There is no shortcut to Islamic renaissance. There is no shortcut to Islamic revolution. It is a patience-trying and nerve-wrecking job, as we see in the holy Sunnah. There lies a millennial struggle between Islam and un-Islam. Much before shedding blood, one has to shed perspiration. One has to bear ignominy. One has to face street urchins hurling insults and heaping humiliation. Furious speeches are no substitute for scientific dialogue and sweet persuasion. Islamic order cannot be ushered in by provoking the public to assassinate the Head of the State or vociferously demanding promulgation of the Shari’ah. Islamic revolution sprouts from earth, from the grassroots level. It is not inflicted from above. It requires imagination, wisdom, strategy, patience, perseverance and the ability of ijtihad. Islamic or non-Islamic, no State can tolerate a State within State. Restoration of past glory is virtually impossible by radicalism, involving vigilante antics, kidnapping prostitutes and dispensing justice in what they call Kangaroo courts. The rhetoric of jihad is no substitute for knowledge, science and technology and modern legitimate means of gaining leadership.
ZEALOTRY
Most probable it was their indefensible zealotry that drove the clerics of Lal Masjid in Islamabad to do what they did, resulting in the death of Abdul Rashid Ghazi and over 80 others, including 10 soldiers and Ghazi’s mother. (May their souls rest in peace and may Allah forgive them for their mistakes).
It looks as if President Musharraf did not learn any lesson from the faux pas that the late lamented Mrs. Indira Gandhi committed while dealing with the Sikh militancy in the Golden Temple in June 1984. She could have prevented the catastrophe by just blocking the supply lines to the shrine. But probably she had no patience. General Pervez Musharraf too could have prevented the catastrophe had he just blocked the ration, electricity and water lines to the mindless radicals.
BUSH CERTIFICATE
But in that case the General would not have received “Tamgha-e-Basalat” from the US President, Mr. George Bush who made no delay in profusely and whole-heartedly congratulating him for his success in liquidating the Islamic militants. To quote the US President: “Musharraf is a strong ally in the war against these extremists. I like him and I appreciate him. It’s a struggle between radicals who kill and rational people who want to live in peace.”
Our feeling is it is a left-handed compliment. It does not add to Mr. Musharraf’s stature. Nor does it cover him with glory. It looks as if our neighbour is more popular abroad than in his own country.
Mr. Bush was in Cleveland, Ohio when the news of his favourite’s success reached him. Listen more to him for a wider perspective: “Mr. Musharraf has been a valuable ally… This is hard for some Americans to understand… we are at the beginning stages of a major ideological struggle that will affect the security of the United States, and it’s a struggle between moderation and extremists.”
“Ally”, “Ideology”
When Mr. Bush talks of “valuable ally” and “ideological struggle”, it means effort at proving to the hilt irrelevance of Islam and Mr. Musharraf’s continued cooperation in subjugating Islam in his own country and elsewhere, where the US, as a pilot of the West, is working hard to “tame” Islam, by de-fanging and de-clawing it. That America has, under the inspiration of Israel, already redrawn its own map of the Middle-East is no more a secret. And the insensitivity of the Arab world is also no more a secret.
In this context we look with suspicion at the odd marriage of 51-year old British grandmother with the fourth eldest son of Osama Bin Laden. Mrs. Felixe Brown is now Mrs. Zaina Mohammad. From her earlier five husbands, she has three sons and four grandchildren.
The world today, the truth is, lives in an inexplicable condition – inexplicable because those who run the world know fully well what is causing disequilibrium, and where. But they deliberately do not care to remove the factors that are causing damage to tranquillity.
For example, AIDS and HIV-positive happen to be the gravest-ever threat to mankind today. The world leadership knows this fact in its entirety, but in its wisdom, does not outlaw promiscuity or extramarital sex, which are at the bottom of the dreaded contagion.
So is true of the hydra-headed terrorism. It is not a phenomenon in itself. It is a reaction against the sustained unfair play and injustice as we see in the case of Palestinians, and the ultimate hegemonism which has manifested itself in the form of unilateral pre-emptive strikes on non-conformist states like Libya and Afghanistan, liquidation of sovereign governments, as one sees in the case of Iraq and change of leadership as we saw in the cases of Algeria and Sudan and just genocide as we saw in Bosnia Herzegovina and Chechnya, not long ago.
Two points are noteworthy here: one, at the rock-bottom of hegemonism is the indefensible support rather patronage of Israel; and two, at the receiving end is invariable Islam and its followers, everywhere, who, incidentally constitute one-fifth of mankind.
RESPONSE PLEASE!
The world is coaxed to believe by the Zionism-oriented media that Islam, as a religion, creates terrorists and promotes terrorism against the peace-loving all over the world. Here are a few points to ponder.
In 1881, anarchists killed the Russian Tsar Alexander II and 21 bystanders. In 1901, anarchists killed US President McKinley as well as King Humbert I of Italy. World War I started in 1914 when anarchists killed Archduke Ferdinand of Austria. Were all the said anarchists Muslim?
Guerrilla fighter from Mao Zedong to Ho Chi Minh and Fidel Castro killed civilians during their revolutionary campaigns. They too were called terrorists and they triumphed. Anything Muslim about them?
In Palestine, after World War II, Jewish groups (the Haganah, Irgun and Stern Gang) fought for the creation of a Jewish state, bombing hotels and installations and killing civilians. Many of these terrorists later became leaders of independent Israel–Moshe Dayan, Yitzhak Rabin, Menachem Begin, Ariel Sharon. Ironically, these former terrorists then lambasted terrorism, applying this label only to Arabs fighting for the very same nationhood that the Jews had fought for earlier. Was the Zionist terrorists Muslim?
In Germany, in 1968-92, the Baader-Meinhoff Gang killed dozens, including the head of Treuhand, the German privatization agency. In Italy, the Red Brigades kidnapped and killed Aldo Moro, former prime minister. Were the killers in this case Muslim?
The Japanese Red Army was an Asian version of Red Brigade. Japan was also the home of Aum Shinrikyo, a Buddhist cult that tried to kill thousands in the Tokyo metro system using nerve gas in 1995. Were they Muslim?
In Europe, the Irish Republican Army has been a Catholic terrorist organisation for almost a century. Spain and France face a terrorist challenge from ETA, the Basque terrorist organisation. Are these killers Muslim?
Africa is ravaged by so much civil war and internal strife that few people even bother to check which groups can be labelled terrorist. They stretch across the continent. Possibly the most notorious is the Lord’s Salvation Army in Uganda, a Christian outfit that uses as warriors. Are they Muslims?
In Sri Lanka, as rightly points out Mr. Swaminathan S. Anklesaria Aiyar in the Time of India (July 23, 2006), the Tamil Tigers have long constituted one of the most vicious and formidable terrorist groups in the world.
He added that they were the first to train children as terrorists. They happen to be Hindus. Suicide bombing is widely associated with Muslim Palestinians and Iraqis now, but the Tamil Tigers, all Hindu, were the first to use the tactic on a large scale. One such suicide bomber assassinated Rajiv Gandhi in 1991.
The Punjab militants, led by Bhindranwale, were Sikhs. The United Liberation Front of Assam is a Hindu terrorist group. Tripura has witnessed the rise and fall of several terrorist groups, and so have Bodo strongholds in Assam. Christian Mizos mounted an insurrection for decades, and Christian Nagas are still heading militants groups.
SECULAR TERRORISTS
The most important of all are the Maoist terrorist groups that now exist in no less than 150 out of India’s 600 districts. They have attacked police stations and killed and razed entire villages that oppose them. These are secular terrorists (like the Baader Meinhof Gang or Red Brigades). In terms of membership and area controlled, secular terrorists are far ahead of Muslim terrorists.
There are, or have been terrorist groups among Christians, Jews, Hindus, Sikhs and even Buddhists while secular terrorists (anarchists, Maoists) have been the biggest killers.
Catholic Irish terrorists, as we all know, have killed far more people in Britain than Muslims, yet the subway bombings in London and Madrid are what Europeans remember today. The Baader Meinhof Gang, IRA and Red Brigades no longer pose much of a threat, but after 9/11 Americans and Europeans fear that they could be hit anywhere anytime.
Today’s Zionist dominated propaganda puts Hitler’s Propaganda Secretary, Goebbles to shame. These super-Goebbles of the day are a greater hindrance in the arrival of Islamic Revolution.