A young man of South Asian appearance runs or walks fastly to catch a train; all of a sudden he becomes a suspect terrorist and a few policemen overpower him in the train compartment and kill him by pumping bullets in his chest. Having done so, they try to find weapons and bombs on his body which they fail to discover. The incident occurred today i.e. 22.7.2005 in London recently hit by “terrorist” acts.
The still unknown individual’s plight has striking similarity with that of the bleeding Iraq. The Anglo-American forces first alleged that the Saddam regime was guilty of producing weapons of mass destruction, and then they occupied it only to discover that there were no WMDs.
This is the attitude, approach of the West to things Muslim. First create a suspect, kill him and then try to know if he was a terrorist or not. The West is not satisfied with this only. They also want the Muslims the world over to condemn their children for becoming “suspect”; further they want the ummah to flush such elements out and hand them over to the West. The West thinks that killing “created suspects” and humiliating the ummah will solve their problem. The West is as mistaken as the handful terrorists who are seeking to annihilate it by their sporadic acts of violence.
The West has committed a number of crimes against the Muslim world. They occupied and colonized bulk of the world of Islam in late 19th and early 20th centuries they created the Palestine problem, they allowed the Bosnian tragedy to happen and most recently they have occupied Afghanistan and Iraq. Surely there are people in the West who think in terms of religious, racial and civilizational superiority. But a majority of the men in power is different. The leadership is mainly interested in politico-military domination of the Muslim world in order to serve the economic interests of the capitalist West. The Western leadership is well aware that the Muslim world has 70 per cent of the world’s total energy and it lies on 40% per cent of its natural and mineral resources. Of all the riches of the Islamic world the West is more interested in oil and gas which are found in huge quantity in the Muslim lands of Central Asia and the Middle East. These oil and gas are vital for the West’s economic domination of the world.
No one likes to give up the luxuries he has or enjoys. The oil has given the West a high-profile lifestyle, and it is mainly this source of energy that will maintain their present per capita income in the foreseeable future. This explains why they are hell-bent on dominating the Muslim world.
One may ask why the West’s military domination is necessary for ensuring economic cooperation between it and the Islamic world? The answer is simple. The West wants pliable regimes in the Muslim world whom it can compel to toe its line. These weak regimes, mostly unpopular among their people, not only supply cheap energy to the West but also invest their surplus or illegally accumulated wealth in its economies, all for the sake of their survival. Unpopular as these regimes are, they can not have faith in their own people and therefore depend on the West for their continuation in office. The arrangement has so far worked for the benefit of the West.
But this strategy is not only morally bankrupt, it is also frought with dangers. Being exploitative in nature, the strategy has succeeded in arousing the Muslim anger the world over. Initially the anger was naturally and rightly directed at the Muslim regimes and not the West. The West came in picture only when it supported the oppressive Muslim regimes to unleash a reign of terror on their own people.
Oppressed and frustrated by the combined might of the West and Westernized or pro-West Muslim regimes, some Muslim youth have taken to terrorism. From their rhetoric's it appears as they think that they can annihilate the West by blowing a tower here or bombing a tube station there. The benefits that the West gains from its cooperation with the oppressive Muslim regimes or from its domination of the Muslim world, are too big to be shunned by sporadic acts of violence. The “terrorists” or Fidayeen are mistaken if they think that their stray violence can force rethinking in Western capitals.
Iron cuts iron. This old saying is a gem of wisdom and is hugely relevant here. It does not denote only a military confrontation, but it also suggests a strategy. The West is superior not only because of its huge military power, but also, or perhaps because of its intellectual superiority. It is their knowledge that has given them superiority in every field, and it is through knowledge that the Islamic world can counter them. People have a reason when they say that knowledge is the obverse side of power.
But acquisition of knowledge is not an easy enterprise to undertake. It requires much more time and resources than what is required for martyr-bombing. It is the high time for the Muslim youths to realize that the ink of the pen symbolizing knowledge is mightier than the blood oozing from the sword and body of a warrior.
[July, 2005]
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