 |
   |
|
In this mailing:
Pakistan: Between Civility and Fanaticism
by Salim Mansur
• January 31, 2015 at 5:00 am
A country
made for Muslims has turned into a nightmare for Muslims.
The wish
of Mohammad Ali Jinnah, the father of Pakistan, was that the country evolved
into a modern democratic state where Muslims, as a majority population, could
feel at ease.
But the
modernizers who succeeded the colonial authorities in taking power aroused
expectations that were simply beyond their abilities to deliver.
But
religious authorities were agitating, warning the bewildered masses that
these defeats were divine punishments for betraying the true message of Islam
by not faithfully abiding by its requirements.
Qutb in
his writings recast the division in the world from the classic Muslim one
between the House of Islam and the House of War, to one between Islam and
jahiliyya, a condition of paganism that preceded the coming of Islam to
Arabia. Jahiliyya has now become all-pervasive in the modern world,
supposedly sparing none, including Muslims, except for that small coterie of
Muslims who took flight [hijra] from the corrupted world and prepared
for jihad [armed struggle].
Together,
Hasan al-Banna, Abul A'la Maududi and Sayed Qutb fashioned political Islam as
a closed system, in opposition to all other competing ideologies.
The
theology of takfir -- declaring other Muslims apostates or
unbelievers; excommunication -- obsessed with "unbelief," has provided
the politics of jihad [armed struggle] with the theological
justification that arms any Muslim to freelance as a soldier of Allah.
The
strategic requirement for advancing global jihad was to convince Muslims that
they are liable to be found committing heresy if they support non-Muslim or
infidel authorities, such as the United States and its allies, or if they
wage war against Muslims, such as members of al-Qaeda.
The
theology of takfir and jihad has now come full circle. Many
Pakistanis, when they disagree, now find themselves trapped in denunciations
that they are unbelievers.
It is
from these madrasas that the jihadi fighters come forth as cannon
fodder for an endless jihad that has become a growth industry in Pakistan.
The entire political elite in Pakistan has profited, just as the Iranian
elite continues profiting by doing the same.
For many,
being "pure" required separating oneself from non-Muslims.
"The
Taliban were not providing strategic depth to Pakistan, but Pakistan was
providing strategic depth to the Taliban." — Ahmed Rashid, foremost
scholar of the Taliban.
The recent massacre of school children by Taliban jihadists in a
Peshawar army school just lowered even further the bar of atrocities carried
out under the banner of Islam in Pakistan. As authorities floundered in the
face of mounting violence, with serious implications for new wars in the
region, the 2014 Global Terrorism Index ranked Pakistan third behind Iraq and
Afghanistan among countries most impacted by terrorism. In addition, the
"failed states index" elevated the status of Pakistan to being
among the top dozen failed states of the world.
According to the intelligence report of the last conversation before the
murders, monitored by Pakistan's security agency, one of the jihadists
informed his handler, "We have killed all the children in the
auditorium." He then asked, "What do we do now?" The handler
answered, "Wait for the army people, kill them before blowing up
yourself."[1]
Confronting European Anti-Semitism
by Alan M. Dershowitz
• January 30, 2015 at 12:00 pm
I just completed a three day visit to Prague and the former Terezin
concentration camp. I was there to speak at a conference commemorating
the 70th anniversary of the liberation of the Nazi death
camps. Many European speakers talked about the efforts they are making
to confront the rising tide of anti-Semitism throughout Europe. But
before one can decide how to confront a sickness like anti-Semitism, one must
first describe and diagnose the pathology.
There are several distinct, but sometimes overlapping, types of
anti-Semitism. The first is traditional, right wing, fascist Jew hatred
that has historically included theological, racial, economic, social,
personal and cultural aspects. We are seeing a resurgence of this today
in Greece, Hungary and other European countries with rising right wing
parties that are anti-Muslim as well as anti-Jewish.
|
|
|
To subscribe to the this mailing list, go to http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/list_subscribe.php
14 East 60 St., Suite 1001, New York, NY 10022
|
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment