The (Islamic) Chicken And The (Socio-economic) Egg

The Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) and ambassadors of various Islamic states such as Pakistan are hard at work giving advice to the Obama administration. In a move that is approximately as surprising as seeing the sun overhead at high noon, these Islamic worthies are imploring the US and the current administration to address the "root causes" of "extremism." As a corollary, the OIC and Muslim ambassadors asserted that there is no connection between Islam qua Islam and the actions of these "extremists."

Islam per se these folk argue has utterly nothing to do with groups such as al-Qaeda in all its many forms, or Taliban, or Hamas, or Hezbollah or any of the other entities and individuals who bomb, shoot and otherwise kill their way into the world's consciousness. Rather these "unfortunate" events are the result of preventable sociological and economic factors such as poverty and marginalisation. Or they are the natural consequence of political oppression.

OK.

Time to go to the old historical videotape.

Muslim majority societies and the governments which rule them have been around for a long, long time. For most of the past several centuries, most of these societies and polities have been impoverished. For most of the past several centuries, these societies and polities have existed on the farther shores of marginalization, of irrelevancy. For most of the past several centuries, these societies and polities have been the objects not subjects--they have been acted upon, not actors.

Finally, for the vast majority of the past fourteen hundred years, Muslims generally have lived in an environment of complete political oppression. It might be recalled that more than a few leading clerics, both Sunni and Shia, have maintained that democracy and its collateral's are at least non-Islamic and probably anti-Islamic.

Until quite recently, say the past thirty to forty years, none of these realities seem to have been of particular concern to Muslims generally. Endemic poverty, reactionary and autocratic rulers, pervasive marginalisation didn't motivate Muslims to strap on bombs and while shouting, "Allahu Akbar," push the clicker.

Not until the past twenty years has the supposed decadence and rampant immorality of the West generally and the US in particular been a red flag of death and destruction in the eyes of Muslims. They seemed to be as unconcerned with the Bay Watch Babe aspects of US culture as they were with the deployment of American military forces globally. Muslims were not picking up box cutters, boarding American aircraft and, with the usual shout, flying the commandeered planes into buildings.

So what has changed?

It's not the landscape of poverty, irrelevancy, autocracy. These remain the same whether one looks at the distant past, the recent past or the present.

Nor is it the religion of Islam. Islam in its doctrine and dogma is immutable. The beliefs and requirements, the strictures and demands of Islam per se as expressed in the Quran, Hadith and the life of Mohammad, the Perfect Man, have remained a constant over centuries.

Neither is it the role and status of clerics in Muslim societies. These preachers and scholars have always occupied a pride of place and continue to do so. Historically the clerical career has been one of the few (if not the only) routes open to a man of ambition and a modicum of brains and talent. Arguably, the clergy has been the vast sump sucking in the best and brightest of generations.

So what has changed?

Several things have changed over the past few decades. The first, and in many ways most important of these, is the establishment of the state of Israel. To err on the side of accuracy, the most important matter was not the establishment of Israel in and of itself.

Far more important was the role played in the creation and enlargement of Israel by Arab Muslims. The intransigence of the Arabs--rooted in the no-compromise demands of Islam--precluded the negotiation of a partition which would have benefited the Arab claims. This losing approach was quickly worsened by the combination of collective ego and military ineptitude recurrently exhibited by the Arab Muslim states continuously after 1947.

The Muslim population and rulers of the Mideast could not bring themselves to acknowledge that it was the evil combination of Islamic "no-compromise-with-the-infidels" with the worst sort of aggrandising nationalism that brought defeat in the wake of defeat. No. The truth was both too uncomfortable and too destabilizing.

It was far easier and far more comfortable to blame the defeats on some presumed Western pro-Zionist, anti-Muslim plot headquartered in either (or both) Washington and London. This continued, willful, even calculated denial of historical reality assured that whenever something went astray in the Arab Mideast or the wider Muslim world (which occurred with depressing regularity), it could be foisted off on the US and its sinister allies in the Grand Zionist Plot.

(That ought to be easy to grasp. No one, regardless of creed or ideology enjoys admitting that they have screwed the proverbial pooch and continue to do so regardless of reality. It's always psychologically more pleasurable to off-load responsibility onto someone else.)

Displacement may be good for self-esteem. It is disastrous as a basis for state policy.

The second great event of the past few decades, as the Geek has posted before, was the Iranian Revolution. But even here misunderstanding of historical actuality is at work. It is not so much that the Islamists won as the Shah of Iran lost. More, it is not so much that the Shah lost as the US lost the political will to support the Shah's regime as it came under threat. To put the matter bluntly but not in an oversimplified fashion, the administration of Jimmy Carter made the decision to jettison the Shah who was an objectionable sort in the human rights department with the hope that the emerging mullahocracy would be gentler and kinder in its rule.

Had the US maintained support for the Shah, it is highly likely that members of his family would be ensconced to this day on the Peacock Throne. It is even more likely that whoever would be running the show in Tehran today would be less abusive of internal rights and external relations than the mullahocracy. But, no one, least of all a historian like the Geek would argue that the US always made good foreign policy decisions.

The reality remains that the Iranian Revolution occurred and historical denial rides high. This has empowered Islamism and its evil, deadly clone, jihadism. It brought religious purity, religious renewal, religious fervor out of the backroom and placed it front and center.

The Islamic Revolution seemed to say to the ambitious, those who believed themselves to have been victimised by their own government, or by the "forces of history" (as if there was such a thing) or the Grand Zionist Plot that the way to become actors, the way to power, was to turn back to a living, militant Islam such as was believed to have motivated the Companions and others of the Golden Age of Islam a thousand and more years earlier.

The third event, also an exercise in the denial of historical reality, was the presumed success of Islamist/jihadist fighters against the godless Red Army in Afghanistan. Arab jihadists such as Osama bin Ladin grossly exaggerated the impact of their contribution to the withdrawal of Soviet forces. The realities of history were for a third time of far less importance than the mechanisms of distortion which allowed Islamist/jihadist myth manufacturing to continue and increase.

These three major events along with minor factors such as the Clinton vintage evacuation of US troops from Somalia following a failed commando raid and the flaccid responses during the same period to lethal insults by al-Qaeda provided the necessary change. Allowed for the effective combining of the doctrines, dogmas, strictures and requirements of Islam with the mosaic of poverty, backwardness and autocracy characterising the majority of the Muslim world.

OK, Geek, so what does it all mean?

The short answer is simple and blunt. The sociological, economic and political reasons given for "extremism" by the OIC and the Muslim ambassadors is wrong.

Yes, poverty is endemic in many Muslim societies. However, the responsibility for the poverty rests not with the West let alone the US. The responsibility resides with the Muslim governments both individually and collectively. The OIC would be far better advised to work with, to insist upon, its member governments taking immediate action to correct the pronounced maldistribution of wealth in the bloc. One does not have to be a socialist oriented economist to notice that the wealth distribution in even the most resource rich of the Islamic countries is far more obscene than even the gap between an American banker and the national median.

Yes, there are sections of the Islamic world currently experiencing the less-than-tender effects of war. But, the war in Afghanistan is the result not only of piss-poor American planning. It is the result of a deliberate set of decisions by the former Taliban government to protect al-Qaeda and by the Pakistani government to support Taliban and only half-heartedly seek to counter the Islamist/jihadist threat in Pakistan.

In Iraq the foreigners are on the verge of departing. Few, if any, governments in the Arab states were sorry in the least to see the last of Saddam. Likewise, few, if any, are pleased to see the emergence of even a poor simulacrum of democracy in Iraq. Democracy is a threat to autocracies not only because it may see the release of political passions long suppressed, but that these political passions will be reinforced by Islamist zeal with results which no one can predict.

The OIC and the Muslim ambassadors would also be well advised to recall that the on-going "Palestinian problem" is not the creation of Israel or the US. The Arab states from the very beginning were both ready and willing to use the Arab population of what became Israel as a weapon. Cruelly and cynically and continuously down to the present day, the governments and ruling elites as well as ambitious "Palestinian" leaders have sought victory through the piling up of mounds of Arab bodies in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.

Yes, many Muslim countries are economically and technologically backward. This is not the fault of the West let alone the US. It is the responsibility first and foremost of Islam and secondly of the governments of recent years. Their support for universal education is nil. So is investment in science and technology. So is the commitment to economic diversification.

And, the suppression of free expression and inquiry which has been a prime goal of the OIC in recent months is a guaranteed way to assure backwardness reigns. Stifle speech and progress is the first casualty.

The Geek is of a mind to give President Obama some advice. (Heck, he can't help it. He used to be a professor and that breed is very free with advice.)

Tell the OIC and the Muslim ambassadors that insofar as sociological, economic and political factors have caused Muslims to scream "Allahu Akbar" as they kill civilians at home and abroad, the responsibility for this resides solely with Islam and the governments of Islamic states. That is a tough fact to face, but a true one.

Tell the OIC and the Muslim ambassadors that they have to get a grip on history. That means the history which actually happened in all its richness and complexity, not history as they would like it to have been, all warm, comfy and wrong as a cat barking. That is a tougher fact to face for it strips away the coziness of displacement. It forces people to own up to their mistakes, errors and sins. But, it is a truth nonetheless.

Anything less than historical reality does a massive disservice to both the Muslims of the world who deserve far better than they are getting from their apologists and to We the People who will continue to live under the Islamist/jihadist threat until it is finally defeated.