The Fire This Time
By Professor Nazeer Ahmed
Concord, CA
Like an angry ocean whipped up by violent storms, the rage in the Islamic world hammers at everything in sight, whipped up by long pent up passions, the gale force winds created by depressions of centuries old grievances, of defeat, humiliation, conquest, colonialism, insults and exploitation. The secrets of how intense these storms will be and what damage they will cause are hidden in the womb of the future. As students of history we watch these storms with fascination and we experience them with trepidation. Without the benefit of perspective which the passage of time affords, we can only document our observations, declaring, “We bear witness!”, and leave the lessons to be learned to the future.
There are analyses galore about what is going on in the Muslim world and in the Arab core of that world. There is no dearth of pundits who pontificate on the events and make a good living doing it. Their vocabulary is punctuated by a new lexicon: Arab spring, Arab fall and so on. And there is the old lexicon that includes democracy, religion, Arab-Israeli conflict, Islamophobia and Anti-Americanism.
These attempts remind us of the story of the four blind men of Hindustan and the elephant. The four men embark on a joint expedition to discover the shape of an elephant. A friendly, domesticated elephant is ushered into their presence. One man touches its trunk and declares that it is like a water spout. Another wraps himself around a leg and exclaims it is like a tree. A third touches the ear and cries aloud it is like a fan made of banana leaves. The fourth one moves his hand around the trunk and asserts it is like the throne.
The analysis of current upheavals in the Islamic world suffers from the same limitations of perception, mired as these perceptions are in the jargon of the times. Very few grasp its extent or its intensity. People in the West ask: “What is it about Muslims that make them so thin-skinned when it comes to their religion?” On the other hand Muslims often ask, “What is it about Westerners that makes them so thick-skinned that they continue to needle us?”
It is a grand enterprise to capture the multiple dimensions of these upheavals. They have historical roots as well as perceptual, emotive and socio-political dimensions. Nonetheless, we will make a fresh attempt to tune in to the heartbeat of the Islamic world. What we hear in that heartbeat may startle the listener. The voyage and the discoveries will change our world view. Old paradigms are destroyed and new ones have yet to be built. We summarize our observations at the outset:
1. Technology has knocked down the barriers to communication. It is as if the entire world, men and women of different faiths, all live together under one tent. The lion and the lamb have been forced into the same habitat. In this confined space, every faith must rethink how it retains the sanctity of its own religious space while honoring the sanctity of all others. It requires the evolution of a new paradigm of interfaith ethics. A new lexicon of “us” versus “them” is urgently needed.
2. The concept of the sacred is different in different faiths. In addition, all faiths struggle in a materialist world that is secular and is arrayed against the sacred.
3. A new etiquette of free speech is required which preserves independent thought but avoids trampling and desecration of others’ sacred space. Muslim scholarship must address this issue as well and address it must with urgency.
4. Religion has become too serious a business to be left in the hands of professional religious men.
5. The “Arab spring” lost out before it got started. It was hijacked first by a lexicon of democracy, then by the compulsive forces of a global Empire and right wing, home-grown extremist ideologies. Now it is torn between the two.
6. The half-time score in the Arab spring is: Empire: 1, Democracy: 0, Outcome: uncertain.
7. The convulsions in the Islamic world are about fair play and a level playing field. The central issue is the increasing polarization of the haves and the have-nots. The convulsions are not about trappings of democracy which has long since been co-opted by big money. In addition, people are fed up with dictatorships, internal corruption and external military occupations.
8. The Islamic world is caught in a strategic contest between an American Empire which is under stress from economic contraction and a resurgent China, economically strong but still a distant second to America in military might. As the old African saying goes: “When the elephants fight, it is the grass that suffers.”
9. The three major challenges before the Islamic world are: the rise of extremism, rampant corruption which gnaws that every facet of Muslim society, and the hegemonic pressures of a shrinking American empire supported by Western powers.
10. Islam in America has a historic opportunity to realize its existential destiny as the true brotherhood and sisterhood of humankind. Muslim Americans must build bridges and work in cooperation with those who seek to construct the edifice of a more tolerant, economically resurgent America but one that modifies its compact with the military-industrial complex.
11. America can win the strategic contest with China based on the values of Jefferson and Lincoln, not on the strength of its arms.
The spark that lit the fire that spread to forty nations was a crass, despicable movie about our Prophet Muhammed (peace be upon him) and his noble family. This was not the first provocation nor is it likely to be the last. The fuel that provided the energy for this fury was the pent up frustrations of people with economic disparity, lack of opportunity, political oppression under dictatorships, military defeat, occupation and continuing humiliation by the West. We will examine these issues in some detail. But first the overarching influence of technology that empowers a devilish loner to set the world on fire must be understood and its awesome implications fully grasped.
Technology transforms individuals, societies, alters old social paradigms, propels some civilizations to the heights of power while it destroys others. The invention of the stirrup in the ancient world, for instance, empowered the nomads of Central Asia to extend their sway over the settled civilization of India and Iran. The invention of the gunpowder transformed warfare, and in the sixteenth century, cannons mounted on boats gave the decisive edge to the Europeans to conquer and colonize the Aztecs of the new world as well as the coastal cities of Africa and Asia. In the nineteenth century, the appearance of the automobile changed the political landscape of New York State and shifted political power from the bucolic upstate to the emerging megapolis that is New York City.
The Internet is a much more powerful tool than any of the previous inventions of man, perhaps comparable in its impact to the invention of the wheel. It removes barriers to communication across national and continental boundaries, empowers millions in Asia to enter the global marketplace and enables individuals to bypass governments and project their voice to millions, perhaps billions around the globe.
But human beings have shown a propensity to apply every technological advance as much for evil as for good. The stirrup enabled the nomadic horseman to conquer and plunder. The cannon mounted boats were used to destroy ancient civilizations. Advances in physics were used to build the atom bomb. And now, the Internet has given free rein to pornography. Statistics differ but there is no denial that pornography is the lifeblood of the Internet.
It is in this context that we must examine the recent upheaval in the Islamic world. The awesome power of the Internet has enabled a few sick people to set the world ablaze. Religion itself has become hostage to the work of Satan. Deeply held beliefs of people and the sacred space of communities far away can be trampled upon with impunity by anonymous ghost writers and pseudo-artists. The complex interplay of a selective and self-serving, often hypocritical application of freedom of speech with the rights of individuals to be left alone and the sanctity of deeply held beliefs of communities and nations far away presents the world with intellectual, ethical and juridical challenges not experienced in the past. (To be continued).
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