LAST week, I expressed my relief in this space over the relatively calm and measured Pakistani response to the wretched Danish caricatures. Subsequent events have proved me completely wrong.
The last few days have seen mob violence in several Pakistani cities, directed more at national targets than western ones. Religious extremists are clearly fanning the flames in a bid to embarrass President Musharraf and lash out at the West. This is less about blasphemy than about politics and power.
While one set of images provided the trigger for violence in much of the Muslim world, other disturbing pictures — this time from Iraq — have emerged and are certain to further stoke the inferno. First, a video of British soldiers beating up young demonstrators in Basra fanned the flames. Almost immediately, we were taken back to revisit the horrors of Abu Ghraib when a set of photographs surfaced in Australia. Some of these were too disturbing to be shown on the media, but all of them exposed the depths to which human beings can sink.
A visitor from outer space looking at recent televized images from our planet could be excused for thinking that a state of war existed between the West and the Muslim world. Even in the ‘peaceful’ demonstrations in London against the Danish cartoons, there were many placards calling for death by decapitation for all those involved in the publication of the odious illustrations. As many newspapers in the UK pointed out, such public incitement to murder is illegal, and expressed their disapproval over the failure of the police to make any arrests.
As frenzied crowds have attacked western embassies and businesses across the Muslim world, non-Muslims have been left wondering what the fuss is about. While liberals condemn the original provocation, they cannot comprehend the reason for this continuing violence.
Frankly, nor can I. One thing is clear: extremist groups are using these incidents to further their agenda of destabilising governments from Mubarak’s to Musharraf’s. Unable to bring people into the streets for straightforward political demonstrations, they are whipping up passions aroused by provocative images.
In Pakistan, at least, this is a case of chickens coming home to roost. By marginalizing liberal, secular politicians and parties, and creating the space for religious extremists, Gen. Musharraf has ensured his own isolation. His initial strategy of excluding Nawaz Sharif and Benazir Bhutto from the political arena and cultivating the mullahs of the MMA has now backfired. He needs the religious right to support him, and cannot therefore crack down too hard on the elements leading the violent demonstrations. And by choosing an issue which resonates so powerfully in the Muslim psyche, the mullahs have put the government on the defensive.
One reason for the current state of incomprehension in the West over Muslim reaction to the blasphemous cartoons is that there now exists a huge gulf between the two. Secular values in the West have made religion very much a personal matter. In Islam, as several readers have reminded me in response to my article last week, there is no dividing line between personal faith and public life. This is something difficult for Europeans to grasp.
Indeed, for years, Europeans have allowed waves of Muslim immigrants and their children to act according to their beliefs, giving them permission to build mosques and to teach Islamic studies at school. In Britain, firms have to provide Muslim employees with a prayer area, and to ensure that meetings are not scheduled to clash with prayer timings.
Needless to say, such freedom of religion is not given to Christians in most Muslim countries. In Saudi Arabia, not a single church exists, and no copy of the Bible is publicly available. In Pakistan, churches are often attacked, and most of its Christians are almost second-class citizens, whatever the rhetoric. In Turkey, a Catholic priest was shot dead during the anti-cartoon protests.
Understandably, attitudes in the West towards Islam and Muslims are hardening. The recent legislation in Britain aimed at those who ‘glorify’ terrorism is a case in point: clearly aimed at Muslim clerics who have been praising suicide bombings in their Friday sermons, the new law is designed to stop mullahs from delivering hate-filled, anti-Western propaganda.
As it is, Muslims living in the West have been singled out in the post-9/11 anti-terror campaign. A handful of extremists have made life much harder for the vast majority of peaceful Muslims. The recent furore over the Danish cartoons has reinforced the image of Muslims as intolerant, violent people who cannot accept the freedoms that are taken for granted in the west.
The fact is that Muslim immigrants have been far slower than other communities to assimilate into societies they have chosen to live in. Their open abhorrence for western values like gender equality, liberal attitudes towards homosexuality, and the freedom of expression makes many people here wonder why Muslims have elected to live among them. Muslims are certainly not as tolerant of diversity within their own societies.
Over time, misunderstandings and animosity between the two cultures have multiplied. Just as western nations have become more tolerant and open, Muslim societies have gone in the other direction.
Even the ones that have done well economically, thanks to oil, have become more close-minded and inward looking. Their political systems rest on corrupt ruling elites who continue to repress their people. Other characteristics of most Muslim states that often force their citizens to migrate to the West are poor governance, inefficient economies and the near-absence of the rule of law.
Given these realities, small wonder that often, Muslim rulers seek to divert the attention of their citizens by whipping up anti-western sentiments. And by suppressing secular politicians, they ensure that extreme religious parties are the only ones to mount serious opposition to their autocratic rule.
In this era of confrontation and mutual suspicion, the two camps seem to be on a collision course. While the on-going war on terror seems to be an unending conflict, from the Muslim viewpoint, western aggression and arrogance are increasing. And whenever the Bush administration extols the virtues of democracy, the mullahs point to the chilling images from Abu Ghraib.
In this charged and poisonous atmosphere, it is hard to see how we can communicate in the shared language of a common humanity.