http://www.dawn.com/2001/10/13/op.htm
Opinion
Extremism, terrorism and fundamentalism
By Anwar Syed
The late General Ziaul Haq likened Pakistani secularists to
"snakes in the grass" that must be eliminated. Barry Goldwater, a
celebrated American conservative and once a Republican candidate
for president, held that extremism in defence of liberty was a
great idea. President Ronald Reagan, justifying his
administration's aid to the Contras' violence against a leftist
government in Nicaragua, maintained that one man's terrorist was
another man's freedom fighter.
We know also that yesterday's terrorists can be today's statesmen.
Not all terrorists are fundamentalists, but given the need and the
opportunity, fundamentalists and extremists are likely to resort
to terrorism if they think it will advance their goals.
In a presentation made some three years ago (reproduced in Dawn on
October 5), a friend of mine, the late Professor Eqbal Ahmed,
pointed out that those who denounced terrorism failed to define
it. He suggested that the dictionary meaning of the term (violence
intended to inspire intense fear among a targeted group or people
at large) might be taken as adequate, since it remained the same
regardless of who the perpetrator of the act had been. Thus, state
terrorism and state-sponsored terrorism were substantively no
different from that perpetrated by non-state actors.
This is well taken. But one may go a step further and say that
while acts of violence committed against the coercive capabilities
of a state are acts of war, those directed against non-combatant
civilians may be called acts of terror. While bombing an enemy's
military personnel or establishments is war, bombing a bus
carrying children to school or a bazaar where housewives are
shopping is terrorism. In this context, the element of intention
is critical. Civilians get killed in conventional war also, but
normally it is not the combatants' intention to kill them. On the
other hand, killing them is central to the terrorist's intention.
Eqbal Ahmed was writing about international terrorism. My concerns
today relate to fundamentalism and terrorism in our own midst.
Terrorism was not born yesterday. In our own part of the world,
the first tightly disciplined and centrally directed terrorist
organization, an extremist faction of the Ismaili sect, initially
founded by Hasan bin Sabah and headquartered in Almut in northern
Iran, operated for more than a hundred years during the eleventh
and twelfth centuries. Its members, known as the "hashasheen"
("Assassins" in the West) killed many political and cultural
notables - including Nizam al-Mulk, the famous vazir of the
Seljuks in 1092 - in the hope of advancing an Ismaili revolution.
Not unlike the suicide bombers of today, they were ready and
willing to kill themselves upon completing their mission if escape
appeared to be unlikely. I am not aware of another similar
organization until our own time, but kings, invaders, and warlords
have resorted to terrorism often enough.
Let us now turn to fundamentalism. Some of us are willing to
concede that our notions of good and evil are partial in coverage;
bound by time and place, they admit to a degree of tentativeness,
and they are therefore open to reconsideration and revision.
Others insist that their inherited notions of the good, preserved
in their original and pure version, unblemished by indigenous and
temporal influences, are eternally valid and cover all of human
conduct, both private and social. Persons in this second group may
be called fundamentalists. More often than not, and when they have
the opportunity, they attempt to impose their version of the good
upon others whom they regard as misguided.
The fundamentalist position is liable to produce conflict in
Muslim polities, because many Muslims do not want an external
agency, such as the state, to intrude upon their personal
relationship with God and their prospect of attaining bliss in the
Hereafter. Nor do they want the state to enforce all of the Sharia
to regulate their social interaction. They find some of it to be
insufficient or inapplicable for meeting the challenges of our
time. Persons of this persuasion may, for facility of reference,
be called liberals.
The Islamic fundamentalist dismisses the liberal position as
heresy or as something approaching apostasy. Let us consider this
matter a little further. Every law is meant to achieve an end,
which may be the establishment of a desirable course of action, or
it may be the eradication of something deemed to be undesirable.
The fundamentalist and liberal Muslims could come together if they
were to agree that while the ends of the Islamic law were eternal,
the means of attaining them might vary with changes in the state
of human knowledge, technology, and other relevant conditions.
Thus, while theft and adultery are forever wrong, those guilty of
them might receive penalties, or corrective treatment, different
from that prescribed by the Sharia. But the fundamentalist will
reject this approach to the law, because he considers all words of
the Sharia, used to specify both ends and means, equally
sacrosanct and eternally binding. He also rejects the proposition
that meanings of words may change with time.
The fundamentalist regards the liberal as someone who brings evil
into society through the backdoor of sophistry. According to him,
what is half true is not true, what is half good is not good; what
is not true is false, what is not good is evil. He views his
contest with the liberal as one between good and evil. There is
nothing then to discuss; the issue between them is not amenable to
negotiation or compromise. If you do not accept the
fundamentalist's position, you are against him, and he must then
treat you as an enemy. Evil cannot be defeated without destroying
its agents. The liberal must be put out of commission, by force if
necessary. That would be an act of service to God.
Fundamentalism and extremism tend to characterize all
comprehensive ideologies that seek to regulate human conduct in
all of its aspects-political, economic, social, and even personal.
Marxism-Leninism is also such an ideology. Stalin's regime in
Russia and that of Mao in China killed millions of persons,
including many within their own ranks, who were thought to be in
the way of their ideology's final victory. Liberation movements,
fighting to overthrow their oppressor's yoke, are also capable of
acting in this fashion.
Fundamentalism and tolerance of the dissident do not go together.
When fundamentalists and/or extremists have seized power, they
will kill opponents without much regard to the niceties of the due
process of law, and thus terrorize others into silent compliance.
This is state-sponsored terrorism. When they are out of power but
want it, they will use violence against government establishments
and personnel and the public at large to show that those who do
have power are not worthy of keeping it, for they can protect
neither the public nor even themselves.
Looking at Pakistan, we see that the Islamic parties partake of a
fundamentalist outlook, but until the advent of Ziaul Haq they
were, for the most part, content with the modest influence they
were able to exert on public policy. I think it is accurate to say
also that none of them hoped, much less expected, to win control
of government. But since then, and especially since the Taliban's
rise to rulership in Afghanistan, they have come to believe that
power may be within their reach, if not by winning elections, then
by resorting to violence. Fundamentalist terrorism in pursuit of
ruling authority and power may not be far from erupting in
Pakistan.
A variety of fundamentalist terrorism has been going on in the
form of a Sunni-Shia conflict for quite a few years. Until
recently, tension between these two groups lurked at a fairly low
level. In my view, it has become intense because of a desire among
the leaders of each group to fortify their own position, and clear
the ground of opponents as much as possible, in anticipation that
power will fall to the ulema. Some of this violence may also be
attributed to the simple fanatic hatred that some individuals in
each group entertain for the other.
In discussions of terrorism many commentators advise that its
causes should be addressed. Insofar as it arises from intolerance
of the dissident, ingrained in our culture, proneness to violence
will not disappear until this frame of mind changes. Second, those
in charge of affairs in Pakistan should make it clear by word and
deed that the ulema are not about to attain power, and that there
is then no need for them to fight one another in anticipation of
that unlikely development. Third, the perpetrators of "hate
crimes" should be awarded exemplary punishment to deter others
with a similar inclination.
In Sunni-Shia conflict there is another "cause" to be considered.
It is one particular Shia practice, more than any other, which
causes the Sunnis grief and anger, that is denigrating the first
three pious caliphs. If I remember correctly, Ayatollah Khomeini
called upon his followers in Iran to stop this practice in order
to promote Muslim unity. The Shia ulema in Pakistan might consider
doing the same. The Sunnis, on their part, might do well to
reconsider the necessity for having an organization such as the
Sipah-e-Sahaba. All of the Sahaba, regardless of their views on
the subject of succession to rule, have been gone for fourteen
hundred years. Their preferences in the matter have no practical
consequence in our day and age. So why go to war against
fellow-Muslims on the pretext of defending their honour. Their
honour needs no defending.