Call for West to help moderate Muslims vs 'Muslim revivalists'

[bobbieinok]

http://www.gulfnews.com/opinion/columns/region/10043561.html

Published: 05/31/2006 12:00 AM (UAE)

Something to learn
By Husain Haqqani, Special to Gulf News


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Instead of recognising scientific and intellectual stagnation as the reason for their lack of material progress, Muslim revivalists attribute Muslim debility to a combination of western conspiracies and Muslim neglect of military preparedness. Contemporary Jihadists see themselves as reversing Muslim decay by reviving militancy.


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Muslim reformists believe that Muslims have something to learn from the ascendancy of the West beginning with the European renaissance and reformation. This makes the reformists attractive as allies to the West, which in turn leads to the charge by revivalists that modernity and reform are somehow an imperial project to change Islam.

Historically, many Muslims have approached the question of reform from within a religious tradition. For their part, westerners often make the mistake of describing as moderates only non-practising Muslims who call for virtually abandoning their religious tradition altogether. This leads to the fear among Muslims that the only good Muslim in the West's eyes is one willing to give up Islam altogether.

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The Islamophobia of some in the West complicates the task of moderate Muslims as much as the ideology of extremist Islamists. After years of being intimidated by radical Islamists and authoritarian regimes, Muslim moderates have gradually started to organise within the Muslim world as well as in Europe and North America. But the moderates cannot successfully invite fellow believers to embrace western ideals of tolerance and liberal democracy if every few months the West itself stands in the dock for atrocities such as Guantánamo, Abu Ghraib and now Haditha.

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Too many people in the US, in particular, seem to think that they can ensure the victory of American values in the war against terrorism by setting aside those very values.

The US decision to investigate allegations of a massacre of civilians in the Iraqi town of Haditha might help overcome the outrage caused by such a tragic event. At the same time, it would be useful to inquire into the reasons why soldiers are periodically violating their own military's ethics, be it at Abu Ghraib or in Haditha.
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Husain Haqqani is Director of Boston University's Centre for International Relations and

Co-Chair of the Hudson Institute's Project on Islam and Democracy. He is the author of the Carnegie Endowment book "Pakistan between Mosque and Military".

[yurbud]

1. How would this work if we asked Muslims to help us with

Christian fundamentalists or ultra-Orthodox Jews?

If people have something to live for and some control over their destiny, fundamentalism doesn't look so attractive. It's interesting that we have a big fundamentalist population, but Europe, with more egalitarian policies, does not.

[Igel]

2. Fascinating mindset.

The problem with the 'revivalists' (to euphemize) is that ...
"Instead of recognising scientific and intellectual stagnation as the reason for their lack of material progress, Muslim revivalists attribute Muslim debility to a combination of western conspiracies and Muslim neglect of military preparedness."

In other words, theirs is primarily a sin of omission, while the West's sin of comission thwacks their enterprise upside the head. It's mostly the bad evil 'other's' fault, although 'we' dropped the ball for years by being weak and not sufficiently vigilant.

On the other hand, the moderates are much better. However, the moderates' problem is that ...
"After years of being intimidated by radical Islamists and authoritarian regimes, Muslim moderates have gradually started to organise within the Muslim world as well as in Europe and North America. But the moderates cannot successfully invite fellow believers to embrace western ideals of tolerance and liberal democracy if every few months the West itself stands in the dock for atrocities such as Guantánamo, Abu Ghraib and now Haditha."

In other words, theirs is primarily a sin of omission, while the West's sin of comission thwacks their enterprise upside the head. It's mostly the bad evil 'other's' fault, although 'we' dropped the ball for years by being weak and not sufficiently vigilant.

There are two real differences. The first is that in one case the West is inherently evil, in the other case it's because we've become evil. Yippee. In fact, this article is worse than the revivalist claim because of the second difference: at least the revivalists take some responsibility for their current weakness, this guy is saying the moderates are entirely stymied and therefore without responsibility.