Solidarity with whom? : DATELINE ISLAMABAD

DURING the past three weeks Pakistan has found how an external event like the Sept 11 attack on New York, which took place thousands of miles away, can have such an effect that its population is being tugged in different directions. So much so that the government found it necessary to declare a ‘national solidarity day’ two weeks later on Sept 27, which was dutifully marked in the capital by hundreds of flag-waving schoolchildren, office workers from various government organizations, and some political party workers and private organizations.

It is, however, one thing to wave the Pakistan flag and chant “We love Pakistan” slogans, and quite another to wave the American flag also and say in the same breath “We love America,” as one lady marching in the capital’s Blue Area did when interviewed on television. The first statement is unequivocally unifying in nature; the second is potentially divisive and provocative, specially at this critical juncture in the history of Muslim relations.

These are tough times for Muslims all over the world. Tough because in no other time in recent years have they had to deal with an incident and its aftermath that has had such a trying impact on racial, ethnic, religious and political relations in so many countries, not least within and between the Muslim-majority countries themselves.

As Muslims struggled to deal with the fact that the people accused of being responsible for the Sept 11 terrorist attacks on New York and Washington are members of their own faith, those living and travelling in non-Muslim countries in the West have had to face harassment of the kind which they have never experienced before.

While the Sept 11 incident has prompted many Muslims to defend Islam, the religion, from those who link it with terrorist violence, it has also prompted many Muslims, and surprisingly many non-Muslims as well this time, to urge Washington to understand why it has become a target.

Most Muslims agree that there is no justification, precedent or authority in Islam for the act of taking innocent lives on the scale that occurred in New York on Sept 11. The laws of Jihad categorically preclude the kind of unprovoked, indiscriminate and mass slaughter of civil populations, specially of women and children. Most Muslims would say that if any Muslim had done it, he is guilty. There is no two ways about it.

What the Muslims in general resent is the initial notion floated carelessly by the Western media that Osama bin Laden had done it because of Islam. There is no basis or authentic source in Islam whatsoever of this claim. This misconception of and biases against Islam linking the Sept 11 attacks to religion has upset many a Muslim around the world no matter which strain or sect of Islam he belongs to.

The other point that many Muslims resent is the immediate finger- pointing by Washington at Osama and the initial American threat to take revenge by attacking Afghanistan, without first discovering the cause behind the Sept 11 attack. Many Muslims would contend that even if the terrorists behind the World Trade Centre bombings are Muslims, the deeper motivations are political, which should be separated from religious motivations.

These political motivations include grievances against America’s policy in the Middle East such as its double standard in defending Israeli occupation of Arab lands while hitting Iraq with sanctions and military attacks, and its support for regimes like India and Israel which far from practise the democratic and human rights ideals American society proclaims, at least in Kashmir and the occupied territories, respectively.

This resentment has been rubbed in by Washington’s behaviour of strong-arming nations into alliances with threats: if you’re not for America, it means you are against it and, therefore, be prepared to face the consequences.

The incident has, therefore, made life particularly tough for conservative government leaders in Muslim-majority countries. Not only are they being pressured by America to clamp down on those groups among their community who espouse violent tactics or support such militant groups, but also to ostracize their brother countries whose governments are supporting these groups.

This is a delicate task, the risk of which is a growing divide between the governments and their populations. The more the governments are asked to come out in open support of America, the more difficulties these governments will face in ruling certain sections of their populations, whose sympathies, or rather the lack of it, for America, are already well-known and seemingly growing worse by the day.

No other government has been put in such a tight situation by the Sept 11 incident and its aftermath as Islamabad and Kabul have. Three weeks down the road, the initial dark war clouds over Afghanistan may have dissipated somewhat, together with the fact that initial war talk by Western leaders of “a crusade”, “dead or alive” and “smoke ‘em out” have been mercifully replaced by more conciliatory language like “not a war against Islam”.

But political developments in the region, first Islamabad’s decision to support the American anti-terrorism operation in Afghanistan and now the reappearance of former King Zahir Shah on the Afghan scene, have the potential of eventually dividing the populations of the two countries along a pro- and anti-American dimension, if these developments are not handled with care. The grave consequences of such a divide are evident all over the Middle East.