By Kazi Anwarul Masud( former Secretary and ambassador) Increasingly the Americans are realizing what the world had realized long ago that the “war on terror” has been lost. As Philip Gordon (of Foreign policy Studies) points out that almost entirely missing from the debate is the concept of what would constitute “victory” in the war on terror as there is no army to be defeated nor is the enemy can be sighted. Gordon feels that victory will come not when the enemies have been eliminated but when political changes eroding the ideology that threatens the West has been defeated and totally discredited. It is not so much Osama bin Laden who has to be killed but the Islamic extremism that threatens both the developed and the developing world including the Muslim states that has to be destroyed.
Former US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld was justifiably exasperated enough to issue his now famous memo to his top aides that underlined the lack of metrics to know whether the US was winning or losing the war on terror. He wondered whether the madrashas and radical clerics were producing more terrorists than what the US was “capturing or killing or deterring or dissuading”. Particularly after the tragic events of nine-eleven many scholars and analysts throughout the world have delved deeply into this phenomenonterrorismwhich liberal thinker Paul Berman concludes as an old scourge in new clothing. Berman finds that terrorism springs from the same sources as fascism did because al-Qaida and radical Islam are driven by the fear and hatred of liberal ideas of tolerance and rejects the “hideous schizophrenia” of Western attempts at dividing state from religion and promoting individual freedom which is seen by the extremists as effectively encouraging the societal degeneration to the level of Sodom and Gomorrah and therefore as prime candidates for God’s wrath. Unfortunately for many Princeton University historian Bernard Lewis who has the ears of Bush administration as Henry Kissinger had of Nixon administration traces the current spate of terrorism as the present incarnation of centuries old Muslim rage against Christian “infidels” for displacing the Muslims from temporal ascendancy and becoming a contestant for spiritual supremacy. Lewis’ thesis describes Islam as a doctrine that rejects modernity and is thus placed in a continual clash with Judeo-Christian civilizations. Such deterministic viewpoint is comparable to McCarthyism’s misdiagnosis of the “red menace” by lumping together then Soviet, Chinese and Third World’s nationalism into one monolithic and inseparable threat (ParametersSummer 2004). The great danger of Lewis’ thesis is not only that it indicates falsification of Francis Fukuyama’s declaration of the triumph of liberal democracy over Cold War totalitarianism but also validates Samuel Huntington’s Clash of Civilizations premise by pitching the western world against billion odd Muslims inhabiting in more than fifty countries of the globe. Such sweeping generalization not only misses some of the fundamental differences between the Arab and the non-Arab Muslim worlds but also the raging conflict within the Muslim world for the soul of Islam. Walter Lacquer who charted out a distinguished career for himself by studying terrorism for decades and long before nine-eleven found terrorists among the Bolsheviks, Tamil Tigers and the IRA thus dispelling the prevailing conventional wisdom that terrorism is Islam-specific or even religion-specific. As any cursory glance at the history of terrorism will demonstrate that its lineage dates back long before the advent of Islam and terrorism as an instrument of politico-religious statement has been used by the Jews (zealots-sciari), Hindus (Thugees), Muslims (assasins-hashisins), and Christians (Inquisition and IRA). But historically terrorism has not been a continuous phenomenon and did not get currency till British philosopher Edmund Burke demonize the French Revolution (1789) and even then its motivation was mostly political and secular. The renaissance of religious terrorism was partly caused by the vacuum left by the demise of communism, which was not filled up by the benefits promised by liberal democracy. Indeed Francis Fukuyama had conceded that the revival of religion in “some way attests to a broad unhappiness with the impersonality and spiritual vacuity of liberal consumerist societies”. This unhappiness was acutely felt through out the developing world and in particular in the Muslim world housing about one and a half billion people. G-8 and the expanded G-10 do not include a single Muslim country (it is understood the measure of inclusion is not religion based) and G-20 (founded in 1999) has among the emerging economies Turkey and Indonesia. While in the case of Turkey President Bush’s call for its inclusion in the European Union was seen as uncalled for American intrusion and interference, Indonesia in post-Suharto era is swimming in the cauldron of political instability and economic woes.
Immanuel Kant’s proposal for the formation of a federation or “League” of the world’s nations which would allow countries to unite and punish any nation guilty of an act of aggression through what is sometimes referred to as collective security briefly came to life when the League of Nations was formed. But the League failed to live up to the Kantian expectation of a federation that would protect the rights of small nations who get caught in the power struggle of bigger nations mainly because several of the major countries, notably the United States, were not members while others who were members failed to oppose the aggressions by Japan, Germany and Italy which caused the outbreak of the Second World War. In 1942 twenty-two nations coalition against German-Japanese-Italian axis powers signed a Declaration of the United Nations (the name coined by President Franklin Roosevelt) accepting the principles of the Atlantic Charter (earlier signed by Roosevelt and Winston Churchill.). A year later four war time alliesthe US, Britain, the Soviet Union and Chinaagreed to establish an international organization which eventually became the United Nations in October 1945. This sojourn into history was necessary to comprehend fully the frustration and restlessness that has gripped the international community following the apparent failure of the United Nations to prevent intervention in Kosovo (though generally supported by the world at large except legal orthodox) and aggression on Iraq (described as an unjust war by the international community and now being resisted by the Iraqis to free themselves from Anglo-American occupation). The essence of both the League of Nations and the UN lay in the universal expectation for security from aggression by others. It is not true that the paralysis of the UN has suddenly been discovered in the post-Cold War era. Indeed the invocation of article 51 of the UN Charter which provided for “ the inherent right of individual or collective self-defense if an armed attack occurs against member of the United Nations” as a justification of the establishment of NATO notwithstanding; the real cause behind NATO’s birth was the protection of “our cherished freedoms” (in the words of John Foster Dulles) with military defense, religious faith and demonstration of western political and social system as counter-attraction to Communism. Inherent in this western move was their belief in the inadequacy of the UN security system and the paralysis of the Security Council caused by the use of veto powers by the USSR. In the 1946-89 period out of 232 vetoes cast 113 were cast by the USSR as against 68 by the US, 29 by Britain, and 18 by France. Most of the Soviet vetoes were cast at the initial period of the UN. This led Canada’s Lester Pearson to conclude that “development within the UN itself and partly because of the menacing state of affairs which has developed in the world” the UN clearly was not capable of meeting the threat to international peace and security which the western powers felt was gathering at that time (1949).
If the UN Charter were to be considered as the constitution of the world committed to the maintenance of international peace and security with the Security Council given the responsibility to determine the existence of any threat to peace and decide on measures to suppress international lawlessness then any departure from the normative doctrine of international peace causes international concern. This concern becomes palpable as strain increases between the forces trying to guard against any attack on nation-state sovereignty as against the doctrine of human security enunciated in the mid-1990s by the Commission on Global Governance by refusing to confine the concept of security exclusively to the protection of states ignoring the interests of the people in whose name sovereignty is exercised. Additional strain has been put by an era of globalization turning into an era of American-westernization of international concerns. Kofi Anan alluded to this strain in the Hague Appeal for Peace in 1999 by expressing his worry at “the inability of states to reconcile national interests when skillful and visionary diplomacy would make unity possible”. He urged for the revision of the concept of national interest that has failed to keep in step with the profound global changes following the end of the Cold War. Kofi Anan’s appeal was for subordinating national interest-guided policy to the rule of law. But the terrorist attacks of 9/11 changed irreversibly any American pretension to subject its actions to the dictates of international law. This was made abundantly clear by President Bush in September 2002 when he declared his determination to seek unilateral redress should the UN fail to act to meet then perceived twin threat of terrorism and of weapons of mass destruction (WMD). I n his quest to punish the perpetrators of 9/11 attacks President Bush received solidarist support of the American people and of the international community. So when the Talibans were driven out the entire world either applauded or acquiesced with NATO assault led by the US on Afghanistan though it was the first time that NATO’s operation was out of the traditionally accepted area regarded as “out-of-the-area” operation. This became obligatory as NATO for the first time in its history invoked article 5 of its charter that effectively translated 9/11 attacks on the US as attack on all NATO members. Besides Afghanistan war could be construed as having UNSC blessings because the Security Council had established that terrorists may be considered as agents of the state that harbor them and made it illegal to sponsor or shelter terrorists. So the Taliban regime’s refusal to hand over Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaida network to the international community made Afghanistan vulnerable to international reprisal. In Kosovo case, however, UNSC paralysis due to veto threat from Russia and China necessitating NATO intervention called into question UNSC capacity to perform its functions and revived anew the debate for its reforms. Reforms suggested are basically the following: - (a) an increase in the number of elected members retaining the five permanent members; (b) two more permanent members (Japan and Germany) and three more elected from Asia, Africa and Latin America; and (c) “semi-permanent members” with no veto power. There is almost universal appreciation of the fact that the present composition of the UNSC and veto power of P-5 reflective of the situation following the Second World War needs reforms. Former UNSG Butros Ghali observed in his Agenda for Democratization that the UN had little moral authority to preach democracy to the outside world when it was not practicing it in its own backyard. It is often pointed out that four out of five permanent members are “European” (a concept that includes the US) and “industrialized” countries, the latter argument that goes against Japan’s inclusion while in its entirety the argument works against Germany. Besides, Argentina, Mexico and Pakistan question the choice of Brazil and India to be taken in as permanent members. Despite differences over future composition of the UNSC among member states its democratization is essential to arrest the increasing trend towards unilateralism. One has to bear in mind President Bush’s warning of the UN becoming irrelevant if it failed to act on Iraq as of the recent US Congress resolution on Sudan urging Bush administration to act unilaterally in the UN failed to act to meet the humanitarian disaster in Darfur. Kofi Anan’s mild chastisement of President Bush that only the UN can lend unique legitimacy to military intervention fell on deaf ears of the Bush administration. But then one must recognize the fact of irreversible change in the global construct in the post-Cold War era in terms of nation-state’s responsibility not only in its conduct of inter-state relations but also its treatment of its own people for retaining sovereignty.
In this context Tony Blair’s enunciation of the Doctrine of International Community (in April 1999) becomes relevant. Referring to Kosovo as a just war based not on territorial ambition but on values, Blair’s doctrine contained the explicit recognition that states nowadays were mutually dependent and the national interests of states were to a significant degree governed by international collaboration. Blair’s doctrine is essentially aimed at breaking down insularity of states and furthering politico-economic collaboration among states based on the values of liberty, democracy, the rule of law, human rights, and an open society. This automatically meant that dictators every where were put on notice that their minority rule (Saddam Hussein), ethnic cleansing (Milosevic), undemocratic rule (in many countries of the world) were not acceptable and the international community (mainly the West) would not stand idly by while disharmonious domestic rule and aberrant international conduct continued unabated. Tony Blair had no doubts in his mind that intervention in Kosovo was just and delayed action in Rwanda was an unforgivable moral lapse. His doctrine was not meant to be confined to Europe or the West but would have universal applicability. It was obvious that in the application of this doctrine the instrument of humanitarian intervention would be necessary. Tony Blair was, however, acutely aware of the centrality of the UN in this quest for a world ruled by law and international cooperation. But for the UN to play a central role the organization and particularly the Security Council had to be reformed enabling it to respond effectively to the challenges of the Twenty First century. Blair allowed that for too long non-intervention has remained inviolable and sacrosanct in the UN Charter. And he argued that acts of genocide and large scale abuse of human rights producing massive flow of refuges (from then East Pakistan into adjoining states of India and currently from Darfur into Chad) could be described as threat to international peace and security. Therefore the UN Charter needed to be amended to include humanitarian grounds as part of international law sanctioning intervention in serious cases. Blair’s doctrine of international community, writes Professor Robert Jackson of Boston University, is an interventionist doctrine that connects national security and international security with human security in foreign countries. Blair’s doctrine, Jackson adds, is descendant of the old European standard of civilization and in calling for UN reforms Tony Blair not only questioned the principle of inviolability relating to non-intervention but also recommended that the basic UN doctrine of equal sovereignty, territorial integrity and non-intervention would be subject to qualification and revision.
Butros Ghali in his Agenda for Democratization laid emphasis on promoting democracy within the architecture of the UN as the world’s largest and most inclusive organization. He felt for a clear need for an organization in which all principal organs function in balance and harmony. While Butros Ghali’s prescription would have been ideal in the changed circumstances prevailing in the world today both the developed and the developing countries should join hands in rewriting the UN Charter that would be capable of meeting the politico-economic challenges of the Twenty First century.
As globalization is blurring the traditional inter-state boundaries and increasing interdependence at the intra and inter-state levels the need for the promotion of global democracy has gained paramount importance. Conventional wisdom tells us that democracies do not wage wars against one another. The reason for this reticence in the use of force is not difficult to find. As opposed to totalitarian regimes the checks and balances inherent in the democratic societies control the impulse of a single or a group of individuals to opt for conflict. Such a Kantian world of perpetual peace would have been idyllic live in. But since the world is divided into many segments ranging from post-industrial to pre-industrial societies, the issue at stake is who can best promote global democracy. The UN with its legitimacy and perceived impartiality becomes an instant candidate. But since the seed of democratic culture has to be nurtured by indigenous forces the UN can only provide assistance in the building of democratic institutions. Dictation of democratic culture by exogenous forces/actors is generally faced with obstruction because the target countries perceive it as attack on their sovereignty. Iran is a case in point. Iranian theocracy based on the notion of velayet-e-faqih (principle of clerical supremacy) and reportedly rejected by a large number of Iranians (most Iranians are under the age of thirty years) has not been dislodged from its preeminent position in governance though the unelected 12 member Guardian Council have prevented more than three thousand candidates from contesting the February General Elections, a decision protested by more than one hundred pro-reform members of parliament, because both President Khatami and former President Rafsanjani’s opposition to hardliner clerics is one of degree of Islamic extremism, and more importantly due to public belief that opposition movement is actually an American conspiracy against the sovereignty of Iran. This strand of reasoning is further strengthened by former National Security Advisor Sandy Burger’s observation that President Bush’s speech urging political freedom in Muslim countries was met with skepticism and disdain. Across the Middle East, Sandy Burger adds, President Bush’s words did little to improve popular perception about the US as a bully and its pronouncements as hypocritical.
Besides the Iraq war has demonstrated that the world at large is still reluctant to see neighboring dictators being toppled since many rulers guilty of similar sins and living in glass houses are hesitant to cast stones upon the guilty. They take comfort in the security blanket provided in the facts that the Iraq war without UN sanction not only violated the salience of the UN Charter but also provisions of international law which as ratified treaties are also part of the “supreme law of he land” according to the US Constitution. Critics of Iraq war refuse to give Anglo-US misadventure legitimacy because of the absence of plausible and imminent Iraqi threat to international peace and security (thus refusing to accept Bush doctrine of preemption) and further accuses President Bush of having decided on regime change in Iraq long before he became President of USA. They cite the report by neo-con think tank Project for New American Century of September 2000 prepared by now Vice President Dick Cheney, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and other senior members of Bush administration articulating plans for attacking Iraq to achieve regime change. American muscularity has also been criticized on the ground of use of excessive force that is contrary to the principle of proportionality usually followed in just war. Maarti Ahari, former Finnish President had observed that Iraq had already been bombed to a pre-industrial age during the First Gulf War and the subsequent bombardment must have resulted in considerable death and destruction. Iraq episode is generally recognized as a failure of the UN system in the face of American unipolarity. This was apparent by October 2002 when the US Congress authorized President Bush to go to war without getting prior approval of the UNSC.A senior US official had bluntly said at that time that the US did not need the UN Security Council.
The UNSC resolution 1441 of November 2002which found Iraq to be “material breach” of the previous resolutions and warned Iraq once again of “serious consequences” did not explicitly authorize the use of force. American patience wore out soon enough and the US in February 2003 wanted UNSC to pass a resolution authorizing use of force, an attempt blocked by France, Russia and China. Consequently the UNSC was deadlocked on Iraq issue. But Michael Glennon of the Fletchers School of Diplomacy pointed out that in reality the UNSC’s fate had been sealed long before as a result of the shift in world power toward a configuration that was simply incompatible with the way the UN was meant to function. It was the rise in American unipolarity, observes Glennon, not the Iraq crisis along with cultural clashes and differing attitudes regarding the use of force that gradually eroded the credibility of the UNSC. Iraq war also signaled the failure of the French, Russian and Chinese efforts since the end of the Cold War to return the world to a more balanced system. The French in particular wanted a multipolar world in which Europe would act as a counter weight to American political and military power. Effectively if the UNSC was paralyzed by Cold War bipolarity, American unipolarity encouraged the US to bypass the Council.
Regardless of one’s preference or lack of it relating to unquestionable American preeminence in the present global construct realism dictates that international efforts be directed to induce the US to follow a strategy of partnership which is also advocated by Colin Powell. In a piece contributed to Foreign Affairs magazine (Jan/Feb 2004) Colin Powell denied that US strategy was unilateralist by design, imbalanced in favor of military methods and obsessed with terrorism and hence biased towards preemptive wars on a global scale. Powell asserted that preemption applied only to undeterrable threats that came from non-state actors such as terrorist groups. He declared that Bush administration’s strategy was one of partnership that strongly affirmed the role of NATO and the UN. But the ground reality appears to be that the US despite daily occurrence of rebellion in Iraq against foreign occupation remain reluctant to give UN the central role in drawing up the future political architecture of Iraq and command of an international stabilization and peace keeping force. The Saudi proposal of stationing an international force drawn from Muslim countries has drawn flak because possible participants insist on troops to be under UN rather than US command. So the preference for the UN over the US remains the outstanding global choice today because American muscularity has not united rather has divided the world into sharply distinct camps. The global preference mentioned earlier has found support in Anne-Marie Slaughter’s (of Princeton University) observation that UNSC remains the preferred destination for undertaking collective actions because legitimacy and weight of preventive measures endorsed by the UN makes it easier to carry them out. She, however, advocates that in the case of UNSC paralysis the next step should be the regional organization that is most likely to be affected by the emerging threat (e.g. African Union in the Darfur crisis case). Failing which, Slaughter argues, organizations like NATIO that may have less direct connection with the emerging threat but has a better cohesive body and resources to encounter the threat should be considered. Only after these options have been exhausted, Anne-Marie Slaughter would consider unilateral action or action by a coalition of the willing.
Given universal recognition of shifting threats from identifiable nation-states to shadowy non-state actors who may be endowed with WMD capability to be used for terrorist purposes, the need for reforms of the UN system can hardly be overstated. It has been argued that in line with the pronouncement by the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty of the principle of “the responsibility to protect” victims of massive violation of human rights, genocide, famine or anarchy, the international community, acting through the UN should adopt a collective duty to prevent nations running without internal checks from acquiring or using weapons of mass destruction. Equally after the Cold War as more and more states got willing to look with severity and with less tolerance at other states whose treatment of their own citizens do not measure up to a common minimum standard demanded by democratic system of governance, the principle of humanitarian intervention denied by the UN Charter needed to be revised. The tragic events of 9/11 have added impetus to western quest for democratic governance in countries still under authoritarian/ oligarchic rule where citizens attracted to western political model acutely feel its absence in their own countries where autocratic rulers were tolerated in the past by the West because of strategic reasons (continued supply of oil and/or continuance of military bases) and by their own citizenry due to welfare state provisions made by the rulers. But the gradual erosion of welfare facilities provided by the state has given rise to frustration among the people who now have neither the affluence nor the liberal system that they aspire to have. Such frustration may prove to be fertile ground for recruitment of al-Qaedist elements to the detriment of both the West and the rulers of these islands of autocracy. It is, therefore, not illogical if the western powers having learnt the lethal lessons of 9/11 and other terrorist assaults on their soil were to insist on reforms of the UN system to facilitate their pursuit of emerging threats. But their insistence should be tinged with understanding of the existential differences between civilizations and hence prudential policies should be followed. If Iraq experience is anything to go by then the US should not be overly enthusiastic about the immediate success of its Greater Middle East Initiative. Rulers of many of these countries are used to being “elected” by overwhelming majority of votes in choreographed elections and staying in power for decades. These rulers and the privileged class which have grown around them are unlikely to abdicate the power and privilege they have been enjoying for so long just because the Americans suddenly have had a change of heart to restore democracy in these foreign lands. Besides there is no guarantee that the replacements chosen through flawed system would be any better than the tyrants they replaced. With few exceptions Africa has repeatedly been blessed with rulers ranging from Kleptocrats (Mobutu of Zaire), cannibals (Bokasa of Central African Republic), tyrants (Idi Amin of Uganda), plunderers (Taylor of Liberia) etc. Albeit, Nelson Mandela, Julius Nyerere, Jomo Kenyatta, and Kwame Nkrumah adorned the African firmament. At present western concern with Africa relates more to containing AIDS epidemic than bad governance (Zimbabwe is an exception) per se. Their main concern relates to the Islamic world that somehow refuses to embrace the libertarian values seen by many Islamists as repugnant to the fundamental teachings of Islam. In this context historian Bernard Lewis’ observation that democracy is a parochial custom of the English-speaking people for the conduct of their public affairs that may or may not be suitable for others may not be totally misplaced.
In the ultimate analysis the democratization of the UN and its institutions as called for by Butros Ghali in his Agenda for Democratization is a pressing need and has to be taken into account by the major powers not only to ensure a semblance of distributive justice in the allocation of global resources but also to ensure a conflict free world in which different seemingly competing civilizations can live in peace and harmony.
Donald Rumsfeld was justifiably exasperated. His now famous last October’s memo issued to his top aides that underlined the lack of metrics to know whether the US was winning or losing the war on terror. He wondered whether the madrashas and radical clerics were producing more terrorists than what the US was “capturing or killing or deterring or dissuading”. Particularly after the tragic events of nine-eleven many scholars and analysts throughout the world have delved deeply into this phenomenonterrorismwhich liberal thinker Paul Berman concludes as an old scourge in new clothing. Berman finds that terrorism springs from the same sources as fascism did because al-Qaida and radical Islam are driven by the fear and hatred of liberal ideas of tolerance and rejects the “hideous schizophrenia” of Western attempts at dividing state from religion and promoting individual freedom which is seen by the extremists as effectively encouraging the societal degeneration to the level of Sodom and Gomorrah and therefore as prime candidates for God’s wrath. Unfortunately for many Princeton University historian Bernard Lewis who has the ears of Bush administration as Henry Kissinger had of Nixon administration traces the current spate of terrorism as the present incarnation of centuries old Muslim rage against Christian “infidels” for displacing the Muslims from temporal ascendancy and becoming a contestant for spiritual supremacy. Lewis’ thesis describes Islam as a doctrine that rejects modernity and is thus placed in a continual clash with Judeo-Christian civilizations. Such deterministic viewpoint is comparable to McCarthyism’s misdiagnosis of the “red menace” by lumping together then Soviet, Chinese and Third World’s nationalism into one monolithic and inseparable threat (ParametersSummer 2004). The great danger of Lewis’ thesis is not only that it indicates falsification of Francis Fukuyama’s declaration of the triumph of liberal democracy over Cold War totalitarianism but also validates Samuel Huntington’s Clash of Civilizations premise by pitching the western world against billion odd Muslims inhabiting in more than fifty countries of the globe. Such sweeping generalization not only misses some of the fundamental differences between the Arab and the non-Arab Muslim worlds but also the raging conflict within the Muslim world for the soul of Islam. Walter Lacquer who charted out a distinguished career for himself by studying terrorism for decades and long before nine-eleven found terrorists among the Bolsheviks, Tamil Tigers and the IRA thus dispelling the prevailing conventional wisdom that terrorism is Islam-specific or even religion-specific. As any cursory glance at the history of terrorism will demonstrate that its lineage dates back long before the advent of Islam and terrorism as an instrument of politico-religious statement has been used by the Jews (zealots-sciari), Hindus (Thugees), Muslims (assasins-hashisins), and Christians (Inquisition and IRA). But historically terrorism has not been a continuous phenomenon and did not get currency till British philosopher Edmund Burke demonized the French Revolution (1789) and even then its motivation was mostly political and secular. The renaissance of religious terrorism was partly caused by the vacuum left by the demise of communism, which was not filled up by the benefits promised by liberal democracy. Indeed Francis Fukuyama had conceded that the revival of religion in “some way attests to a broad unhappiness with the impersonality and spiritual vacuity of liberal consumerist societies”. This unhappiness was acutely felt through out the developing world and in particular in the Muslim world housing about one and a half billion people. G-8 and the expanded G-10 do not include a single Muslim country (it is understood the measure of inclusion is not religion based) and G-20 (founded in 1999) has among the emerging economies Turkey and Indonesia. While in the case of Turkey President Bush’s call for its inclusion in the European Union was seen as uncalled for American intrusion and interference, Indonesia in post-Suharto era is swimming in the cauldron of political instability and economic woes.
“The Roots of Muslim Rage”(in the words of Bernard Lewis) are many and varied. Blizzard of speculation and intense forensic investigation has interrogated this question incessantly for the last four years. This was and is necessary. Pew Global Attitude Project of June last year in a survey of Muslim countries found only four percent in Saudi Arabia, six percent in Morocco and Jordan and thirteen percent in Egypt have favorable opinion of the US. Similar pattern holds across the Muslim world. In turn a growing percentage of Americans are getting increasingly suspicious of Muslims and the Islamic world. This situation has possibly not been helped by the findings of the Senate Intelligence Committee, 9/11 Commission, and Lord Butler’s reportall findings blaming faulty intelligence reports for Iraq invasion but exonerating President Bush and Prime Minister Blair on whose desks the buck stops. In the US understandably the Democrats e.g. Senator Jay Rockefeller wanted to pin down President Bush in order to carry Senator Kerry across the threshold in the November Presidential elections, the Republicans e.g. Senator Pat Robertson would let the buck slide down Bush’s table. Election politics overrides bipartisan interests. In contrast Butler’s report was disappointing. His committee found the intelligence wanting but let Tony Blair off without a slap on the knuckle for leading Britain into war on false pretense. At least Senator Rockefeller was candid enough to admit that had the US Congress known what the American public knows now then the Congress would not have authorized President Bush to go to war.
Despite these ex-post facto admissions the unremitting violence in Iraq and elsewhere is disquieting and particularly harmful for the Muslim Diaspora in the West and the Islamic world in general who are tied to the apron string of the west for the much needed aid, trade and investment. Intra-Islamic world economic transactions have always been negligible and are not expected to increase appreciably. The concept of an Islamic Common Market has remained within the bounds of intellectual exercise for over two decades. Besides the inexorable forces of globalization would not allow economic partition along religious lines nor should even the most rabid theocracy advocate such a disastrous path. One must accept the fact that without interacting with the West the Muslim developing countries would only increase deprivation of their people which would further violent conflict not only with the countries perceived to have caused deprivation but also intra-state conflict where a single ethnic group has taken control of the resources of the country to the detriment of other groups.
In tracing the fault lines of clash of civilizations it is often forgotten that historically sovereignty being based on Christian religion there was no room in Latin Christendom for non-Christians, Christian dissenters, reformers or pagans to be bestowed with sovereignty. A border was drawn to separate the European and Western world of sovereign states from non-western world that were deemed to be unworthy or incapable of sovereignty and therefore were apt candidates for colonization. It is believed that the Muslims having a keener sense of history than their western counterparts often remember the unglorified period of western domination over what they perceived to be their own and hence nursed grievances against the West giving rise to aggrieved nationalism.
For various reasons many countries in the developing world, and Muslim countries are no exception, do not have good memories of colonization/occupation. It is universally recognized that Western occupation of Japan and Germany providing them with security against communist expansion released vast amount of resources to the governments of the two countries for initially infra-structural and later overall development of their economies, which otherwise they would have to spend on their defense. Today Japan is the second largest global economy and Germany is the powerhouse of the European Union. Incidentally both these countries are not deeply wedded to any religious faith (though they are neither atheist nor agnostic) lending force to the argument that there is an inverse relationship between religiosity and pace of economic development of any country.
Going back to the essence of this discourse it is imperative that countries like Bangladesh do not give the impression of harboring religious intolerance. While Bangladesh is generally accepted as a moderate Muslim country, aberrant behavior of some of her citizens reflecting a trend of incipient Islamic extremism which go unpunished, are noticed at home and abroad and harm the image of the country. One must not forget that the West’s identification of the twin threats to its security posed by proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and terrorism is seen through the prism of religious intolerance as described in incredibly fascinating fashion by Harvard University’s Jessica Stern of her meetings with religious extremists who are imbibed with the concept of God’s “instructions” to cleanse society through violence. The current salience of “ Islamic Fundamentalism” with its insistence that being a Muslim is the defining principle of belonging to the only true faith which is both universal and transnational makes it imperative for Bangladesh to remain within the bounds of internationally accepted code of conduct. The current salience of “ Islamic Extremism” with its insistence that being a Muslim is the defining principle of belonging to the only true faith which is both universal and transnational makes it imperative for Bangladesh to remain within the bounds of internationally accepted code of conduct and accept, as we have already done at the UN Summit in 2005 the concept of the responsibility to protect as the Westphalian concept of sovereignty enshrined in article 2(7) of the UN Charter about non-violation of territorial integrity has changed along with the threats posed to the world in the 21st century.
About the Author
A career diplomat Kazi Anwarul Masud served as Bangladesh ambassador in Germany, Vietnam, Republic of Korea and Thailand. During his over three decades of diplomatic career he served in the Middle East, in Europe, in South East Asia and the Far East. At home he served as Director General and also as Additional Foreign Secretary. His expertise includes both foreign political and economic relations. A widely traveled person Ambassador Masud has written two books and also works as a columnist for an English language newspaper in Dhaka, Bangladesh.
No comments:
Post a Comment