the fact that the party had traditionally rushed to judgment on terrorist incidents allegedly carried out by Muslims, and had accused the Congress Party government of “mollycoddling” terrorists in order to appease Muslim opinion. Those Indians, including Hindus, seeking to stem the tide of generalized anti-Muslim sentiment arising from terrorist incidents have long noted that the Muslim community in India has recently been “terrorized” by mob violence and by law enforcement, and administrative and judicial prejudice against Muslims (and now against other minorities including Christians). This wave is associated violence or state terrorism against innocent civilians in India and Israel, or the practice of covert terrorism by the Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka. Muslim societies appear to be quite self-critical of the violence intrinsic to some of their politics. There is widespread recognition that they must fight terrorism too, because the cultural, social, and traditional integrity of their societies is also threatened by it. However, they believe that they should make their own political judgments about the nature of the threat and the optimal response to it rather than responding to the anxious (and hypocritical) demands of the West. Violence perpetrated by Muslims appears from within as the pursuit of political objectives, some legitimate and some not, rather than as the pursuit of religious or “Islamic” objectives.
Page 2 and 3:
Islam and Politics Renewal and Resi
Page 4 and 5:
Contents Preface...................
Page 6 and 7:
Preface Stimson’s Regional Voices
Page 8 and 9:
Acknowledgments This volume would n
Page 10 and 11:
Introduction In the past two years,
Page 12 and 13:
Introduction | xi radicalize, prefe
Page 14:
Perspectives from the Regions
Page 17 and 18:
4 | Political Islamist Movements: T
Page 19 and 20:
Page 21 and 22:
Page 23 and 24:
10 | Political Islamist Movements:
Page 25 and 26:
Page 27 and 28:
Page 29 and 30:
Page 31 and 32:
18 | Radicalization of Muslims in M
Page 33 and 34:
Page 35 and 36:
Page 37 and 38:
Page 39 and 40:
Page 41 and 42: 28 | Radicalization of Muslims in M
Page 43 and 44: 30 | Radicalization of Muslims in M
Page 46 and 47: Role of Religion in Afghan Politics
Page 48 and 49: Prakhar Sharma | 35 The Changing Ro
Page 50 and 51: Prakhar Sharma | 37 advent of Afgha
Page 52 and 53: Prakhar Sharma | 39 Afghanistan, wi
Page 54: Prakhar Sharma | 41 Religious leade
Page 57 and 58: 44 | Ethnoreligious and Political D
Page 70 and 71: Madrassas in Pakistan: Role and Eme
Page 72 and 73: Khalid Rahman | 59 number of studen
Page 74 and 75: Khalid Rahman | 61 at colleges and
Page 76 and 77: Khalid Rahman | 63 to pay the expen
Page 78 and 79: Khalid Rahman | 65 • While there
Page 80 and 81: Khalid Rahman | 67 • Many madrass
Page 82 and 83: Khalid Rahman | 69 Outreach The omn
Page 84: Khalid Rahman | 71 Interpreting the
Page 87 and 88: 74 | Faith, Justice, and Violence:
Page 91: 78 | Faith, Justice, and Violence:
Page 120 and 121: Appendix 1: Author Biographies Amit
Page 122 and 123: Appendix 2: Experts Consulted Saadi
Page 124 and 125: Appendix 2: Experts Consulted | 111
Page 126 and 127: Appendix 3: Partner Institutions Mi
Page 128 and 129: Appendix 3: Partner Institutions |
Page 130 and 131: Notes Political Islamist Movements:
Page 132 and 133: Notes | 119 term “secularized Bud
show all

Islam and Politics - The Stimson Center

You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles

Delete template?

Save as template?