[Reader-list] Good Muslim, Bad Muslim An African Perspective

[Ravi Sundaram]

I got this from the Social Science Research Council website 
(http://www.ssrc.org/sept11), which has set up a collection of essays on 
Sept 11.

Ravi

Good Muslim, Bad Muslim  An African Perspective
Mahmood Mamdani, Herbert Lehman Professor of Government and Anthropology, 
Columbia University


Ever since September 11, there has been a growing media interest in 
Islam.  What is the link, many seem to ask, between Islam and 
terrorism?  The Spectator, a British weekly, carried a lead article a few 
weeks ago that argued that the link was not with all of Islam, but with a 
very literal interpretation of it. This version, Wahhabi Islam, it warned, 
was dominant in Saudi Arabia, from where it had been exported both to 
Afghanistan and the US.  This argument was echoed widely in many circles, 
more recently in the New York Times. This article is born of 
dissatisfaction with the new wisdom that we must tell apart the Good Muslim 
from the Bad Muslim.

Culture Talk

Is our world really divided into two, so that one part makes culture and 
the other is a prisoner of culture?  Are there really two meanings of 
culture?   Does culture stand for creativity, for what being human is all 
about, in one part of the world?  But in the other part of the world, it 
stands for habit, for some kind of instinctive activity, whose rules are 
inscribed in early founding texts, usually religious, and museumized in 
early artifacts?

When I read of Islam in the papers these days, I often feel I am reading of 
museumized peoples.  I feel I am reading of people who are said not to make 
culture, except at the beginning of creation, as some extraordinary, 
prophetic, act.  After that, it seems they just conform to culture.  Their 
culture seems to have no history, no politics, and no debates.  It seems 
just to have petrified into a lifeless custom.

Even more, these people seem incapable of transforming their culture, the 
way they seem incapable of growing their own food.  The implication is that 
their only salvation lies, as always, in philanthropy, in being saved from 
the outside.

When I read this, or something like this, I wonder if this world of ours is 
after all divided into two: on the one hand, savages who must be saved 
before they destroy us all and, on the other, the civilized whose burden it 
is to save all?

We are now told to give serious attention to culture.  It is said that 
culture is now a matter of life and death.

But is it really true that people's public behavior, specifically their 
political behavior, can be read from their religion?  Could it be that a 
person who takes his or her religion literally is a potential 
terrorist?  And only someone who thinks of the text as not literal, but as 
metaphorical or figurative, is better suited to civic life and the 
tolerance it calls for?

How, one may ask, does the literal reading of religious texts translate 
into hijacking, murder, and terrorism?

Some may object that I am presenting a caricature of what we read in the 
press.  After all, is there not less and less talk of the clash of 
civilizations, and more and more talk of the clash inside civilizations? Is 
that not the point of the articles I referred to earlier, those in The 
Spectator and The New York Times?  After all, we are now told to 
distinguish between good Muslims and bad Muslims.  Mind you, not between 
good and bad persons, nor between criminals and civic citizens, who both 
happen to be Muslims, but between good Muslims and bad Muslims.

We are told that there is a fault line running through Islam, a line that 
divides moderate Islam, called genuine Islam, and extremist political 
Islam.  The terrorists of September 11, we are told, did not just hijack 
planes; it is said that they also hijacked Islam, meaning genuine Islam!

Here is one version of the argument that the clash is inside  and not 
between  civilizations.  It is my own construction, but it is not a 
fabrication.  I think of it as an enlightened version, because it does not 
just speak of the other, but also of self.  It has little trace of 
ethnocentrism.  This is how it goes.

Islam and Christianity have one thing in common.  Both share a deeply 
messianic orientation.  Each has a conviction that it possesses the 
truth.  Both have a sense of mission to civilize the world.  Both consider 
the world beyond a sea of ignorance, one that needs to be redeemed.  Think, 
for example, of the Arabic word al-Jahaliya, which I have always known to 
mean the domain of ignorance.

This conviction is so deep-seated that it is even found in its secular 
version, as in the old colonial notion of "a civilizing mission," or in its 
more racialized version, "the White Man's Burden."  Or simply, in the 19th 
century American conviction of a "manifest destiny."

In both cultures, Christian and Muslim, these notions have been the subject 
of prolonged debates.  Even if you should claim to know what is good for 
humanity, how do you proceed?  By persuasion or force?  Do you convince 
others of the validity of your truth or do you proceed by imposing it on 
them?  The first alternative gives you reason and evangelism; the second 
gives you the Crusades.

Take the example of Islam, and the notion of Jihad, which roughly 
translated means struggle.  A student of mine gave me a series of articles 
written by the Pakistani academic and journalist, Eqbal Ahmed, in the 
Karachi-based newspaper, Dawn.  In one of these articles, Eqbal 
distinguished between two broad traditions in the understanding of 
Jihad.  The first, called "little Jihad," thinks of Jihad as a struggle 
against external enemies of Islam.  It is an Islamic version of the 
Christian notion of "just war".  The second, called "big Jihad," thinks of 
Jihad as more of a spiritual struggle against the self in a contaminated 
world.

All of this is true, but I don't think it explains terrorism.  I remain 
deeply skeptical that we can read people's political behavior from their 
religion, or from their culture.  Remember, it was not so long ago that 
some claimed that the behavior of others could be read from their 
genes.  Could it be true that an orthodox Muslim is a potential 
terrorist?  Or, the same thing, that an Orthodox Jew is a potential 
terrorist and only a Reform Jew is capable of being tolerant of those who 
do not share his convictions?

I am aware that this does not exhaust the question of culture and 
politics.  How do you make sense of politics that consciously wears the 
mantle of religion?  Take, for example the politics of Osama bin Laden and 
al-Qaida, both of whom claim to be waging a Jihad, a just war against the 
enemies of Islam?  How do we make sense of this?

I want to suggest that we turn the cultural theory of politics on its 
head.  Rather than see this politics as the outcome of an archaic culture, 
I suggest we see neither the culture not the politics as archaic, but both 
as very contemporary outcomes of equally contemporary conditions, relations 
and conflicts.  Instead of dismissing history and politics as does culture 
talk, I suggest we place cultural debates in historical and political 
contexts.  Terrorism is not a cultural residue in modern politics.  Rather, 
terrorism is a modern construction.  Even when it tries to harness one or 
another aspect of tradition and culture, it puts this at the service of a 
modern project.

In what follows, I would like to offer you a perspective on contemporary 
terrorism from an African vantage point.
An African Perspective on Contemporary Terrorism

Eqbal Ahmed writes of a television image from 1985, of Ronald Reagan 
meeting a group of turbaned men, all Afghani, all leaders of the 
Mujaheddin.  After the meeting, Reagan brought them out into the White 
House lawn, and introduced them to the media in these words: "These 
gentlemen are the moral equivalents of America's founding fathers."

This was the moment when official America tried to harness one version of 
Islam in a struggle against the Soviet Union.  Before exploring the 
politics of it, let me clarify the historical moment.

1975 was the year of American defeat in Indochina.  1975 was also the year 
the Portuguese empire collapsed in Africa.  It was the year the center of 
gravity of the Cold War shifted from Southeast Asia to Southern 
Africa.  The question was: who would pick up the pieces of the Portuguese 
empire, the US or the Soviet Union?

As the center of gravity of the Cold War shifted, from Southeast Asia to 
Southern Africa, there was also a shift in US strategy.  The Nixon Doctrine 
had been forged towards the closing years of the Vietnam War but could not 
be implemented at that late stage  the doctrine that "Asian boys must fight 
Asian wars"  was really put into practice in Southern Africa.  In practice, 
it translated into a US decision to harness, or even to cultivate, 
terrorism in the struggle against regimes it considered pro-Soviet.  In 
Southern Africa, the immediate result was a partnership between the US and 
apartheid South Africa, accused by the UN of perpetrating "a crime against 
humanity."  Reagan termed this new partnership "constructive engagement."

South Africa became both conduit and partner of the US in the hot war 
against those governments in the region considered pro-Soviet.  This 
partnership bolstered a number of terrorist movements: Renamo in 
Mozambique, and Unita in Angola.  Their terrorism was of a type Africa had 
never seen before.  It was not simply that they were willing to tolerate a 
higher level of civilian casualties in military confrontations  what 
official America nowadays calls collateral damage.  The new thing was that 
these terrorist movements specifically targeted civilians.  It sought 
specifically to kill and maim civilians, but not all of them.  Always, the 
idea was to leave a few to go and tell the story, to spread fear.  The 
object of spreading fear was to paralyze government.

In another decade, the center of gravity of the Cold War shifted to Central 
America, to Nicaragua and El Salvador.  And so did the center of gravity of 
US-sponsored terrorism.  The Contras were not only tolerated and shielded 
by official America; they were actively nurtured and directly assisted, as 
in the mining of harbors.

The shifting center of gravity of the Cold War was the major context in 
which Afghanistan policy was framed.  But it was not the only context.  The 
minor context was the Iranian Revolution of 1979.  Ayatullah Khomeini 
anointed official America as the "Great Satan," and official Islam as 
"American Islam."  But instead of also addressing the issues  the sources 
of resentment against official America  the Reagan administration hoped to 
create a pro-American Islamic lobby.

The grand plan of the Reagan administration was two-pronged.  First, it 
drooled at the prospect of uniting a billion Muslims around a holy war, a 
Crusade, against the evil empire.  I use the word Crusade, not Jihad, 
because only the notion of Crusade can accurately convey the frame of mind 
in which this initiative was taken.  Second, the Reagan administration 
hoped to turn a religious schism inside Islam, between minority Shia and 
majority Sunni, into a political schism. Thereby, it hoped to contain the 
influence of the Iranian Revolution as a minority Shia affair.

This is the context in which an American/Saudi/Pakistani alliance was 
forged, and religious madresas turned into political schools for training 
cadres.  The Islamic world had not seen an armed Jihad for centuries.  But 
now the CIA was determined to create one.  It was determined to put a 
version of tradition at the service of politics.  We are told that the CIA 
looked for a Saudi Prince to lead this Crusade.  It could not find a 
Prince.  But it settled for the next best, the son of an illustrious family 
closely connected to the royal family.  This was not a backwater family 
steeped in pre-modernity, but a cosmopolitan family.  The Bin Laden family 
is a patron of scholarship.  It endows programs at universities like 
Harvard and Yale.

The CIA created the Mujaheddin and Bin Laden as alternatives to secular 
nationalism.  Just as, in another context, the Israeli intelligence created 
Hamas as an alternative to the secular PLO.

Contemporary "fundamentalism" is a modern project, not a traditional 
leftover.  When the Soviet Union was defeated in Afghanistan, this terror 
was unleashed on Afghanistan in the name of liberation.  As different 
factions fought over the liberated country  the Northern Alliance against 
the Taliban  they shelled and destroyed their own cities with artillery.

The Question of Responsibility
To understand the question of who bears responsibility for the present 
situation, it will help to contrast two situations, that after the Second 
World War and that after the Cold War, and compare how the question of 
responsibility was understood and addressed in two different contexts.

In spite of Pearl Harbor, World War Two was fought in Europe and Asia, not 
in the US.  It was not the US which faced physical and civic destruction at 
the end of the war.  The question of responsibility for postwar 
reconstruction did not just arise as a moral question; it arose as a 
political question.  In Europe, its urgency was underlined by the changing 
political situation in Yugoslavia, Albania, and particularly, Greece.  This 
is the context in which the US accepted responsibility for restoring 
conditions for decent life in noncommunist Europe.  That initiative was 
called the Marshall Plan.

The Cold War was not fought in Europe, but in Southeast Asia, in Southern 
Africa, and in Central America.  Should we, ordinary humanity, hold 
official America responsible for its actions during the Cold War?  Should 
official America be held responsible for napalm bombing and spraying Agent 
Orange in Vietnam?  Should it be held responsible for cultivating terrorist 
movements in Southern Africa and Central America?

Perhaps no other society paid a higher price for the defeat of the Soviet 
Union than did Afghanistan.  Out of a population of roughly 15 million, a 
million died, another million and a half were maimed, and another five 
million became refugees.  Afghanistan was a brutalized society even before 
the present war began.

After the Cold War and right up to September 10 of this year, the US and 
Britain compelled African countries to reconcile with terrorist 
movements.  The demand was that governments must share power with terrorist 
organizations in the name of reconciliation  as in Mozambique, in Sierra 
Leone, and in Angola.

If terrorism was an official American Cold War brew, it was turned into a 
local Sierra Leonean or Angolan or Mozambican or Afghani brew after the 
Cold War.  Whose responsibility is it?  Like Afghanistan, are these 
countries hosting terrorism, or are they also hostage to terrorism?  I 
think both.

Official America has a habit of not taking responsibility for its own 
actions.  Instead, it habitually looks for a high moral pretext for 
inaction.  I was in Durban at the World Congress Against Racism (WCAR) when 
the US walked out of it.  The Durban conference was about major crimes of 
the past, about racism, and xenophobia, and related crimes.  I returned 
from Durban to listen to Condoleeza Rice talk about the need to forget 
slavery because, she said, the pursuit of civilized life requires that we 
forget the past.

It is true that, unless we learn to forget, life will turn into 
revenge-seeking.  Each of us will have nothing but a catalogue of wrongs 
done to a long line of ancestors.  But civilization cannot be built on just 
forgetting.  We must not only learn to forget, we must also not forget to 
learn.  We must also memorialize, particularly monumental crimes.  America 
was built on two monumental crimes: the genocide of the Native American and 
the enslavement of the African American.  The tendency of official America 
is to memorialize other peoples' crimes and to forget its own  to seek a 
high moral ground as a pretext to ignore real issues.

Conclusion
I would like to conclude with the question of responsibility.  It is a 
human tendency to look for others in times of adversity.  We seek friends 
and allies in times of danger.  But in times of prosperity, the 
short-sighted tend to walk away from others.  This is why prosperity, and 
not adversity, is the real litmus test of how we define community.  The 
contemporary history of Southern Africa, Central America, and Afghanistan 
testifies to this tendency.

Modernity in politics is about moving from exclusion to inclusion, from 
repression to incorporation.  By including those previously excluded, we 
give those previously alienated a stake in things.  By doing so, we broaden 
the bounds of lived community, and of lived humanity.  That perhaps is the 
real challenge today.  It is the recognition that the good life cannot be 
lived in isolation.

I think of civilization as a constant creation whereby we gradually expand 
the boundaries of community, the boundaries of those with whom we share the 
world  this is why it is so grotesque to see bombs and food parcels raining 
on the defenseless people of Afghanistan from the same source.


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