US Imperialism and Muslim Ummah

“Power Corrupts – And – Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely.”

The axiom of Lord Acton is extremely pertinent in the context of the United States. The United States of America – the silent spectator in international affairs till the beginning of the 20th century – has now evolved into a self-proclaimed ‘Moral Police’ of the world. Needless to add, the masses worldwide are fed up with this moral (read immoral) policing. Its mask of Democracy, Human Rights, Liberty, Equality and Justice is torn asunder by ignoble American deeds. This is the most ‘open secret’ of the world.

“Only fear will re-establish respect for US.” This frank statement of former director of CIA, James Woolsey should be appreciated. It is apparent enough that fear cannot be re-established in the air. It wants, therefore, a prerequisite. William Blum is too correct when he insists in Rouge State, “America cherishes her enemies. Without enemies, she is a nation without purpose and direction. She needs enemies to justify their swollen budgets…..to protect their jobs, to give themselves a mission in the aftermath of the Soviet Union, ultimately to reinvent themselves”. Obviously you know, what I want – I want to unveil yet another open secret that Muslims are the most favourite villains on the earth, as predicted by Arnold Toynbee and as maintained by Samuel P. Huntington the clash of civilisations is set in motion with US led west on one side and Muslims on the other side of the battle ground – head to head, face to face.

Those who are credulous enough to believe that this war on terror is the retaliation of 9/11 are living in Shangri-La of fools. Let us just have a bird’s eye view of the last two decades. The ‘scorecard’ of US goes like this: The shooting down of two Libyan planes in 1981, the bombardment of Beirut in 1983-84, the bombings of Libya in 1986, bombing and sinking of an Iranian passenger plane in 1988, shooting down of two more Libyan planes in 1989, the massive bombings in Iraq in 1991 for 40 consecutive days, the bombing on Sudan and Afghanistan in 1998. After 9/11 strike rate has reached new highs in Afghanistan and Iraq…. No the story has not yet ended…. the habitual support to Israel despite its belligerence and routine torture of Palestinians, continued usage of veto in favour of Israel (the 51st state of USA), continued persecution of Libya, large military and hi-tech presence in Islam’s holiest land-Saudi Arabia and elsewhere in Persian Gulf, etc. etc.

The factors responsible for this ‘Imperialism-Revisited’ could be abundant. William Blum has compressed them to the following four categories.

1) Making the world open and hospitable for – in current terminology – Globalisation, particularly American-based Trans National Corporations.

2) Enhancing the financial statements of defence contractors of home who have contributed generously to members of Congress and residents of White House.

3) Preventing the rise of any society that might serve as a successful example of an alternative to the capitalist model.

4) Extending political, economic and military hegemony over as much of the globe as possible, to prevent the rise of any regional power that might challenge American supremacy, and to create a world order in America’s image, as befits the world’s only super power.

Read the point 3) again and again and you will surely come to know that war is not against terror but against the culture and civilisation which is the most formidable and potential threat to the American way of life in the long run.

The UN is theirs, the media is theirs, WMDs are theirs, market is under their jurisdiction the list is never ending – in simple parlance they are the claimant, they are the lawyers and they are the judges themselves. So – the night is dark – devilishly dark – starless – hopeless – but we have the candle of the Qur’an and Sunnah which if properly lit could illuminate the Globe with peace and righteousness.

“They seek to extinguish Allah’s light (by blowing) with their mouths, but Allah shall spread his light in all its fullness, however the unbelievers may abhor this”. (Saff-8)

And we should strive to win over the hearts of the people with the divine guidance which is fortunately with us as Amanah instead of drifting in the direction of wind we must exert ourselves to change the course of the wind – to discharge the responsibility entrusted to us.

Crack in the rows is the Achilles Heel of the Muslim Ummah today. Islam which has once united the world has rather “failed” to repeat the history. Muslim Ummah throughout the globe are busy in verbal and physical altercations on petty issues and exerting all their might to fight with each other. Our scholars are issuing fatwas of kufr on ulema of other schools. They don’t comprehend that the targets of their axes are their own feet. US, Israel, and their NATO allies are busy massacring our brethren, dishonouring our women, and destroying our property – and – instead of retaliating tenaciously we are fighting with each other.

The eleventh hour has approached, and in order to register our presence – as a force to reckon with – we must unite. For this unity, basic sense to distinguish between Usool (Roots) and Furu (Branches) is sine qua non. While we ought to remain “Fundamentalist” and uncompromising in Usool, our approach needs to be more liberal and tolerant in respect of Furu. This unity at grass root level will force the elites also to unite – Believe me this “Bottom up” approach will work. Till now efforts to unite the Ummah bore little fruits because the approach was “Trickle Down” approach that means unity from top – in the hope that it will percolate down to the masses. In other words we tried to balance the pyramid of Ummah assuming its apex as base. Even today if we pull our socks to rebuild the base on strong foundations the days are not far (Insha Allah) when apex bodies like Arab League, OPEC and others will be in much more exalted and formidable position. At least they will cease to become the tacit agents of imperialism.

“Allah indeed loves those who fight in His way as though they are a solid wall – cemented with molten lead”.  (Saff:4)

To overhaul what is the most menacing force today on earth, to rise again to the echelons of power and glory, we must DISCARD our defeatist approach – we must break our self-built shackles of slavery – Mental slavery. Mental slavery is not to learn good, reasonable and desired virtues from the west in general or US in particular. Mental slavery means endorsing anything and everything which happens to carry a ‘western’ tag with it. It also connotes unnecessarily compromising with one’s identity. We eat in ‘McDonalds’, drink ‘Pepsi’, travel with ‘Hidesign’, wear ‘Levis’, run in ‘Nike’ knowing that through these goods they are literally robbing our pockets – knowing that the revenue earned helps them to fund Israel to kill our own brethren. Our mental slavery has one more danagerous dimension. We consider this as height of knowledge and intellectual calibre to convincingly quote Fried, Marx, Laski, Darwin, Darkheim and Nietzsche. etc. To learn their thoughts critically and lament over their ignorance of divine source of knowledge is admirable but to believe in their shaky, confused and unscientific myths just because they were western could be the path of an ignoramus, not of a Momin.

We must do our utmost to maintain our identity, self respect and dignity as an Ummah. We must unlearn all the vices of lavish expenditures, voluptuousness, intellectual slavery which ultimately prove that we are culturally bankrupt and so are trying to emulate a so-called “superior” way of life. We must reclaim our lost virtues or austerity and analytical thinking.

If in blistering heat we go to a shop to drink something it is invariably Pepsi and Merinda that we come across, to view news we have to switch over to CNN or BBC – however unauthentic we may regard them. In a situation where people are dying of hunger and only filthy, unhygienic food available, it is futile to reason with them to avoid that filth, the best way to do that is to prepare good food and give it to them. In short, we have to create alternatives. Let us start from local level. While campaigning against Pepsi we can enhance our credibility as well as area of influence by making Lassi or Nimbu Pani available at all local shops. We can exhort people to switch over from Pepsi to these ‘Desi’ products. Such pilot projects could be developed into large scale ventures if some Muslim economic giant establishes industries in partnerships world over. Such ventures could prove to be drastic blows to the monopoly of Pepsi and McDonalds. Likewise pressure could be built upon ‘Muslim governments to come to a platform in order to run an authentic News Agency. This will certainly help us to develop alternative media.

Then why to wait for others, Dear reader, couldn’t you be the first to take the initiative?

Maulana Maududi has emphatically argued that, “The world is like a train which is being run by the engine of research and thinking, thinkers and scholars are its drivers…. The general people have no choice but to proceed into the direction where their drivers are heading…. to change the course of journey there in no second option than to capture the engine and to alter its direction…. Till then despite all our hue and cry, screams and pleases the train will go on and on where its materialist drivers are taking it.”

The intellectual acumen of Muslim world could be easily estimated – follow me – Muslims are 150 crore in 660 crore world population. The ratio of total number of research articles produced – Muslim VS rest is 1/200. Let us be more precise 3000 PhDs are awarded annually per million population in the west as compared to only 32 amongst Muslims.

Analysing the intellectual drought prevalent in Muslim community Maulana Maududi challenged AMU students. “I assure you that even if you are presented as a free gift, a particular piece of territory to rule over, you will not be able, as things go now, to administer it according to Islamic principles even for a single day. You have made no preparations to train or educate people imbued with the moral spirit and possessed of the intellectual attitude which is necessary for running an Islamic State, its police, law courts, army, revenue and its financial educational or foreign policy,” This prophecy manifested itself in the so called “Islamic” state of Pakistan.

The need is thus to create general awareness regarding education. Scholarships must be provided at all levels of education for the poor, needy as well as highly skilled ‘gems’ of Ummah. Syllabus of madarsas need to be modernised and provision must be made to impart basic Islamic teach to the students of every school and college. Critical thinking must be promoted among students through camps, magazines and special programmes. A planned development of talents is required because besides doctors and engineers, we are seriously in need of economists, political scientists, media persons, sociologist, jurists and historians of Islamic character: the people who could define Islam in contemporary vocabulary, establish at least ideological superiority of Islam over other ideologies and present Islam as the most viable alternative to solve the world’s problems, which Islam indeed is.

Unfortunately, the due attention has not been paid to the female half of the Muslim Ummah. It is a ploy of the west to lead our mothers and sisters astray – by tempting them with the false carrots of freedom and equality. We cannot afford to take this lightly – our future is at stake. Napoleon once trumpeted before his people, ‘Give me good mothers and I will give you a good nation”-. He was certainly right.

Thus adequate attention must be paid to the education of girls. A rigorous campaign must be unleashed against the social evils of female foeticide, dowry and other women related issues. Special weekly tarbiyah lectures and programmes exclusively for women must be organised at local mosques regularly. Islamic scholars and even common men must teach, discuss and encourage their wives, sisters and daughters and these women must be encouraged to disseminate this “knowledge” among their friends or neighbourhood circles.

While browsing net, I came across an article on Counter Currents.org on the topic of American Imperialism. Rohini Hensman – obviously a non-Muslim – propounded the notion of a Global Satyagraha against US imperialism. Some of the suggestions were really great such as boycotting not individual US products but dollar itself in its totality. John Perkins, in Confessions of An Economic Hitman, has presented the exploitative machinations of western corporate sector.Noam Chomsky, Rohini and Perkins are not the only non-Muslims who are up for the cause of justice. What I am driving at is that we must come out of our mental ghettoes that every Hindu is a diehard Modist, every Jew is a Zionist and every Christian endorses the state terrorism of US. It will be unfair on our part if we do not cooperate with them. And this cooperation also needs to be systematic and planned. Forums and pressure groups must be organised from local to international levels to build pressure on our respective governments to take a firm stand against the United States in the UN, or to boycott US goods, or to stop economic and political ties with Israel, or for disarmament, etc.

Issues rise and melt themselves into oblivion with passing time. Much depends on our response to these issues. We are living in a Global Communication age, where unfortunately largest chunk of mass media is averse to Islam in its fullest. Even our tiny thoughtless move could be magnified and condemned – we must be cautious – I must appreciate the behaviour of Muslim community throughout the globe, in the pretext of Danish cartoons controversy. The blasphemy was provocative enough to foment Muslim masses to act in a violent fashion. This could have easily proved the allegations put on the Ummah of terrorism and violence. In this case, under mature leadership, conscience of masses and by grace of Allah, we retaliated to the affront peacefully (exceptions apart). Besides the protest, many campaigns were organised for non – Muslims at every level to enable them to understand and grasp the true greatness of the Prophet. It really had an effect – ‘positive’ this time – such responsible and conscientious stand on issues or even on deliberate instigations can turn the tables on plotters of such conspiracies.

“Good and evil are not equal, repel (evil) with that which is good, and you will see that he, between whom and you there was enmity, shall become if he were a bosom friends of yours” (Hamim Sajda -34)

“You are now the best nation (Ummah) brought with for mankind. You enjoin what is right and forbid what is wrong and believe in Allah” (Ale – Imran 110)

According to this divine decree which nation deserves to be called the best:

1) That which believes in Allah.

2) That which forbids what is wrong.

3) That which enjoins what is right.

The mystery of the downfall of Muslim Ummah has been solved by these verses of the Qur’an. It is now crystal clear that we are thrown away from Pleiades in what seems the deepest trench of agony today – because we have forgotten the injunctions of Quran as well as the heritage of our predecessors. If we want to learn a lesson and to reach again the pinnacle of glory – there are no short cuts – we have to get back to basics. If this happens then it will not be surprising that the same monstrous US will change into a custodian (Paasban) of Islam as it happened in the case of Tartars.

“Do not then lose heart or grieve, for you shall surely gain the upper hand if you are believers”.

It is high time that besides being mosque-goers we also become believers in our workplace and in our homes. For Islamic Revolution part time believers are of no use – this fruit could be reaped just through fully dedicated work for quite a few generations and patience and endurance because ‘half hearted efforts do not produce even half results – they produce no results’.