20 October 2001 Saturday 02 Shaban 1422
Pipedreams and daydreams
By Irfan Husain
Our paranoid preoccupation with conspiracy theories and the boundless capacity Muslims have for self-delusion never cease to amaze me. Had the consequences of these follies not been so tragic, they would have been downright hilarious.
Consider the horrifying events of September 11 as an example: several weeks later, millions of Muslims continue to believe that the Israelis were behind the strikes on New York and Washington. As proof, they assert that 4,000 Jews absented themselves from their workplaces at the Twin Towers on that fateful day.
Reasonably educated and intelligent people have declared this rubbish to me as gospel truth. When I have tried to reason with them, pointing out that there was no way for anybody to determine the faith of those present or absent from the WTC buildings within days of the tragedy, there is never a cogent reply. Indeed, employment records in the United States do not include information about religion.
My interlocutors simply cannot grasp the reality that Israel would be the last country on earth to risk the wrath of the United States, the source of so much of its wealth and power. They argue that Zionists staged this attack to somehow frame Muslims so that the Americans would become their enemies, but are unable to explain what Israel would gain by this. Their clinching argument is that Muslims are simply incapable of planning and carrying out such a complex operation.
Then there is another school of conspiracy theorists that maintains in all seriousness that it was actually the American government that attacked its own cities. The 'reasoning' behind this far-fetched plot is that this would give the Bush administration an excuse to bomb Afghanistan, throw out the Taliban and build a gas pipeline across that country from Turkmenistan to the Arabian Sea.
These crackpot theories, ludicrous though they are, are firmly entrenched in the minds of millions of Muslims. These same people probably also believed the hype about the invincibility of Iraq's Republican Guards and the 'mother of all battles' they were supposed to put up against the American-led coalition in the Gulf War. In the event, they were pulverized by the long bombing campaign that preceded the land assault, and then mercilessly slaughtered in a 'turkey shoot' as they fled from their bunkers and trenches.
Now as American planes blast targets across Afghanistan, the Taliban and their supporters are again falling into the same trap, and boasting that American troops will 'meet the same fate as the Soviets' when they land. No such thing will happen because the Americans will simply not send in a large number of soldiers. Also, the analogy with the Soviet invasion is false as in the latter case, the Mujahideen had a sanctuary in Pakistan, and the financial and diplomatic support of a superpower. The Taliban enjoy none of these advantages, and the firepower the Americans can bring to bear is far superior to the resources the Soviets could muster.
But we blithely ignore such realities, and are disappointed each time a Muslim nation is humiliated by a western power. This disillusionment adds to the bitterness and anger that has built up in the Islamic world towards the West. But in order to compete more effectively with this perceived foe, many orthodox Muslims want to turn the clock back: instead of using the modern tools of reason, logic and science, they seek to return to the imagined purity of early Islam, purging society of all modern influences so that somehow we would regain the supremacy and glory of the all-conquering armies that swept out of the Arabian peninsula fourteen centuries ago.
This romantic daydreaming is fine for a Sunday afternoon after a heavy lunch, but to base the goals of entire societies on it is madness. Unfortunately, this shallow rationale is now prevalent in Muslim countries around the globe. Even educated people have succumbed to this pipedream. In a way, this is a seductively attractive path: instead of having to put in the hard work involved in building a modern, progressive society, how much simpler to just transform ourselves into good Muslims by rigidly following the letter of the holy scriptures. This will ensure God's blessings on the true believers - blessings that have been withheld because we have deviated from the path shown to us by the Almighty.
Unfortunately, as there is no single interpretation of God's revelations and what constitutes the ideal Islamic society, there has been endless conflict among the various schools of thought that divide Muslims. Sunnis and Shias are often at each other's throats; sects are declared 'non-Muslim' for not adhering strictly to a particular dogma; and for centuries, the slaughter among the believers has been far bloodier than war with the infidels.
Weakened by internecine conflict and thus easily colonized by Western powers, most of the Islamic world has been left at the starting blocks in the race for scientific progress and economic prosperity. Rich Arab states have been unable to translate their enormous oil wealth into political power or military might; and when they have, they have mostly used it against their own people or other Muslims. None of them has sought to use their resources in building up their educational systems and their scientific base. As a result, they remain importers of western technology, and send their own children abroad for higher education.
As Muslims see themselves falling further and further behind, and watch impotently as Palestinians and Iraqis are killed and humiliated, their rage against their own rulers and the United States mounts steadily. In a relatively new development, young Muslims born, raised and educated in the West are being radicalized into taking up arms for Muslim causes. And as the United States is perceived as the source of so much angst and suffering in the Muslim world, there is every possibility that these home-grown young militants will launch the next wave of attacks.
In this low-intensity war without end, there will be no victors and no losers, only hostages to hatred and suspicion on both sides. Unfortunately, there is no indication that either side will change policies and attitudes any time soon. Among fundamentalist Muslims, rationality and a scientific approach are anathema as they would be marginalized and dogma would be questioned in a modern dispensation. But until Islam has its own Reformation, Muslims will continue to wallow in the past while ostrich-like, they keep their heads firmly in the sand.
© The DAWN Group of Newspapers, 2001