| May 31, 2008 | Saturday | Jamadi-ul-Awwal 25, 1429 |
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The seeds of conflict
AT the beach near Sri Lanka’s southern town of Tangalle, the sea is too rough with the approach of the monsoons to swim in. Manuela’s very basic cabanas, where we always stay, have no TV, and she has a very slow and erratic Internet connection. So with little else to do, we bring lots of reading material.
Over the last few days, I have gone through three books that have been gripping for different reasons. Salman Rushdie’s brilliant new novel, The Enchantress of Florence, contains his usual cocktail of quirky ideas, brilliant writing and enviable story-telling skills. In its exploration of cultural differences and affinities between East and West, I think this is the best book Rushdie has written since Midnight’s Children. Meticulously researched, his recreation of Emperor Akbar’s court at Fatehpur Sikri is a literary tour de force with its sparkling description of intrigue, love and opulence.
Jumping from the 16th to the 21st century, Abdel Bari Atwan’s detailed and sympathetic account of the rise of political Islam, The Secret History of Al Qaeda, is a chilling reminder of the hold the supernatural has on the lives and actions of millions. Atwan, chief editor of the London-based Arabic daily Al Quds Al Arabi, is well qualified to describe and analyse the phenomenon of Islamic terror that has gripped this century by the throat, and is threatening to tear civilisation apart.
The centrepiece of this book is a long interview the author conducted with Osama bin Laden over three days in his hideout in a cave in Tora Bora in 1996. Describing his experience, the author displays a respect for bin Laden that runs counter to the popular demonisation of the Al Qaeda chief in the western media. Atwan repeatedly makes the point that whether westerners like it or not, bin Laden is enormously popular among Muslims.
In other sections of the book, he explores the connections between the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan by western forces, and the rising anger in the Muslim world. He also reflects at length on the continuing brutalisation of the Palestinian people by Israel as a major contributory factor in the radicalisation of young Muslims. Particularly fascinating are his insights into the motivation of suicide bombers in different countries, including those born and brought up in the West.
Atwan analyses the video left behind by Mohammed Siddique Khan, a British-born citizen of Pakistani descent, after the suicide bombing of London transport in some detail: “In common with many young Muslims who feel alienated, excluded and despised in Europe, Khan and his cohorts felt a strong sense of identification with the ummah. Bin Laden homes in on this when he says in the April 23, 2006, audiotape, ‘The West still believes in ethnic supremacy and looks down on other nations. They categorise human beings into white masters and coloured slaves’. Iconic Islamist leaders, such as bin Laden and al-Zarqawi, are perceived as redressing this long-standing injustice and inequality….”
Back to the past with Andrew Wheatcroft’s Infidels: the Conflict between Christendom and Islam 638-2002. This book has been sitting in my stack of books to read for the last three years, and I wish I had read it earlier. Basically, Wheatcroft traces the origins of the conflict between the two major faiths since they first came into contact in the seventh century when Muslim forces breached the defences of Byzantium.
The interaction between Muslims and Christians was most intimate in Moorish Spain, and this is the focus of Wheatcroft’s study. Here, Muslims, Christians and Jews lived together for centuries, working out accommodations, and making daily compromises. When the Muslims were in the ascendant, their attitude towards their non-Muslim subjects varied from one king to another. Tolerance depended on the whim of the ruler. But when the tide turned, the Christian re-conquest ensured that the Iberian peninsula would be ethnically cleansed of its Muslim and Jewish citizens. Over time, even those who had converted to Christianity, known contemptuously as Moriscoes, were finally driven out amidst scenes of enormous cruelty and suffering.
Wheatcroft has discussed the vocabulary and symbolism of antagonism at some length. Included in the book are reproductions of paintings depicting conflict, in which one side is invariably depicted as evil savages. Over time, this demonisation took root in the popular imagination, and poisoned the minds of successive generations. Tales and images have resonated over the centuries, making it easy for priests, mullahs, kings and politicians to exploit ancient hatreds.
But after the West finally won the epochal struggle, and religion itself declined as a political force, the antagonism subsided, at least overtly. Muslims retreated into dreams of past glory and western rationalism appeared to be the way forward. However, a combination of inept secular governments in Muslim countries and deeply held grievances has combined to resurrect old enmities.
In the beginning of his book, Wheatcroft quotes Paul Valéry, the French philosopher: “History is the most dangerous product ever concocted by the chemistry of the intellect. It causes dreams, inebriates nations, saddles them with false memories … keeps their old sores running, torments them when they are not at rest, and induces in them megalomania and the mania of persecution.”
Perhaps the clash between Islam and Christendom was inevitable, given the fact that both were political, muscular ideologies in the seventh century. Each saw the other as a check to its ability to expand. In the view of the church, the new religion was an upstart that had to be put in its place. For Muslims, the Christians belonged to a sect that had gone astray, and moreover, were trying to block the natural expansion of the true faith. Both faiths were underpinned by commercial interests that battled for markets and resources. And above all, both were utterly convinced of the righteousness of their respective cause.
With the fall of the Soviet empire, many people felt an era of peace was at hand. But the vacuum caused by the Soviet Union’s implosion has been largely filled by Al Qaeda and its affiliates and allies. The irony lies in the fact that where it once took the mighty Red Army to cause trillions to be spent on the defence of the West, it now takes a handful of men hiding in remote caves to generate the same fear. Such is the power of ideas.
