It is a tragic mistake to believe that al-Qaeda refers to a solid and uniform group whose very existence can be undone by the death of one man. As the execution of the former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein proved, the demise of a criminal does not necessarily remove the crime.
In fact, Iraqis believe that their lot is worse now than when Saddam’s Baath party had been in power.
The mistaken belief about al-Qaeda is simple as it is attractive, but stems from a very real misunderstanding of what the term al-Qaeda had meant to Muslim militants in the past and what it means in the present. The word itself is constituted by three Arabic characters: Qaf, which is pronounced with a guttural emphasis on the K; Ayn, which is pronounced with a heavy dip in the AY; and Dal, which is pronounced with a thickening of the DA, usually achieved by filling up a cheek with air and releasing it when DAL is uttered. Al-Qaeda literally means ‘the base’, and may refer to three things:
Abdullah Azzam, the chief ideologue of the non-Afghans (for a discussion on this predominantly Arab contingent, see Taliban: Militant Islam, Oil, & the Fundamentalism in Central Asia) who took part in the ‘holy war’ against Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, wrote:
Every principle needs a vanguard to carry it forward and, while focusing its way into society, puts up with heavy tasks and enormous sacrifices. There is no ideology, neither earthly nor heavenly, that does not require such a vanguard that gives everything it possesses in order to achieve victory for this ideology. It carries the flag all along the sheer, endless and difficult path until it reaches its destination in the reality of life, since Allah has destined that it should make it and manifests itself. This vanguard constitutes the strong foundation (Al-Qaeda al-Sulbah) for the expected society.
Azzam’s use of the phrase al-Qaeda al-Sulbah led many commentators to
believe that the group, al-Qaeda, had already existed during the early days of
the Afghan jihad, but this is untrue. In writings and speeches, Azzam resorted to a very romanticized image of a small ‘vanguard’ fighting against the forces of evil. The vanguard was a term popularized by Syed Qutb, a leading intellectual of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood who was later executed by his own government. Thus, by Al-Qaeda al-Sulbah, Azzam was really referring to a didactic mode of activism, based on clear and very specific principles. He was, in short, discussing a tactic.
Al-Qaeda continues to be an elusive entity whose cohesive structure and tentacle
reach is highly exaggerated. In the wake of 9-11, regimes like Russia, China, Uzbekistan and to a limited extent, Israel, have benefited from reconciling their various border wars with the US’ war on terrorism. Often, the rebels would even be characterized as al-Qaeda operatives. This ensured that international criticism over war tactics and social policy is as limited as it is selective. Thus, civilian casualties imposed by state actors are called “collateral damage”, and those imposed by non-state actors are called “terrorism”.
Besides the eclectic value judgments that come to play when the word ‘terrorism’ is thrown about, there is a clear and present danger in overemphasizing the threat of al-Qaeda. Killing Usama bin Laden will not destroy al-Qaeda, per se, because the plethora of extremist movements that currently riddle the global arena are linked not by a physical network, but by a common maxim and world-view.
A useful glimpse into this world-view can be derived from an article written by
Ayman al-Zawahiri, entitled “Knights Under the Banner of the Prophet”. In it, al-Zawahiri mentions the tools through which so-called Western imperialism is deployed [1]; they include:
It is interesting that all of al-Zawahiri’s points take political and economic dimensions as their reference points.
On past occasions, US President George Bush had been fond of
characterizing Muslim extremists as people “who hate our freedoms”. This is a
mistake, because the rhetoric of extremist leaders like the Saudi-born Usama bin Laden and the Egyptian-born Ayman al-Zawahiri are inherently rooted in the notion of
liberating Muslim countries from very real, very unforgiving dictatorships. The US President panders to a self-assured Western audience without calculating how condescending, foolish and downright hypocritical his speeches sound in the Orient.
Some western commentators also make an unforgivable lapse when they call
al-Qaeda “a gang of evildoers” because the phrase sets up a false goal. Destroy gang, destroy problem. The war on terrorism is a ridiculous anachronism because terrorism is not an object, it is a tactic. Success in overcoming terrorism through policies that pursue individuals, contain money and human trafficking, widen police arrest powers and conduct pre-emptive action has been significant, but only in the short-term. It does nothing, for example, to deter new recruits from adopting the extremist ideology. To take a leaf from history, where was Zionism before European anti-Semitism eventually convinced almost all Jews that Israel was a reality that had to be forced with one’s hands instead of simply waiting for the anticipated Messiah to lead them there? If anything, Zionism’s evolution should serve as a warning to all myopic governments. Social and political pressure coming from the outside can and do contribute to increasing the relevance and currency of ideological movements, no matter how extremist they are.
So, al-Qaeda is but a tiny player in a market where the real commodity is that of ideas, not personalities or groups. Hunting down and eventually killing one man, Usama bin Laden, will not purge the world of extremism. People who continue to believe that are on their way to bitter disappointment. Worse, once these same optimists realize that the hopes they have been entertaining are false, they will then turn on the Muslim community at large. After all, if Usama’s death does not remove terrorism, then surely Islam’s death will. Signs of this trend are already abundant in parts of Europe, where radical political groups like the
Danish
People’s Party openly declare that, “To a great extent, we are anti-Muslim.”
The way forward is to visibly engage the extremists at a social, political and theological level. Yes, the tangible manifestations of extremism need to be curtailed. Men and women clearly out to do harm must be pursued to the fullest extent of the law. Here, both Muslim and non-Muslim nations have sometimes made blunt decisions on stemming the movement of people and money to stop extremism in its tracks. But initiatives are getting better-informed. Governments, for the most part, know enough not to turn the state’s full attention on the entire Muslim community, but to a small section of it who subscribe to clear and well-defined trends (see my previous article,
The Great Commission of Mussulman).
More than this, however, has to be done, and I suggest some signposts that ought to be followed, not least because they make common sense. Stop business interests from influencing international relations. Engage dictatorships, even if they govern strategically-sensitive and oil-rich countries, and persuade them to reform. Adopt a wide-ranging and human-centered approach to stopping disease. Adopt policies that orientate toward real global threats, like environmental catastrophes triggered by pollution and deforestation.
And most important of all, stop the hypocrisy! The so-called tactic and logic of terrorism is deployed by both Muslims and non-Muslims, and should be condemned for what it is, not who commits it.
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Very Erudite.
~ Vinod