Matthew Parris, writing in the most recent edition of the Spectator (part 1, part 2) in reply to David Selbourne, who claimed that American power is past its prime, that Islam is what has done for it and that the Americans' big mistake was to "underestimate the guile, energy and willpower of international Islamism" and to fail to stand up to it, opines that history will not see "Islamism" as a "great and enduring force in the world, or the ‘reason’ for the decline of American power", on account of the sheer incompetence of Muslim governments and organisations worldwide:
Have we not noticed how incompetent are Islamic governments and organisations the world over? Has it not occurred to us that if al-Qa’eda really were as wily and resourceful as we tell ourselves they are, and if their tentacles really did extend as wide and deep as some say, they would be on the advance — not battled into a stalemate by Western security and intelligence? If I were an al-Qa’eda activist I could have blown up Parliament or shot at least one of a range of prime ministers by now. Al-Qa’eda’s failure to infiltrate or penetrate Western structures has been complete.There is a reason for this. Islam, in its more fundamentalist form, doesn’t work. Serious, committed Islamists are most unlikely to succeed within any structures but their own. Their own, meanwhile, are notoriously inefficient and corrupt. Only by lucky coincidence have much of the world’s known petrocarbons been found beneath Islamic nations, giving them what temporary influence they wield. How can any culture which despises modernity, hates mobility, distrusts individual liberty and autonomy, persecutes those who deviate from cultural or ideological norms, imposes a kind of brutal conformity on the way people live, love and work, and at a stroke disempowers 50 per cent of its people (women) from proper education and from all career opportunity so that every boy-child it produces is being brought up by a person who knows little of the world and only a fraction of what the boy must learn — how can such a culture bestride the 21st century, as Selbourne fears Islamism will do?
Parris then suggests that the west stand back and pretty much let Russia and China deal with the problem of fighting "Islamism":
We are hugely overestimating our supposed enemy. We are overlooking the fractures and potential fractures within it. Even if we were not — even if Islamism really were a great, fearsome and growing beast — cynics would say that we in Europe and America would be best advised to let its most implacable enemies shed their blood and money confronting its advance. In Chechnya, in Southeast Asia, with China, and all across that swath of nations ending in -stan, the struggle between Islam and its rivals is one from which the West can stand aside, leaving both sides to an expensive and wasteful scrap. The Chinese and the Russians are infinitely more savage than we dare be.
In other words, stand back and let the Russians and Chinese slaughter the Muslims, rather than take the job on themselves. He seems to forget that the Russians and Chinese would likely face not a bunch of Osama bin Laden types attempting to Talibanise Beijing or Moscow, but ordinary decent Muslims seeking self-determination to reverse the Russians' and Chinese' own previous imperial conquests. (Of course, how long the Russian or Chinese empires can themselves last is something Parris does not consider.)
However, Parris makes the basic mistakes of confusing Muslim culture generally with that which produced the likes of the Taliban and al-Qa'ida and of overlooking the historical context in which al-Qa'ida emerged, and the relationship between them and ordinary Muslims. While some may trace the roots of al-Qa'ida back to Sayyid Qutb, the event which tipped some of the "Arab Afghan" jihadis into the extremism which led to 9/11 were the decision of King Fahd to allow American bases in Saudi Arabia during the 1991 Gulf War (the cancellation of the elections in Algeria may have had some effect; certainly it fed the extremist culture in London), rather than allowing the "Afghans" to fight the Iraqis "with their faith". A common theme in the extremist literature of the 1990s was a denunciation of rulers like King Fahd, in which the American troops in the Arabian peninsula was a particular sore point, although all rulers who did not enforce the Shari'a were denounced as kafirs (infidels), along with anyone who opposed attacks on their armies or doubted that such people were infidels (Abdullah Faisal, for example, is on tape denouncing someone as a kafir for this).
It might be asked, then, why ordinary Muslims did not join the jihad. One answer is that it has quickly become obvious that these people are not really concerned with the interests of ordinary Muslims, repeatedly attacking targets which, from the average concerned Muslim's point of view, is neutral or even friendly. Early on, when his record in Afghanistan was fresh in people's minds, a lot of Muslims refused to believe that Osama bin Laden was behind the bombing of the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, for example, and it took a while to convince a lot of people that 9/11 was not some Jewish or CIA plot. The fact is that their attacks have never been aimed at enemies of Muslims, but at perceived enemies of Islam. The bombings in London in July 2005 are a case in point - the Iraq war may have had some role in inspriring the bombers, but they hit a population in which there was massive hostility to the war and to British participation in it, and a city which had seen a massive anti-war demonstration where the mayor was (and still is) known for his anti-war and pro-Muslim stance. There was, simply, no reason to do it other than to sow hostility between Muslims and others, even if the bombers themselves did not see this.
Parris's observations about the treatment of women under "Islamist" regimes also explains why the mass of Muslims do not support this sort of extremism. Most Muslims, even practising ones and even those sympathetic to the likes of Hizb-ut-Tahreer and the Muslim Brotherhood, do not want to live the way Parris describes, as evidenced by the fact that there is a controversy over the headscarf at all. If Muslim women with "Islamist" tendencies, or who are strict in their religion, really were content to be housewives and to stay in the house all day and not to receive an education, they would not be fighting for their right to attend school or college in religiously-mandated dress. In truth, there was only one recent incident of females being banned from education by "Islamists"; in every other Muslim country, Muslim women do receive education unless they are barred by restrictions imposed by secularists (or by poverty). And most of us do not favour "morality squads" policing the streets with sticks either. Plenty of Muslims are anti-Saudi because of their repressive character, not (just) because of their stance on American troops.
The type of extremism typefied by al-Qa'ida has failed because it has made no attempt to win the hearts and minds of Muslims, even at a time when western interference in three Muslim countries (Afghanistan, Iraq and now Somalia) have caused devastation. Before their presence in Afghanistan became the pretext for the invasion, their antics were instrumental in bringing about the ruin of Chechenia, with the result that the country is now ruled by Ramzan Kadyrov's murderous gangsters. They bring destruction wherever they go. They are opposed to Muslims living peacefully in the west, or indeed anywhere.
A well argued post Yusuf.
ordinary decent Muslims seeking self-determination to reverse the Russians' and Chinese' own previous imperial conquests
How did the ancestors of these "ordinary decent Muslims" get there then, if not by conquest.
Was Beslan carried out by "ordinary decent Muslims"?
The peoples of the Caucasus exist nowhere other than where they live now, so your logic falls down. As for Beslan, the Russians would have behaved as they have regardless of whether such a thing had happened.
Parris' article is typical of the double-think many Westerners have regarding Islam. On the one-hand Muslims are inherently backward and useless, yet at the same time they can beleive nonsense about the likes of Iran, Iraq and even al-Qaeda posing an immediate existential threat that has to be dealt with by overwhelming military force.
His tactical analysis regarding Islam's conflict with Russia and China are also highly flawed. Russia is only in conflict with Chechnya which far from being highly expensive to the wider Islamic world is almost completely localised. Apparently even most of their Chechen funding was internally produced through criminal connections. There was no great contribution from the wider Islamic world. Russia wouldn't be a good side to bet on long term anyway. Its booming economy is based largely on energy exports, much like the Middle East which will eventually fade and they have a male life expectancy less then Bangladesh!
China's conflict in Xinjiang is similarly localised, there's no evidence of it trying to expand into the wider Islamic world. There is no great swathe of territory where conflict is occuring between Islam and the eastern powers. Even the Muslim republics of Central Asia were happily shot of by Moscow when the USSr broke up.
Raashid: Even the Muslim republics of Central Asia were happily shot of by Moscow when the USSR broke up.
An Islamophobe could argue that "Russia jettisoned its Muslim republics out of fear of the demographic threat that they posed"...
I'm starting to think there is a definite terminological problem here, that goes beyond the standard muslim/islamist/extremist/terrorist distinction.
If I am right, there are three over-lapping groups of people:
A: people for whom Islam is significant, who consider islamically-expressed arguments to carry weight.
B: people who consider that type of argument to be a good path to solving personal-scale political issues: marriage, child-rearing, employment.
C: people who consider that type of argument to be a good path to solving state-scale political issues: war, peace, imperialism, nationalism.
Now, you clearly don't get to be a terrorist by simply becoming a member of group A, but more so, an 'extremist'. It's a commonplace that convicted terrorists are not unusually observant or pious: sometimes the opposite.
Whereas when you take someone who thinks the national defence strategy of the kingdom of Saudi Arabia should be decided by using words like 'infidel' and 'jihad', then they are in group C, and, subject to variables of morality, strategy and opportunity, clearly members of a group who's extrema includes those planting bombs on the Tube.
Wheras I don't think that is true of group B: someone who, say, supported legalising polygamy, an 'extreme' position of that type, is not more likely than average to qualify for a bulk discount at their local fertiliser shop.
The terminological problem A is 'muslim', but both 'B' and 'C' are commonly called 'Islamist'.
Is there any precedent for using different names for those two different things?
An interesting view, but there are still flaws in your analysis, as the terminology of terror and extremism is regularly interchanged with all three groups. The Taliban movement for example are commonly referred to as terrorists, when there is no evidence of them ever having carried out terrorist acts when they were in power. Many of the men who joined them could arguably have elonged to your category B - more concerned with implementing strict moral codes on individuals rather then concerning themselves with what Islam says about international relations, trade etc.
Raashid: The Taliban movement for example are commonly referred to as terrorists, when there is no evidence of them ever having carried out terrorist acts when they were in power.
The Taliban were more accomplices of terrorists than terrorists themselves (by their sheltering and support of al-Qaeda - some in the US even branded the Taliban an al-Qaeda-controlled puppet government).
IMO the Soviet invaders of Afghanistan have the greatest share of the blame for the rise of the Taliban (just as American bombing of Cambodia paved the way for Pol Pot's genocidal regime).
'the terminology of terror and extremism is regularly interchanged with all three groups'
I try to avoid claiming someone else's misuse of language as a license to talk equivalent bollocks.
The Taliban did contain both groups, with some overlap, and with both groups having people who were at the extreme end of that group.
Some of the strict moral code types were extremists (even in an Afghan context), and did commit various atrocities. 'behead the adulterer' is not terrorism, but it is a form of extremist violence.
Some of the islamic state types were moderates, in the context of a land that is 99.9%+ muslim, had no centralised state, no outside support, and an ongoing civil war.
The problem for those moderate Taliban was that the 'enforce virtue' extremists made them so unpopular that they needed to rely on foreign 'islamic state' extremists to fight the northern alliance. Anyone who volunteers to fight for minimal pay in a country 500 miles away is going to be a bit of an outlier.
Then, those foreign fighters tried to impose what was actually normal back home on the locals, making the whole thing a self-reinforcing downwards spiral.
Those same 'islamic state' moderates are now mostly supporting the afghan national government, presumably in the hope the NATO armies will prove a less problematic foreign ally than al qaeda.
The remnant Taliban are using terrorist tactics, as you would expect: they are fighting for reasons of state, not virtue.
Richard - I'd dispute your claim that the Taliban enforcement of a strict moral code was a foreign import, as much of al-Qaeda came from North Africa and the Levant which are both regions which would be considered lax in Islamic morality. In fact, much of the Taliban's excessive strictures were part and parcel of the Pashtun culture and it wouldn't be an exaggeration to say the majority of Pashtuns supported them, mostly being rural illiterates.
George - Yes I agree that the USSR's occupation had a lot to do with the exreme reactionary nature of the Taliban. There attempts to overturn the native culture with their own atheism would have sent a clear message to the Afghan majority that these people are out to destroy our way of life and the only way to preserve it is to reject anything that has the remotest sniff of The West (or any pagan culture) about it.
In fact, much of the Taliban's excessive strictures were part and parcel of the Pashtun culture and it wouldn't be an exaggeration to say the majority of Pashtuns supported them, mostly being rural illiterates.
I'd suggest the fact that the typical Taliban was an orphan (parents killed by the Soviets), raised in all-male madrassas where he learned the Qur'an by rote, but little else, might also be a reason why they were so misogynistic.
They didn't want women to become more educated than they themselves were...