The signs of ascendant, austere, political Islam are unmistakable in Tunisia, Egypt, and Libya. The sharply Islamist party, the Renaissance Party, is expected to hold a plurality if not an outright majority in the new constituent assembly in Tunisia. In Libya, the outgoing head of the National Transitional Council (NTC) announced changes in banking and family law to make Libya more Shariah compliant. In Egypt, the Salifists who are the granddaddy of all the austere, politically oriented Muslim groups, are battling with the Muslim Brotherhood for the number one spot in the forthcoming government, with the inevitable result being the triumph of austere political Islam as the two entities share far more than not.
Throughout both Egypt and Libya, both Christian and Muslim communities are under direct, physical attack. The Sufi shrines, venerated graves, and mosques in both countries have been vandalized, even destroyed by armed men bearing the symbols of Salifist affiliation. As the world well knows, the Coptic Christians of Egypt have been brutalized, killed even, not only by mobs of the austere and violent but by security force personnel as well. In Egypt as in Iraq, Pakistan, and Afghanistan, Christians have become a highly endangered species, occupying the same slot in the local social and political ecology formerly possessed by Jews.
There can be no doubt but the austere groups--the Salifists, the Wahhibists, the Deobandis--are well on their way to establishing operational dominance in the countries of the "Arab Spring" as they are in Pakistan and the Arab Peninsula. The Shia equivalents have done the same in Iraq. The outcome in the next few months will not meet the expectations of the Western leaders and governments which embraced the purportedly democratic fervor of the "Arab Spring."
In the context of looming disappointment, the opinion molders of the West would be well advised to consider a chain of events which hit the tipping point twenty years ago in Algeria. Back in 1991, Algeria was experiencing the same basic problems as ignited the "Arab Spring." There was very high unemployment, particularly among the educated youth. The economy was stagnant despite oil riches. Internal divisions of tribal and class origin split the nation. The long running autocratic government was out of ideas, and, more importantly, out of perceived legitimacy.
The government decided to call for elections. The campaign was loud, enthusiastic, energetic. Algerians went to the polls with joy, believing a real future beckoned. When the votes were counted, the government, its supporting elite, and the armed forces were shocked. The parties of the austere, political Islamists had won.
The army nullified the elections. Next it took power directly. Then, quite predictably, violent unrest started. By the time the shooting stopped, more than 150,000 Algerians were dead. Scores of thousands more had been wounded. Even more had been jailed. Many of these had been tortured.
Even today, more than a decade after the internal war ended, the scars remain. Despite the return of a semblance of democracy, a sort of "guided democracy," the echoes of the police state soldier on. Voices are quiet and furtive. After sunset, streets are weirdly quiet, a testament to the curfews of the period of military rule. The government supported Gaddifi until the bitter and bloody end. And, jobs are still scarce, the economy still in doldrums, regardless of the special relation with France.
The more things change, the more they stay the same.
There is no real probability that rule by austere Muslims will see the end of the myriad economic and social problems which propelled the demonstrations which brought down ben-Ali, forced the military to toss Mubarak to the wolves, and led to the NATO enhanced violence in Libya. Prayer, beards, and putting women in garbage sacks will not assure jobs--particularly for the over educated, Western oriented youth which served as the shock troops in Tunisia and Egypt or provided many of the trigger pullers of the revolt in Libya.
Islam and the Koran will not, pace the Muslim Brotherhood's two best known slogans, be the answer. When the faces of disappointed revolutionaries are rubbed in the mud of reality, the most probable result will be another round of violence. Also, topping the list of outcomes to be expected will be the charges levied by the austere Muslims running affairs.
The folks in charge will accuse a sinister conspiracy on the part of the "Zionists" and the US for any and all failures. There will be calls for jihad to defend the new, faith based governments against the cabal of Jews and Americans. The path blazed by Iran (and to a lesser extent, Pakistan) will be traveled by the incoming regimes of Libya, Tunisia, and Egypt.
The countries will either go the way of successfully focusing anger on the mythical enemies in Israel, the US, and Europe or dissolve in a welter of internal war and blood. In the latter case, it is to be expected that the military will step in to restore order in a manner akin to the process which drew a bright blood red line through Algeria twenty years back.
Absent a miracle of Biblical proportions which will do the impossible--squaring the circle of austere Islam with the real requirements for success in the contemporary world--the picture which will be painted across much of the Mideast and North Africa over the coming months and years will be ugly as hell. The challenge to opinion molders and senior governmental wallahs will be to watch. To watch while doing nothing.
Given the past record of Western colonialism, neo-colonialism, or plain vanilla intervention and interference, the West, including the US, has no viable alternative. Rightly or wrongly, many, perhaps most, citizens of the countries in the regions see the West, its governments, its institutions, its corporations, its policies, its militaries as the props and supporters of dictatorships, the adversaries of indigenous desires, internal perceptions of dignity, as both indirect and direct exploiters, and as "the Crusaders" bent on the destruction of Islam. The truth or falsity of this belief set is irrelevant. What is relevant is simply that the beliefs are widely and deeply held.
The only viable option for the West, for the US, is to keep out. The people in the several countries must travel the very rough road alone. We must not even seek to use "soft power" methods to shorten the journey or pave over the worst parts of the road.
All we can or should do is make it clear that internal affairs of any and every Muslim majority state is of no concern to us. Beyond this, we must make it plain that any export of political Islam, most importantly, any export by violent means, will be met by robust, very robust means. As long as the austere, politically motivated Muslim governments keep it at home, they will be left to their own devices, but should they cross their borders, we will stop them by means of our own choosing.
This posture will be difficult, very difficult for NGOs given to humanitarian goals to accept let alone support. It is an unfortunate truth that any approach other than patient watching and vigilant guarding of our interests will make life worse both for us and the people who live under the sway of Salifists and others of their ilk. This is a stinging nettle of the sharpest sort, but we all need to get a grip on it.
Showing posts with label Salifists. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Salifists. Show all posts
Sunday, October 23, 2011
Monday, October 10, 2011
Going To Hell In (Allah's) Bucket
Due to cloudy weather, the demands of woodcutting (winter is a-coming on) and the debilities of age, the Geek has been kicking back reading the news from around the world and generally coming to the conclusion that a large segment of the globe and its attendant population is going to hell in a bucket. And, the hand carrying the bucket is a collective one--the aggregate of the large and rapidly growing advocates of austere, political Islam. Not to put too fine a point on the knife of reality, the single largest problem resident in the global political order is not the economy, nor is it "global warming," not even American "arrogance" and "unilateralism."
The problem confronting all of us today, whether or not we like the idea, is simply Islam. Islam is the necessary and sufficient foundation of that most detestable phenomenon, austere political Islam. In both its violent and non-violent forms, political Islam, particularly the most common sort, the variety growing from the austere roots of Salifism, Wahhibism, and Deobondism, constitutes the single largest threat to international and national stability, order, and peace.
In all the hosannas ringing out during the days of the "Arab Spring," a simple and critical fact was ignored by the political and opinion molding elites in the US and the rest of the West. That seemingly willfully ignored ground truth was the power of austere political Islam to attract and mobilize adherents during periods of great political, social, and economic turbulence. Also ignored by all the applause makers of the West was the companion fact: As uncertainty increased due to the many, often violent changes in all aspects of life, the appeal of austere political Islam would necessarily grow.
Humans are genetically programmed to fear uncertainty, to be risk averse, to seek security in the storms of change. Islam, more than any other religion promises certainty, assures security--if only the rules of the faith are followed absolutely and completely. Islam also provides a roster of acceptable scapegoats upon whom blame can be foisted and whose persecution onto death is given positive sanction. The combination of rule based security and approved scapegoats affords a powerful appeal to austere Islam of the Salifist sort or of the Wahhibist variety.
The Muslim Brotherhood of Egypt caught it perfectly in its slogan: Islam is the solution.
When fear or apprehension or anxiety or insecurity threaten, the bracing and strict requirements of austere Islam in its political expression do constitute the solution. The irrefutable fact that life under the rigor of austere Islam is unlivable in practice is no bar to the inherent appeal of the promise given by the faith. The equally irrefutable fact that Islam is inherently incompatible with modern economics, contemporary technology, or even the oft asserted "universal" rights of all humans is likewise no barrier to its attractiveness to people suddenly confronted with all enveloping upheaval.
We have seen the direct correlation between social and political tumult and the rise of austere political Islam in Pakistan, in Afghanistan, and, over the past nine months, Tunisia, Egypt, and Libya.
It is worth noting that ten and more years ago, Pakistan was peaceful. Back then, before George W. Bush presented the "with us or suffer the consequences" ultimatum to the government of Pakistan, sectarian violence was essentially unknown. Also a stranger to Pakistani life was the horrid specter of "honor killings." Also absent were suicide bombings. Even the FATA was relatively quiet. Karachi was not the political murder capital of Asia (or, to err on the side of accuracy, the world.)
The peace left never apparently to return with the influx of Taliban from Afghanistan. The ISI undoubtedly believed it could continue to exercise full operational control over Taliban, the Haqqani network, and all the other entities predicated on violent political Islam. ISI and the rest of the military and government committed an error in this belief. In justification stands the reality that the destruction of critical elements of traditional society and its polity which occurred in the wake of the Afghan invasion promoted an unexpectedly rapid growth in fear and uncertainty which resulted in an ever widening recruit pool for the advocates of austere violent political Islam. Events outpaced the capacity of ISI to control its monsters.
In the Big Three of the "Arab Spring," Tunisia, Egypt and Libya, the organizations of austere political Islamists were not only the only groups ready to take advantage of the new situation. That was reasonably widely understood even if belittled here in the US and elsewhere in the West. What went by unnoticed was the automatic appeal of austere political Islam to the uprooted, the suddenly unmoored, the majority of the people living in all three countries.
Islam is the answer, the solution for those who crave certainty, security, a firm mooring in the new, white waters of "democratic change." Only austere political Islam pretends quick, easy, certain remedies for all the myriad ills resident in the gales of social, political, and economic change blowing through the high deserts and crowded cities of each and all of the Big Three. Not surprisingly, the Salifists, the Wahhibists, have gained the most support in record time.
Equally unsurprising has been the fast boost increase in "honor killings," and overt persecution of Christians, which has been seen with particular drama in Egypt. While most visible in the Land of the Pharaohs, these uniquely Islamic crimes have been occurring in Tunisia and Libya. (It is worth noting that fear of the same happening in Syria has motivated Christians and other sectarian minorities to side with the Baathist regime regardless of other considerations.)
In Libya, the values and imperatives of austere political Islam have been demonstrated in the persecution of sub-Saharan Africans. The rebels have averred repeatedly that the victims (if, indeed, there were any) had been Gaddafi "mercenaries." This excuse is fantasy. The vast majority of black Africans singled out for persecution were not fighters but simply guest workers, most of whom happened to be non-Muslim. This second consideration is non-trivial when assessing the basis of rebel behavior.
The groups advocating austere political Islam will be the new ruling class in each and every of the Big Three. The inevitable failure of the new regimes to address effectively the economic concerns of the citizenry will be met by charges of "infidel" or "Zionist" or "apostate" directed counter-revolutionary conspiracies. Blood will flow in attempts to quash dissent or divert attention. The afflicted countries will, like Pakistan, become less rather than more stable, less rather than more peaceful, less rather than more prosperous. Dissent and repression will lock in a mutual and deadly embrace.
As the societies grow less stable and life less secure, there will be an accelerating move to more austere, more inclusive forms of political Islam. Nothing else can be expected given that tumult and fear demand the anodyne of certainty--the only anodyne promised by Salfiism and the rest of the austere ilk. The predictable failure of Salifism and the rest to provide an effective cure will (as in Iran) result in more and more repression.
The search for outside sponsors of failure along with the religiously sanctioned need for scapegoats will have a high probability of resulting in war. War with Israel is highest on the list, but there can be other candidates as well--including Turkey which can be cast in the role of the model which failed or branded with interference in internal affairs given Ankara's search for Ottoman Empire 2.0. The mere fact that the combined armed forces of the Big Three even if augmented by other Arab or Muslim states will be defeated will be of no moment should the austere Islamists running the show see war as the only way to stay in power.
Looking at the Mideast or North Africa or Northwest Asia or almost anywhere austere political Islam has and is making headway provides no pleasure. Rather, it provokes a strong desire to engage in projectile vomiting.
Only ten years and a month ago, the world looked like a good place to enjoy life. Thanks to advocates of austere violent political Islam, that all changed. Worse, there is no way back to the good years before the Muslims of Osama bin Laden's world view forced the entire globe into Allah's bucket on the road to hell.
The problem confronting all of us today, whether or not we like the idea, is simply Islam. Islam is the necessary and sufficient foundation of that most detestable phenomenon, austere political Islam. In both its violent and non-violent forms, political Islam, particularly the most common sort, the variety growing from the austere roots of Salifism, Wahhibism, and Deobondism, constitutes the single largest threat to international and national stability, order, and peace.
In all the hosannas ringing out during the days of the "Arab Spring," a simple and critical fact was ignored by the political and opinion molding elites in the US and the rest of the West. That seemingly willfully ignored ground truth was the power of austere political Islam to attract and mobilize adherents during periods of great political, social, and economic turbulence. Also ignored by all the applause makers of the West was the companion fact: As uncertainty increased due to the many, often violent changes in all aspects of life, the appeal of austere political Islam would necessarily grow.
Humans are genetically programmed to fear uncertainty, to be risk averse, to seek security in the storms of change. Islam, more than any other religion promises certainty, assures security--if only the rules of the faith are followed absolutely and completely. Islam also provides a roster of acceptable scapegoats upon whom blame can be foisted and whose persecution onto death is given positive sanction. The combination of rule based security and approved scapegoats affords a powerful appeal to austere Islam of the Salifist sort or of the Wahhibist variety.
The Muslim Brotherhood of Egypt caught it perfectly in its slogan: Islam is the solution.
When fear or apprehension or anxiety or insecurity threaten, the bracing and strict requirements of austere Islam in its political expression do constitute the solution. The irrefutable fact that life under the rigor of austere Islam is unlivable in practice is no bar to the inherent appeal of the promise given by the faith. The equally irrefutable fact that Islam is inherently incompatible with modern economics, contemporary technology, or even the oft asserted "universal" rights of all humans is likewise no barrier to its attractiveness to people suddenly confronted with all enveloping upheaval.
We have seen the direct correlation between social and political tumult and the rise of austere political Islam in Pakistan, in Afghanistan, and, over the past nine months, Tunisia, Egypt, and Libya.
It is worth noting that ten and more years ago, Pakistan was peaceful. Back then, before George W. Bush presented the "with us or suffer the consequences" ultimatum to the government of Pakistan, sectarian violence was essentially unknown. Also a stranger to Pakistani life was the horrid specter of "honor killings." Also absent were suicide bombings. Even the FATA was relatively quiet. Karachi was not the political murder capital of Asia (or, to err on the side of accuracy, the world.)
The peace left never apparently to return with the influx of Taliban from Afghanistan. The ISI undoubtedly believed it could continue to exercise full operational control over Taliban, the Haqqani network, and all the other entities predicated on violent political Islam. ISI and the rest of the military and government committed an error in this belief. In justification stands the reality that the destruction of critical elements of traditional society and its polity which occurred in the wake of the Afghan invasion promoted an unexpectedly rapid growth in fear and uncertainty which resulted in an ever widening recruit pool for the advocates of austere violent political Islam. Events outpaced the capacity of ISI to control its monsters.
In the Big Three of the "Arab Spring," Tunisia, Egypt and Libya, the organizations of austere political Islamists were not only the only groups ready to take advantage of the new situation. That was reasonably widely understood even if belittled here in the US and elsewhere in the West. What went by unnoticed was the automatic appeal of austere political Islam to the uprooted, the suddenly unmoored, the majority of the people living in all three countries.
Islam is the answer, the solution for those who crave certainty, security, a firm mooring in the new, white waters of "democratic change." Only austere political Islam pretends quick, easy, certain remedies for all the myriad ills resident in the gales of social, political, and economic change blowing through the high deserts and crowded cities of each and all of the Big Three. Not surprisingly, the Salifists, the Wahhibists, have gained the most support in record time.
Equally unsurprising has been the fast boost increase in "honor killings," and overt persecution of Christians, which has been seen with particular drama in Egypt. While most visible in the Land of the Pharaohs, these uniquely Islamic crimes have been occurring in Tunisia and Libya. (It is worth noting that fear of the same happening in Syria has motivated Christians and other sectarian minorities to side with the Baathist regime regardless of other considerations.)
In Libya, the values and imperatives of austere political Islam have been demonstrated in the persecution of sub-Saharan Africans. The rebels have averred repeatedly that the victims (if, indeed, there were any) had been Gaddafi "mercenaries." This excuse is fantasy. The vast majority of black Africans singled out for persecution were not fighters but simply guest workers, most of whom happened to be non-Muslim. This second consideration is non-trivial when assessing the basis of rebel behavior.
The groups advocating austere political Islam will be the new ruling class in each and every of the Big Three. The inevitable failure of the new regimes to address effectively the economic concerns of the citizenry will be met by charges of "infidel" or "Zionist" or "apostate" directed counter-revolutionary conspiracies. Blood will flow in attempts to quash dissent or divert attention. The afflicted countries will, like Pakistan, become less rather than more stable, less rather than more peaceful, less rather than more prosperous. Dissent and repression will lock in a mutual and deadly embrace.
As the societies grow less stable and life less secure, there will be an accelerating move to more austere, more inclusive forms of political Islam. Nothing else can be expected given that tumult and fear demand the anodyne of certainty--the only anodyne promised by Salfiism and the rest of the austere ilk. The predictable failure of Salifism and the rest to provide an effective cure will (as in Iran) result in more and more repression.
The search for outside sponsors of failure along with the religiously sanctioned need for scapegoats will have a high probability of resulting in war. War with Israel is highest on the list, but there can be other candidates as well--including Turkey which can be cast in the role of the model which failed or branded with interference in internal affairs given Ankara's search for Ottoman Empire 2.0. The mere fact that the combined armed forces of the Big Three even if augmented by other Arab or Muslim states will be defeated will be of no moment should the austere Islamists running the show see war as the only way to stay in power.
Looking at the Mideast or North Africa or Northwest Asia or almost anywhere austere political Islam has and is making headway provides no pleasure. Rather, it provokes a strong desire to engage in projectile vomiting.
Only ten years and a month ago, the world looked like a good place to enjoy life. Thanks to advocates of austere violent political Islam, that all changed. Worse, there is no way back to the good years before the Muslims of Osama bin Laden's world view forced the entire globe into Allah's bucket on the road to hell.
Sunday, September 4, 2011
Going To Hell In A Bucket
To paraphrase a mantra of the early (1920s) self-help movement, the Mideast and coterminous regions appear "in every way and every day to be growing worse." For those of us who are fans of collapse and chaos, these are the glory days for the benighted folk living in the vast arc from Pakistan to the Persian Gulf and beyond to the point where sand dunes meet the surf in Morocco.
Pakistan remains what it has been for some years now, a national definition of the old military term SNAFU. You almost have to feel sorry for the Pakistanis. In the rush to use Islam of the Wahhibist flavor to unify the nation, the result was not only to undercut whatever potential for unity might have existed but to assure the place would dissolve into a bloody froth of differing views of what sort of Islam held the total truth for the Pakistani national identity.
The crimson foam of theological disputation conceals but does not mitigate the other divisions which constitute the political and social terrain of Pakistan. Corruption is an ever present "flavor of the day," providing the basic diet of politics and business. The Baluch defensive insurgency refuses to simply go away despite the fervent desires of Islamabad. The national judiciary would provide much comic relief were it not for the tragic results of its combination of lethargy and incompetence. The national fisc is a disaster area such that the country depends upon international aid (aka protection money and bribes) so that the army can continue to prepare for the hoped for next round of war with India.
Arguably, the real world challenges of inefficiency, bankruptcy, insurgency, corruption, broken government, and general poverty would be solvable were it not for the more powerful threats presented by the aforementioned religious disputes. Stripped to the politically incorrect essentials, Pakistan is rumbling dangerously close to the cliff of failed state status due to the Islamic tendency to stay stuck in a war of religions, or, more properly, a war of competing sects not all that unlike those which left the German states in utter ruin nearly four hundred years ago.
The same dynamic of warfare between conflicting interpretations of theology threaten to turn the "Arab Spring" into an endless winter of very violent discontent in Egypt and, perhaps, Libya, as well as other countries--here Syria comes to mind. No matter the gloss applied by Western journalists, academics, and politicians, the ugly face of conflict between adherents of austere Islam, Salifists, Wahhibists, and others of similar ilk with adherents of less austere forms as well as "secularists" can be seen easily.
Bad ideas do not die. It does not matter to the True Believers of austere Islam that the appeals of their form of Islam have been shown in Afghanistan, Iraq, Sudan, and elsewhere to have a short life in the real world. The seeming exception of Iran can be explained easily by reference to the numerous and well equipped internal security forces. The lesson of life remains the same. Austere Islam is not acceptable to the vast majority of Muslims and can be imposed and maintained only by robust, eternal repression.
Taliban in Afghanistan had outworn its welcome before the Americans arrived a decade back. Al-Qaeda in Iraq rapidly expired as a direct result of its dreadful behavior in Anbar province. Even in Somalia, the "kids" of al-Shabaab have insured their own ultimate defeat by their efforts to forcefully impose an unacceptably harsh interpretation of Islam on a people who previously wore their Islam lightly.
These lessons are lost on the Salifists of Egypt, a group which has not garnered the attention in the West lavished on the better known Egyptian Brotherhood. It might be noted that a self-proclaimed voice of Salifism in Egypt, a man named Ismaili, has a very good chance of becoming Egypt's first democratically elected president. The Salifists are dead set against peaceful relations with Israel. Rather they are fully committed to seeing an end to the Jewish state. Even more than the Muslim Brotherhood, Egypt's Salifists are anti-West, anti-American. They are also of the view that the current regimes in the region are apostate and must be overthrown.
The Salifists of Egypt are four square in favor of Shariah. They are equally firm in their opposition to making any accommodation to the West (or Western tourists.) Some would go so far as to treat the monuments of Egypt's long pre-Islam history as "unlawful" suitable to be treated as Taliban did the great statutes of the Buddha. Others would allow them to exist--hidden behind protective screens.
The Salifists are not so evident in their presence in Libya. The invisibility doesn't imply absence. Rather, it is indicative of caution, the same sort of caution which impelled the Renaissance Party in Tunisia to deny its goals and interim agenda for weeks after the collapse of the old regime. It is a caution bred of the hard experience of Salifists and kindred souls in the deadly war between them and the Algerian army twenty years ago. While the old regime in Egypt suppressed Salifists as it did the Muslim Brotherhood, the Algerian armed forces obliterated these advocates of political Islam.
The Salifists, the Brotherhood members, the Wahhibists, all those who espouse austere and politically oriented forms of Islam learned the lesson and keep their heads well down until such time as they can be raised with impunity at the least and an expectation of victory at best. Splits between "secularist" militias and those representing the advocates of austere, political Islam are already apparent in Libya. There is not yet fighting between militiamen without beards and those whose faces are bearded (but lack mustaches--a clear sign of Salifist tendencies), but there is no reason that today's lack of inter-group trust will not degenerate into exchanges of fire in the not too distant future.
Egypt, Tunisia, Libya all face very large problems in the wake of their respective adventures in regime change. Big as the problems might be, seemingly insurmountable as the challenges seem, there is no reason to believe that each state and its people would not be able to overcome them. That is, there would be no reason were it not for the presence of religious disputes. The dynamic pitting those of powerful austere beliefs against all others bodes well to assure that each case is more likely than not to fail in achieving the goal of a more or less open, more or less democratic, more or less free market society, polity, and economy.
Once again it may be politically incorrect but it is not inaccurate to observe that each of these states is likely to dissolve in a welter of sectarian violence not unlike that which occurred in Iraq. This eventuality is not in the interests of regional or global stability--to engage in an exercise of belaboring the obvious. It is also an eventuality which cannot be halted or mitigated by Western action or inaction.
The takeaway? To paraphrase the campaign mantra of Clinton in 1992: "It's the religion, stupid!"
Pakistan remains what it has been for some years now, a national definition of the old military term SNAFU. You almost have to feel sorry for the Pakistanis. In the rush to use Islam of the Wahhibist flavor to unify the nation, the result was not only to undercut whatever potential for unity might have existed but to assure the place would dissolve into a bloody froth of differing views of what sort of Islam held the total truth for the Pakistani national identity.
The crimson foam of theological disputation conceals but does not mitigate the other divisions which constitute the political and social terrain of Pakistan. Corruption is an ever present "flavor of the day," providing the basic diet of politics and business. The Baluch defensive insurgency refuses to simply go away despite the fervent desires of Islamabad. The national judiciary would provide much comic relief were it not for the tragic results of its combination of lethargy and incompetence. The national fisc is a disaster area such that the country depends upon international aid (aka protection money and bribes) so that the army can continue to prepare for the hoped for next round of war with India.
Arguably, the real world challenges of inefficiency, bankruptcy, insurgency, corruption, broken government, and general poverty would be solvable were it not for the more powerful threats presented by the aforementioned religious disputes. Stripped to the politically incorrect essentials, Pakistan is rumbling dangerously close to the cliff of failed state status due to the Islamic tendency to stay stuck in a war of religions, or, more properly, a war of competing sects not all that unlike those which left the German states in utter ruin nearly four hundred years ago.
The same dynamic of warfare between conflicting interpretations of theology threaten to turn the "Arab Spring" into an endless winter of very violent discontent in Egypt and, perhaps, Libya, as well as other countries--here Syria comes to mind. No matter the gloss applied by Western journalists, academics, and politicians, the ugly face of conflict between adherents of austere Islam, Salifists, Wahhibists, and others of similar ilk with adherents of less austere forms as well as "secularists" can be seen easily.
Bad ideas do not die. It does not matter to the True Believers of austere Islam that the appeals of their form of Islam have been shown in Afghanistan, Iraq, Sudan, and elsewhere to have a short life in the real world. The seeming exception of Iran can be explained easily by reference to the numerous and well equipped internal security forces. The lesson of life remains the same. Austere Islam is not acceptable to the vast majority of Muslims and can be imposed and maintained only by robust, eternal repression.
Taliban in Afghanistan had outworn its welcome before the Americans arrived a decade back. Al-Qaeda in Iraq rapidly expired as a direct result of its dreadful behavior in Anbar province. Even in Somalia, the "kids" of al-Shabaab have insured their own ultimate defeat by their efforts to forcefully impose an unacceptably harsh interpretation of Islam on a people who previously wore their Islam lightly.
These lessons are lost on the Salifists of Egypt, a group which has not garnered the attention in the West lavished on the better known Egyptian Brotherhood. It might be noted that a self-proclaimed voice of Salifism in Egypt, a man named Ismaili, has a very good chance of becoming Egypt's first democratically elected president. The Salifists are dead set against peaceful relations with Israel. Rather they are fully committed to seeing an end to the Jewish state. Even more than the Muslim Brotherhood, Egypt's Salifists are anti-West, anti-American. They are also of the view that the current regimes in the region are apostate and must be overthrown.
The Salifists of Egypt are four square in favor of Shariah. They are equally firm in their opposition to making any accommodation to the West (or Western tourists.) Some would go so far as to treat the monuments of Egypt's long pre-Islam history as "unlawful" suitable to be treated as Taliban did the great statutes of the Buddha. Others would allow them to exist--hidden behind protective screens.
The Salifists are not so evident in their presence in Libya. The invisibility doesn't imply absence. Rather, it is indicative of caution, the same sort of caution which impelled the Renaissance Party in Tunisia to deny its goals and interim agenda for weeks after the collapse of the old regime. It is a caution bred of the hard experience of Salifists and kindred souls in the deadly war between them and the Algerian army twenty years ago. While the old regime in Egypt suppressed Salifists as it did the Muslim Brotherhood, the Algerian armed forces obliterated these advocates of political Islam.
The Salifists, the Brotherhood members, the Wahhibists, all those who espouse austere and politically oriented forms of Islam learned the lesson and keep their heads well down until such time as they can be raised with impunity at the least and an expectation of victory at best. Splits between "secularist" militias and those representing the advocates of austere, political Islam are already apparent in Libya. There is not yet fighting between militiamen without beards and those whose faces are bearded (but lack mustaches--a clear sign of Salifist tendencies), but there is no reason that today's lack of inter-group trust will not degenerate into exchanges of fire in the not too distant future.
Egypt, Tunisia, Libya all face very large problems in the wake of their respective adventures in regime change. Big as the problems might be, seemingly insurmountable as the challenges seem, there is no reason to believe that each state and its people would not be able to overcome them. That is, there would be no reason were it not for the presence of religious disputes. The dynamic pitting those of powerful austere beliefs against all others bodes well to assure that each case is more likely than not to fail in achieving the goal of a more or less open, more or less democratic, more or less free market society, polity, and economy.
Once again it may be politically incorrect but it is not inaccurate to observe that each of these states is likely to dissolve in a welter of sectarian violence not unlike that which occurred in Iraq. This eventuality is not in the interests of regional or global stability--to engage in an exercise of belaboring the obvious. It is also an eventuality which cannot be halted or mitigated by Western action or inaction.
The takeaway? To paraphrase the campaign mantra of Clinton in 1992: "It's the religion, stupid!"
Tuesday, April 5, 2011
Pastor Pyro And The Afghans--A Story That Refuses To Die
Perhaps it is the sheer disproportion between stimulus and response. Perhaps it is the wanton barbarity of the Afghan slaughter of UN personnel. Perhaps it is due to the utter inability of Americans and Westerners generally to wrap their minds around a mentality which urges murder in response to a perceived insult. And, perhaps it is caused by a general inability to recognize how irrelevant the concept of free will is when discussing the willingness of Muslims in Afghanistan or anywhere to resort to violence when confronted with a word, a deed, a policy that somehow in someway offends some sensibility or another.
In any event the story of Pastor Jones, the cremated Koran, and the Afghans refuses to die. Even today, several news cycles after the all-but-ignored provocation and the widely reported Afghan response, the story lives on. Throughout most of the coverage--from Robert Spencer's Jihad Watch to the MSM both here and in Europe--the question of free will has played a leading role. Typically the observer/commentator has taken the position that the Afghans who stormed the UN compound and killed seven were not automatons, not agents remotely controlled, but rather actors possessed of free will who determined their own actions and could be held "accountable" for the murders they committed.
This American/Western perspective is fully expectable. Free will is so deeply embedded in Western thought, so much the warp and woof of Western history, that is quite literally inconceivable that others in other cultures, coming from other religious and ethical traditions, might see life differently. Similarly, it is difficult if not totally impossible for Westerners today to conceive of life in which rights do not predominate or where rights do not bring specific duties in their wake. The notion that life consists of duties alone without rights serving as the predicate is foreign to Western understandings.
We have to all get a grip on a simple and quite basic truth: The Islam of the Koran and the other sacred writings as well as the classic works of Islamic law prescribe a life of duties, a life in which rights and free will are both notable in their absence.
In principle, the Islam of the sacred and traditional writings of the religion as well as in more recent, even contemporary interpretations, describes a belief system comprised of duties in which the highest aspiration of the individual believer is a perfect submission to the will of the deity. Of course, the will of the deity is interpreted by clerics, men specifically trained in the fine art of teasing specific duties in specific situations from the writings of the past. Islamic law in essence is a description of all the myriad duties imposed upon the believer by the will of the deity to whom is owed perfect obedience and total submission.
The entire panoply of rights which is central to Western law, Western government, Western norms, values, traditions, history, and aspirations is absent. Free will is extant only as a faded, residual memory of earlier prophetic traditions which came long before the revelations given to the Prophet.
In practice, the interpretations offered by many clerics, particularly those of the Salifist and Wahhibist streams, limits free will and rights to the sole choice of accepting or rejecting submission to the will of the deity. Once the decision to submit has been made, nothing remains except duty.
The clerics of the Blue Mosque in Mazar-i-Sharif argued that the actions of the incendiary pastor of the Dove World Outreach Center were blasphemous. The penalty for blasphemy is death. The death of any infidel would be sufficient or at least such was the collective impression of the mob.
The actions in that remote Afghan town were not unique. Rather they were commonplace. Time after literally bloody time, one cleric or another has defined the words or deeds of some person somewhere as blasphemy. The mob has understood this as a call to duty, a command to do the will of the deity. When duty calls, the believer must respond accordingly--or risk the displeasure of the deity.
Given this dynamic there is no place for free will. To turn one's back on duty is to turn one's back on the deity--and everyone knows what that means, right?
Well, not exactly. As is the case in all belief systems there exists a gulf between principle and practice.
There is room for free will even in a religion which prohibits it in favor of duty. The individual Muslim can choose which cleric he listens to. He chooses which cleric will define the will of the deity and thus duty. As there is no central authority establishing orthodoxy, this gives clerics a broad swath of acceptable interpretations, of acceptable forms of duty.
In the real world this freedom to choose has given rise to severe competition between differing schools of interpretation. In short, not all Islam is the same in either the interpretation of the will of the deity or the prescription of duties.
In areas such as Pakistan or Afghanistan where a particularly severe understanding of Islam has taken firm root, the latitude for differing interpretations is narrow. It is this fact which has made the rise of Salifist and Wahhabist schools so disturbing to the good order of so much of the world. Insofar as these severe, austere versions of Islam have displaced older, milder, more humane modes such as Sufism, the choices available to believers have shrunk.
As choices have become more and more limited, the demands of duty have become both more raucous and extreme. Duty, in the estimate of adherents of the severe interpretations, all too often involves killing someone. Other schools see duty in less lethal if no less demanding ways. It is, for example, no easier to be a follower of Sufism than Wahhibism, but it is a lot less likely to lead to violence.
When the realities of the environment preclude authentic choices between differing voices of different schools of interpretation, it is fair to characterize the believer as lacking free will. When a specific, severe understanding of the purported will of the deity and concomitant duty exists unchallenged, the believer has no "right" of dissent, he is caught in a reality of to-hear-is-to-obey. The believer in this situation is a sort of spiritual automaton.
To the person raised in the totalistic environment offered by the severe interpretations of Islam to shirk the call to duty issued by the cleric is to invite one's immortal soul to enjoy the torments of hell for all eternity. If that is not sufficient inducement, the believer who turns away from the clerical call invites his own persecution as an apostate, or, equally evil, an apostle of division (fitna) within the community.
In this situation it is ludicrous to impute free will to the person who takes the course of joining the mob, of rioting, of burning, of killing. The man who responds to duty's call by joining the mob is but one small step removed from the martyrdom seeker. The difference between the two can be seen in motivation: The man who joins the mob is moved by a fear of persecution and eternity in hell; the martyrdom seeker is after the pleasures of paradise.
The takeaway is simple. Islam is far less monolithic than often feared. It has numerous divisions and fractures of interpretation and notions of duty. While it is fruitless to call for free will, it would be profitable to do whatever can be done from the outside to promote the growth of those understandings of Islam which eschew violence, mob action, martyrdom seeking, and murder.
There is a second, equally simple takeaway. It is not worthwhile to hector Muslims about the priority of "rights." It is worthwhile, however, to urge upon the Muslim community the desirability of one specific right--the right to choose, to choose between more or less severe and violent forms of understanding the faith and its requirements.
Not to put too fine a point on matters, in so much as kinder, gentler, more mystical understandings of Islam, such as that of the Sufis, prospers, the harsher, more severe, violent forms such as Wahhibism must lose. And, that, bucko, is in the collective interests of all, Muslim and non-Muslim alike.
In any event the story of Pastor Jones, the cremated Koran, and the Afghans refuses to die. Even today, several news cycles after the all-but-ignored provocation and the widely reported Afghan response, the story lives on. Throughout most of the coverage--from Robert Spencer's Jihad Watch to the MSM both here and in Europe--the question of free will has played a leading role. Typically the observer/commentator has taken the position that the Afghans who stormed the UN compound and killed seven were not automatons, not agents remotely controlled, but rather actors possessed of free will who determined their own actions and could be held "accountable" for the murders they committed.
This American/Western perspective is fully expectable. Free will is so deeply embedded in Western thought, so much the warp and woof of Western history, that is quite literally inconceivable that others in other cultures, coming from other religious and ethical traditions, might see life differently. Similarly, it is difficult if not totally impossible for Westerners today to conceive of life in which rights do not predominate or where rights do not bring specific duties in their wake. The notion that life consists of duties alone without rights serving as the predicate is foreign to Western understandings.
We have to all get a grip on a simple and quite basic truth: The Islam of the Koran and the other sacred writings as well as the classic works of Islamic law prescribe a life of duties, a life in which rights and free will are both notable in their absence.
In principle, the Islam of the sacred and traditional writings of the religion as well as in more recent, even contemporary interpretations, describes a belief system comprised of duties in which the highest aspiration of the individual believer is a perfect submission to the will of the deity. Of course, the will of the deity is interpreted by clerics, men specifically trained in the fine art of teasing specific duties in specific situations from the writings of the past. Islamic law in essence is a description of all the myriad duties imposed upon the believer by the will of the deity to whom is owed perfect obedience and total submission.
The entire panoply of rights which is central to Western law, Western government, Western norms, values, traditions, history, and aspirations is absent. Free will is extant only as a faded, residual memory of earlier prophetic traditions which came long before the revelations given to the Prophet.
In practice, the interpretations offered by many clerics, particularly those of the Salifist and Wahhibist streams, limits free will and rights to the sole choice of accepting or rejecting submission to the will of the deity. Once the decision to submit has been made, nothing remains except duty.
The clerics of the Blue Mosque in Mazar-i-Sharif argued that the actions of the incendiary pastor of the Dove World Outreach Center were blasphemous. The penalty for blasphemy is death. The death of any infidel would be sufficient or at least such was the collective impression of the mob.
The actions in that remote Afghan town were not unique. Rather they were commonplace. Time after literally bloody time, one cleric or another has defined the words or deeds of some person somewhere as blasphemy. The mob has understood this as a call to duty, a command to do the will of the deity. When duty calls, the believer must respond accordingly--or risk the displeasure of the deity.
Given this dynamic there is no place for free will. To turn one's back on duty is to turn one's back on the deity--and everyone knows what that means, right?
Well, not exactly. As is the case in all belief systems there exists a gulf between principle and practice.
There is room for free will even in a religion which prohibits it in favor of duty. The individual Muslim can choose which cleric he listens to. He chooses which cleric will define the will of the deity and thus duty. As there is no central authority establishing orthodoxy, this gives clerics a broad swath of acceptable interpretations, of acceptable forms of duty.
In the real world this freedom to choose has given rise to severe competition between differing schools of interpretation. In short, not all Islam is the same in either the interpretation of the will of the deity or the prescription of duties.
In areas such as Pakistan or Afghanistan where a particularly severe understanding of Islam has taken firm root, the latitude for differing interpretations is narrow. It is this fact which has made the rise of Salifist and Wahhabist schools so disturbing to the good order of so much of the world. Insofar as these severe, austere versions of Islam have displaced older, milder, more humane modes such as Sufism, the choices available to believers have shrunk.
As choices have become more and more limited, the demands of duty have become both more raucous and extreme. Duty, in the estimate of adherents of the severe interpretations, all too often involves killing someone. Other schools see duty in less lethal if no less demanding ways. It is, for example, no easier to be a follower of Sufism than Wahhibism, but it is a lot less likely to lead to violence.
When the realities of the environment preclude authentic choices between differing voices of different schools of interpretation, it is fair to characterize the believer as lacking free will. When a specific, severe understanding of the purported will of the deity and concomitant duty exists unchallenged, the believer has no "right" of dissent, he is caught in a reality of to-hear-is-to-obey. The believer in this situation is a sort of spiritual automaton.
To the person raised in the totalistic environment offered by the severe interpretations of Islam to shirk the call to duty issued by the cleric is to invite one's immortal soul to enjoy the torments of hell for all eternity. If that is not sufficient inducement, the believer who turns away from the clerical call invites his own persecution as an apostate, or, equally evil, an apostle of division (fitna) within the community.
In this situation it is ludicrous to impute free will to the person who takes the course of joining the mob, of rioting, of burning, of killing. The man who responds to duty's call by joining the mob is but one small step removed from the martyrdom seeker. The difference between the two can be seen in motivation: The man who joins the mob is moved by a fear of persecution and eternity in hell; the martyrdom seeker is after the pleasures of paradise.
The takeaway is simple. Islam is far less monolithic than often feared. It has numerous divisions and fractures of interpretation and notions of duty. While it is fruitless to call for free will, it would be profitable to do whatever can be done from the outside to promote the growth of those understandings of Islam which eschew violence, mob action, martyrdom seeking, and murder.
There is a second, equally simple takeaway. It is not worthwhile to hector Muslims about the priority of "rights." It is worthwhile, however, to urge upon the Muslim community the desirability of one specific right--the right to choose, to choose between more or less severe and violent forms of understanding the faith and its requirements.
Not to put too fine a point on matters, in so much as kinder, gentler, more mystical understandings of Islam, such as that of the Sufis, prospers, the harsher, more severe, violent forms such as Wahhibism must lose. And, that, bucko, is in the collective interests of all, Muslim and non-Muslim alike.
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