Serialised in the daily Al-Ahram and just published in book-form, Ibrahim Nafie 's latest work shows how the West consistently thwarted the Arab and Muslim peoples' desire to coexist and interact peacefully in a multi-cultural world. Below are extracts Muslims face two types of challenge, the first pertaining to the distortion of their image, behind which lie tendentious interests, the second to their relationship with the West in general, and to the US in particular. Although deliberate distortion of the image of Islam has a long history in the West it has recently grown in ferocity. Tension, which has long characterised relations with the West, has intensified as the result of several interrelated factors. With the disappearance of the communist bogeyman strategic, economic and ideological considerations have fuelled the search for a replacement. Islam, and Muslims, made for a perfect "green" peril. Following the collapse of the socialist order ... Western governments began to regard the rest of the world -- with the strategically crucial oil-rich Muslim lands at its heart -- as their rightful quarry, claiming the right to impose a mandate and dictate political, economic, educational and, indeed, value systems. Further aggravating tensions between Muslims and the West is the latter's unmitigated support for Israel and its plans to dominate the Middle East. ...Although Islamic nations, in general, have adopted Western style political, economic and social systems that are essentially capitalist in their infra- and super-structures, especially since the failures of the socialist experiments... the West remains adamant about imposing its value systems on the Arab and Islamic world. Since Islam presents the most formidable obstacle to such designs the West is determined to go to any lengths to neutralise Islam, even to the extent of dictating the substance of the religious component of the educational curriculum. The West wants a "moderate" Islam, for which read an Islam cosmetically altered to their liking. It is little wonder that this should have raised the hackles of Muslims, even those in the countries that are the most pro-Western, the most heavily dependent economically and militarily upon the West. It is impossible not to be struck by the fact that most of the members of Al-Qaeda, the majority of the detainees in Guantanamo and the bulk of the perpetrators of terrorist attacks against the US are citizens of Gulf countries. These countries are among the most closely linked with the West, yet they are experiencing a wave of insurgency similar to those that occurred in Egypt, Syria, Iraq, Sudan and Algeria when these countries had nationalist regimes that stood up against Western hegemony, posing alternative social orders that took socialism as their beacon. Another aggravating force is what Western political scientists have termed "rampant capitalism", now on the rampage and surpassing, in its pillage and plunder, anything that took place at the height of colonial expansion. Globalisation, with its attendant mechanisms for financial, economic, political and intellectual domination and its drive to amalgamate the world, has generated powerful resistance movements determined to preserve regional and national characteristics. Simultaneously, the rise of Islamic fundamentalist violence in the late 1970s and early 1980s, often a response to Western provocation, has induced a new wave of "Islamophobia" in the West. ...[This] phobia became endemic following the Khomeini revolution in 1979 and the assassination by Islamic fundamentalists of Anwar El-Sadat two years later, when the West lost two of its strongest allies in the Middle East. The role played by Islamist resistance groups fighting Israeli occupation, specifically Hizbullah in Lebanon and Hamas in the Palestinian occupied territories, has been seized upon to magnify the so-called "green peril". But it was the Gulf War that ultimately gave full vent to anti-Muslim and anti-Arab invective in the West, and the US in particular. Newspaper headlines, television bulletins and research studies disseminated a racist hysteria founded upon lies and fabrications about Arabs and Muslims inspired by a crude imagination that sought to revive the conflict between a civilised, democratic West and backward-looking, Muslim East. ...There is, too, an ideological dimension to the clash, emanating from the West's sense of superiority and its regard of the other as a biologically and intellectually inferior being that the West is duty-bound to civilise and render fit to conduct his own affairs. The aftermath of WWII brought many ponderings in the West over the nature of the "other" and the overall shape of the world. And while the US was steadfast in its rejection of foreign influence in the land of the American dream, it has had no compunction about spreading its dominion over others and Americanising the world. Western intellectuals also warn of the "Islamic demographic bomb", claiming that Islam exhorts the faithful to propagate, for which reason Islamic nations reject family planning. This, in turn, raises the spectre of waves of Muslim immigrants invading the West, where xenophobia has already targeted the Muslims living in their midst for economic, ethnic and ideological reasons... ...Against this background increasingly strained relations between Muslims and the West were inevitable, made all the more so when the West overstepped the red line with appeals to change religious education curricula in Saudi Arabia and Egypt on the grounds that religious academies in these countries bred terrorists. Perhaps the most glaring example of this transgression is the so-called Powell initiative. ...Powell pointed out that the perpetrators of the 11 September 2001 attacks on the US, which claimed thousands of American lives, had been nurtured on extremism in the Arab world. This situation, he argued, demanded that the US approach the Arab world with recommendations for reforms to prevent the emergence of extremists... The initiative comprised many points covering issues from improving the life of women and children in the Arab world to economic and financial reform... Although I do not take issue with its general principles, the initiative nevertheless includes elements that caused many to question its true intent and the reasons why it was launched at this specific time... We are thoroughly aware that there are many areas of life that require reform: the subject has long been of concern in Egypt and elsewhere in the Arab world... But the areas that need attention have been clearly delineated by local, regional and international institutions and what is now necessary is [not a new initiative but] the support of wealthy industrialised nations ... ...The timing of the initiative was entirely inappropriate. Coming shortly after the Quartet committee meeting scheduled to discuss the roadmap was postponed, it suggested that efforts to reach a settlement to the Middle East conflict would remain pending until comprehensive reform is instituted not only in the PA but across the entire Arab world. Nothing could mesh more perfectly with Israeli perceptions, which not only demand a new PA but reforms across the Arab world to bring it up to a "level prepared for a political settlement". ...The US secretary of state was unfortunate in his choice of the Heritage Institute as the venue for unveiling the new initiative. This institute is well-known for its extremist positions and its negative attitudes towards the Arab world... ...Numerous politicians and intellectuals in the West converged on the notion that Islam was the new threat to Western civilisation following the collapse of the Soviet Union and that it was therefore necessary to reconfigure economic, social, political and cultural conditions in Islamic countries... Statements issued by Condoleezza Rice are indicative of the intent of Western capitals to ensure that the beliefs and ways of life of Muslim people are conducive to Western plans and to silence any opposition... Meanwhile, many intellectuals in Islamic nations, including non-Islamists, maintain that the West is currently engaged in a war of annihilation against Muslims or, at the very least, in a drive to "forcefully remove the Arabs from history". This drive is perceived as the culmination of previous such attempts, beginning with the Crusades and Mongol invasions... However, these intellectuals predict that the campaign that is currently in progress to expel Muslims from history and, hence, from geography, will fail as dismally as its predecessors... ...European colonial domination over the Islamic world took an enormous toll. It halted economic development through the plunder of resources and by transforming nations into suppliers of raw materials and consumers of Western-made goods, while transforming the economic and technological structures of these nations to perpetuate their dependency on colonial powers. It systematically impeded intellectual, educational and scientific advancement to forestall the emergence of cadres capable of steering the development of their own countries and waging effective independence drives. It fed political instability by abusing demographic and cultural geographic boundaries, impeding the development of political parties and groups, including those that sought to emulate Western models. It blocked freedom of movement between Islamic countries to forestall intercommunication, exchange of expertise and the development of bonds of solidarity... It promoted Christian evangelical missions while reducing the role of long-established local religious institutions and otherwise instituted policies aimed at promoting Westernisation, alienating inhabitants from the traditional culture and Islamic values the colonial powers regarded as a bastion of potential support for nationalist movements. ...One of Western colonialism's strategies for extending and consolidating its control over the Islamic world is the deliberate distortion of the image of Islam. It is a two-pronged strategy aimed, on the one hand, at blackening the reputation of Muslims and Islamic countries in the eyes of the Western public in order to garner support for aggressive policies against Islamic peoples and nations and, on the other, seeks to undermine the faith and creed of Muslims, instilling in them a sense of inferiority. The desired effect is to render Muslim populations more docile and acquiescent to the changes forced upon them by the ostensibly more civilised and enlightened West. Among the ploys used to accomplish these ends is the deliberate portrayal of Islam as a religion that inherently sanctions terrorism, with the implication that every devout Muslim is a potential terrorist. This ploy sank to its crudest and most inflammatory depths in a cartoon appearing in a US newspaper depicting the Prophet Mohamed pulling a car laden with bombs. Barely a day goes by without news of the anti-Muslim hate campaign in the West. Opinion pundits have gone so far as to exhort the extermination of Muslims and the dropping of nuclear bombs on Mecca. Newspapers, radios, televisions, textbooks and even some houses of worship are awash with proclamations equating Islam with terrorism and insinuations that Islam sanctions invasion, murder and the perpetuation of untold other evils and that it is, therefore, a religion that cannot be tolerated. If the political and economic motives behind these campaigns are thinly disguised, their primary thrust remains to brand Islam as a barbaric religion, towards which end they deliberately distort and subvert its fundamental tenets and beliefs. Among other things, anti-Islamic propagandists brand Islam an aggressive religion that seeks to impose itself at point of the sword upon all other peoples and religions. (Curiously, the propagandists overlook their own violent history of religious, not to mention political and economic, evangelism). ...They point to jihad in order to substantiate these absurdities, as if jihad implied a permanent declaration of war and an unwavering attitude of Muslims towards others. Contrary to this common misperception jihad, literally, is an exhortation to believers to exert the greatest possible effort in the pursuit of a praiseworthy goal. It is far removed from the notion of qital, which per force implies killing and bloodshed. Jihad can be used to refer to the individual's struggle to resist various forms of temptation... Jihad is also defined as the quest for the betterment of Islamic society through the fight against corruption and decay... Historically, the most commonly practiced form of jihad has been that aimed at improving the spiritual and material quality of life for the Muslim people... ...Of course, jihad also means holy war. This, however, has long been an instrument the West used to compel Muslims to abandon their religion and a pretext for Western encroachment upon Islamic lands and sanctities. It began with the Crusades, of which there were nine, resurfaced in the European colonialist movement and extends to the present day in the current Western assault against Islam... This latter day crusade, a violent and coercive drive to compel Islamic nations to bow to values and systems that are inimical to their needs and history, constitutes the true terrorism of today. It is terrorism practised by states and, as such, is qualitatively different to the terrorism practised by individuals beneath the guise of Islam. The West, and specifically those that are at the helm of their empire of evil, are the real terrorists. It is they who have unleashed jihad, or holy war, in its most horrific and lethal manifestations.... ... Any examination of the rise of modern terrorism must trace its origins to the West, and specifically to political groups that sought to overthrow their own governments or liberate their land from foreign domination. The fascist movements that overturned systems of government in Europe, the leftist groups that espoused violence as a means to produce social change, the nationalist underground movements that sought to rock the complacency of the occupation in France during WWII are all models of terrorist violence. And it is in the West that we can locate the origins of state terrorism, the most rabid manifestation of which exhibits itself in mass genocide, such as in the atomic bombing of Japan. The assassination of resistance elements in European colonies, and the acts of kidnapping, piracy, assassination and the coups d'états engineered by Western intelligence agencies are also blatant forms of state terrorism. In its most recent evolution, Western state terrorism has become a form of flagrant vandalism, as became obvious in the war that was unleashed against a country on the trumped up pretext that it possessed WMD, whereas the country that unleashed that war possesses the largest arsenal of WMD in the world and is the world's major supplier of this lethal weaponry. It is telling that the report Iraq submitted to the UN on the WMD question was filled with names of US and European arms manufacturers and suppliers, which is why the US hastened to suppress portions of the report. Nevertheless, in a deft slight of hand to draw attention away from the real sources of terrorism, the West has worked to obfuscate the boundary between terrorism and national resistance movements. Most notably, it has branded the Palestinian and Lebanese resistance movements struggling to liberate their territory from Israeli occupation as terrorist. Nor is it willing to allow any attempts to suggest the contrary, as is evident in the refusal to hold an international conference to discuss the distinction between terrorism and the internationally sanctioned right to resist occupation and in Western leaders' refusal to discuss the subject in international conferences... In spite of the fact that the terrorism that parades beneath Islamic banners has directed its venom primarily at Islamic nations and, in spite of the fact that, in Afghanistan and elsewhere, the West supported these groups with money and arms to further its designs, the West remains ever ready to exploit the acts perpetrated by these groups to justify its own violent, and often terrorist, acts against Islamic nations. ...Diverse internal and external factors have interwoven to give rise to terrorist groups in Islamic countries. Foremost among these is the failure of political, economic and cultural systems to meet the growing needs and aspirations of their citizens, a crisis that has been aggravated by the economic vice the new global economic order has clamped on these nations' economies. In addition, the models for socio-political organisation taken from the West have proved inimical to the customs and spiritual needs of the peoples of these countries, whether based on capitalist or socialist principles. Simultaneously, the full spectrum of Arab nationalist ideologies has also failed to produce an alternative. As for the external factors, perhaps the most incendiary has been Israel's aggressive territorial expansionism and its genocide of the Palestinian people. The emergence of terrorism is also a response to the more general Western drive to resubjugate independent Islamic nations, whether through the encroachment of rampant capitalism or by more straightforward acts of violence. In the face of the tyranny being unleashed by the West, and by the US in particular, against the Islamic world, it is little wonder that Muslim peoples have come to the conclusion that an empire of evil threatens them and their countries with annihilation, marginalisation and, ultimately, expulsion from history... ...Some observers have suggested that the Islamic revolution in Iran was a crucial factor in the recruitment of terrorists because of the admiration it inspired not only among Shia Muslims but among broad segments of the Sunni populace, which makes up the vast majority of the Muslim people. In their opinion, Ayatollah Khomeini's revolution delivered a stinging blow to the US and to those Arab leaders accused of being Western puppets... There is, however, no proof whatsoever that radical Islamist groups take their directives from Tehran. Nor is there any evidence that these groups are capable of unleashing a worldwide terrorist assault. Indeed, apart from the bombing of the Israeli Embassy in Buenos Aires in 1992 and the bombing of the American embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salam in 1998, it would appear that the thrust of the activities of these groups throughout the 1980s and 1990s has been directed at targets within their own countries... ...In spite of the alarm stirred by the activities of Islamic Jihad and Hizbullah in Lebanon and the occupation of the US Embassy in Tehran, the 1980s witnessed close cooperation between the US and fundamentalist groups in Afghanistan... Moreover, it was only after the outbreak of the 1991 Gulf War that Washington began to rail against the crimes of the regime of Saddam Hussein, crimes they had helped cover up for decades... Clearly then, neither democracy nor world peace were foremost in the minds of American strategists and policy makers when it came to their dealings with radical political Islam. What mattered was the advance or hampering of what they perceived to be America's economic and strategic interests. Radical Islamist trends were never an issue in US foreign policy when they did not threaten access to oil, the perpetuation of pro-American regimes in the region or the welfare of Israel and regional stability. And it is these considerations that form the criteria upon Washington's labelling of Islamists as either "good" or "evil" depend... ...At the same time Washington's policymakers have yet to make clear the criteria by which they distinguish between Islamist "moderates" and "extremists". While some maintain that the operative criterion is their stance on recourse to violence, others suggest that the key resides in their political aims, especially with regard to the US... ...There is no doubt that the US is deeply disturbed by the Islamist challenge to America's perception of the new world order and its hegemony over predominantly Muslim regions. It fears that the rise of truly democratic governments in the Middle East will hamper any Western-based coalition seeking to destroy the industrial base and infrastructure of a nation such as Iraq. Washington, therefore, would rather perpetuate existing dictatorships which, at least, can be manipulated to be kept in line.... ... As loathsome as Muslims found the former regime in Iraq, they cannot help but wonder on what basis the US, and its cherished ally Israel, can possess arsenals of WMD sufficient to destroy the world several times over and then claim the right to prohibit others from possessing such weapons, using threats and recourse to force to back their ultimatums... ...This phenomenon is an extension of the West assuming for itself the authority to damn entire peoples as evil, to brand Muslims as terrorists, to label Arabs as fundamentalists and to condemn anyone who questions American companies' monopoly on science and technology as resistant to progress. Anyone who objects to American foreign policy is denounced as morally bankrupt, nihilistic or simply stupid, while those who object to Israeli domination are ignorant butchers and terrorists who deserve the atrocities Israel metes out to them. ...The West remains impervious to the fact that the source of the problems it has with the rest of the world originates within itself. The West is not the world; nor can it be the world or furnish absolute answers to the world's problems. The West, itself, is torn and confused. It is increasingly disintegrating into ghettoes of thought and interests and it is in the midst of an identity crisis as severe as the obsessions that are eroding its relations with the rest of the world... ... Political scientists and others have noted the growing gap between the liberal and conservative cultures which are pulling the West in opposing directions over a gamut of issues ranging from abortion to praying in schools. Western culture is riddled with contradictions. It contains everything and its antithesis. It thrives on opposition and antagonism. The events of 11 September stirred up latent phobias in the West with regard to Muslims and Islam. The upsurge in anti- Muslim hate campaigns and the violence that has been unleashed against Islamic nations was bound to generate a commensurate counter reaction... ...Muslims do not hate the US and the West without reason. They hate the West because of its attempts to marginalise, oppress and exploit them and to give Israel power over them. Hatred is manufactured in the West. It sprouted during the Crusades, matured during the colonialist invasion and flourished with the drive to Americanise the world. Hatred is the engine driving domination and hegemony and it is the tool used to denigrate Muslims in order to facilitate this quest. While no one can deny the existence of anti- Western and anti-American sentiments in the Islamic world, it is equally impossible to refute that such hatred is a Western export that has been marked "return to sender". It is a response to the hate-filled invectives of the Western media, and official statements, political commentaries and literary output directed against the "other"... ...Fortunately, the voice of reason is not totally absent in the West. As ferocious as the anti-Muslim hate campaign is there are those who are courageously standing up against it and exposing the economic and political motives behind it. Naom Chomsky, the Jewish American intellectual, is among the most outspoken opponents of the new cold war that has been declared against Islam and the Muslim people. And even at the level of the average citizen, broad sectors of public opinion have emerged that are against this campaign, both condemning the insidious motives behind it and the violence and bullying against Muslim peoples and nations it has incited. Ultimately, however, it will be the ability of Islamic nations to withstand the attempts to marginalise and subjugate them that will remedy the Green Peril phobia that has taken hold of the West, and that will put paid to the economic, political and military designs for which the spread of this phobia is the means to an end.
