New book on Fundamentalism

Daily Times, December 10, 2005
New book explores the rise of fundamentalism

By Khalid Hasan

WASHINGTON: A new book asserts that modern-day neo-conservatism pushed America into the Iraq war and there are right wing and hard-line elements in the US government who have found common cause with fundamentalist groups in the Middle East.

The book by journalist Robert Dreyfuss – The Devil’s Game: how the United States helped unleash fundamentalist Islam - describes how the United States deliberately channelled money to the “nastier, more fanatic types of mujahideen” in Afghanistan to do the most damage to Soviet occupiers. Among the nastiest was Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, who won the confidence of his Pakistani and CIA backers in part by skinning prisoners alive and approving the practice of throwing acid in the faces of women who failed to cover themselves properly. After 9/11, Hekmatyar resurfaced as an ally of the Taliban and a bitter opponent of the US.

Dreyfuss also reveals how Israel helped to create and empower the forerunners of Hamas as a bulwark against Palestinian nationalism. The Likud-Hamas link - with both organisations thriving in unstable, warlike environments - is likely to be one of the book’s most controversial points, and it is a disturbing parallel to the “blowback” the United States suffered by backing bin Laden and his fellow “freedom fighters” in Afghanistan, according to James Norton, writing on an online website.

Dreyfuss, writes Norton, also uncovers how Citibank and Harvard University, among other international players, helped create the Islamic banking system that would act as the financial battery for violent anti-Western Islamism. Along the way, Dreyfuss replays long-buried quotes from top American military and intelligence officials that illuminate the shadowy origins of America’s current foreign policy. Dreyfuss suggests that “some stirred-up Muslims” may turn out to be something of a problem, after all. He argues that the United States helped unleash the most challenging foreign policy crisis of the new millennium. In an interview with Salon, the online journal, the author said Osama bin Laden didn’t just emerge from “Zeus’ brain in the middle of Saudi Arabia or Afghanistan. He sprang out of a movement of ideologues, of fundamentalists, of salafists, that goes back really into the 19th century, and if you wanted to be historical about it, you could trace it back to the 11th century or even before that.”

Asked if the “war on terror” was doing anything at all to deter Al Qaeda, Dreyfuss replied, “Al-Qaida is an ideology above all, and it recruits activists and supporters from a pool of angry and bitter people who are upset, both with their place in life and what they see as injustice. The way to fight al-Qaida, in the broadest sense, is to remove the sense of grievance. So, in that sense, contrary to what the Bush administration would argue, the way to fight al-Qaida is to pull out of Iraq, because (the US presence) is creating tremendous incentive for people to pick up arms on behalf of this mythical new caliphate that they want to create. It makes sense to reduce our footprint in the Persian Gulf, and in fact the whole Middle East, and to remove this seemingly imperial presence that creates so much anger and unhappiness there. We should also work a lot harder to solve … the conflicts from the Philippines to Kashmir to Chechnya to, of course, Palestine - all of those disputes need to be reduced because they create heat that keeps the pot boiling. It’s the molecules that escape from that boiling pot that are immediately snatched up by these terrorist groups in one form or another. They’re catching the angriest, most nihilistic people coming out of this simmering pot. And so we need to lower the temperature. And then we need to start more generally getting out of the way and letting the people in the region engage in rebuilding their societies and starting on the process of what I call ‘religion building’ - in other words, yanking big parts of the Islamic establishment into the 21st century and reconciling it with ideals of secular modern institutions where church and state are separated.”

Dreyfuss said that the victory that bin Laden is trumpeting now is the victory of confirming everything that he has been arguing for the past 20 years - and his forbears have been arguing for a century - which is the clash of civilisations. The West is out to destroy Islam and rape its people and pillage its oil and destroy the Muslim religion - that’s the victory that bin Laden is trumpeting now. “We’ve confirmed his worst predictions. Are democracy and political Islam simply incompatible? Is it critical to ban religious parties from Middle Eastern elections? I don’t think you can ban any sort of political party. I’m not for banning People flock to these parties because they’re desperate or angry or riled up by imams in mosques and it’s so easy under current circumstances for this to spin out of control. He said Iraq was a “secular dictatorship that the US destroyed and what emerged in its place is largely a Shiite theocracy on one side, and a Sunni movement that because of civil war conditions is itself pulled very strongly into a Sunni Islamic formation.

In answer to the question if there is a way to depoliticise Islam in states such as
Afghanistan and Iraq, where the US wields some de facto political and economic influence, Dreyfuss said, “Unless someone can create some benevolent despot who can do it by snapping his fingers, I think it’s going to be a project of many decades that has to be undertaken above all by the people who live there. You have to look at the reason why people turn to these kinds of movements. This wasn’t something that happened overnight. This is something that is the product of so many decades of fear and anger and bitterness that unless the temperature is lowered, unless people are given the chance to engage in normal kinds of political debate, there is no chance of separating religion and politics.”