How Do Muslims Respond to Terrorist Attacks
By Syed Kamran Hashmi
Westfield, IN
Aside from rekindling the debate regarding Islam as being inherently more violent than other religions, the Paris attacks have sparked once again an argument within the Muslim community about how they should respond to such atrocities: whether they should sympathize with the victims all the way without any ifs-and-buts or just consider it as a necessary evil to seize higher objectives, a violent reaction to the series of systematic oppression, opportunism and greed unleashed upon the followers of Islam by the West over the last few decades.
First, let me say that no sane person supports terrorism, at least not overtly, as it can backfire and may even cause legal trouble; however, many Muslims - educated, moderate and pragmatic -find ample reason to condone it. And while they are doing so, one just wonders at the faint smile that spreads across their face, an exuberant glow betraying their words of compassion as if they are indeed rejoicing instead of feeling concerned. On the other end of the spectrum, there exist people who find it inhuman - what to talk about religious or not - to justify the mass killings of vulnerable civilians in any shape or form, the ones who grieve the loss of American soldiers in Iraq as much as they would if one of their own family member had died.
Both of them accuse each other of being hypocritical and selfish, and both find the other to be responsible for the failure of the “ummah” in paddling out of the quagmire of poverty, illiteracy and foreign subjugation. Blaming the self-appointed defenders of Islam of religious bigotry, the pro-West group criticizes them for justifying violence in the name of God, a great sin, and reasserts itself by promoting universal human values. “Why do you have to dig in the past every time and look centuries behind in order to look forward?” they question. The defenders of faith strike back and call the latter as traitors, people who have lost faith and have either given up on Islam as the way of life or sold their conscience for money, the blue passport, the safe future of their children or maybe, all of them.
It does not take more than a few minutes to reckon that the two groups cannot reconcile their differences. It's like a debate on a glass of water about which some think it is half empty while the others believe it is half full. Do you know which side you belong to? Are you among the ones who blame America for an attack on its soil in which thousands of people died? Or feel obliged to defend those who share your faith even when they do something as catastrophic as 11/13 in Paris? Or do you stand on the side of America even when someone recites the same verses of the Qur'an you hold so dear to your hearts, and sacrifices his life to (allegedly) revive the glory of Islam? I don’t think staying neutral is left an option anymore.
Not too long ago, Pakistanis struggled with the same dilemma. Thousands of civilians died in suicide attacks from 2007 to 2014. The TTP terror ruled the country as if the government did not exist. Soldiers were martyred, their lives taken in the name of Islam by the people who shared the same faith. But the nation stood irresolute, divided in two groups, not sure whether they should negotiate with the TTP, accept their demands and provide them the political space that they were demanding; or quash them with full force by eradicating every form of religious extremism.
People in favor of a military operation were called the “scum of the earth” by the pro-negotiation group who in an attempt to find justification - like we notice after the current incident - thought insurgency could be explained with the drone attacks that killed children, women and elderly, or the American invasion of Afghanistan which fueled anger and frustration. They said it would end once America leaves Kabul and Pakistan stops tailing the US foreign policy.
At the core of terrorism lies bad governance, poverty and oppression, according to one of their arguments. Not military action but good governance is what we need to wipe out militancy. I must confess that most Pakistanis were lured in by those arguments. Their claims hit the right nerves, why wouldn’t they? It helped Pakistanis to exonerate themselves from taking any blame and held the foreign powers responsible for everything bad happening in the region. At that time Pakistanis also used to claim that the real reason for the US to get into Afghanistan did not have anything to do with 9/11 and everything to do with the country’s natural resources which the ‘imperial power’ was so eager to tap.
But, how did it all end? Did negotiations succeed? The federal government led by PML-N initiated the process twice, even when the Pakistan Army opposed it. Did it stop TTP from attacking the Church in Peshawar or avoid the Peshawar massacre?
After the Army Public School attack, everyone realized they can't negotiate with savages and the only way to deal with extremism is to crush it with an overwhelming force, a force not only to get hold of the ‘ground soldiers,’ but also to track down the financiers, the abettors, the sympathizers and above all, the source of their inspiration. This is what the West needs to do as well. It needs to go after the place from where it all started. For even if it stamps out ISIS, the scourge will reemerge in some other form as Daesh sprang out after AlQaeda.
