A Pawn In The Game
by Dr. Mazeni Alwi

“No!” Naphta continued. “The mystery and precept of the age is not liberation and the development of the ego. What our age needs, what it demands, and what it will create for itself, is – terror”.

(from “the Magic Mountain” by Thomas Mann, 1924)

The first time I met Tourson, a muslim from Xinjiang, I had no inkling of the terrible fate that he had just escaped from. He sat patiently outside my clinic as he waited for me to finish seeing those with regular appointments. He was a gentle, relatively big man who easily broke into a smile, I guess partly to make up for his inadequate English at that time. He was still a little weak and drained from a major operation soon after his arrival in Kuala Lumpur. He had been recommended to me by an old friend who had been instrumental in providing his passage to Malaysia. The circumstances of his situation and his long term plan were not disclosed to me. Tourson had come to ask a favour from me, something so small that I had thought nothing of it. I have written many such letters before – asking for children with heart disease to be exempted from sports, recommending their families walk-up flats on the first floor or explaining why their parents should not be transferred to a place where medical access is difficult. I only became aware how much it meant to him when his family was about to leave Malaysia for Canada some months ago for a final resettlement as “political” refugees.

On that first visit, Tourson showed me a medical report of his little boy named Maimate (he told me this is how “Muhammad” is pronounced and spelled in China) who was still in Urumqi with his wife and 2 older children. The report was mainly in Mandarin but it has enough information in english to give me an idea of his medical condition. At his request, I duly wrote a simple letter stating that his son’s medical condition, a form of a hole in the heart, can be treated at our institution in Kuala Lumpur. He told me that the letter, simple as it may sound, was needed for the authorities in Urumqi to allow his family to leave and join him in Malaysia. I did not know at that time that he could practically never return to Xinjiang. More than 6 months later Tourson came back to my clinic, this time with his family in tow, profusely grateful, his english and bahasa much improved. He seemed to me a keen learner of languages from the progress that he had made, using his time well and taking the opportunity that his new environment provided. What evaded me at that time was the sense of relief from the terrible anguish over the possibility that he might never see his wife and children again. Tourson, with his sparse goatee beard, has more Chinese features, but his wife, with her skin complexion and facial features typical of Central Asian of women of Turkic stock, looked distinctively non Chinese, especially with her muslim dress and head scarf. As for Maimate, the subject of my professional concern, his hole in the heart was fortunately not big, obviating any need for urgent treatment.

I followed them up for nearly 2 years or so after that first visit, making sure that the hole in the heart was not interfering with his growth and physical activities. As his real reason for coming to Malaysia in the first place never crossed my mind, I did not probe too much into his personal background, trying to keep my relationship with him strictly professional. Still, we talked quite a bit about Xinjiang, Urumqi and Islam in China. Having watched a BBC series many years ago made by travel writer Colin Thubron about travels in exotic, remote parts of the world which included his homeland, I have some knowledge of it and harbour a faint wish of visiting. One episode in the series was about the famed Silk Road whose towns and cities owed their existence and importance to that ancient trade route, notably Kashgar, Turfan and Urumqi, which today remain culturally distinct even as westward, forced migration of the Chinese during the cultural revolution has diluted its muslim, central asian character. What I did not know was that despite Tourson’s pride in his city, his people and their Islamic heritage, he could no longer remain there and will not likely see it again. In the climate of post September 11, the “war on terror” has given despots and authoritarian governments a more stretchable excuse to persecute their muslim citizens without having to look over their shoulder. It could even earn them brownie points from the warriors of the war on terror. The peace and security of the world is hardly the objective, much less “the liberation and development of the ego”. To be simply a devout muslim in these times in these places can be a dangerous thing. Getting caught in this very fine net cast by the “war on terror by terror” (coined by Fred Halliday, opendemocracy contributor and professor of international relations at the London School of Economics) sums up Tourson’s sudden change of fortune and exile from his beloved homeland, at least as I had understood it. One reads of stories on human right abuses, unlawful detentions, of families being separated, of wives rendered widows and children orphans, simply because they are muslims who take their faith a bit more seriously, making them a fair game in the war on terror, but seeing them in front of me as they try to piece together their broken lives again is very sad and unsettling.

The realization that Tourson was one such pawn in the game came to me when he requested another letter, this time for the Canadian Embassy. Until that point I did not know that he was a “political” exile, and that Malaysia was only a temporary place of refuge. I duly wrote the letter, stating that Maimate’s heart condition will not be a huge burden to the canadian tax payers. That concern on the part of the Canadian government is quite understandable as some children with complex cardiac problems require multiple, major operations.

In Urumqi, Tourson taught Islamic studies at the university. Coming from a religious family, the love of his faith and his desire to see the young people remain faithful to their religion and cultural traditions beyond the scope of his tightly restricted professional duties unfortunately drew the attention of the authorities in these security – sensitive times. For his religious activism beyond what is officially sanctioned by the state, he was imprisoned, part of which in solitary confinement, and was subjected to physical torture. I was told that the abdominal surgery that he underwent upon arriving in Malaysia was a consequence of this. Xinjiang is one of those restive regions where the Chinese authorities has been trying to quel ethnic separatist tendencies, at times using heavy handed and violent means. It might have been true that some of the more extreme groups may have been emboldened and inspired by the Al Qaeda ideology but the blank cheque for the use of coercive means is perhaps less aimed at these tiny extremist bands but more for those people like Tourson who wish to practice their faith more fully than what is officially sanctioned, thus becoming irritants to a state power with deep distrust for religions of whatever persuasion.

When approval was finally given by the Canadian authorities, he invited my family and our mutual friend for dinner at his humble dwelling. He was living in a low cost flat located off the busy Jalan Gombak. Typical of such dwellings, the flat was small, poorly ventilated and constructed from poor quality materials, and the block having the overall look of being poorly maintained. To top all that, it is in an area where a malay kampung has been reluctantly dragged into the 21st century – haphazard planning, uncollected rubbish and the incessant din of traffic squeezing thru roads under perpetual state of being repaired. He must be quite glad to escape all this. In Malaysia, he was barely making ends meet, teaching mandarin at private Islamic schools among other things. I imagine that he is very anxious to get his eldest boy into the educational mainstream, having been out of it for nearly 2 years. He has turned into a handsome and tall teenager, drawing the mischievous attention of the girls in the block who slipped their phone numbers and messages through the window panes even while we were having dinner. I imagine Tourson must be quite desperate to settle down somewhere, anywhere for the sake of his children. At the same time, he must have been heavy-hearted to leave for a place where the lure of its youth culture and erosion of his children’s Islamic identity and cultural pride will be very difficult to resist, if what he has seen among Kuala Lumpur’s youth is but a prelude. After all, instilling this cultural awareness and religious practice among the youths of his home city was his life’s mission that led him to exile in the first place.

It must be a great relief for him that all those uncertainties were finally coming to an end. He told us that they were going to be settled in Quebec and they have even found him a job in a halal butcher’s shop to help him start life anew in Canada. To prepare them for life in that French speaking part of Canada, the embassy sent a French teacher to their humble dwelling every week for a number of months already to teach the whole family the rudiments of communication in that language. I thought that was awesome, and some of those shameful incidents in the way we had treated the Vietnamese boat people and more recently, the Rohingya refugees flashed in my mind.

Anyway, upon learning this, I switched into French in the middle of our conversation and I could see Tourson’s face lighted up as he struggled to do the same.

At the end of the evening, as we were saying our good byes and wishing each other well, standing at the doorway with Maimate in his arms, I could see a tinge of sadness in Tourson’s eyes behind his wistful smile. Much as he looked forward to finally settle down in Canada for the sake of his children’s future, he is leaving behind friends and a society to which at least he has some religious bonds. Not that things in his homeland are going to improve anytime soon, but at least here the geographical distance is not so daunting. It will be a totally alien society that he and his family would have to now re-adapt. More difficult than surviving Canada’s long frozen winters would be keeping the right balance and having his children reconcile their Islamic faith with life in the post-modern west. That would be his real test.

The Right to Rule Ourselves
by Dr. Azzam Tamimi

For nearly a century, democracy has been denied to the Arabs by the west. There is little sign of that changing

Azzam Tamimi
Friday January 7, 2005
The Guardian

Arabic-speaking peoples from the Atlantic Ocean to the Persian Gulf suffer one common chronic ailment, namely oppressive despotism. Most of the states that stretch between the two water basins came into being less than a century ago; many were former colonies of one or other of the European powers. France and Britain in particular were instrumental after the first world war in shaping the entire map of what is today the Middle East and North Africa. These two ageing imperial powers were also responsible for creating and, until the US took over, maintaining systems of governance in these newly emerging entities – providing ruling elites with moral, material and military support. Little has changed since then, apart from the imperialist master and the fact that the advance in technological warfare has enabled this master, so far, to maintain the status quo with ever greater vigour.

Unlike other parts of the world, and in contrast even to the norm in some neighbouring states, the Arab peoples ruled by these regimes have had very little say, if any, in the manner in which their affairs are run. While some analysts find it convenient to blame Arab or Muslim culture for this lack of democracy, I would argue that it is only the stringent control imposed from outside that denies to the peoples of this region what has readily been recognised as a basic human right elsewhere in the world.

The Algerian example of 1991-92 has been carved in the memory of Arabs and Muslims across the globe. Democracy is not on offer to whoever wishes to have it, and the Arabs – many Muslims too, for that matter – do not qualify to join the privileged club. More than 10 years ago France was horrified at the prospect of an Islamic government in its closest former colony, Algeria. The rest of the western world agreed and coalesced to abort the democratic process before it delivered the reins of power to the FIS (Islamic Salvation Front).

The Iraqi people suffered all forms of repression at the hands of the (until 1990) pro-western Ba’athist regime of Saddam Hussein. But it was far from being a unique despotic regime in the region. As far as the democratic powers of the west were concerned, it did not matter what any of those despots did to their own people, so long as their regimes posed no threat to what were seen as western interests – namely oil and Israel – and still better so long as these regimes were loyal allies.

Preparations are now under way for elections in Iraq. But few in Iraq or the region believe these elections are aimed at producing a truly representative government. The US did not invade and occupy Iraq to allow a genuinely free election that risked producing a government that might tell the Americans to leave. The purpose of the Iraqi elections is simply to try to bestow some spurious legitimacy on a regime that is as unrepresentative and as oppressive as Saddam’s.

Does anyone really believe that former Ba’athist Ayad Allawi, America’s stooge in Baghdad, who gave the orders for the total destruction of Falluja, has the interests of Iraqis at heart? How different is this from what Syria’s President Hafez al-Assad did to the city of Hama in the early 80s or from what Saddam himself did to the Kurds or the Marsh Arabs?

This weekend the Palestinians are to be given the right to elect a new leader, they say, for a change. However, if peace-making is to be resumed and if Israel is to agree to talk to the Palestinians, they can only choose Mahmoud Abbas – hence the international pressure to eliminate the popular Marwan Barghouti from the race. The fact that many Palestinians do not see Abbas as representative of their aspirations or willing to defend their rights does not matter to Israel or its western allies. Nor is it of any concern to the US and the EU that Hamas has increasingly strong support among Palestinians (as highlighted by their recent performance in municipal elections); they still will not talk to its representatives. It is fully acceptable for Israelis to elect whomever they deem fit to lead them, even a war criminal like Ariel Sharon. No Arab people are allowed the same luxury.

Who would free Arabs be likely to choose to speak for them? President Mubarak of Egypt is reported to have said to some western guests “don’t talk to me about democracy; through democracy the Muslim Brotherhood will rule Egypt”. The Arabs have experienced all sorts of political and ideological groups over the past century. But there is little doubt that if free elections were held today in the Middle East, Islamic movements would reap the fruits. It is not of course that these Islamists are anything like the media usually portray them: fundamentalist, backward or even terrorists. It is simply that they are honest, serious and more interested in the public good than personal interests. Thus democracy is denied to the Arabs.

And who is the real victim in all of this? It is none other than democracy itself, whose name has been tarnished and whose values are increasingly associated in the minds of many Arabs and Muslims with military invasion to replace one corrupt despotic secular regime with another more willing to bend the knee to US and western diktat.

· Azzam Tamimi is spokesman of the Muslim Association of Britain and director of the Institute of Islamic Political Thought

Renungan Ramadhan by Dr. Hj. Omar bin Yaakob

A Preview of : The Power of Nighmares (BBC)
by Dr. Azzam Tamimi

Adam Curtis BBC three-part series “The Power of Nightmares, the Rise of the Politics of Fear” promises to be one of the best documentaries on the roots and interconnections of ‘Islamic extremism’ and ‘neo-conservatism’ ever shown on British television. “Baby it’s cold outside” is the title of the first part, which will be shown on BBC2 at 21:00 (9 pm) on Wednesday 20 October. The one-hour long programme begins with a brief introduction, which will then be repeated at the start of each of the other two one-hour long programmes, that sums up the theme of the entire series: Having miserably failed to provide their peoples with the dreams they always promised, rulers, viewers are told, have turned to promising the ruled protection from incredible nightmares that in reality simply do not exist.

The story begins with the arrival in the United States of America in the late forties of the 20th century by Sayyid Qutb, an Egyptian educationist who had come to learn the American approach to education. Part One tells the story of Qutb’s disillusionment with liberal individualist America. Then it parallels that with telling the story of Leo Strauss who was equally disturbed by the corruption of the liberal system. Upon his return to Egypt, Qutb endeavours to protect his home country from the encroaching liberalism of the West while Strauss in the USA initiates a philosophical school that advocates the employment of powerful myths, namely religion and the role of the missionary state, in order to combat the corrupting influences of liberalism. Sayyid Qutb ends up in prison where he is severely tortured and then executed. After his death, he becomes the inspiration for a new breed of Islamists that see themselves right while everybody else is wrong. In the U.S., Strauss becomes the mentor and spiritual father of a new generation of thinkers knows as Straussians. The Islamist and Straussian schools give rise to two strands of radicalism: one Islamic led by Ayman Al-Zawahiri who claimed to be the rightful heir to Qutb, and one neoconservative led by the likes of Pearl and Wolfowitz, who take pride in bringing about a materialization of Strauss’s philosophy and who climb up the ladder of power in the USA in order to change the world. While the contrasts between the two sides are what people tend to emphasize, the similarities are no less striking even if not much attention is give to them. The alleged followers of Qutb and the loyal disciples of Strauss both claim to be the vanguards whose mission is to fight evil and rescue the world from its claws.

The second part, which will be shown on BBC2 at the same time on Wednesday 27 October, is entitled “The phantom victory.” It is the story of the ‘Jihad’ in Afghanistan against the Soviet Union, a jihad that brought the two poles of radicalism together. What was seen by the Muslims as a noble cause and a religious duty in aid of their vanquished and oppressed brethren in Soviet-occupied Afghanistan was to the American establishment a golden opportunity to defeat and humiliate the rival superpower. The neoconservatives, who had joined the Reagan administration, pressed for unconditional and unlimited support for the jihad in Afghanistan. The documentary highlights the role played by Abdullah Azzam in mobilizing young Arab mujahidin while maintaining a moderate ideological stance. The role of the CIA in arming, training and funding the jihad is also documented. One of the people Azzam had influence on was Osama bin Laden who soon afterwards was attracted by a rival camp led by a late arrival in the front, the radical Zawahiri. The defeat of the Soviets and their retreat from Afghanistan was hailed by both the Islamists and the neoconservatives alike as a vindication of their respective ideologies though experts maintain that the communist superpower had been eroding and collapsing due to domestic factors that were only augmented by the war in Afghanistan. In the aftermath of the liberation of Afghanistan both Islamists and neoconservatives suffered setbacks. The coup against democracy in Algeria to strip FIS of its electoral win and the campaigns of persecution against the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt both led to a surge in the use of violence by the likes of GIA in Algeria and Al-Jihad in Egypt. However, the violence backfired on the groups that resorted to it. Having lost the war against the Egyptian regime and the sympathy and support of many former followers, Zawahiri forged an alliance with Bin Laden and decided to go after the United States itself instead of its regional lackeys. The neoconservatives, on the other hand, were disarmed when George Bush senior settled for liberating Kuwait and refused to go after Saddam. With his failure to be re-elected as president their crusade was turned against President Clinton who embodied the evil they sought to destroy through attacks on his personality and integrity.

The third and last programme, which will be shown at the same time a week later, is entitled “The Shadows in the Cave.” It tells the story of the revival of both groups of radicals. Although recruited by George W. Bush upon his assumption of his presidential responsibilities, the neoconservatives could only secure the President’s support for their agenda after the attacks on 11 September. This time it is not the Soviet Union that is seen as the embodiment of evil nor President Clinton but the Islamic radicals who waged war on America. The enormity of the attack provided the neoconservatives with the power to deliberately exaggerate and sometimes entirely invent reports or claims about the dangers Islamic groups posed to the United States. Increasingly, and more convincingly than ever before, the United States was being portrayed as the power of good fighting the power of evil, which inevitably meant Islam and the Muslims. The truth, as the documentary shows, is that much of what the world has been told by the neoconservatives is totally false especially about the myth that Saddam Hussein’s Iraq had weapons of mass destruction or the myth that Al-Qaeda was a global network of terrorist groups and ‘sleeping’ cells that could hit America and its allies at any time or the myth that Saddam and Al-Qaeda were in anyway linked. While the neoconservatives trumpeted the Islamic threat to justify the ‘war on terror’ radical Islamists found this to be self-serving since it brought them to the fore and put them under the spotlight. Even the so-called ‘dirty bomb’ was the figment of the imaginations of both radical trends. The politics of fear, or the claim that the ruling elite in Washington and London were protecting the masses from an imminent attack that was no more than a myth, was the best justification for the drive by the neoconservatives to implement their plan to change the world and re-formulate it according to their own ideology.

This three-part documentary is a must for anyone that wishes to understand better both phenomena of ‘Islamic radicalism’ and ‘neo-conservative radicalism’ and is the best piece of TV documentary ever prepared on the subject.