Christians Flee Sinai As 'Islamic State' Insurgency Emerges

Since the end of January at least seven people have been attacked and killed in the provincial capital, El Arish. Five were shot, one was beheaded, and one burnt to death.

Other Christians in the area say they have received threats by mobile phone and "death lists" have been circulated online. A video issued last week by a local IS affiliate vowed to step up attacks, describing the Christians as "infidels" empowering the West against Muslims.

The authorities have been battling against jihadists in northern Sinai for several years but with limited success. A statement from President Sisi's office on Thursday said he has now given orders to "completely eradicate" them.

Although Sinai is a special case and the killings there have been particularly terrifying for Christian residents, sectarian conflict elsewhere in Egypt is not uncommon. Last December the bombing of a Coptic cathedral in Cairo left 25 dead. Country-wide, the Eshhad website has documented almost 500 incidents of various kinds since mid-2012.

Besides violence against people they include attacks on homes and churches.

The automatic response of the authorities to such attacks is to try to restore calm as quickly as possible, but that can only be a short-term fix. Successive Egyptian governments have been reluctant to confront the underlying problem of religious discrimination. That is not very surprising because the state itself institutionalises discrimination to some extent – which in turn tends to legitimise discriminatory actions by individuals.

Commenting on the the cathedral bombing in December, Timothy Kaldas, a visiting professor at Nile University in Cairo, wrote:

"While the vast majority of Egyptians rightfully condemns the murder of 25 worshippers at Sunday mass, other beliefs are pervasive, beliefs that perpetuate sectarianism throughout society and have been behind a majority of the violent sectarian attacks throughout the country. A majority of the country does not even accept that Christian citizens should have the right to build houses of worship as easily as Muslims can build mosques … 

"The church building law passed in September maintains a set of rules and regulations for any sort of renovation and construction of a Christian house of worship, rules that mosques do not have to comply with. The different standards – and in the case of Christians, the more restrictive standards – drive structural and state-sanctioned inequality …

"When the state sets sectarianism as its example, it’s hardly surprising that society follows suit. Indeed, sectarian laws surrounding church building have been used as a pretext by vigilantes in rural areas to justify their attacks on Christian places of worship, whether they are private homes used to host prayers or churches seeking to renovate or repair their premises. Attackers often cite the restrictions on church building when defending their actions. The perpetrators frequently escape criminal prosecution, through either the use of reconciliation councils or through overall impunity."

Reconciliation councils – often used as part of the "calming" process after an incident – tend to favour the Muslim majority, often perpetuate injustices rather than resolving them and sometimes make rulings that are contrary to Egyptian law. A report by the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights in 2015 described them as "a major factor contributing to the recurrence of sectarian attacks".

Coupled with that are perceptions that the authorities do too little to protect Christians under threat and/or fail to take robust action against attackers. The most recent report on religious freedom in Egypt the US State Department noted:

"The government frequently failed to prevent, investigate, or prosecute crimes targeting members of religious minority groups, which fostered a climate of impunity, according to a prominent local rights organisation. The government often failed to protect Christians targeted by kidnappings and extortion according to sources in the Christian community, and there were reports that security and police officials sometimes failed to respond to these crimes, especially in Upper Egypt."

There are also less conspicuous forms of discrimination. Christians in Egypt are thought to account for about 10% of the population but are clearly under-represented in some key areas. The State Department 's report said:

"The government discriminated against religious minorities in public sector hiring and staff appointments to public universities, according to academic sources. They also stated no Christians served as presidents of the country’s 17 public universities and few Christians occupied dean or vice dean positions in the public university system. 

"Only Muslims could study at Al-Azhar University, a publicly funded institution. Additionally, the government barred non-Muslims from employment in public university training programs for Arabic language teachers because the curriculum involves study of the Quran.

"The total number of members of parliament was 596, of whom 568 were elected, including 120 chosen through coalition or party lists, and 28 were appointed by President Sisi. Thirty-six Christians were elected to parliament, and two were appointed."

Sectarianism in Egypt is unlikely to decline unless the government takes a clear lead in combating discrimination but that is probably too much to expect so long as the government remains complicit.

This story was first published on al-Bab.
 

The post Egyptian Christians flee Sinai, following a series of alleged murders by ISIS appeared first on SabrangIndia.

Photo from ISIS taken in Ninive area, Iraq, in 2015 and published by the group on their web pages. Picture by Balkis Press ABACA/PA Images. 

The world is currently facing a vicious, new form of international terrorism. The Islamic State (IS) has expressed its plans to attack Europe while recruiting a growing number of foreign fighters. In fact, a significant number of EU citizens are already engaged with IS both in Syria and in the EU. The attacks on Paris underline the scale and complexity of the current threat in Europe. Such brutal acts by religiously motived groups in western countries cause global outrage. People feel that their values and sovereignty are attacked. But how can this rise in religiously motivated violence be explained?

The literal meaning of the word ‘terror’ indicates the aim to change a political situation by spreading fear rather than causing material damage to the target. Looking at conventional warfare, material losses are the main goal, spreading fear is just the byproduct of these actions. ‘Terror’ on the other hand creates more fear than it causes material loss for the enemy. Spreading fear is therefore the whole story for terrorist groups and shows the disproportion of strength between the terrorists and their target, and the fear they, therefore, want to inspire.

Are terrorist attacks a new modern phenomenon?

In the 21st century there is visibly an increase in religiously motivated terror attacks. Many of the radical groups identify themselves with radical Islam, but how did violence and religion evolve to this point? Al-Qaeda, Boko Haram and ISIS, just to mention the most popular ones are causing fear and anxiety throughout the world. But are terrorist attacks a new modern phenomenon? Why are so many attacks religiously motivated?

The role of religion in politics has always been a difficult one. With the Peace of Westphalia being established in 1648, a new international system was introduced. Before that, religion was the main source of conflict and competition between states or kingdoms. The Westphalian order banished religion more and more from the political sphere, which was exacerbated by the processes of modernization and secularization, leading to the view that religion would soon disappear completely from politics and even from the lives of people.

One can say that without the banishment of religion, the modern state and the development of the present-day international system would not have been possible [1]. The state took the marginalization of religion and the loyalty of the population to God and transferred it to the State. The rising confidence in national institutions make the belief in a supernatural power obsolete.  

The core features of the modern state are a reliable monetary system, a stable legal system and an apparatus, that can guarantee internal security [2]. As it is well known, the concept of the modern state has not emerged uniformly around the globe. The process of the modern state has a long history and has led to the disarmament of people and the centralization of executive power as well as the use of violence.[3]  This reorganization of public violence and the state’s monopoly on violence is the central instrument to ensure everyday safety of citizens from random acts of force.

Terror attacks undermine this monopoly and create fear among the population. According to Zygmund Bauman, in modernity we build a moral distance. Due to the huge bureaucratic apparatus and its monopoly on violence, the modern state can use violence without its people really knowing. Hannah Arendt argues in a similar way in ‘Eichmann in Jerusalem’, where she describes that evil is not personified in one person, instead crimes can be committed by anyone, who follows orders and stops reflecting on their own actions.

The views of radical Islamist groups are as much shaped by western ideology as by their religious beliefs.

To use violence on a big scale you need a high degree of rationalization and process optimization. Waging war in modernity is all about logistics. The healthy soldier is the basis for the logistics of the military. The history to transform networks is fundamental to the history of warfare. Nazi Germany committed the worst acts of violence in history. The aim was to breed a new type of human being. The processes used there were highly modern. The gas chambers were part of modernity. Even though some people believe that being modern has only a positive connotation, in fact, there are many ways of being modern and some of them are monstrous.[4]

Like other modern political ideologies such as communism and Nazism, radical Islam is modern. The views of radical Islamist groups are as much shaped by western ideology as by their religious beliefs. The positivist view of modernity explains that when societies fail to inherit the findings of science, they become chaotic and divided. The progress of a society is based on its progress in science. As knowledge advances, so does humanity. Hence, every society has to go from a religious worldview to a metaphysical outlook, and from that to a scientific or positivistic world view.[5] At the end of this process the moral and political conflicts of the past will disappear.[6]

Unfortunately, reality is a little different, modern war is a by-product of the modern state. In history, wars were waged in the battlefield. The main goal was to raise mass armies, but not to target the civilian population. 9/11 has produced a new kind of warfare. These new conflicts arise from the interaction of old religious and ethnic divisions and the increased competition for natural resources and are waged by very unconventional means. This situation leads to a moral problem, due to the verticality here, it becomes challenging to distinguish civilians from combatants.

Countries in the Middle East inherited the modern state from Europe, but their societies weren’t adequately prepared for that change. The reason violence is still so dominant in those societies, has nothing to do with human beings having an irrepressible instinct for aggression, but the simple fact that no substitute for this arbiter in international affairs has appeared in the political scene.[7] Political-religious crises occur especially where old segregation patterns erode without being replaced by effective new ones. This is especially true when the balance of power between different groups shifts or new actors and elites emerge, who no longer respect the current power distribution.  One of the main examples of such an erosion of established religious conflict is the emergence of radical fundamentalist movements in the 20th and 21st centuries.[8]

Hannah Arendt argues that the proliferation of techniques and machines menaces the existence of whole nations. According to her, violence can destroy power but not create it. The fact is that the decrease of power will increase violence. Governments and organizations, fearing their power is slipping away, won’t resist the temptation to use violence in trying to restore their power.[9]

The less the population is used to political violence in a particular state, the greater the public shock after an act of terrorism.

However, the terrorists hope that even though they can barely dent the enemy’s material the so inspired fear and chaos will cause the enemy, to misuse its strength.[10]  To achieve their aim, they present the modern state with an impossible challenge. The less the population is used to political violence in a particular state, the greater the public shock after an act of terrorism. Killing 130 people in Paris draws far more attention than killing thousands in Nigeria or Iraq. Yuval Noah Harari calls this the paradox of the modern state: the very success of modern states in preventing political violence makes them particularly vulnerable to terrorism.[11]

The power of the state is defined by its monopoly of the legitimate use of force.[12] In other words, state action and policy always relies upon the deployment of police, military, the prison system and so on. Without the legitimate ability to deploy violence, modern states cannot function.[13] 

Violence can be separated into objective and subjective violence. Subjective violence can be seen in the crimes that dictators and authoritarian regimes commit. You can easily locate the evil, the subject, which caused the violence. Objective violence is more difficult to locate. It is more difficult to identify the guilty subject in these crimes, e.g. in the million who died as a result of globalization.[14] 

The use of terror by Islamist organizations has very little to do with traditional Islam, but is more related to asymmetric warfare used by modern revolutionary movements

For many scholars, radical Islam is a western construction. During the Cold War, religious movements in the Middle East were funded, armed and used as buffers against the Soviets.[15]  Even though Islamists define themselves as anti- modern, radical Islam is evidently a by-product of the late modern globalization. You can see that in Al- Qaeda’s use of technology, offshore financial institutions and in ISIS´s use of the internet.

The use of terror by Islamist organizations has very little to do with traditional Islam, but is more related to asymmetric warfare used by modern revolutionary movements.[16] Therefore, suicide bombing has nothing to do with anything religous, but falls into strategic terrorism, justified by religious ideology.[17]  Cheap and highly effective, suicide bombing is the technique of choice for groups confronting overwhelming conventional military force.[18]

Those who join violent extremist groups rarely have formal training in the religion they are trying to defend. Often they don’t even have a deep understanding of the religion and their knowledge is shaped mostly by online sources or discussions with other extremists.

Reports say that those drawn to religious violence are usually raised in secular families and households.[19] However, many foreign fighters were diagnosed with mental problems before joining ISIS. An aggravating factor is that most of the recruits have had criminal records before joining the organization, starting from petty crimes to more serious ones. 

Terrorist cells ready to perpetrate a terrorist attack are mostly domestic and locally based in European countries. ISIS’s training of recruits consists of imported warfare techniques in the use of weapons, explosives and specific killing techniques.

With the shift of conventional warfare to asymmetric warfare the techniques and technology that terrorists use, are very modern and contemporary. The inability of the west to establish functional democracies in regions like the Middle East, enabled radical religious groups to emerge. With the further development of globalization these ideas were easy to be spread and members easy to mobilize. Even though Islamists define themselves as anti- modern, the way they wage war is evidently a by-product of the late modern globalization.

(Feodora Hamza studied Islamic Studies in Freiburg, Germany and finished her Masters in Religion and Conflict at Lancaster University, United Kingdom. She is living in the Hague).

This article was first published on openDemocracy.
 

[1] Thomas, Scott M.: Taking religious and cultural pluralism seriously – The global resurgence of religion and the transformation of international society in International Relations Theory and Religion, Palgrave MacMillian, New York 2003 S.25
[2] Ibid.
[3] Kössler, Reinhart: The Modern Nation State and Regimes of Violence: Reflections on the Current Situation, http://www.ritsumei.ac.jp/acd/cg/ir/college/bulletin/e-vol.2/kossler.pdf, Date: 21.02.2017, p.3
[4] Gray, John: Al Qaeda: And What it Means to be Modern, Faber, 2003, p2.
[5] Gray, John: Al Qaeda: And What it Means to be Modern, Faber, 2003, p. 29
[6] Ibid.
[7] Arendt, Hannah: On Violence, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 1970, p.5
[8] Ibid.
[9] Arendt, Hannah: On Violence, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 1970, p. 87
[10] Harari, Yuval Noah: The Theatre of Terror, The Guardian, http://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/jan/31/terrorism-spectacle-how-states-respond-yuval-noah-harari-sapiens?CMP=share_btn_tw Download: 21.02.2017
[11] Ibid.
[12] Ibid.
[13] Ibid.
[14] Zizek, Slavoj: Blasphemische Gedanken: Islam und Moderne, Pocket Book, 2015, p.12
[15] Gray, John: Al Qaeda: And What it Means to be Modern, Faber, 2003, p. 16
[16] Gray, John: Al Qaeda: And What it Means to be Modern, Faber, 2003, p. 18
[17] Ibid.
[18] Kricheli, Ilana; Rosner, Yotam; Mendelboim, Aviad; Schweitzer, Yoram: Suicide Bombings in 2016: The Highest Number of Fatalities, Download: 21.02.2017 http://www.css.ethz.ch/en/services/digital-library/articles/article.html/7e6eb677-ec57-4ad8-bde5-3b62c173898f
[19] Senzai, Farid: Isis and its Violence, Islamic Monthly, Download: 21.02.2017, http://theislamicmonthly.com/isis-and-its-violence/

The post Is Religious Terrorism a product of Western Modernity? appeared first on SabrangIndia.

This is the text of a speech UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein delivered on 5 September, 2016 in The Hague.

I wish to address this short statement to Mr. Geert Wilders, his acolytes, indeed to all those like him – the populists, demagogues and political fantasists. 

To them, I must be a sort of nightmare.  I am the global voice on human rights, universal rights; elected by all governments, and now critic of almost all governments.  I defend and promote the human rights of each individual, everywhere: the rights of migrants, asylum seekers and immigrants; the rights of the LGBTi community; the rights of women and children in all countries; minorities; indigenous persons; people with disabilities, and any and all who are discriminated against, disadvantaged, persecuted or tortured – whether by governments, political movements or by terrorists.

I am a Muslim, who is, confusingly to racists, also white-skinned; whose mother is European and father, Arab.  And I am angry, too.  Because of Mr. Wilder’s lies and half-truths, manipulations and peddling of fear.  You see, twenty years ago I served in the UN peacekeeping force during the Balkan wars – wars so cruel, so devastating, which flowed from this same factory of deceit, bigotry and ethnic nationalism.

Geert Wilders released his grotesque eleven-point manifesto only days ago, and a month ago he spoke along similar lines in Cleveland, in the United States.  I will not repeat what he has said, but there are many who will, and his party is expected to do well in the elections in March.

And yet what Mr. Wilders shares in common with Mr. Trump, Mr. Orban, Mr. Zeman, Mr. Hofer, Mr. Fico, Madame Le Pen, Mr. Farage, he also shares with Da’esh.

All seek in varying degrees to recover a past, halcyon and so pure in form, where sunlit fields are settled by peoples united by ethnicity or religion – living peacefully in isolation, pilots of their fate, free of crime, foreign influence and war.  A past that most certainly, in reality, did not exist anywhere, ever.  Europe’s past, as we all know, was for centuries anything but that. 

The proposition of recovering a supposedly perfect past is fiction; its merchants are cheats.  Clever cheats.

Populists use half-truths and oversimplification — the two scalpels of the arch propagandist, and here the internet and social media are a perfect rail for them, by reducing thought into the smallest packages: sound-bites; tweets.  Paint half a picture in the mind of an anxious individual, exposed as they may be to economic hardship and through the media to the horrors of terrorism.  Prop this picture up by some half-truth here and there and allow the natural prejudice of people to fill in the rest.  Add drama, emphasizing it’s all the fault of a clear-cut group, so the speakers lobbing this verbal artillery, and their followers, can feel somehow blameless.

The formula is simple: make people, already nervous, feel terrible, and then emphasize it’s all because of a group. 

The formula is therefore simple: make people, already nervous, feel terrible, and then emphasize it’s all because of a group, lying within, foreign and menacing.  Then make your target audience feel good by offering up what is a fantasy to them, but a horrendous injustice to others.  Inflame and quench, repeat many times over, until anxiety has been hardened into hatred.

Make no mistake, I certainly do not equate the actions of nationalist demagogues with those of Da'esh, which are monstrous, sickening; Da’esh must be brought to justice.  But in its mode of communication, its use of half-truths and oversimplification, the propaganda of Da’esh uses tactics similar to those of the populists.  And both sides of this equation benefit from each other – indeed would not expand in influence without each others' actions.

Be sure to say clearly: stop! We will not be bullied by you the bully, nor fooled by you the deceiver, not again, no more; because we, not you, will steer our collective fate.

The humiliating racial and religious prejudice fanned by the likes of Mr. Wilders has become in some countries municipal or even national policy. We hear of accelerating discrimination in workplaces. Children are being shamed and shunned for their ethnic and religious origins – whatever their passports, they are told they are not "really" European, not "really" French, or British, or Hungarian.  Entire communities are being smeared with suspicion of collusion with terrorists.

History has perhaps taught Mr. Wilders and his ilk how effectively xenophobia and bigotry can be weaponized.  Communities will barricade themselves into fearful, hostile camps, with populists like them, and the extremists, as the commandants.  The atmosphere will become thick with hate; at this point it can descend rapidly into colossal violence.

We must pull back from this trajectory.  My friends, are we doing enough to counter this cross-border bonding of demagogues?  A decade ago, Geert Wilder’s manifesto and Cleveland speech would have created a world-wide furore.  Now?  Now, they are met with little more than a shrug, and, outside the Netherlands, his words and pernicious plans were barely noticed.  Are we going to continue to stand by and watch this banalization of bigotry, until it reaches its logical conclusion? 

Ultimately, it is the law that will safeguard our societies – human rights law, binding law which is the distillation of human experience, of generations of human suffering, the screams of the victims of past crimes and hate.  We must guard this law passionately, and be guided by it.

Do not, my friends, be led by the deceiver. It is only by pursuing the entire truth, and acting wisely, that humanity can ever survive. So draw the line and speak. Speak out and up, speak the truth and do so compassionately, speak for your children, for those you care about, for the rights of all, and be sure to say clearly: stop! We will not be bullied by you the bully, nor fooled by you the deceiver, not again, no more; because we, not you, will steer our collective fate. And we, not you, will write and sculpt this coming century.  Draw the line!

This article was first published on openDemocracy.
 

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Recently, a considerable number of Zakir Naik’s fans on social media, particularly on Twitter and Facebook, have declared all those Muslims who are against  Naik as kafir (infidel) and munafiq (hypocrite). “Those who oppose Zakir Naik are kafir (one who hides the truth)”, writes a follower of his, Saeed Ibn George on his Twitter account.

Personally, I have also received such an insolent accusation, apart from many gruesome threats from the diehard supporters of Naik. Of late, an enthusiast female adherent of his, seemingly from the UK, has posed these questions to me:  

"[You are] criticizing Zakir Naik who has helped thousands of people to revert. I personally have 2,000 revert friends in UK and each one of them has been influenced by Mr. Naik".

“I don’t know if there is any word worse than kafir that I would have used for you. People like you are destroying Islam… Most of the Dehlvi women I know from Delhi are married to idol worshippers. Why don’t you guide them first???” [you are] criticizing Zakir Naik who has helped thousands of people to revert. I personally have 2,000 revert friends in UK and each one of them has been influenced by Mr. Naik. What have you done in helping people revert?”

Without any knee-jerk reactions to the lady, I simply expressed my amazement at her naivety. I wondered how many new-age young Muslims like her are consciously or unconsciously being indoctrinated into a dangerous radical doctrine called takfirism (declaring each other kafir). At the moment, I was reminded of the Prophet’s hadith (tradition) delivered in his last sermon of the pilgrimage (Hujjatul Wida) in which he warned Muslims:  “Do not revert to takfir after me by striking (cutting) the necks of one another,” is a part of the long discourse delivered by the Prophet on the occasion of Hujjatul Wida.

As a matter of fact, takfirism is specific to a particular stream of thought in Islam and is not common to all Muslims. This ideological extremism has blatantly abolished all the essential principles of tolerance and plurality enshrined in Islam. While the holy Qur'an repeatedly exhorts that “there should be no compulsion in religion” and that “all people are free to practice any religion they like”, the hardcore takfirists are hell-bent on imposing their beliefs upon everyone, Muslims and non-Muslims alike, declaring those who don’t follow them kafir or at least munafiq (hypocrite). In their crazy bid to accord it an Islamic justification, they selectively apply verses of the Holy Qur'an and, thus, further their nefarious ends.

Now the question arises: should this takfirist understanding of Islam continue to spread unchecked? Obviously, it threatens not only individuals but the entire social stability at the local, national, and regional levels creating serious geopolitical dangers to the world at large.

But the most regrettable is the inability or unwillingness of world governments to stem the tide of growing takfirism. Particularly, the Western leaders are still oblivious of takfirism, which originated in the state religion of Saudi Arabia — Wahhabism — which has also given rise to the takfiri terrorists of ISIS. Similarly, Muslim governments have not yet curbed takfirism even after the takfirists’ attack on Madina, the holiest site of Islam. The USA, France, Germany, Turkey, Iraq, Syria and Pakistan have already been reeling from a series of brutal takfirist terror attacks, but they are not yet calling spade a spade.

The national and international media outlets often portray the radical Islamist extremists or terrorists as jihadists. Of course, jihadism is not Islam. But the term ‘jihadists’ makes the matter further complicated for the common Muslims unable to differentiate between mujahid (inner-struggler) and jihadist (Islamist fighter). Thus, they develop a wrong impression about the media portrayal of the global terrorists who falsely claim to be fighting for the sake of Islam or Muslims.

It can be recalled that the term ‘takfirism’ or ‘takfirist’ first appeared in the Western media when the BBC investigative journalist Peter Taylor television produced his series, 'The New Al Qaeda' in 2005. But it is still not common in the vast majority of media outlets. However, some sagacious Islamic scholars have referred to all the Islamist terrorists as takfirists. They have identified the fighters and supporters of the Daesh or ISIS as takfirists, as they emerged in June 2014 claiming to be the members of an “Islamic” State of Iraq and Syria.

The first Islamic scholar who contextualised the religious extremism of ISIS as Takfirism is Shaikh Habib Ali al-Jifri one of the progressive Islamic scholars in the UAE, who also runs Tabah Foundation to confront the extremist ideologies in the region.

In his interview with Sky News Arabia in July 2016, he explains how he seeks to confront the extremist discourse of the ISIS using the references from the Quran and Hadith. Al-Jifri says:

“In order to diagnose and describe the ISIS properly, one part of the problem is that it relies on [referencing] scriptural texts and sources. Some of these texts are inviolable. Some are based on independent legal reasoning (ijtihad) that is open to reconsideration. And some are based on legal judgments that are wrong and were not recognised [by legal authorities]. This part of the problem is related to religious discourse and it is our (religious leadership’s) responsibility to confront ISIS and pay the price of that even if it be with our lives. But we also have to confront those followers and students [of these religious leaders] who do not like to talk about ‘religious renewal’ (tajdid fil deen) which they think leads to ‘dilution of the religion’.”

Al-Jifri also expounds in his sermons, very popular among the liberal Arab Muslims, that, “the root-cause of the Islamist extremism is the lack of love and connection with the Prophet Muhammad”.

(Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mOHfImXuO5k)

Given the recent terror strike on Madina, where the Prophet himself is buried, al-Jifri’s argument makes sense. Those who cannot harbour love and veneration for their own Prophet can go to any extent in their religious hate, xenophobia and takfirist terrorism. This is precisely what the latest fatwa issued by the Indian Islamic seminary Jamia Manzar-e-Islam has also pointed out.    
Perhaps, Mufti Mohammed Salim Noori, the spokesperson of the seminary has referred to the same hateful ideology in his anti-terrorism fatwa, saying that the terrorists like “Hafiz Saeed promotes people who have written disparaging remarks against the Prophet Mohammed”.

The 18th century takfirist ideologue Ibn Abdul Wahhab Najdi wrote in his book, 'Majm’u al-Fatawa al-Aamma': “One cannot be a perfect believer (Muslim) until he/she shows hatred in his/her words and actions against the non-Muslims”.

Undeniably, the takfirists are antagonistic to all the Muslims who love and venerate Prophet Muhammad and other holy saints of Islam calling them idol-worshippers and hence kafir. They show equal abhorrence to the pluralistic Muslims who befriend people of other faiths. This results from the hardcore belief in the takfirist doctrine of “al-Wala wal-Bara” (loyalty with Muslims and disavowal to the non-Muslims). The 18th century takfirist ideologue Ibn Abdul Wahhab Najdi wrote in his book, 'Majm’u al-Fatawa al-Aamma': “One cannot be a perfect believer (Muslim) until he/she shows hatred in his/her words and actions against the non-Muslims”.

The Indian Express has quoted Mufti Saleemt Noori to have said in his fatwa that, “followers of Islam have been asked not to listen to such people or follow them”. This  fatwa was issued in a reply to a jurisprudential query (called istifta) posed by one Mohd Moinuddin of Jaipur who had mentioned that Hafiz Saeed believed in objectionable writings against Prophet Mohammad.

Jamia Razvia Manzar-e-Islam has launched a course on de-radicalisation titled “Islam and Terrorism”. According to the madrasa rector, it is aimed to teach students a tolerant Islam to curb radicalism and extremism in their respective localities. But regrettably, the takfirist writings and thoughts that actually mobiliset the potential terrorists are not being rebutted in any so-called anti-terrorism Islamic curriculum.

In his fatwa, Mufti Saleem Noori replied that “having any type of connection with persons working against the dignity of Allah and the Prophet was haraam (forbidden in Islam)”. “Therefore, it is compulsory for every Muslim not to follow him and keep away from his ideology,” it stated. The fatwa also declared Hafiz Saeed, “a man with terrorist ideology”, and the one “whose acts have brought infamy to Islam and Muslims across the world”. Besides, Mufti Saleem Noori hinted at the un-Islamic ideology and points of view that provoked people to create terror. It is also worth mentioning that Jamia Razvia Manzar-e-Islam has launched a course on de-radicalisation titled “Islam and Terrorism”. According to the madrasa rector, it is aimed to teach students a tolerant Islam to curb radicalism and extremism in their respective localities.

But regrettably, the takfirist writings and thoughts that actually mobilise the potential terrorists are not being rebutted in any so-called anti-terrorism Islamic curriculum. They are promoted in India today as freely as in Pakistan and other Muslim countries. This rhetoric is the easiest tool for the ISIS and the ilk to catch the imagination of the gullible Muslim youths. The self-proclaimed Khalifa Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi has long said: "a generation of Muslim youths has been trained based on the forgotten doctrine of al-Wala wal Bara (loyalty with Muslims and disavowal to the non-Muslims)".

Of course, Mufti Saleem Noori is well-intentioned in his fatwa against Hafiz Saeed, the Pakistan-based Jamaat-ud-Dawa chief and his "terrorist ideology" that has "brought defamation to Islam". But the caution is warranted on giving the 'fatwa al-takfir’ (the religious edict declaring anyone kafir). 

True, the terrorists cannot be considered Muslim in the true sense, as the Prophet clearly defined Muslim as “the one from whose hand and tongue people are safe”.  But the Islamic jurists (muftis) must take cognizance of their approach towards countering terrorism. By declaring the terrorists “kafirs” (infidels), they are also, unintentionally, going their way. The Kharjites of ISIS also declare all those who don’t believe in their vile ideology as kafir and mushrik (infidel and polytheist) and hence slaughter them.

The fatwa against radicalisation and extremism is certainly a welcome move. However, the anti-extremism ulema cannot stem the tide of the global Kharijite terrorism — which stems from Takfirism — by just issuing fatwas of kufr against the terrorists.

The Barelwi fatwa against Hafiz Saeed and his cult of violent extremism and jihadism is certainly a welcome move. However, the anti-extremism muftis cannot stem the tide of the global Kharijite terrorism— which stems from takfirism — by just issuing fatwas of takfir against the terrorists. They must engage in a brainstorming on how they can genuinely counter the extremist jihadist narratives. And it is only possible with a well-considered approach to the refutation and rebuttals of the takfirist theological underpinnings which, unchallenged by the ulema, are impacting on the Muslim religious zealots. To begin with it, Indian ulema will have to evolve a robust and progressive interpretation of the Islamic scriptures and a well-reasoned and rational understanding of the Islamic doctrines such as jihad, hakimiyah (God’s rule over the earth), khilafah (Islamic caliphate) and ishtishhad (seeking martyrdom) and al-wala wal-bara (love and hatred for the sake of God). These are some of the theological terminologies and references from the Quran and hadith that the violent Jihadists misconstrue to justify their atrocities.

Indian muftis need to articulate a complete and coherent Islam-based refutation of the takfirist theology itself, rather than resorting to the takfirism against the terrorists. Only then they can help to rescue the new-age gullible Muslim youths from the creeping extremist indoctrination.

Ghulam Rasool Dehlvi is a scholar of Comparative Religion, Classical Arabic and Islamic sciences, cultural analyst and researcher in Media and Communication Studies.

This article was first published on New Age Islam.
 

The post Issuing Fatwas of Little Use in Fighting Terrorism in Islam’s Name appeared first on SabrangIndia.

Yes, it has, reports the Malaysian daily, The Star, citing a video released by ISIS. The purported video has not been embedded on the newspapers website, nor has any link been provided. Perhaps for the understandable reason that it might provide the wrong inspiration to misguided youth. However, a report graphically describes the video content and is reproduced below.

Meanwhile, another report published online by the same daily says the Malaysian police have vowed to hunt down ISIS militants who issue threats over social media to deliberately frighten the people.

Bukit Aman special branch director Datuk Seri Mohamad Fuzi Harun said though the video clips could be a mere “drama” to intimidate the people in the country, the police took the matter seriously.  He added the police would monitor every social media platforms available in the country.  

He said though the video clips could be a mere “drama” to intimidate the people in the country, the police took the matter seriously and would closely monitor the social media.  

"They use the social media as a platform to threaten attacks against the country, and we must strengthen the laws to check these undesirable events," he added. 

The ISIS video clip’s message as described by The Star:
 

The post Now, ISIS Declares War on Muslim-majority Malaysia, Indonesia appeared first on SabrangIndia.

 
The November 13-14 attacks in Paris require an unambiguous response against the terror of the Islamic state and imperialism, both; This strong piece examines this, state of emergency in France, our responsibilities

Solidarity with the victims!

November 13, 2015 represents a change in the national and international political situation. The Islamic State (IS, Daesh) has struck again; and even more strongly. In January, the targets were the journalists of Charlie Hebdo, police and Jews. This time, it was the youth of the country that was the target. They did not kill just anyone, just anywhere: they attacked young people, young people in all their colours, whatever their origins, their religion (if they had one), their political beliefs. At least 130 dead, over 350 wounded – at the very least a thousand direct witnesses of the carnage. Many of us have relatives among the victims and, if not, we have friends who have. The shock wave, the emotion, is profound.

There is no mystery about the objective pursued by the commandos of the Islamic State: to fracture society through terror. To create a situation where war against one another is imposed; where fear draws up impassable barriers between citizens according to their origins, religions, lifestyles, identities – to dig a ditch filled with blood within the Muslim religion itself, forcing believers to choose sides. Whoever is not with us in our inhuman acts is against us, and becomes a “legitimate” target.

The attacks in Paris were among the bloodiest acts in the world perpetrated by the Islamic State and other similar movements which serve the same destructive logic. Our solidarity is international, it is directed especially towards those who, in other countries are fighting them at the risk of their lives: in Syria and Iraq, in Lebanon and in Bamako, in Pakistan and in Turkey… We must first affirm our compassion, our identification, our brotherhood with the victims and with their families.

At such a time, we of course continue the class struggle, to support the struggle of all the oppressed; but beyond that, we defend humanity against barbarism. The humanist dimension of revolutionary commitment remains our guiding light. Any progressive politics begins with indignation, with emotion. It is not of course limited to that, but that is its starting point. Let us not counter-pose thinking and weeping! Let us not waffle in jargon, let us not write with a pen of ice! Here and now, let us help the victims and their families, take part in mourning, respect minutes of silence, take part in solidarity events. We are part of this movement – and it is from here that we can explain our positions.

Whatever the role of imperialism, the Islamic State is responsible for its actions

Revolutionaries must clearly and definitely reject fundamentalist barbarism. It must be fought – by our methods, according to our orientation and not that of our leaders – but it must be actively defeated.

Under the impact of events, left organizations, associations and unions have caved in to the call for national unity; others, in a reaction against this, have so much emphasized the very real political and historical responsibilities of Western imperialism that the denunciation of the Islamic State has become inaudible. As the days have passed, the positions have often been clarified. So much the better. But we can still read plenty of articles which consider that although the attacks “had no excuse” it was necessary above all to take into account “the context” – since the analysis of that context is essentially reduced to the enumeration of imperialist misdeeds one could conclude that the fundamentalist movements are merely reacting to the actions of the great powers and we should somehow grant them extenuating circumstances. It is necessary to remove any ambiguity on this question.

Strangely enough, many writers on the left vigorously denounce the fundamentalist attacks, but refuse to condemn by name, explicitly, the movements that commit them. Stranger still, many organizations do not hesitate to do so (naming the guilty, explaining their reactionary character), but do not draw any practical consequence from that. When it comes down to tasks, the fight against terrorism and against these fundamentalisms is no longer mentioned; which, by the way, leaves our rulers with a monopoly of specific responses. We are generally in agreement to attack imperialism and its wars, destructive capitalist globalization, inequality and discrimination, the ideology of the clash of civilizations, racism – including Islamophobia – the legacies of the colonial past, security policies and states of emergency, appeals for national unity and social peace… To attack, therefore, some of the causes and the consequences of the dramatic events that we are living through.

But we must also combat the influence of Daesh (among others) in our own societies and concretely express our solidarity with popular resistance in developing countries torn by religious fanaticism – an internationalist duty if ever there was one! On this, there is a “blind spot” in much of the radical left, even the left that does not sink into a deleterious “campism”. That is why we accord importance to this question in our contribution.

The Islamic State and other similar movements do not just react; they act according to their own agenda. They are political actors pursuing specific objectives. There is little doubt that Daesh is actually responsible for the attacks in Paris. This organization has built a proto-state on a territory equivalent to that of Britain. It runs an administration; it has accumulated immense wealth (estimated at nearly $1.8 billion); it organizes the smuggling of oil and cotton. It conducts military operations on multiple fronts, it has recruited IT specialists of the highest level … It is not a puppet! It is responsible for its acts –totally responsible for the attacks committed in so many places.

Its own responsibility does not disappear because of the responsibilities of imperialism, however enormous they may be – and have been for a long time: from the Sykes-Picot agreements of the early twentieth century to the current interventions of the great powers. It is often said that without the US intervention in Iraq in 2003 (which destabilized the region and dislocated states), Daesh would not exist. This is only true with regard to a specific sequence that led to the founding of the Islamic State as we know it. Otherwise, it is false. The emergence of jihadist forces does not flow automatically from imperialist domination; it is the combined product of many factors ranging from the bankruptcy of Arab (and European) left forces to the determination of the bourgeoisie in the region to have new counter-revolutionary forces to support their regional ambitions and combat the revolutionary upsurge in the Arab world. This is also true concerning the rise of religious fundamentalisms in other parts of the world, including in countries that have experienced nothing comparable to the 2003 war, such as India (the Hindu far right), Burma (the Buddhist far right) or the United States (the Christian far right – powerful well before September 11, 2001 and very close to Bush).

Once again on the “clash of barbarisms”

There is a Western imperialist responsibility, as there was after the 1914-18 war (with the Treaty of Versailles) in the rise of Nazism in Germany. The antifascists of the time did not fail to recall it systematically. However, once it took off, the Nazi Party was denounced and combated as such. Daesh has taken off…

Strangely enough, many writers on the left vigorously denounce the fundamentalist attacks, but refuse to condemn by name, explicitly, the movements that commit them. Stranger still, many organizations do not hesitate to do so (naming the guilty, explaining their reactionary character), but do not draw any practical consequence from that.

We must continue to explain the context, but the Islamic State must be seen for what it is, not as a mere shadow of the West. Contemporary imperialism, neo-liberal policies, capitalist globalization, enterprises of colonization, endless wars, are tearing the social fabric of a growing number of countries, releasing all sorts of barbarism. But religious fundamentalisms too are formidable agents of the disintegration of whole societies. There is not in fact a “major barbarism” (the West) that we should be fighting today and a “secondary barbarism” (Daesh and consorts) that we should be concerned about in the indefinite future. The reverse is also true: we should not condone imperialist barbarity and that of “allied” dictatorships under the pretext of fighting fundamentalist barbarism. There is no hierarchy of horror. We must actively and without waiting defend all the victims of these twin barbarisms, which feed on each other, otherwise we will fail in our political and humanitarian duties.

Religious fundamentalisms were often initially supported by Washington in the name of the struggle against the Soviet Union (in Afghanistan, Pakistan…), before asserting their autonomy and even turning against their sponsors. These deeply reactionary movements have nothing progressive about them. There is no “reactionary anti-imperialism”! They want to impose a model of society that is both capitalist and backward-looking, totalitarian in the strong sense of the term. Of course, France is being hit because of its Middle East policy and its colonial and post-colonial history. But when Daesh slaughters Yezidis because they are Yezidis, reduces populations to slavery, sells women, destabilizes Lebanon, pushes sectarian violence to the extreme, (particularly against Shiites), what is the relationship to a supposed anti-imperialism?

All fundamentalist movements do not have the same bases, the same strategy. Are some of them, such as the Islamic State, fascists? They do not maintain the same (complex) relations with sectors of the imperialist bourgeoisies as in Europe in the 1930s, but they reproduce them with sectors of the bourgeoisie of “regional powers”, such as, in the Middle East, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Turkey … They attract the “human dust” of decaying societies as well as elements of the “middle classes”, of a “petty bourgeoisie”, of educated workers. They use terror “from below” to impose their order. They dehumanize those who are different and make scapegoats of them, as yesterday the Nazis did with Jews, Gypsies or homosexuals. They eradicate all forms of democracy and of progressive people’s organizations. Religious exaltation occupies the same function as national exaltation in the interwar period and enables them, in addition, to deploy internationally.

It would be strange if the convulsions caused by capitalist globalization did not give rise to new forms of fascism, just as it would be surprising if they resembled feature for feature those of the previous century. There is a difference with European fascism: it resides in the overlapping between this totalitarian fundamentalist reaction and the crisis of disintegration of states and of the imperialist economic and military relations of domination that enmesh the region.

The fight against terrorism must be waged by the peoples of the region, and not by a coalition of Western powers. A new military intervention of the imperialist powers and Russia, supported on each of its flanks by the Gulf States and the Syrian dictatorship, can weaken Daesh militarily, but it can only provoke a backlash from all the Sunni peoples of the region.

The crisis of society in France

The attacks of November 13, 2015 were primarily committed by French or Franco-Belgians – France and Belgium being two of the countries from which most of the departures for Syria take place. There is no single profile of people who align themselves with the Islamic State. They may be from families of believers, secular Muslims or not Muslims: recent converts, non-Arab, are quite numerous. Similarly, they can come from very precarious or stable backgrounds, have a criminal past or not. In some cases, the “radicalization” of an individual is the culmination of a long process; for others it is a brutal swing. As might be expected, most of the men who have committed attacks in France come from particularly disadvantaged backgrounds, have been in prison and were gang members – but not all.

Faced with this plurality of profiles, we cannot settle for simple explanations, only sociological (casualization, racialization of social relations …) or only historical (the postcolonial dimension).

Unlike previous waves of radicalization of youth, this one is very minor and is not inspired by the same humanist aspirations. The Islamic State presents itself in the crudest way possible: “Come with us and cut off heads.” The French army practised torture on a massive scale, especially during the Battle of Algiers, but the government and the General Staff fiercely denied their crimes: there were no appeals proclaiming “Join your Grand Army, come and torture with us”! Daesh has an explicit discourse of hatred and exclusion of those who are different (as do the most extreme elements of the far right). There is no possible analogy between those who go to Syria today and the creation of the International Brigades during the Spanish Civil War – or the radicalization of the 1960s.

There is nothing banal in all this, nor in the use of mass terror. To pretend that terrorism is the “natural” weapon of the oppressed in “asymmetrical” wars is to ignore the lessons of the great battles for liberation of the last century, of revolutionary wars. In the struggles for independence and against imperialism in Indochina and Latin America, terrorist attacks were rare at that time and the movements concerned generally realized rapidly that the political cost of such operations was too high – and posed many ethical problems. In Algeria, the FLN, which had ventured onto this terrain, quickly backtracked under pressure from some of its sectors or from movements in solidarity with Algerian independence.

Its (Daesh) own responsibility does not disappear because of the responsibilities of imperialism, however enormous they may be – and have been for a long time: from the Sykes-Picot agreements of the early twentieth century to the current interventions of the great powers.

We are suffering the ultimate consequences of the “crisis of politics”, of the desocialisation that is inherent in our neoliberal societies and their growing injustice, of the defeat suffered by our generations (the radicals of the 1960s and 70s), of the inability of the left forces in our countries to offer any radical perspective and to act within the populations who lead a precarious existence. We are in fact touching on areas that most of us do not really understand: psycho-sociology, the relationship between fragile individual identities and the decay of the social fabric, adolescent searchings. The Islamic State provides an armour, with an identity and with power: the power of representation, the power of arms, power over women, the power of life and death… Much more than a supposed anti-imperialism, that is what makes it attractive.

These are questions that we need to take on board more than we have done up until now; and we can already draw some implications. The anti-racist struggle, as important as it is, is not enough. Faced with neoliberal individualism and its anonymity (Who knows their neighbours?) we need to promote and rebuild places where people can socialize, mix, where they can “live together” – and reintroduce fundamental reflection on ethics, commitment and struggle.

In such a situation, all forms of racism constitute a mortal danger, including of course state racism, but not only that. Let us fight against anything that can fuel community tensions, oppose oppressed people to one another, whether we are dealing with anti-Arab racism or Negrophobia, anti-Semitism or Islamophobia, discrimination against Roma … – and to do that, let us create a culture of living together, of respect for the rights of everyone.

Our internationalist tasks

Recent events (November 13, the blowing up of a Russian airliner over Sinai…), have precipitated a shift in alliances that could already be remarked before, with the formation of a grand coalition: the bringing in of Russia, the abandonment by France of its pretensions to independence, concerns raised even in Saudi Arabia about the deployment of the Islamic State… In counterpart, the Assad regime has been strengthened, whereas it is at the origin of the Syrian crisis and guilty of the crimes that we know about. Will this be enough to promote a temporary agreement among regional powers belonging to the so-called “blocs”, Sunni and Shiite?

It is still early to assess the full implications of this turning point in the international situation. For the moment, let us stress the following points:

The compromises between the West and Turkey or the Assad regime will be made to the detriment of the forces on the ground that most deserve our support: the Kurds, the Yezidis, the progressive and non-confessionalist [1] components of the resistance to the regime. We must give them our political and material solidarity and demand that they receive adequate weapons, of which the progressive components of FSA have never benefited (and yet they resist!) and of which the Kurds could be deprived, particularly on the Syrian front. We must recognize that we have never done in France, in this field, what we should have done.

The intensification of bombing by the coalition, with the exorbitant price paid by civilians, is likely to reinforce the audience of Daesh among other Islamist elements operating in Syria. The net result of this policy would then be to strengthen both the Assad regime and the fundamentalist organizations (starting with the Islamic State)! To avoid this trap, we must break with the logic of the great powers: help the popular forces in Syria and Iraq to continue their fight instead of trying to substitute for them or marginalizing them even more.

So we must fight against the war policy of our rulers, but also understand the specific nature of this conflict, very different from the wars in Indochina or Algeria: the withdrawal of French or American troops then meant the end of the main foreign interference and created the conditions for a victory. This is not the case today in the Middle East: there would remain Turkey, Iran (and the Hezbollah), Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Algeria, Egypt… In such a complex geopolitical configuration we need to listen to the movements that we support in order to take into account what they need, materially and politically. It is the peoples who should decide, not the imperialist coalitions.

But, and this is a particular dimension of this war, the Kurds and the Syrian democrats have asked and continue to ask for medical and military aid, including from Western governments. They must be given it. There can be no substitute for the decision-making and self-determination of the Syrian and Kurdish democratic forces, but no hesitation in helping them and pressuring our governments to respond to the appeals they make.

On the international level, the hypocrisy of the Western forces must be denounced: on the one hand, they claim to be fighting terrorism and on the other they support regimes such as Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Turkey.

The coalition that is being constituted is in no sense a “democratic” alliance against a totalitarian threat. In addition to our “classic” imperialisms, it includes Putin’s Russia, Saudi Arabia, whose regime is very close to the model of society advocated by Daesh, Qatar, the Iranian theocracy, Erdogan’s Turkey… Whatever the nature of the Islamic State, any analogy with an “anti-fascist democratic front” is invalid. We are neither with the coalition, nor with Daesh, nor with Assad. We are for the right to self-determination of peoples – including the Palestinian people – against all forms of barbarism.

A turning point in the national situation

As in January after the massacre of the journalists of Charlie Hebdo, the deaths of police personnel, the attack on the Hypercacher supermarket, emotion has overwhelmed the country – which of course is perfectly normal. [2].]] Islamophobic acts have multiplied, but they are actually committed by only a fringe of the population. Acts of solidarity and friendship have also multiplied: a big smile when you pass a North African in the subway, conspicuous (even if outdated) gallantry when you step aside to let a veiled woman pass, reoccupation of places where people have parties and mix together, rejection of amalgams [between terrorists and ordinary Muslims] … Unfortunately, all these gestures are not counted and are not included in the statistics.

As in January, too, security policies are acclaimed and the forces of order are applauded. Now, even more than in January, the government has seized the opportunity to take Draconian measures. This was the case yesterday with the law on intelligence that gives excessive powers to the secret services. It is now the case with the establishment of the state of emergency, made harsher by Parliament, the appeal of the French government for the EU to follow on, in particular by keeping files on all airline passengers, and the announcement by Hollande of constitutional reform.

France is already equipped with two sets of emergency measures, established in particular during the Algerian War: the state of emergency (a semi-martial law that frees the police and army from judicial control and limits freedoms) and the state of siege (complete martial law, giving full powers to the army). Why is this not enough for our leaders? Because the use of the state of emergency, for example, is limited in time and requires a parliamentary vote – which as it happened was almost unanimously in favour: it was supported by the vast majority of the Socialists, the Greens and the Communist deputies.

The constitutional reform would allow the government (or the President?) to take exceptional measures more freely – and ultimately make the exception the rule: intervention by the army in policing, arbitrary searches, “preventive” detentions, banning of demonstrations and strikes, press censorship, etc. The exact content of the law that Hollande will draft is not yet known, but its intentions are clear. The regime will become increasingly authoritarian, the militarization of society will surge forward.

Many people are worried about what would happen if Marine Le Pen and the National Front won the elections (a scenario that is not political fiction), but they do not ask what Hollande, Valls, Sarkozy or others will do. It is therefore very important to remember what “republican” governments have done in the past – including torture in Algeria and the adoption of an amnesty law that prohibited the indictment of the perpetrators (you can only be accused of condoning torture if, afterwards, you defend its use), the media blackout of the massacre of Algerians in Paris on October 17, 1961(a case of state terrorism if ever there was one), the putsch by the generals in Algiers, the multiple dirty tricks of the secret services, the attack against the Rainbow Warrior of Greenpeace (one person dead, state terrorism again), the assassination of Kanak leaders, etc. In fact, the whole panoply of security laws adopted in recent years and of the surveillance measures put in place can enable any government to conduct a creeping civil war whenever they want. Finally, over and above the march towards a society dominated by security measures, there is a political calculation. Hollande and Valls are relying on the state of emergency to use once again the Bonapartist arsenal and raise themselves, in a certain way, above parties and institutions.

The operation is aimed at neutralizing the abysmal record of governments since 2012 and promising better election results for the Socialist Party. Hollande and Valls are taking a very risky gamble: they can play the security card, supported by the institutions of the Fifth Republic, but in the present political situation, where bad winds are blowing on the right and the far right, those are the forces that are likely to benefit from this manœuvre.

Resistance to the extension of the state of emergency has been very weak in the parliamentary left, but more significant among the rank and file (within the French Communist Party, for example, against the vote of its representatives) and in the social and trade union movement: Solidarity, but also the CGT.

The present political moment is fraught with very great dangers. Political democracy has been emptied of its content, elected assemblies no longer having control over the main decisions (which are taken by the European Union, the World Trade Organization, intergovernmental treaties…). Now it is civil liberties, already under attack, which may become an empty shell. The government wants to put society under house arrest. But the population is not conscious of it.

The key is to link together the terrains of resistance, to show our solidarity with the victims of terrorism, to give the peoples fighting for their freedom the material, political and military means to survive and win, to support the progressive and non-confessionalist forces fighting on the ground, at the same time against the bloody, terrorist obscurantism of Daesh and that of the Assad regime that it has so much favoured. It is to stop engaging in wars and bombings, stop supporting absolutist regimes and promoting social and political injustices in the Middle East and elsewhere.

The state of the progressive forces in France is quite disastrous, but at this key moment, points of support for resistance exist: in the shared feelings of solidarity within the population, in the reaction of young people, in the refusal by many associations and unions to accept Draconian measures, a permanent state of emergency. There is the basis to build a united front in defence of freedom at home and abroad, of living together, of solidarity.

Source: The article was published on November 28, 2015 originally on Europe Solidaire Sans Frontières,: http://www.siawi.org/article10251.html;
Translation IVP. http://www.internationalviewpoint.org/
* This article was written for the site Viento Sur, “El terror del Estado Islámico, el estado de excepción en Francia, nuestras responsabilidades”:
http://www.vientosur.info/spip.php?article10721

We are grateful for the permission to re-publish.
 

Footnotes

[1] We mean here movements promoting confessionalism, the représentation through the so-called “religious communities”, as in the case of the Lebanese political regime (a system of représentation which the Left denounce). It does not mean “with religious references”. Movements linked to the Theology of Liberation, for example, were part of social conflits, class struggle. Confessionals does the opposite.

[2]  We refer you to the article we wrote at the time : ESSF (article 34151), [-art34151]:
http://www.europe-solidaire.org/spip.php?article34151
 

The post No to Daesh, No to Imperalism appeared first on SabrangIndia.

As a woman of Pakistani/Indian, Muslim heritage I have remained blissfully untouched by the sectarianism that is claiming the lives of so many in our communities. The shock and horror at the daily threats, violence and murder seem all the more frightening as, like many of the same heritage, my extended family is made up of Sunnis, Shias, Ahmadis, people of other faiths, and non-believers. Communities that once lived together and inter-married are now being made separate by the poisonous spread of Islamist ideologies. Sectarianism is not unique to Islam but the violence perpetrated in its name knows no bounds. Its targets are all people, everywhere. Its objective it would seem is nothing more than to keep us in a place of perpetual fear.  

2016 is going to be another bloody year as the terrorists continue to wage their war against us all. The list of atrocities seems endless. After each event follows that oft repeated question – ‘how did we get here?’ Public outcry, government statements, articles in the media, phone-ins and documentaries follow and we all listen to experts and others like us trying to work out how we got here and what do we do about it. But then we return to our daily lives until the next incident takes place.

I was jolted from this well-worn pattern of incident and public response when I saw a post on social media. The Clarion Project published details taken from the ISIS propaganda magazine Dabiq of a hit list of 22 Western Muslim leaders as ‘Imams of Kufr’ who should be killed. The diverse list of politicians, Salafis and Sufis includes those known to have links to Islamist groups such as the Muslim Brotherhood. This, despite the fact that the Islamic State’s ideology is directly descended from that of the Muslim Brotherhood. The list names Muslim leaders from Britain, Canada, USA and Australia.

This latest hit list is the most recent in a number that have been circulated across the world.  In September 2015, a hit list containing the names and photographs of secular bloggers, writers and activists around the world, including nine bloggers based in the UK, was circulated in Bangladesh. Xulhan Manon, founder of Bangladesh’s first and only LGBT magazine was brutally murdered by suspected Islamist extremists. Manon’s murder took place only weeks after Nazimuddin Samad was brutally murdered by Islamists after posting on Facebook. Sadly, these lists are not new but there was something even more chilling about the list posted by Clarion Project. As I read the names I was reminded of the famous quotation by Pastor Niemoller a prominent Protestant pastor who opposed the Nazi regime.   

First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Socialist.
Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out— 
Because I was not a Trade Unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out— 
Because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.

The Islamists, often with tacit government support, have been coming for the socialists, trade unionists, activists, writers and others in many Muslim majority countries across the world. The thirst for blood and lust for violence not yet sated by the murders, rapes and brutality meted out against Yazidis, Shias, Ahmadis, Hindus, Sikhs, Christians, Jews, believers, non-believers, secularists, bloggers, writers, activists, women, men, children – basically anyone who does not fit their distorted world view.

ISIS, it would seem now have new targets in their sights and some are those considered within the Islamist fold. Some who have remained silent at the murders and atrocities being committed by ISIS, others who have shared or tacitly endorsed the Muslim victim narrative and peddled the radical, hateful ideology of ISIS and other Islamists groups, are now targets too. The exposure of this complicity brings me no comfort. I feel utter despair at where we are now. Is this list a signal of the Islamists turning on each other or is it another example of Islamic sectarianism?

7th January 2016. Paris. Photo: Paul Alfred Henri

ISIS released their latest hit list only weeks after the brutal murder of Asad Shah and on the same day as Channel 4 broadcast a documentary in which Trevor Philips, former head of the Equalities and Human Rights Commission unveiling a new poll telling us ‘what Muslims really think’. From press reports leading up to broadcast of the documentary it would seem that Muslims in Britain are uniquely unwilling to integrate into British society. Although the poll does not address the issue of Muslim sectarian divisions it would appear from the murder of Asad Shah and the ISIS list that perhaps we should now assume that Muslims are actually unable to live with each other too.  

The Shia-Sunni schism in Islam and its ongoing aftermath is well documented. However, in 2014, the Muslim Institute (I am a Fellow) took the bold step of putting sectarianism under the scalpel and giving insight into the ummah – the transnational Muslim community. As Ziauddin Sardar states in the introduction to this edition of Critical Muslim – It is simply not good enough to be a Muslim. You have to be labelled Sunni or Shia, and from there on progressively put in smaller boxes….And to those who deviate one iota …are, by definition, kaffirs – infidels who deserve to die.

This chilling statement from Ziauddin Sardar sums up the basis of divides amongst Muslims and the battle for an authentic Muslim identity. There is no longer any space for those of us who are secular and progressive and, as Kenan Malik says wear our faith lightly and not as a sacrosanct public identity. The primacy of a faith identity above all else is now commonly accepted but for Muslims this in itself is no longer enough. This was made absolutely clear in the recent incident of sectarian violence in Glasgow – a city that is no stranger to religious divisions. The brutal murder of Asad Shah, a Glasgow shopkeeper shed a spotlight on sectarian violence amongst Muslims in the West. 

It now seems that hardly a day goes by without some discussion about sectarianism and Islam. I warmly welcome the space opening up about the position of Ahmadis in Islam and a much belated recognition of the violence and abuse this community has suffered over many years. Pakistan has led the way in the treatment of Ahmadis. Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, often described as a nationalist and socialist, was Prime Minister of Pakistan when the constitution was amended and Ahmadis declared non-Muslims.

This was followed in 1984 under the regime of General Zia ul Haq when Ordinance XX was introduced and it became a criminal offence for Ahmadis to call themselves Muslims. These developments took place long before the days of ISIS, Al Qaeda, the Taliban and their extremist offspring. The daily impact of this persecution and restriction on Ahmadis' freedom to practise their faith is movingly described by Shamila Ghyas. The violence and murder is becoming worse but we should be cautious about ignoring the prejudice and discrimination which has gone unchallenged for many years. We must also acknowledge that persecution of Ahmadis is not limited to Pakistan but includes Malaysia, Indonesia, Bangladesh and many other countries where Ahmadis are designated as non-Muslims. Saudi Arabia where Ahmadis are forbidden from performing Haj, one of the five pillars of Islam – has faced calls from human rights organisations to cease its persecution of Ahmadis.

Following the debates in the media it is heartening to hear many Muslims state their abhorrence at the attacks on Ahmadis. However there are those who continue to label Muslims not like them as ‘other’ and outside of Islam. This labelling as ‘other’ or non-Muslim is made all the more dangerous for those who do not conform to the accepted norms by increasing levels of community policing which has extended from women and girls through codes of honour and shame to everyone in the community. An issue that demands much more attention.  No doubt the ISIS list, like the murder of Asad Shah, will help continue discussions about divisions between different Muslim groups but there needs to be a much more open conversation about those outside of Islam who are also at grave risk.

In my work with the Centre for Secular Space, I have spent several years working closely with members of the Council of Ex-Muslims (CEMB) tackling Islamism and other religious fundamentalisms and extremism. During that time I have met many activists, bloggers and atheists – believers of other faiths, agnostics and atheists who regularly receive threats of violence against them and their families. They include people like Imad Iddine Habib, an ex- Salafi Muslim who fled to the UK from Morocco as well as secular Muslims considered to now be ex-Muslims by the Islamists.

There is very little understanding amongst the authorities about the threats and experiences of these groups of people and a total lack of focus on their experiences by the wider or Muslim communities. Is this because they are outside of a faith identity? Or is it because there is a lack of understanding about the complex nature of the context of the threats? In the cases of the Bangladeshi activists and atheists I have worked with, the police and others appear focused on the communal element of the threats without recognising the extremist/Islamist ideologies present in them and in some cases refusing to investigate the threats as hate crimes as a result of religion and belief. This response is to a significant degree the result of ongoing police engagement with community leaders who act as gatekeepers and community ‘experts’ advising the police.

"I am Bamako. We are Humanity". Sign at memorial at Bataclan Theatre. Photo: Karima Bennoune

Finding a way to tackle sectarian violence and the ongoing threats to all of us from Islamist terrorism will continue. But one thing is clear – Muslim or non-Muslim- we are all in their sights and are at risk. But it is incumbent on us all to speak up and challenge whomever, wherever and whenever we can and remember the lesson in the quote from Pastor Niemoller before it’s too late.

This article was first published on Open Democracy.
 

The post Islamist Terrorism, Sectarian Violence: Chilling Echoes of Pastor Niemoller appeared first on SabrangIndia.

"At least 250 girls have so far been executed by IS for refusing to accept the practice of sexual jihad, and sometimes the families of the girls were also executed for rejecting to submit to IS's request," a Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) official from Mosul, Said Mamuzini, has told the Iranian news agency,  ABNA.

That the ISIS has been forcing women into temporary marriage since the capture of Iraq’s second largest city, Mosul in June 2014 is already known. However the revelation by the KDP official that at least 250 girls have been killed for refusal to submit to the brutal IS’s so-called ‘sexual jihad’ (jihad-ul-nikah) first reported by ABNA on April 19 has shocked the world with the news being picked by news agencies across the globe.

A Mosul-based leader of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), Ghayas Surchi also told ABNA that human rights are being widely violated in all IS-held territories, particularly the womens' rights as they're seen as commodities and they have no choice in choosing their spouses.

Photo courtesy: en.abna24.com

Meanwhile, a report published by ABNA yesterday quoting the sole Kurdish Yazidi Member of the Iraqi Parliament, Vian Dakhil, said that a 12-year-old Yazidi girl, who was taken into IS slavery after the fall of Sinjar in August 2014, has managed to escape the terrorists group by putting sleeping pills in terrorists’ tea.

According MP Dakhil, the girl and her aunt, 17, were kept by IS in a house in Tel Afar district, west of Mosul in northern Iraq; after about four months of their captivity, they succeeded to flee the terrorists and arrive in Peshmerga-held areas.

The Kurdish MP revealed that the girls had asked the terrorists, who were guarding them, to give them sleeping pill as they could not sleep well. “Then, they put the medicine in militants’ tea and secured their escape after they fell asleep.”

Dakhil pointed out that the girl has reunited with her mother and sister in a refugee camp in Duhok province, Kurdistan Region; “but her two or three other sisters are yet in IS captivity.”
 

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