the Message Continues ... 7/15
Article 7
9/11: Counting the costs
by Irfan Husain(The Dawn International)
As the first anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks on New York and Washington approaches, millions around the world joined the Americans in mourning the dead and condemning the attacks.
More than any other event since the Second World War, these multiple acts of violence have wrought seismic changes in western attitudes and policies. The basis of old alliances is being questioned and new ones forged. Unilateral action is replacing the principle of consensus enshrined in the UN Charter. And more and more threats and angry rhetoric are replacing reason and international law in communications between states.
Americans know how many lives were lost and how many billions worth of property destroyed by Al Qaeda last year. It is high time Muslims add up their losses and compute just how devastating the 9/11 attacks were to them directly and indirectly. This is specially important because those who carried out these attacks and those who backed them claim to have acted in the name of Islam.
But right from the beginning, the Muslim world has been in denial, simply repudiating Osama bin Laden and his activists without admitting that they are Muslims and their thinking has been shaped by the faith and culture in which they have been raised. To this day, there are many Muslims who are convinced that the attacks were carried out by the Israeli and American intelligence services.
Many westerners now feel that Islam is a religion that preaches and encourages violence, citing the many wars Muslims have been, or are, engaged in, mostly with each other. The willingness of young men and women to commit suicide while attacking their enemies is seen as a confirmation of the belief that, somehow, Muslims place a lower value on human life than the westerners do.
In many cases, 9/11 has simply allowed existing prejudices to surface and acquire legitimacy: where it was politically incorrect to give voice to anti-Islamic views, it is now commonplace to come across this hate-filled rhetoric in the media. So far has this agenda progressed that there is now talk in Washington of freezing Saudi assets and seizing their oilfields.
Considering that for decades the kingdom has been America's closest ally and client in the region, this kind of hostility is unprecedented. But while states can shrug off this kind of venom, Muslim immigrants trying to make a new life in the West find it much harder to do so. For them, the events of 9/11 were an unqualified disaster. As it was, they had to contend with more than their share of prejudice; now, with feelings still running high and without any check on racist sentiments, Muslims are being targeted as never before. Ethnic profiling is now an accepted practice with the law enforcement agencies. Unemployment among Muslims in Europe, already higher than for other immigrant groups, has become a huge problem. A man with an untrimmed beard or a woman wearing hijab is unlikely to be asked for a job interview.
Unfortunately, over time, individual likes and dislikes are likely to be translated into state policy. Thus, the current antagonism towards Islam and Muslims in the West is already feeding the hostility being displayed by Washington towards a number of Muslim states. Iraq, of course, is the bete noir of the Bush administration, and the events of 9/11 have only given the hawks in the American government an excuse to raise the threat level against Saddam Hussein.
On a more philosophical level, Osama bin Laden and his Al Qaeda have managed
to drag Huntington's 'Clash of Civilizations' out of the obscurity it deserved after making a splash when it first appeared a few years ago. The point the American political scientist made about Islam having 'bloody borders' seems vindicated, and his whole thesis about the underlying tension between the Hellenic-Christian West and Islam appears to have been finally proved after it had been thoroughly debunked by serious academics.
If unchallenged, this growing divide has certain very serious implications for the future. Whether we like it or not - and most Muslims don't - the West has a virtual monopoly on capital and technology. The Muslim world has failed to internalize science and reason, and has been paying a heavy price for its backwardness for centuries. This trend is unlikely to change in the nearfuture, and the present dependence on the West is going to continue.
However, except for the oil-exporting nations, other Muslim countries will need either foreign aid or investments if they are to keep their heads above water. But in the current climate of hostility and distrust, it is doubtful if the old relationships will endure, particularly if religious fanatics continue to attack western interests. Already, investments in Pakistan have dropped to a trickle because of the terrorist strikes against Americans,Europeans and local Christians.
Students from Muslim countries wishing to study in America are another group to suffer the backlash of 9/11. Understandably, Americans are now very cautious about who they allow to enter their country for higher studies, given that many of those involved in the attacks in New York and Washington had come on student visas. Hundreds of Saudi students have returned to their country as they could not cope with the antagonism they encountered. Ordinary businessmen and tourists from the Muslim world have recounted horror stories about harassment by the FBI and the Immigration Service. But given that President Bush has declared war on terrorism, these precautions and attitudes are to be expected.
Despite all these problems and setbacks, there are many in the Muslim world who secretly feel that the 9/11 attacks were justified, and that Osama bin Laden is a hero. For them, the West is the villain and any means to oppose it are justified. Ironically, these same people want their children to study in America. There are well-known Pakistani leaders of religious parties whose kids have settled in the States. Clearly there is a contradiction here, but it is one that we Muslims are all too keen to sweep under the carpet.
The bottom line is that we cannot simultaneously wage war against the West
and expect its assistance.
courtesy: The DAWN Group of Newspapers, 2002
September 2002 , Jamadi-us-Saani 1423
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