Eight years since the 9/11 attack on America the world is still reeling with the aftershock which came in the form of a state of perpetual war in Iraq, Afghanistan, splinters of Al Qaeda cells in Indonesia, Pakistan, Egypt, Boko Haram in Nigeria, a legal limbo in Guantanamo Bay Prison, Human right abuses in Abu Graib, extra ordinary rendition, gagging orders in guise of anti terrorist laws and a world with a dwindling radius of trust between the two major faiths. These litanies of woes and aberrations have become the legacy of the post 9/11 world.
For harbingers of doom like Mohammed Atta and his cohorts to have left a legacy which has claimed hundreds of thousand lives and a conflict wrenching the world apart is a monumental achievement. They have succeeded to leave us with anarchy beyond the wildest imagination of their demented minds. We kept the flame of his hate alive when we fed it with our anger and our silence. How come Atta’s agenda of Anarchy is being pursued long after he is gone? Have we become agents of Mohammed Atta by our action or inaction such that almost a decade since 9/11 the death and anarchy unleashed on that date still continues unpunctuated?
It has been argued by Patrick Buchanan in his book; “Where the Right went wrong”, that terrorists are like Picador and Matador in bull fighting sport. They prick the bull to enrage it then they snap the red cape. The enraged bull charge towards the cape until it is exhausted. The weaker matador drives the sword through the soft tissues of the bull and kills it. Mohammed Atta was like a matador enraging America and the world. The response in places like Afghanistan and Iraq is exhausting America physically, emotionally and financially. The exhaustion has been globalised thus lending credence to an article I wrote in response to the 9/11 attack titled Global Pain. The pain has been globalised; it now bites into the heart of world economies. The reprisals in places like Guantanamo Bay, Abu Ghraib Prisons and actions like extra ordinary rendition and torture has shaded America’s Image of champions of human freedom in dark hues. This has led to ultimate scrutiny of the gift horse of freedom and democracy they gave to the world. Now people who look up to America for guidance are questioning America’s moral authority to speak against human right abuses. It seems the terrorist have created a world in their own image. Now when you talk of state sponsored torture water budding in Guantanamo bay bestride the acres of our mind dwarfing the image of America we grew to know when we were taught concepts of Freedom and Justice and the due process. The outsourcing of torture through the complex process euphemistically called extra ordinary rendition with the complacence of countries like UK gave weapon to the little Hitlers of Africa and Burma etc. to bash the civic rights of their subjects to oblivion.
The anti terrorist law in the home of the Magna Carter and application of the law so far is a testimony to the damage the 9/11 attack has done to the psyche of the world. It is common these days in the West, to perceive people of different faith or race as little Atta’s strapped with Bombs to be strip searched in ports of entries. I believe Atta and his men could not have had the power to take away our hard earned civic rights with a million bombs but the reprisal laws are doing Atta’s bidding. With Iraqi and Syrian troops Alpha male posturing in their borders, the legacy of 9/11 is about to turn to another gruesome chapter.
What has Islam got to do with all this plot ridden tragedy? I am not an Islamic scholar I just happened to be born in a Muslim home run as a Qur’anic School and by an Imam for a father. I witnessed the Quran read an interpreted many times infarct it is the first written text I encountered. I saw my father practise religion; pray, preach and converted people to Islam through persuasion. The closest friend to my father then was the Pastor of our small town who shared the same surname. The brotherly love between them extends to the relationship between the followers of the faith. In my father’s house the senior students where called Talibes translated to mean seekers of knowledge, a derivative of Taliban. The peace and tranquillity which characterised their lives is in sharp contrast to the new breed of Talibans in Afghanistan.
The etymology of the word seems to have undergone a radical alteration since 9/11. You cannot imagine my dilemma when I try to boast of my heritage to my American born daughter to lure her to my religion. “my father was a great scholar, he was the Imam of our town, you know the man who leads the prayer and teach people about good and bad” I boasted and she listened attentively until I said he had a lot of Talibes – then she queried “like Taliban?”, I replied “something like that” not aware that my five year old girl is luring me into a trap “so grandpa was Osama bin Laden” I am yet to recover from that shock though I managed to mumble a reply “Your grandpa is a zillion miles away from being an Osama Bin Laden”.
Coming from a background of religious tolerance where converting people to Islam is done through persuasion, I cannot begin to imagine who the likes of Mohammed Atta, Taliban, Boko Haram and Osama Bin Laden are claiming to represent. Are they talking about the same God I encountered in my father’s home? Are they talking about a religion with all its basic tenets of worship, example fasting and praying premised on inner conviction and not force? Are they fighting for a God who will be here forever after they are gone? If they are the self proclaimed army of God and they are mortal and God is immortal who do they assume will fight for God after they are gone? Did the Quran not condemn the killing of any life including your own? On whose authority are these wars being fought? Is it possible that a political struggle of people for self determination has been cloaked with religious apparel to make it look like a Jihad? Are they drawing a parallel between their warped battles to the great Jihads of the prophet? Are some Muslims shying away from this debate for fear of being labelled as non Muslim? Is this the leading image we want for our religion?
Granted there are people like Salman Rushdie and the Danish Cartoonist etc who are trying to expose the religion to ridicule, but is declaring a Fatwa the only plausible solution? In Britain blasphemy as it relates to the Christian faith started as a Capital offence and later downgraded to a statutory and common law offence. In this legal arrangement to protect the Christian faith against the Rushdies of the world, Islam is left out in the cold. Is it possible for the Muslim communities in Britain to lobby for extension of the scope of the law, so as to include other faiths? Is it possible to replicate the same in other countries? Since tolerance is the greatest of all human virtue can we get world organizations to be involved in this so as to limit abuse of other people’s faith? With the democratisation of freedom of information works in the genre of Satanic Verses are bound to be written – what strategy apart from throwing stones have we put in place to guide against that? What is happening within the ummah since 9/11 seems to be posing a greater threat to the faith more than external factors. Nothing tears a people apart like a crises of identity from within. The deafening silence from Islamic leaders on the activities of the Al-Qaeda and the Boko Harams of this world is drowning the solitary voices of sanity.
Politics and Islam are like Siamese twins. Islam moralizes politics until Yazid, the son of Mawiyyah came along and factored the immoral in the politics of Islam by killing Hussein the grandson of the prophet (SAW) for the succession to the caliphate. This event is in the centre of the divide between the Shia and Sunni. Could it be that the spirit of Yazid still lives on in the form of this rather virulent portrayal of religion manifested by Osama Bin Laden? Are we going to let them win? Or are we ready to challenge them in a Jihad of ideas to reclaim our religion from their strangle hold? Are we so sure that the actions of Osama bin laden are representative of what our religion stands for? Are we sure this Guys throwing acid on the faces of school girls to stop them from getting education represent us? When God said in the Holy hadith; “know me first before you worship me”, was that declaration predicated on gender? Are these children of “Swat valley” who stop male Gynecologists from touching their wives yet they don’t allow women to become doctors representing our faith? The fact that prophet consulted his wife Khadija when the Quran was revealed to him in the mountain is indicative of the status of women in Islam. Where did the Taliban derive the authority to treat women in such a degrading manner? When are we going to make a distinction between a sin against God and a crime? Aren’t they usurping God’s role by punishing people for both sins and crimes?
Why are Muslims allowing the image of the religion projected by the Boko Harams of this world to dominate the debate? The soviet war in Afghanistan, the mujahidin and the CIA contributed immensely in the creation of Osama Bin Laden why are we claiming him? If we remove the first veil from the face of the Al Qaeda movement what will be revealed is a political struggle which has its root in the politics of Saudi Arabia and their kings. About the suicide bombing you only have to check the immediate backyard of history to see the Japanese kamikaze to know that it is not a religious issue.
The issues are too complex for religious scholars to keep silent in the name of solidarity that will solidify the wrong image of our religion forever thus making it easy for the religion to be, branded by enemies of Islam. Accepted we have issues with extremist in the western world but if this Al-Qaeda thing is not placed in proper perspective through open dialogue it will impact the religion in a manner no western extremist or a million Aba Jahalis can.
This year’s anniversary of 9/11 which happens to fall in the holy month of Ramadan should be a year of reflection and time for taking stock. The mantra of the reflection in this holy month of Ramadan for both the Muslims and followers of other faiths could be found in the answer to these questions; aren’t we perpetuating the legacy of anarchy prime moved by Atta in 9/11 by our action and/or inaction? Aren’t we making a world in the image of the terrorist? Does the post 9/11 world look like the world we envisage for our children or a prototype of what Mohammed Atta and his accomplices will want us to live in?
I think we must deconstruct the post 9/11 world with a view to starting a great dialogue between faiths so as to create a world in our own image. It is simple, we only need to shift the rubbles of our anger and our idiosyncrasies to retrieve the humanity within us and use it to reconstruct a new world predicated on respect for each other – Yes we can. May the souls of those who were killed on that day rest in perfect peace yet must we drench their memories in seas of blood?
By Oumar Farouk Sesay
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