A clash between two Americas over the Ground Zero Mosque - BY SWAPAN DASGUPTA - THE FREE PRESS JOURNAL

Tuesday, August 24, 2010

THE FREE PRESS JOURNAL

A clash between two Americas over the Ground Zero Mosque



The battle between the lofty embellishments of Republicanism and populist democracy has re- surfaced in the passionate controversy over the proposed construction of an Islamic Centre, better known as Ground- Zero Mosque, on a site a stone’s throw from where the twin towers of New York’s World Trade Centre stood till that horrible September 11 morning.

BY SWAPAN DASGUPTA

IN an essay published in 1985, Irving Kristol, the ‘godfather of the Neoconservative movement’, quoted a political scientist as saying American democracy is based on one key assumption: “that the people are usually sensible, but rarely wise.” The American system of government, with its elaborate checks and balances and separation of powers, he contended, was geared towards ensuring that the popular will would ultimately prevail.

The operative term was “ultimately”. “ Short of the ultimate”, Kristol wrote, “ the Founders thought it appropriate that popular sentiments should be delayed in their course, refracted in their expression, revised in their enactment, so that a more deliberate public opinion could prevail over a transient public opinion.” Kristol was addressing a debate then raging in the US over school prayer and crime and liberal fears of a rampaging populism that would brush aside the principles on which the Republic had been founded. The debate, in any case, was not new. Throughout its history, the US has led a schizoid existence. Till the defeat of the southern Confederacy in the Civil War, its lofty espousal of freedom jarred against the reality of slavery; and till President Lyndon Johnson’s Civil Rights legislation, some Americans could well have been said to be more equal than others.

Nor was it a case of some white bigots in the southern states violating the enlightened principles that shaped the US Constitution.

Dixieland’s resistance to the complete abolition of slavery was based on the principle that individual states of the Republic had a right to choose their own course of action, unhindered by Federal intrusiveness and Yankee notions of correctness. Both sides in the Civil War could fall back on both public opinion and the Constitution.

The dispute was, quite predictably, settled by force- not merely in the battlefield of Gettysburg but again a hundred years later in Birmingham, Alabama, when federal forces were dispatched to escort a handful of scared Black students to a de- segregated school.

The battle between the lofty embellishments of Republicanism and populist democracy has re- surfaced in the passionate controversy over the proposed construction of an Islamic Centre, better known as Ground- Zero Mosque, on a site a stone’s throw from where the twin towers of New York’s World Trade Centre stood till that horrible September 11 morning. Coming in the wake of the mid- term elections to the US Congress, the controversy has escalated into a clash between two Americas- one which ostensibly swears by the Constitution and one which waves the Flag.

If the editorial columns of the ‘ respectable’ media are any indication, it is a simple battle between ( pro- mosque) enlightenment and ( anti- mosque) bigotry.

The former has the unequivocal backing of intellectuals, the First Amendment and critical endorsements from President Barak Obama and the Mayor of New York.

The latter may be burdened by the philological clumsiness of Sarah Palin, the Islamophobia of Newt Gingrich and absence from the soirées of Manhattan, but it has the endorsement ( or so the polls say) of nearly two- thirds of America. This has been compelling enough, particularly in an election year, for Senate Majority leader Harry Reid and New York Governor David Paterson to call for a review of the project. The force of public indignation against Cordova House, as the Islamic Centre will be called, was also sufficient to transform Obama’s categorical support at the White House "iftar" into evasive waffle a day later, prompting one writer to dub him a “ stubborn man without conviction”. On the face of it, the pro-mosque lobby is on strong grounds. The US Constitution allows every citizen the unhindered right to both preach and practice faith, without any interference from the state. The rigid separation of state and faith, which was originally intended to forestall any partiality to or discrimination against non- conformist Christian sects, has now come to the aid of a religion that is outside the Judaeo- Christian framework. The universalism of their Constitution has now come to haunt Americans.

The opposition to Cordova House isn’t based on a challenge to the constitutional right of Muslims to build either a mosque or a community centre. The issue is the alleged ‘ insensitivity’ ( some would say provocation) of building it so close to a place where 3,000 people were killed by terrorists claiming to speak for Islam. Would it be proper, ask the sceptics, to build a Japanese war memorial at Pearl Harbour? The promoters of the project have claimed that Cordova House is aimed at promoting inter- faith understanding. However, this has been greeted by scepticism on account of a history of Islamic triumphalism and the tendency of Muslim rulers in distant lands to build a mosque to commemorate a victory. Regardless of the intentions of the Imam in charge of the project, and even his reputation as an authority on Sufism, the fear is that sooner or later the building will come to symbolise a victory monument and become a hub of Islamist extremism. Sinister meaning has even been attached to the use of Cordova, a city that once symbolised Islam’s inroads into the Christian world.

Curiously, one facet of the controversy appears to be troubling both the liberal, non- Muslim supporters of the mosque and their flag- waving opponents. Both fear that whatever the final outcome, the controversy will sharpen the polarisation between Islam and the West and have a negative impact on US foreign policy in the Islamic world. The fear is justified although, ironically, the debate over Cordova House is only peripherally a tussle between Islam and America. The controversy is really another chapter in the battle between the Republic and democracy.

Americans, a historian presciently observed, “ Americans erected their constitutional roof before they put up their national walls... and the Constitution became a substitute for a deeper kind of national identity.” The problem was initially addressed by two filters: the first by an enforced compromise between the brash ‘ frontier spirit’ and lofty ‘ aristocratic’ values, and secondly, by forcing newcomers into a melting pot of Judaeo- Christian values. However, the evolution of the American ‘ nation’ appears to have been derailed by the emergence of a new, disparate America which may in time resemble an ethnic menagerie, bound by a Constitution that was written with a relatively cohesive society in mind.

The groundswell from below over the Ground Zero sacrilege constitutes the spirited protest of an older and somewhat endangered ‘ national identity’ which appeared to have been subsumed by the Obama landslide of 2008 but is actually alive and kicking. It is basically a plea to the governing elites - where the liberal self- image counts for too much - to not allow permissiveness to override common decencies.

A mosque overlooking the scene of the 9/ 11 won’t reinforce America’s image as a haven of enlightened tolerance; it may set it apart as a country unable to distinguish between right and wrong.

Lucky Larry Silverstein EXPOSED

Silverstein Spills The Beans About WTC Building 7

Keith Olbermann Special Comment: There Is No 'Ground Zero Mosque' - 08/1...

Book Review: President Carter's Book on Palestine - By Dr. Habib Siddiqui

President Carter’s Book on Palestine


By

Dr. Habib Siddiqui



Book Review: Palestine Peace Not Apartheid by Jimmy Carter, Simon & Schuster , New York (2006)

No American president has probably touched the lives of so many outside in a positive way than Jimmy Carter – the 39th president. For the past three decades, since leaving the White House, he has been a resolute voice for human rights and democracy. It was for such activism in the world arena that the Nobel Committee honored him as the recipient of the Nobel Prize for Peace in 2002, the only U.S. President to have received the Prize after leaving office. To most of his admirers he genuinely deserved the award, something that cannot be said of President Obama, who earned the award in 2009.

President Carter is very vocal about the Palestine-Israel conflict and believes that the USA has a strong role in any peace effort involving the Middle East . Is America ready to play its historic role for peace-making? Can it be trusted by all the parties to the dispute? President Carter’s book “Palestine Peace Not Apartheid” makes it abundantly clear that America has failed in that task rather miserably. Still, his observation is right. After all, the USA has been Israel ’s greatest benefactor since the Jewish state was recognized by President Truman. Had it not been for America ’s economic aid and security guarantees, plus the abuse of the veto power inside the UN Security Council, the rogue state would have long been a distant memory, much like the short-lived crusader state in the 12th century.

Most people would have hard time realizing that in spite of such blind (and often criminal) support, rendered by the USA, the official U.S. policy in matters relating to the Palestine-Israel conflict is predicated on a few key UN Security Council resolutions, notably 242 of 1967 and 338 of 1973. In his book, president Carter says, “Approved unanimously and still applicable, their basic premise is that Israel ’s acquisition of territory by force is illegal and Israel must withdraw from occupied territories. More specifically, U.S. policy was that Israeli settlements in the West Bank and Gaza were “illegal and obstacles to peace.”” (pp. 38-39)

Israel , however, has always put confiscation of Palestinian land ahead of peace. It was these illegal settlement activities during the Bush Sr. administration that provoked an official White House statement: “The United States has opposed, and will continue to oppose, settlement activity in territories occupied in 1967, which remain an obstacle to peace.” From the State Department, Secretary Baker even added, “I don’t think there is any greater obstacle to peace than settlement activity that continues not only unabated but at an advanced pace.” (pp. 131-2) After George H.W. Bush was no longer in office, a major settlement between Jerusalem and Bethlehem, previously halted because of U.S. threat of cutting aid to Israel, was rapidly completed. (p. 132)

After Carter’s presidency ended, there was no sustained American leadership in the Middle East peace process until the Gulf War against Iraq in the spring of 1991, when Secretary Baker made several trips to the region. During Clinton-era there was a 90% growth in the number of settlers in the occupied territories, with the greatest increase during the administration of Prime Minister Ehud Barak. By the end of the year 2000, Israeli settlers in the West Bank and Gaza numbered 225,000. The best offer to the Palestinians – by Clinton, not Barak – had been to withdraw 20% of the settlers, leaving more than 180,000 in 209 settlements, covering about 10% of the occupied land, including land to be “leased” and portions of the Jordan River valley and East Jerusalem. (pp. 150-1)

According to Carter, “The percentage figure is misleading, since it usually includes only the actual footprints of the settlements. There is a zone with a radius of about four hundred meters around each settlement within which Palestinians cannot enter. In addition, there are other large areas that would have been taken or earmarked to be used exclusively by Israel , roadways that connect the settlements to one another and to Jerusalem , and “life arteries” that provide the settlers with water, sewage, electricity, and communications. These range in width from 500 to 4000 meters, and Palestinians cannot use or cross many of these connecting links. This honeycomb of settlements and their interconnecting conduits effectively divide the West Bank into at least two noncontiguous areas and multiply fragments, often uninhabitable or even unreachable, and control of the Jordan River valley denies Palestinians any direct access eastward into Jordan . About 100 military checkpoints completely surround Palestine and block routes going into or between Palestinian communities, combined with an uncountable number of other roads that are permanently closed with larger concrete cubes or mounds of earth and rocks. There was no possibility that any Palestinian leader could accept such terms and survive, but official statements from Washington and Jerusalem were successful in placing the entire onus for the failure on Yasir Arafat.” (pp. 151-2)

A new round of talks was held at Taba in January 2001, during the last few days of Clinton presidency. It was later claimed that the Palestinians rejected a “generous offer” put forward by PM Barak with Israel keeping only 5% of West Bank . Carter says, “The fact is no such offers were ever made.” (p. 152)

In April 2003 a “Roadmap” for resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was announced by U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan on behalf of the US , the UN, Russia and the EU (known as the Quartet). This was before George W. Bush invaded Iraq . Annan stated, “Such a settlement, negotiated between the parties, will result in the emergence of an independent, democratic Palestinian state living side by side in peace and security with Israel and its other neighbors. The settlement will end the occupation that began in 1967, based on the Madrid Conference terms of reference and the principle of land for peace, UNSC Resolutions 242, 338 and 1397, agreements previously reached by the parties, and the Arab initiative proposed by the Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah and endorsed by the Arab Summit in Beirut.” (p. 159)

As we all know, the Palestinians accepted the roadmap in its entirety, but the Israeli government announced 14 caveats and prerequisites, some of which would preclude any final peace talks. According to Carter, “The practical result of all this is that the Roadmap for Peace has become moot, with only two results: Israel has been able to use it as a delaying tactic with an endless series of preconditions that can never be met, while proceeding with plans to implement its unilateral goals.” (p. 160)

In October 2003, seeing no progress with the “Roadmap”, with involvement of the Carter Center , a final draft for a new initiative was concluded, which was later disclosed by Carter in Geneva . A majority of the Israelis and Palestinians approved the Geneva principles, despite strong opposition from some top political leaders. Sharon condemned the Geneva Initiative and there was silence from the White House, but Secretary Powell supported the Initiative and met with key negotiators – Yasser Abed Rabbo and Beilin. (p. 167) Later George W. Bush, a born-again Christian, mindful of not repeating his father’s “mistakes” (in chiding the Jewish state), had no interest in any peaceful resolution of the conflict.

Taking advantage of diplomatic vacuum left by GW Bush, Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon came up with a unilateral decision to encircle Palestinians by constructing a wall that’s at least 3.5 times Israel ’s international recognized border. According to Carter, the wall effectively divided Palestinian villages, separating the farmers from their fields, and not just separating Palestinians from Jews but rather Palestinians from Palestinians. (pp. 189-194) He observes, “There has been a determined and remarkably effective effort to isolate settlers from Palestinians, so that a Jewish family can commute from Jerusalem to their highly subsidized home deep in the West Bank on roads from which others are excluded, without ever coming in contact with any facet of Arab life.” (p. 190) In July 2004, the International Court of Justice determined that the wall was illegal and called on Israel to cease construction of the wall, to dismantle what has already been built in areas beyond Israel’s international recognized border, and to compensate Palestinians who have suffered as a result of the wall’s construction. But Israel has ignored the ICJ verdict.

During the Israel-Lebanon conflict of 2006, the Bush administration strongly supported Israel , encouraged their bombardment of Lebanon , and blocked the efforts of France and other nations to impose an immediate ceasefire. According to Carter, during this period of conflict, while world’s attention was in Lebanon , the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) killed more than 200 Palestinians, 44 of them children, in Gaza . (p. 200) In September 2006, Prime Minister Olmert authorized construction bids for another 690 homes in the occupied West Bank . He also rejected an offer from Kofi Annan, UN Secretary-General, to negotiate an exchange of prisons. (p. 202)

According to Carter, from September 2000 until March 2006 (before the book went for publication) , some 3,982 Palestinians and 1,084 Israelis were killed in the second Intifada and these numbers include many children: 708 Palestinians and 123 Israelis (p. 206). President GW Bush shares great responsibility for letting such massacre to continue.

The question of land – who owned what percent before the infamous Partition plan was announced in 1947 – is very important to understand the root cause of the ensuing conflict. Zionist leaders have always claimed that the Partition plan in which the Jews were given a bigger share of the pie was fair. Land records, however, show that Jewish ownership was only 2.5% of the land before Israel declared its independence in 1948. Carter reminds us that in 1880 there were only 30,000 Jews in Palestine , scattered among 600,000 Muslims and Christian Arabs. When Britain conducted a census in Palestine in 1922, there were about 84,000 Jews and 670,000 Arabs, of whom 71,000 were Christians. By 1930, thanks to the British policy of Jewish immigration from Europe to Palestine , their numbers had grown to more than 150,000 (p. 65). By the time the area was partitioned by the UN, these numbers had grown to about 600,000 Jews and 1.3 million Arabs, 10 percent of whom were Christians (p. 58). That is, there were two Palestinians for every Jew, and yet, the Jews were given 56% of the land! It does not require a genius to understand the reasons behind Arab rejection of the unfair plan.

As a result of the war of 1948, more than 710,000 unarmed Palestinians were expelled by the Zionist terrorists from their ancestral land. The return of these refugees and their children and grandchildren, born in Diaspora, now remains a serious bone of contention. Israel is adamant about disallowing return of the Palestinian refugees while it remains open to Jewish immigration from anywhere in the world to the holy land.

Carter reminds us that by 1964 when the PLO was formally organized, there were, according to the UN estimate, 1.3 million Palestinian refugees, with one-fourth in Jordan , about 150,000 each in Lebanon and Syria , and most of others in West Bank and Gaza refugee camps (p. 58). Nor should we forget that when Israel launched pre-emptive strikes on June 5, 1967 and within six days occupied the Golan Heights, Gaza , the Sinai, Jerusalem , and the West Bank another 320,000 Arabs were forced to leave the additional areas in Syria , Egypt , Jordan , and Palestine that were occupied by Israel . A number of UN resolutions were adopted with U.S. support and Israeli approval, reemphasizing the inadmissibility of acquisition of land by force, calling for Israeli withdrawal from occupied territories, and urging that the more needy and deserving refugees be repatriated to their former homes (p. 59).

In the popular Jewish-owned western media the Palestinians, and their political leadership, are portrayed as the “bad guys,” who aspire to drive the Jews into the sea and reject the two-state formula. President Carter discloses that in a 1990 meeting the PLO chief Yasir Arafat stated, “The PLO has never advocated the annihilation of Israel . The Zionists started the ‘drive the Jews into the sea’ slogan and attributed it to the PLO. In 1969 we said we wanted to establish a democratic state where Jews, Christians and Muslims can all live together. The Zionists said they do not choose to live with any people other than Jews… We said to the Zionist Jews, all right, if you do not want a secular, democratic state for all of us, then we will take another route. In 1974 I said we are ready to establish our independent state in any part from which Israel will withdraw.” (p. 62)

According to president Carter, PLO Chairman Arafat sent a letter to PM Rabin in September 1993 in which he stated unequivocally that the PLO recognized the right of Israel to exist in peace and security, accepted UN Resolutions 242 and 338, committed itself to a peaceful negotiated resolution of the conflict, renounced the use of terrorism and other acts of violence, affirmed that those articles of the PLO covenant that deny Israel’s right to exist were not longer valid. Although Israel recognized the PLO as the sole representative of the Palestinian people in the Oslo Peace negotiations, Arafat failed to obtain other specific concessions concerning a timetable for Israel ’s withdrawal from occupied territories. (pp. 134-5)

Hamas has been portrayed as a Palestinian resistance group that is totally opposed to peace, and rejecting the so-called two-state formula for co-existence. According to Carter, much in contrast to Israeli claims about Hamas’s intention for a Palestinian state in all the territories, the Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh stated in June of 2006, “We have no problem with a sovereign Palestinian state over all our lands within the 1967 borders, living in calm.” (p. 203)

Well, such shocking revelations may sound unbelievable, but fact remains that Israel has never been serious about letting Palestinians live in an independent state of their own.

In the popular western media, Israel is portrayed as a model state with equal rights for all its citizens. However, facts are much uglier. It remains the last of the apartheid states in our world. During his many trips to Israel , President Carter met with local Palestinians who emphasized that they were deprived of their most basic human rights. They claimed that that any demonstration against Israeli abuses resulted in mass arrests of Palestinians, including children throwing stones, bystanders who were not involved, families of protesters, and those known to make disparaging statements about the occupation. Once incarcerated, they had little hope for a fair trial and often had no access to their families or legal counsel. Most of these cases were tried in military tribunals, but 90% of the inmates were being held in civilian jails. One of the attorneys told, “Here there is one system under civil judges and another under the military. Most of our cases, no matter what the subject might be, fall under the military. They are our accusers, judges, and juries, and they all seem the same to us.” (pp. 118-9)

The apartheid character of the Israeli state is too visible through its persecution and harassment of the Palestinian people. International human rights organizations estimate that since 1967 more than 630,000 Palestinians (about 20%) of the total population) in the occupied territories have been detained at some time by the Israelis. According to President Carter, in addition to time in jail, the pre-trial periods can be quite lengthy. Palestinian detainees can be interrogated under special laws for a total of 180 days and denied lawyer visits for intervals of 90 days. Accused persons are usually in military courts in the West Bank, and incarcerated in prisons inside Israel , in violation of the 4th Geneva Convention. (pp. 196-7)

Access to water, e.g., remains a persistent issue. Each Israeli settler uses five times as much water as a Palestinian neighbor, who must pay four times as much per gallon. There are Israeli swimming pools adjacent to Palestinian villages where drinking water had to be hauled in on tanker trucks and dispensed by the bucketful. Most of the hilltop settlements are on small areas of land, so untreated sewage is discharged into the surrounding fields and villages (p. 121).

Only in an apartheid state can one expect to see such outright discrimination and harassment of a people! Israeli state policy forces exodus upon the Palestinian people.

Consider also the disproportionate privilege enjoyed by the settler Jews in the Gaza Strip before June 2004 when Israel ’s cabinet approved a plan for disengagement from the territory. Living among 1.3 million Palestinians, the 8,000 Israeli settlers were controlling 40% of the arable land and more than one-half the water resources, and 12,000 troops were required to defend their presence. (p. 168) According to Carter, the Palestinian people had little freedom of movement or independent activity. (p. 170)

In 1948 there were 90,000 natives in Gaza . The population more than tripled by 1967, and there are now more than 1.4 million – 3,700 people living per sq. km, making it one of the most densely populated places in our planet. Israel does not allow air and sea transportation from Gaza . Carter observed that fishermen were not allowed to leave the harbor, workers were prevented form going to outside jobs, the import or export of food and other goods was severely restricted and often cut off completely and the police, teachers, nurses, and social workers were deprived of salaries. Per capita income decreased 40% during 2004-06, and poverty rate reached 70% (pp. 175-6). This was the situation before reinvasion of Gaza in July 2006 and its latest demolition in December 2008 – January 2009 by the IDF (during the last days of Bush administration) .

A reading of Carter’s book reveals that the US government, far from being an honest peace-broker, has actually aided in strengthening Israel ’s apartheid character. As to the reality of settlements in the West Bank, Carter observes, “It is obvious that the Palestinians will be left with no territory to establish a viable state, but completely enclosed within the barrier and the occupied Jordan River valley. The Palestinians will have a future impossible for them or any responsible portion of the international community to accept, and as Israel’s permanent status will be increasingly troubled and uncertain as deprived people fight oppression and the relative number of Jewish citizens decreases demographically (compare to Arabs) both within Israel and Palestine.” (p. 196)

There is no denying that the unwavering support of the US government has emboldened the Israeli leaders to believe that they are above the international law and have the right to confiscate and colonize Palestinian land, and sustain subjugation and persecution of increasingly hopeless and aggravated Palestinians. The latter see that suicidal activities are ways to shorten their pathetic condition. This madness on both sides must come to an end.

Carter concludes, “Peace will come to Israel and the Middle East only when the Israeli government is willing to comply with international law… It will be a tragedy – for the Israelis, the Palestinians, and the world – if peace is rejected and a system of oppression, apartheid, and sustained violence is permitted to prevail.” (p. 216) He is absolutely right.

Palestine Peace Not Apartheid is a courageous work of a man who is sincere about finding peace in one of the most troubled areas of our world. President Carter has visited the Occupied Territories many times and has firsthand knowledge about America ’s failed and half-hearted diplomatic initiatives in the Middle East . I strongly recommend this book to anyone serious about understanding the root of the Palestine-Israel conflict and the fallacy of the American ‘balanced’ diplomacy in the Middle East .



Dr. Habib Siddiqui is a peace and human rights activist, and chairman of the Board of Directors of the Bangladesh Expatriate Council, USA. He writes from Pennsylvania. saeva@aol.com

Willaim Dalrymple's NYT article - Muslims in the middle - falls in the muddle

Thursday, August 19, 2010


Letter to the editor

The New York Times, NY, NY
editorial@nytimes.com.

RE: Willaim Dalrymple's article - Muslims in the middle

William Dalrymple has missed the point by writing about the Sufis and differences in Islamic communities. He should have focused on the bigger picture of how 9/11 is being converted into a new religion promoted by Republicans and American Neo-con. If there is no quarter granted to Islam itself, what defending Sufism can achieve against the die hard mischief mongers who are bent on hijacking the mosque issue to de-legitimize the entire Muslim Americans' very existence in the US. A scholar like him, should have realized if the situation requires defending Islam/Sufism or focusing on the menacing agenda of the fascist forces that are on the ascendant in America.

Dalrymple writes: The problem with such claims goes far beyond the fate of a mosque in downtown Manhattan.

So far so good! However, his analysis of differences in both sides misses the 800 pound gorilla in the discussion, as to the motive of such virulent and vigorous confrontation. When he writes that if Bush had known about the finer details of the fractures in Muslim polity, he naively believes that Bush has invaded Iraq for reasons other than for its oil resources. Bush can fool the entire world, but if an intelligent scholar like Dalrymple too falls for Bush propaganda, other mortals must be excused.

Ghulam Muhammed

ghulammuhammed3@gmail.com

-------------------------------------------------

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/17/opinion/17dalrymple.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all


Op-Ed Contributor


The Muslims in the Middle

By WILLIAM DALRYMPLE

Published: August 16, 2010

comments (319)
New Delhi

PRESIDENT OBAMA’S eloquent endorsement on Friday of a planned Islamic cultural center near the World Trade Center, followed by his apparent retreat the next day, was just one of many paradoxes at the heart of the increasingly impassioned controversy.

We have seen the Anti-Defamation League, an organization dedicated to ending “unjust and unfair discrimination,” seek to discriminate against American Muslims. We have seen Newt Gingrich depict the organization behind the center — the Cordoba Initiative, which is dedicated to “improving Muslim-West relations” and interfaith dialogue — as a “deliberately insulting” and triumphalist force attempting to built a monument to Muslim victory near the site of the twin towers.

Most laughably, we have seen politicians like Rick Lazio, a Republican candidate for New York governor, question whether Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, the principal figure behind the project, might have links to “radical organizations.”

The problem with such claims goes far beyond the fate of a mosque in downtown Manhattan. They show a dangerously inadequate understanding of the many divisions, complexities and nuances within the Islamic world — a failure that hugely hampers Western efforts to fight violent Islamic extremism and to reconcile Americans with peaceful adherents of the world’s second-largest religion.

Most of us are perfectly capable of making distinctions within the Christian world. The fact that someone is a Boston Roman Catholic doesn’t mean he’s in league with Irish Republican Army bomb makers, just as not all Orthodox Christians have ties to Serbian war criminals or Southern Baptists to the murderers of abortion doctors.

Yet many of our leaders have a tendency to see the Islamic world as a single, terrifying monolith. Had the George W. Bush administration been more aware of the irreconcilable differences between the Salafist jihadists of Al Qaeda and the secular Baathists of Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, the United States might never have blundered into a disastrous war, and instead kept its focus on rebuilding post-Taliban Afghanistan while the hearts and minds of the Afghans were still open to persuasion.

Feisal Abdul Rauf of the Cordoba Initiative is one of America’s leading thinkers of Sufism, the mystical form of Islam, which in terms of goals and outlook couldn’t be farther from the violent Wahhabism of the jihadists. His videos and sermons preach love, the remembrance of God (or “zikr”) and reconciliation. His slightly New Agey rhetoric makes him sound, for better or worse, like a Muslim Deepak Chopra. But in the eyes of Osama bin Laden and the Taliban, he is an infidel-loving, grave-worshiping apostate; they no doubt regard him as a legitimate target for assassination.

For such moderate, pluralistic Sufi imams are the front line against the most violent forms of Islam. In the most radical parts of the Muslim world, Sufi leaders risk their lives for their tolerant beliefs, every bit as bravely as American troops on the ground in Baghdad and Kabul do. Sufism is the most pluralistic incarnation of Islam — accessible to the learned and the ignorant, the faithful and nonbelievers — and is thus a uniquely valuable bridge between East and West.

The great Sufi saints like the 13th-century Persian poet Rumi held that all existence and all religions were one, all manifestations of the same divine reality. What was important was not the empty ritual of the mosque, church, synagogue or temple, but the striving to understand that divinity can best be reached through the gateway of the human heart: that we all can find paradise within us, if we know where to look. In some ways Sufism, with its emphasis on love rather than judgment, represents the New Testament of Islam.

While the West remains blind to the divisions and distinctions within Islam, the challenge posed by the Sufi vision of the faith is not lost on the extremists. This was shown most violently on July 2, when the Pakistani Taliban organized a double-suicide bombing of the Data Darbar, the largest Sufi shrine in Lahore, Pakistan’s second-largest city. The attack took place on a Thursday night, when the shrine was at its busiest; 42 people were killed and 175 were injured.

This was only the latest in a series of assaults against Pakistan’s Sufis. In May, Peeru’s Cafe in Lahore, a cultural center where I had recently performed with a troupe of Sufi musicians, was bombed in the middle of its annual festival. An important site in a tribal area of the northwest — the tomb of Haji Sahib of Turangzai, a Sufi persecuted under British colonial rule for his social work — has been forcibly turned into a Taliban headquarters. Two shrines near Peshawar, the mausoleum of Bahadar Baba and the shrine of Abu Saeed Baba, have been destroyed by rocket fire.

Symbolically, however, the most devastating Taliban attack occurred last spring at the shrine of the 17th-century poet-saint Rahman Baba, at the foot of the Khyber Pass in northwest Pakistan. For centuries, the complex has been a place for musicians and poets to gather, and Rahman Baba’s Sufi verses had long made him the national poet of the Pashtuns living on both sides of the Afghanistan-Pakistan border. “I am a lover, and I deal in love,” wrote the saint. “Sow flowers,/ so your surroundings become a garden./ Don’t sow thorns; for they will prick your feet./ We are all one body./ Whoever tortures another, wounds himself.”

THEN, about a decade ago, a Saudi-financed religious school, or madrasa, was built at the end of the path leading to the shrine. Soon its students took it upon themselves to halt what they see as the un-Islamic practices of Rahman Baba’s admirers. When I last visited it in 2003, the shrine-keeper, Tila Mohammed, described how young students were coming regularly to complain that his shrine was a center of idolatry and immorality.

“My family have been singing here for generations,” he told me. “But now these madrasa students come and tell us that what we do is wrong. They tell women to stay at home. This used to be a place where people came to get peace of mind. Now when they come here they just encounter more problems.”

Then, one morning in early March 2009, a group of Pakistani Taliban arrived at the shrine before dawn and placed dynamite packages around the squinches supporting the shrine’s dome. In the ensuing explosion, the mausoleum was destroyed, but at least nobody was killed. The Pakistani Taliban quickly took credit, blaming the shrine’s administrators for allowing women to pray and seek healing there.

The good news is that Sufis, though mild, are also resilient. While the Wahhabis have become dominant in northern Pakistan ever since we chose to finance their fight against the Soviets in Afghanistan, things are different in Sindh Province in southern Pakistan. Sufis are putting up a strong resistance on behalf of the pluralist, composite culture that emerged in the course of a thousand years of cohabitation between Hinduism and Islam.

Last year, when I visited a shrine of the saint Lal Shahbaz Qalandar in the town of Sehwan, I was astonished by the strength and the openness of the feelings against those puritan mullahs who criticize as heresy all homage to Sufi saints.

“I feel that it is my duty to protect both the Sufi saints, just as they have protected me,” one woman told me. “Today in our Pakistan there are so many of these mullahs and Wahhabis who say that to pay respect to the saints in their shrines is heresy. Those hypocrites! They sit there reading their law books and arguing about how long their beards should be, and fail to listen to the true message of the prophet.”

There are many like her; indeed, until recently Sufism was the dominant form of Islam in South Asia. And her point of view shows why the West would do well to view Sufis as natural allies against the extremists. A 2007 study by the RAND Corporation found that Sufis’ open, intellectual interpretation of Islam makes them ideal “partners in the effort to combat Islamist extremism.”

Sufism is an entirely indigenous, deeply rooted resistance movement against violent Islamic radicalism. Whether it can be harnessed to a political end is not clear. But the least we can do is to encourage the Sufis in our own societies. Men like Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf should be embraced as vital allies, and we should have only contempt for those who, through ignorance or political calculation, attempt to conflate them with the extremists.





William Dalrymple is the author, most recently, of “Nine Lives: In Search of the Sacred in Modern India.”

'There can be no dialogue with India, says Syed Ali Shah Geelani' - Interview by Siraj Wahab, Arab Times

http://arabnews.com/world/article105258.ece


There can be no dialogue with India, says Syed Ali Shah Geelani

By SIRAJ WAHAB

Published: Aug 17, 2010 23:27 Updated: Aug 17, 2010 23:27

A key leader of Kashmir's growing anti-India movement says New Delhi's offer of talks is meaningless. Syed Ali Shah Geelani, the octogenarian leader whose call for unarmed protests has galvanized thousands of activists to take to the streets in Indian-administered Kashmir, said he had heard of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's offer of talks during his speech at Delhi's historic Red Fort on Aug. 15.

"Yes, Singh did say that New Delhi is ready for talks but in the same breath he insisted that Kashmir was an integral part of India," said Geelani in an interview with Arab News by telephone from Srinagar on Tuesday. "There lies the whole problem ... If India refuses to consider Kashmir a disputed territory, then what is the point of holding talks?"

Geelani heads his own faction of the All Parties Hurriyat Conference. He was written off as a spent force by India after the recent assembly elections that saw a huge turnout of Kashmiris. The result was seen as a vote for India. It was seen as a vote against separatists. Geelani says that was never the case. People took part in the election to put into place a local administration to take care of their day-to-day civic needs.

Today, Geelani is the one who commands complete respect from the Kashmiris. He is the undisputed leader of the insurgency at the moment. India has consistently tried to court him but he has refused to take the bait and insists that a plebiscite as demanded by UN resolutions is the only answer to the problem. It is interesting to note that Geelani has not always been a separatist leader. He was a member of the Kashmir Assembly for 15 years. "We adopted the democratic process but India paid no attention to solving this dispute. It continued to indulge in political machinations. It bought some people; it suppressed some and killed others. That is when I lost faith in India. India is still resorting to the same methods."

Following are excerpts from the interview:

Q: What is the situation in Kashmir?

A: We have called for a complete strike in the valley and everybody is paying heed to our call. Everything has come to a standstill. The state government has imposed curfew in many areas. I just came back home after spending two days in hospital. (He coughs intermittently during the talk; his son tells us that he was complaining of breathlessness and therefore had to be hospitalized and put on oxygen.) The whole city is deserted. In every nook and cranny there are Indian troops. The Central Reserve Police Forces are everywhere. Nobody is being allowed to come out onto the streets.

Q: Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has extended what is being described as an olive branch to the separatists. He has offered to hold talks with you. Are you ready for talks?

A: Yes, he did say that New Delhi was ready for talks but in the same breath he insisted that Kashmir was an integral part of India. There lies the whole problem ... If India refuses to consider Kashmir a disputed territory then what is the point of holding talks? We agree that meaningful dialogue is one way of settling this issue but the most important requirement is for India to agree that Kashmir is indeed a disputed territory as accepted by the United Nations. Our case is very well documented in the world body. Kashmiris are asking for self determination. They are asking for freedom. They are asking India to honor its promise of holding a plebiscite. Naked military force will not extinguish the flame of freedom. Dialogue at the point of a gun has not resulted in anything, either in the past nor will it result in anything in the future.

Q: During the recent assembly elections, which were held a few months ago, there was an unprecedented and spontaneous turnout of Kashmiris. This led everyone to believe that Kashmiris have full faith in Indian democracy. The peaceful elections were seen as a blow to pro-independence people such as yourself. What led to the turning of the tide against Indian rule?

A: I am an eyewitness to the campaigning that took place in the run-up to the last assembly elections in which the Indian federal minister's Farooq Abdullah's National Conference party emerged victorious. Those who took part in the election process and those who cast their votes told us unambiguously and in public that they favored independence. "We are taking part in the electoral process to put in place the local administration. This has got to be set up in order to meet our day-to-day needs. We need roads, we need water, we need electricity," that is what the people told us. "Our votes should in no way mean that we are endorsing India's military rule over Kashmir. We were and we are with the pro-independence movement." However, India interpreted the writing on the wall in a different way. They thought the huge participation of Kashmiris in the assembly elections had driven a last nail in our coffin. Now you see and hear the people's voice in the streets of Kashmir. "Go back India," that is what they are shouting.

Q: How is this pro-independence movement different from the one in the late 1980s? That led to heavy bloodshed on both sides and ultimately resulted in nothing but misery for the Kashmiris.

A: In 1988, our youngsters were sick and tired of Indian atrocities. They were forced to take up the gun. They had no other choice. Delhi had closed the doors on all possible democratic and peaceful ways to solve the dispute. That was an armed struggle and the goal was to achieve freedom and a life of dignity. Since India believed only in showing off its military strength, our youngsters thought Delhi would only understand the same language. We supported the armed struggle because it was for a just cause. This time, however, they have not taken up the gun. This movement for freedom is completely peaceful from our side. This is a mass movement which is being led by our youngsters. They are not ordinary youngsters. They are educated young people. They are not asking for jobs. They are not asking for roads or water or electricity. They are just demanding one thing: Go, India, Go Back. They reject Indian rule. They are simply demanding freedom. They want to throw off the yoke of Indian rule. In return they are facing the full might of the Indian military state. I call this the worst example of state terrorism. The Indian troops create havoc during night raids. They break into homes at will. Pick up anybody they like. Rape our women. Our unarmed people are conducting peaceful demonstrations but they are being met with live bullets pumped straight into their chests. So far nearly 60 of our youngsters have attained martyrdom. Nobody has a stick in his hand. Nobody is carrying a gun. Nobody has got tear-gas shells. This is a completely peaceful struggle for freedom and independence. So this is the basic difference between the movement of 1988 and 2010. It was an armed struggle then, now it is totally peaceful. We have vowed not to pick up a gun against India.

Q: What led to this rethinking? Was it because the separatists paid a heavy price in blood in the late 1980s and early 1990s?

A: Sept. 11, 2001, changed everything. All armed struggles, whether they were just or otherwise were linked to terrorism. Our struggle too was bracketed with terrorism. Pakistan, which supported us, too, possibly at the instructions of the United States, clubbed our struggle with terrorism. That led to a rethinking in our ranks. In the initial days of this pro-independence movement, we took a conscious decision not to take up arms because we were afraid that our pious struggle would again be dubbed as terrorism by India and the outside world. So we opted for the path of peaceful struggle, which is what we are leading now. We want to run India out of excuses. Because the struggle in 1988 was armed, India justified the disproportionate use of military force. Now nobody can dare call us terrorists. This struggle has been on for the last two months. You will appreciate the fact that not one man in uniform has been killed at the hands of our men. We lost 60 people. They include women, children and the elderly. This is carnage and the world's so-called largest democracy is committing this carnage.
Q: There were reports in the Kashmiri media that you were not happy with the Organization of the Islamic Countries (OIC)?

A: They only pass resolutions. They are a group of 57 mostly Muslim countries. They should have some weight on the world stage. Some of these countries are economic heavyweights and oil producing countries. We expect them to pay special attention to what is happening in Kashmir. We are bound to them because of our common religion. They should exert pressure on India to stop the killing of Kashmiris. Can they not tell Delhi to stop violating the dignity of our women and children? Are we not their Islamic brothers? Just because these countries have huge economic interests with India, should that mean a carte blanche for India to do what it likes with Kashmiri Muslims? They should have the courage to ask this question of India. The OIC should play its role. It should immediately convene an extraordinary summit to discuss Kashmir. It is clearly mentioned in the Holy Qur'an to come to the aid of oppressed people. The sad reality is nobody is paying attention to our miseries. The world is silent.

Q: Pakistan was your greatest supporter. Are you in touch with the pro-freedom groups in Pakistan or the Pakistani leadership itself?

A: Pakistan is neck deep in trouble. The devastating floods have wreaked havoc in that country. And you know what happened in Karachi a few days ago. A member of the state legislature was killed and then in revenge killings, 80 people lost their lives. It seems the Dark Ages (jahaliya) have come back to haunt us. Pakistan is caught up in its own domestic problems. We are not in touch with them nor do we have any communication with them.

Q: Going back to India's offer of dialogue. You have rejected it. How do you think this deadlock can be broken?

A: There can be a way out only if India accepts publicly that Kashmir is a disputed territory. India should withdraw the occupation forces. The draconian laws that are in force should be declared null and void. These black laws are being used to stifle our voice. They have filled their jails with our people using brute force. My colleagues are all locked up. I am under house arrest most of the time. They don't allow me to meet my own people, to interact with them.

Q: State Chief Minister Omar Abdullah has appealed to the separatists to call off their protests. Will you heed his call?

A: The police and military apparatus are under his command. They take orders from him. He should ask them to stop firing on unarmed civilians. He should ask them to stop killing innocent people. Stop arresting the people. Stop caning peaceful demonstrators. We are not the ones indulging in violence. It is his men. Why is he requesting us to do something that is not is our hands? The Indian prime minister said the same things. "Abjure violence," he told us. These are plain lies. Not a single policeman or military man has lost his life because of our protests. It is the Indian state that is using brute force to suppress the spontaneous reaction of our people. India and its leaders are too well known for indulging in the politics of lies and deceit.

Q: It was the general belief that with the Congress party in power, Kashmiris would feel comfortable. Manmohan Singh is described as a respectable and reasonable man and a good prime minister.

A: This is just wishful thinking. They are all the followers of the politics of Chanakya. To expect politics of principle and reason from them is to live in a fool's paradise. India believes in the policy of expansionism. They are drunk on power, and they are doing exactly what Ghenghis Khan and Hulagu did in their times and what Hitler and Mussolini did in theirs.