wfn.org | Understanding political Islam, not airstrikes, will better serve

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Note #6916 from PCUSA NEWS to PRESBYNEWS:

long run
23-October-2001
01400

Understanding political Islam, not airstrikes, will better serve long run

Commentary by Nayef Samhat
Religion News Service

(Editor's note: Nayef Samhat is an assistant professor of government and
international studies at Centre College, a Presbyterian Church (USA)-related
college in Danville, KY)

DANVILLE, KY - As we move further away from Sept. 11, the justified impulse
for a military response to terrorism is becoming tempered by a search for
explanation.

	Here we must distinguish the likes of Osama bin Laden, who is not
representative of the Islamic faith, from the larger and more significant
phenomenon of political Islamist movements around the world.

	This is necessary in order to develop responses to one of the major social
forces of our time that go beyond military strikes, financial strangulation
and infringement on civil liberties.

	Political Islamist movements - those that mobilize people for social action
on the basis of Islamic principles - have existed for a long time. Yet
today, and in response to the terrorist attacks, explanations by
opinion-makers are characterized by two main points that fail to understand
the issue.

	First, Islamist movements are seen as a reflection of an irrational
fanaticism responding to a larger clash of civilizations in which the United
States is the symbolic satan." Second is the contention that there is no
linkage between these movements and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

	Both are wrong, and a policy informed by these misperceptions will only
further radicalize political Islam.

	Characterizing the apparent tension between Islam and the West as a
conflict of civilizations is simplistic. It ignores the diversity of Islam
around the world and the specific circumstances that compel people to follow
a political Islamist movement. It does, however, create a wall of
misunderstanding, conflict and insecurity, where none need exist.

	We dismiss Islam's variety, richness and significance, preferring instead
our silent suspicions, comforted by our economic and military domination of
this "other" world. Hence, violent deeds done in the name of Islam are
believed to be nothing more than irrational outbursts of a faith that
rejects the modernity offered by the West. In this way we can write these
movements off as incapable of explanation; irrationality is the explanation.

	But this ignores the reality of life in much of the Islamic world that
gives rise to Islamist movements and their radicalization. Immense poverty,
unemployment and political oppression are realities that generate a
hopelessness in and exasperation with existing political systems and Western
secular ideologies.

	In other words, political Islamist movements emerge in specific states
around the world to challenge the legitimacy of specific governments.

	A second point, attempts to decouple the Israeli-Palestinian conflict from
political Islamist movements, is equally simplistic. On the one hand, this
conflict generated its own Islamist resistance - in the beginning with the
support of Israel itself.

	The rise of a Palestinian Islamism is because of the failure of the secular
Palestinian leadership to demonstrate real political and economic benefits
from the Oslo peace process, both from their own folly as well as Israeli
obstructionism.

	Certainly American tolerance of this situation is not the only reason for
Islamist politics and antipathy toward the United States, but it does
aggravate the already intense popular discontent with injustices that
pervade societies in the Islamic world. Indeed, as long as the
Palestinian-Israeli conflict remains unresolved, the governments presiding
over these societies will be able to focus this discontent on Israel and the
United States in place of their own corrupt regimes.

	What does this mean for an American response? First, a narrow
military-security strategy alone may satisfy our justified anger, it may
even eliminate the al-Qaida network, but it will not resolve the underlying
problems that give rise to radical political Islamist movements.

	A more likely outcome is to inflame these movements and destabilize many of
the autocrats who are our "friends." A long-term policy of engagement
focusing on real political reform, the construction of civic institutions
and economic justice in repressive states confronts the basic forces that
give rise to popular unrest. Political and economic opportunity breeds
peace.

	Second, a reassessment of American policy in the Israeli-Palestinian
conflict will not only demonstrate America's commitment to justice, but
also, and importantly, remove one crutch used by corrupt regimes to
legitimize their heavy-handed rule. For America, this is not about
abandoning Israel, it is about creating security through a just peace rather
than abetting military occupation.

	These difficult goals demand a style of American leadership that goes
beyond a military response. Those experiencing political and economic
injustice aspire to the values and opportunities that have defined America
for generations. We do have the resources to construct a safer, more just
world.

	Leadership is about putting them to use.
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