Double-edged sword
Ibrahim Nafie dissects the vicious circle unleashed by acts of terrorism
On the evening of 12 May, during US Secretary of State Colin Powell's recent tour of the region to put the "roadmap" into effect, four huge blasts rocked the Saudi Arabian capital, Riyadh, claiming 24 dead and dozens wounded. Four days later five more explosions shook the Moroccan city of Casablanca, claiming another 24 dead and dozens more wounded. Although the targets were Western interests and residential compounds, the majority of the casualties were Saudis and Moroccans.
Clearly these terrorist operations were carefully timed to inflict the greatest possible harm on the stability of the targeted countries, indeed on the higher interests of the Arabs as a whole. The horrifying attacks against innocent civilians have performed a great service for the enemies of Arabism and Islam, furnishing perfect fodder for their campaign to depict Arabs and Muslims as "terrorists" who only understand the language of violence. They have also played into the hands of anti-reform forces at home who have seized upon the incidents to argue for more stringent security measures at the expense of political liberalisation.
The Riyadh and Casablanca bombings raise important questions about the elimination of the causes of terrorism. There is no doubt that one of the primary causes resides in Western hostility to Arab causes, above all the Palestinian cause. President Mubarak has warned on countless occasions that the ongoing failure to reach an equitable solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict will continue to fuel hatred and resentment against the US and Israel. Further aggravating such sentiments is the tendency of some to cast the conflict in a cultural or religious mould, a tendency that has been encouraged by certain academic and research centres in the West. The widespread touting of "clash of civilisation" theories and censuring of Arabism and Arab culture has been instrumental in goading some Arabs and Muslims into increasingly violent responses in defence of their culture and civilisation.
US policy towards the Palestinian-Israeli track of the Middle East conflict sheds particular light on one of the dynamics of extremism. Washington's unwavering support for Israel and its refusal to check Israeli belligerency against the Palestinians has not only driven Arab anger to boil over into acts of violence, it has armed terrorist groups with a pretext for mounting their operations. Perhaps the most common ploys of terrorist organisations is to exploit the humanitarian injustices perpetrated by Israel to justify their own fiendish acts, confident that they will be hailed by a broad segment of the Arab populace incensed by the oppression and violence of the Israeli occupation. Yet in spite of how obviously this dynamic stares one in the face the US, oblivious to the realities of Israeli provocation and its persistent violation of international law and resolutions, continues to reduce a very complex conflict to the convenient formula of "the fight against terrorism" when what is needed is a just and lasting solution. Mubarak could not have been closer to the mark when he observed that Washington's blinkered approach to the crucial issues of the Middle East will give birth to a hundred Bin Ladens. The US must realise that the only way to end terrorism is to eliminate the causes that breed it, and one of the major causes is the unresolved plight of the Palestinian people.
Today, as we stand appalled at the scenes of mass graves, torture chambers and other vestiges of the horrors perpetrated by the former Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein terrorists have delivered another powerful blow to the image of the Arab and Muslim peoples. That such indiscriminate violence plays into the hands of those whose interests are served by tainting the whole with the acts of the few makes it all the more imperative for us to condemn it. Hence the importance of the statements issued by Saudi religious officials who condemned the explosions that shook Riyadh as "unlawful and inimical to the provisions and welfare of Islamic Law". In a statement issued following the bombings in Casablanca the Moroccan Unification and Reform Movement declared: "This vile criminal act which targeted buildings and innocent civilians is an abomination." It added that such acts were inimical to Islam and did not serve Muslim causes.
More significant was the fatwa issued by Sheikh Mohamed Hussein Fadlallah: "From the standpoint of Islamic Law the targeting of innocent civilians -- men, women and children, Muslim and non-Muslim alike -- and of civilian structures by such savage acts in the absence of any justification, be it foreign aggression or war, is an offence... Furthermore, it is detrimental to the reputation of Islam and the Muslim people." Particularly noteworthy was Fadlallah's appeal to Muslim clergymen to launch an awareness-raising campaign against "methods that adopt a religious mantel, although religion is innocent of such practices".
If such practices feed the forces of extremism rallied against us, so too does the rhetoric of extremism on our side. For example, it avails us little to depict the war on Iraq as a "crusade", all the more so because the notion is a complete fallacy. The anti-war stance of the Pope, of such Christian countries as Germany, France and Russia and of many Catholic countries in South America puts paid to any such contention. But, not only does extremism in word and deed damage us abroad, it takes a great toll on us domestically. The recent bombings have cast to the fore the relationship between reform and security. Some have seized upon the bombings in Riyadh and Casablanca to justify their contention that reform and security are antithetical and mutually exclusive. Political reform weakens domestic security, they maintain. If the Arabs are to make any progress towards economic development the security of the state and society must be accorded the highest priority, even to the extent of putting political reform on hold. Such appeals are particularly dangerous at a time when the Arab world needs to hasten the processes of reform, not slow them up.
Al-Ahram Weekly Online : 22 - 28 May 2003 (Issue No. 639)
Located at: http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2003/639/op1.htm