Division & Deceit
By Mowahid Hussain Shah
50 years ago, in September 1969, was founded the OIC, whose moving spirit was King Faisal of Saudi Arabia. The catalyst behind its formation was the burning of the Al-Aqsa Mosque. Faisal, too, was the architect behind the landmark Lahore Islamic Summit of February 1974, which was convened in the aftermath of the October 1973 Arab-Israeli War, which had triggered the Faisal-led oil embargo imposed on the West.
Animating the Declaration of the Lahore Summit was the central element of Palestine. By explicitly stating that it “will not tolerate that the use of force be rewarded by territory,” it thereby reaffirmed the international law principle of inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by force, enshrined under the UN Charter.
A year later, in March 1975, Faisal was gunned down – one of the more consequential assassinations of modern times. Along with him fell down the big tent of a cohesive and vibrant Islamic bloc.
In 2019, Prime Minister Modi annexes the disputed territory of Kashmir, in contravention of applicable UN resolutions and India’s own constitution. The response: UAE gives Modi its highest civilian award and Bahrain rolls out the red carpet. The wheel has turned full circle. These are the dividends for all the servile genuflecting by Pakistani officialdom before the moneyed Arab Establishment.
OIC constitutes 57 countries representing a global populace of 1.5 billion, with massive resources. But what is its leverage and sway on the global stage? Look at the results. The scoreboard is all-revealing. The twin 70-year-old conundrum of Palestine and Kashmir remains at a standstill, unattended and unresolved. Actions don’t match words. Instead of being a force for solidarity, Muslim governing elites are a source of discord (fitna). For pecuniary reasons, hard-pressed Muslim countries have left the role of affluent Muslim ruling classes unexamined and exempt from critical scrutiny.
44 years after Faisal, the OIC scorecard does not make salutary reading. Its litany of destructive failures include, but is not limited to, the Iran-Iraq War, the Gulf Wars, the butchery in Bosnia/Kosovo, the Rohingya genocide in Burma, the humanitarian calamity in Yemen, the unraveling in Libya and Syria, the ouster of democracy in Egypt and the ensuing bloody crackdown, the unilateral renunciation of the Iran nuclear deal and unprovoked suffocating sanctions, and the endless war in Afghanistan.
To expect Mideast potentates to throw their weight behind Kashmir after having sold Palestinians down the river, defies common sense and fits the textbook definition of being delusional.
Family unit is a micro-reflection of larger society. Its solidarity routinely and predictably fragments over property and money issues, motivated by me-first avarice. Extrapolating from it, and correlating it to the big picture of society at large, it is not hard to decipher the root causes behind the larger disarray whose symptoms are now glaringly visible in state and society. Division and deceit precede the downward slide.
The ancient Romans used to fan divisions among their adversaries and then, having weakened them, moved in.
Despite huge numbers and staggering resources, the Muslim world remains mired in in-fighting and shackled by the self-imposed mental quagmire of feeling helpless and powerless. The sociology of Muslim ruling classes finds it easier and more expedient to wallow in victimology than to go through the searing process of self-reflection and self-correction.
One immediate priority is to combat the self-defeatist mind-set, which puts the Muslim world on the backfoot.
