| Micah's
dream — too much to ask?
by Graeme Davidson, September 2001
Images
of the destruction in New York and Washington look like trailers
advertising a computer-generated and over-dramatised Hollywood
melodrama. What is missing are the super-hero actors — Arnold
Schwarzenegger Sylvester Stallone or Bruce Willis — who,
against the odds, will save Americans by 'wasting' the bad guys.
There are
no actors or superhero solutions in this real-life drama. The
victims are real people who have done nothing more undeserving
than go about their mundane business. Even the 'evil villains'
are motivated by self-sacrificing religious zeal. It's a real
tragedy of gigantic proportions.
Victims
from many hotspots
Groups from different sides in hotspots around the globe have
been quick to identify with the US victims — Israelis, Palestinians,
Iraqis, Iranians, Irish, Bosnians, Serbs, Albanians, Macedonians,
Sudanese, Nigerians, Indonesians, Libyans, Egyptians, Lebanese,
Colombians, Sri Lankans, Russians, Chechens, Indians and Afghanis.
The list is a long one. They too have lost loved ones and experienced
the trauma of violence — a pointed reminder that there is
a long way to go before the Old Testament Prophet Micah's dream
of nation not taking up sword against nation or training for war
anymore is realised.
One of the
aims of the attack was to strike a blow against key US symbols
as the World's leading financial, political and military power.
In this the terrorists succeeded. The US has been wounded. Insurance
and travel industries and the stock market have been sent into
a nose dive. Anti-terrorism has been put to the top of the political
and military agenda.
For this reason
a few biblical fundamentalists have seen the tragedy as the work
of the forces of Satan or yet another sign of the coming Armageddon
— which is ironic as Muslim fundamentalists describe the
US and Western values as 'the Satan'. Tele-evangelist Pat Robertson
blamed pornography, secularism, the occult, abortion, the absence
of prayer in schools and insults to God and stated that God had
lifted his protection from the US — a view militant Muslims
would agree with.
Many Christian
and other religious leaders in both the East and the West have
prayed for victims and perpetrators and urged restraint in the
pursuit of justice. One bishop who had lost a brother in the attack
told CNN that he was praying for those who killed his brother,
as they too were loved children of God. His sentiments have not
been echoed by everyone.
For
some that has meant venting their anger on scapegoats. Middle
Eastern people and Mosques in the West have become targets of
abuse — despite the innocent American Muslim victims of the
attack. Even in Australia and New Zealand some have spoken out
against taking Afghan boat people escaping the terrible ravages
of the four-year Afghan drought and the repressive Taliban regime.
In the UK, France and Germany, there is a fear that this could
spark another round of ethnic clashes.
US military
action?
President Bush is using war rhetoric. With only one dissension,
Congress gave Bush the power and the money he sought after only
an hour's debate. He has mobilised military reservists, sought
the involvement of NATO and other major powers and calls it 'the
first war of the Century'. He has moved massive military hardware
and personal close to Afghanistan and made it clear that those
who provide shelter for the terrorists are also guilty by association.
Covert operations and support to those inside Afghanistan who
oppose the Taliban have already began. So also, have unsubstantiated
press stories of other terrorist targets and plots foiled, which
raises the question as to whether they are true or whether public
opinion is being manipulated to support the US cause.
The sabre-rattling
echoes what many in the West are feeling. It is also inflammatory
and has lead to enormous popular pressure on President Bush and
his allies to mount a swift Hollywood style 'Rambo' military solution.
It's the kind of solution that would go some way to satisfying
the general demand for punishment from a population that has little
understanding of international affairs and nonwestern culture.
It would also help achieve another of the terrorist's goals —
the uniting of extremist Muslims throughout the world against
the Western powers.
The use of
the military evokes memories of the action the US took when it
invaded Panama in 1989, after the killing of a Marine officer
and the harassment of American personnel by the forces of dictator
Manuel Noreiga or the Gulf War to liberate Kuwait from the Iraqi
invaders during 1990-1991. Or the cruise missile attacks against
Osama bin Laden funded training camps in the Sudan and Afghanistan
after his group Al Qaeda (the base) were implicated in the bombings
of US embassies in Nigeria and Tanzania in 1998.
It is also
a reminder that the US is not always the good guy. An American,
Timothy McVeigh, was so moved by the nonmilitary Iraqi casualties
in the Gulf war that it contributed to his desire to bomb the
Oklahoma Federal Building.
Bombing
Afghanistan back to the Stone Age
Some radio chat show callers want to bomb Afghanistan back
to the Stone Age — like those who wanted to bomb Iran into
a parking lot during the siege of the US Embassy in Tehran in
1979. Yet those of us who have been in Afghanistan will know that
its people are already not far off the Stone Age. Well before
the Taliban took over after the former USSR withdraw from the
harsh domain a decade ago, it was a very devout Muslim country,
rejecting western values. It is war ravaged and very poor. The
treat of US retaliation has sent hundreds of thousands of frightened
Afghanis into exile, exacerbating the human tragedy They too are
innocent victims.
How would
American's feel if an American was accused by the Afghanis of
a terrorist act in Afghanistan and the Afghanis were to issue
an ultimatum demanding the US hand the suspect over to them or
else face an attack against the US administration? The US would
demand substantial evidence that pointed to the suspect's guilt.
And even if the evidence is overwhelming, the US wouldn't trust
the Afghanis to give the American a fair trial. The Americans
would regard the ultimatum as a war threat and would retaliate
in kind. So why does the Bush administration expect the ruling
Taliban to act any differently? The Taliban have asked for evidence
and proofs. This is a reasonable request. Answering with an ultimatum
and a show of force may produce results, but these bullying tactics
will also generate more enemies who will remember for years to
come.
The Afghans
are fiercely independent and have already suffered enough violence
and hardship. Lashing out indiscriminately at the Taliban as the
protectors of 'alleged suspects' (and implicitly for not co-operating
with the US, being intolerant of Christianity and having an iconoclastic
approach to Buddhist images) could create a Goliath vs David sympathetic
backlash from many Islamic and some non-Islamic people around
the globe.
Igniting
a Jihad flame
The individual perpetrators are difficult to pin down and
Bush is now telling Americans that it may take time. The US is
pointing an accusing finger at Osama bin Laden and the Al Qaeda
group. The cause of the tragedy is personified as the result of
one evil mastermind. There is little acknowledgment of the deep-seated
causes of antagonism towards the US and the issues facing Islam.
Bush's comments that it's an attack on US freedoms and democratic
way of life is a very American and politically convenient interpretation,
which misses the point.
Al Qaeda's
aim is to establish a pan-Islamic movement and to keep the purity
of the faith by purging it of Western and other non-Islamic values.
It can probably draw on a pool of thousands of recruits from many
Islamic countries, including Afghan's ruling Taliban, Pakistani
extremists and from many African countries.
Involving
the military and 'sympathetic' Islamic leaders in a US led anti-terrorist
revenge could help achieve the Al Qaeda's goals by igniting a
popular Islamic
Jihad flame of resistance that produces dozens of hotspots
that flare up as soon as one is dampened. It could spark a major
conflagration. Many are now urging the Bush administration
Another aim
of the terrorists is for the West to rethink its policies towards
the Middle East, especially Palestine. There is a perception that
Bush's administration has openly backed Israel to the detriment
of the Palestinians during the current Interfada and that the
US has been unduly harsh to Arab countries that have dared to
oppose the US.
The lack of
any major response from the West to Israel unprovoked movement
of tanks and soldiers into Jericho and the West Bank of the Jordan
and the efforts to create a security 'buffer' zone, will not have
gone unnoticed by those who support the Palestinians, including
the Al-Qaeda group leaders.
Insensitivity
to the East
From
the time of the crusades a millennium ago the West has demonstrated
insensitivity to the East. The US tragedy is a good opportunity
to learn about Middle Eastern culture, to re-evaluate Middle Eastern
policies that lead to friction and misunderstanding and to discard
those Hollywood style clichés that depict Islam fundamentalism
alongside drug dealers as the new enemy to replace the communist
threat.
It would be
good if Bush could resist a knee-jerk military response. But under
the present Texas Ranger hot-pursuit mindset Micah's dream of
nation not taking up sword against nation or training for war
anymore would be asking too much from a politician who has just
lost over 6000 people in an act of terrorism.
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