I was browsing Scoop over lunch and read this interesting article by Paul Buchanan. It grabbed my attention for a couple of reasons.
The main assertion of the article is that by singling out Muslims as ‘a danger to New Zealand’ prominent political figures are in fact pushing the Islamic community towards extremism. Now, that’s something I’ve long thought, but Paul has the facts and figures to back up his argument.
The next interesting assertion deserves a block quote.
Al-Qaeda is a loose network of Islamicist guerrilla cells, mostly but not exclusively of Wahabbist orientation, dedicated to eradicating Western influence from the Muslim Diaspora via a global campaign of terrorism.
The objective is to sow irrational fear among Western populations that is disproportionate to the actual threat posed by Islamic terrorism, and to provoke government over-reaction when attempting to safeguard their civilian populations and influence in the Muslim world
OK, so there you have Buchanan indicating that an objective of Al-Qaeda is to provoke Westerners into over-reaction. In other words, to react the same way that some of our good friends on the right in New Zealand have been doing. Good one guys, way to suppress terror…
Anyhow, the other part of that quote, where he says that another objective of Al-Qaeda is eradicating Western influence from the Muslim diaspora. I assume of course that he means countries outside of Saudi Arabia, the original home of Islam, that are historically Muslim. The classic Islamic crescent that is.
This grabbed my attention because it stands in direct contrast to some of the big statements being made in media across the globe whenever something like the London bombings comes along. Pretty much every time, you get George, Tony or Little Johnnie standing up to terror by saying “you’ll never change our way of life".
But, if what Buchanan says is true, then the ‘destruction of the West’ is not the aim of Al-Qaeda. Confused, I wrote him an email.
Readers should note, for this post I actually did a little background… how’s that for snazzy.
Che: What's your source on the aim and ambitions of Al Qaeda? I'm familiar with the argument that what they primarily seek is the West out of Islamic countries, but hear a lot of opinion that the aims of Islamic extremists are to bring their culture to the entire world.
Is there any kind of definitive statement that confirms either perspective? Or is it the case, as with many movements, that different factions have differing aims?
PB: I know of no Islamicist who advocates global domination by Muslims. I do know that they see their world being penetrated, corrupted and slowly submerged under the weight of globalised secular Western domination. Al-Qaeda's fight is mostly with moderate Islam, using attacks on Western targets as their foil. I wrote a piece on this for the Listener in late 2003 titled "The Sun Became Black." It develops the above thoughts at more length.
I use various sources when reading about Islam. Tariq Ali is great (see his 2002 book "Clash of Fundamentalisms"), and Edward Said is probably the best cultural historian to address the issue.
I downloaded and read the Listener article in my lunchtime as well, and got back to Paul with a quick email.
Che:Just another point of clarification. Did you say you aren't aware of any Islamist advocating global domination? I'm assuming you mean 'credible' Islamist organisation in the sense of being actually able to follow thru on things like terrorism.
Because there are many factions in our society who argue exactly the opposite, that Islamists are all about global domination and destroying the 'western way of life'.
PB:Contrary to those who claim that Islamicism wants to destroy the Western way of life, what they really are is a last ditch defensive gasp against encroaching western secularisation. They are going to lose in the long run, but will go down fighting… But they can never but dream of world domination and the elimination of western culture, and from what I have read, few if any of the Islamicist factions hold such views even in their dreams.
He also drew distinction between the different types of Islamic extremist, something I’ve once again been suspicious of.
PB:Given the loose cellular structure of Al-Qaeda, there are many factional views lumped into the fundamentalist (or Islamicist as opposed to Islamic) camp. Many of them have serious areas of disagreement even while universally condemning Western encroachment on their civilisation. Wahabbists dominate Saudi Arabia and some Sunni communities, but do not share they same perspective as the Indonesian jamar es-Islamiah, for example.
Well, I don’t know about you, but I actually find this stuff fairly reassuring.
One of the reason’s I’ve long been opposed to many of the actions of the US, and have been happy with the actions of place like NZ, is that I don’t see us playing into the hands of Al-Qaeda. Playing into their hands the same way Australia did by joining the invasion of Saddam’s Iraq for example, the demise of which was also a stated aim of Al-Qaeda.
So despite all the protestations of our resident pyjamahadeen over there in RWDB-O-Plenty (you people really need to get out of the house, and stop posting photos of women you’ll never actually sleep with), the total destruction of our civilisation is not the aim of the ‘Islamofascists’ (PB has a go at that term too).
My opinion is that what we really have is a lot of scared people, Bush and others included, who have absolutely no friggin’ idea who or what they’re trying to deal with. Consequently, what you end up with is a series of half-baked scare tactics and big-gun-doing-the-talking motions to make it look like they’re on top of things, while potentially making things much, much worse.
Instead of holding up the pillars of freedom we espouse, these types of characters are working to foment hatred of the West and bring even more bloodshed upon us all.
Sure, let’s combat terror. Let’s stop these extremists and make the world a safe place again.
But for christs sake’s understand the reality of the situation before you go off half-cocked to make wild or weird accusations about groups, ideas, and peoples you know nothing about.