Naeem's Blog

I want to start by recognizing a very unique feat by Professor M. Shahid Alam. He wrote this article, Islam now, China then, discussing Muslims, Islam, and the war on terror and not once did he make the standard Muslim disclaimer that the killing of civilians is detestable and Islam does not condone such savagery. Bravo!

Clearly he has raised the discourse beyond the pettiness of the mudslinging taking place in the mass media, where everything revolves around the threats posed by Islam and Muslims to the domestic populations of the West. He has placed these tensions in their proper political context – a war of naked aggression in places such as Iraq, Afghanistan, and Palestine - which in no way requires me or you to make any sort of disclaimers.

Onto my thoughts on his article:

We’ve all heard and read about how the extremists and the terrorists as well as the new kids on the block, the Islamists, have taken up inhumane tactics to fighting and protesting their perceived oppression.

"Expert commentators in Western media want us to believe that the Muslims have lost their minds. They tell us that Muslims are inherently, innately, perverse; that never before has violence been used in this way, against innocent civilians."

They continue by reasoning that the downtrodden in South America or Africa are not resorting to suicide bombing or indiscriminate violence. "Those peaceful folks are redirecting their anger and voicing their rage in nonviolent expressions, working within the system", they say.

(Sidenote: I find this 'analysis' very interesting due to its simplicity as well as hypocrisy. These same ‘peaceful’ Africans can kill themselves by the millions and yet they are not inhumane and dangerous. The Sandinistas and the Contras can kill thousands of civilians and cripple civil society yet they are not labeled terrorists. Its only when the oppressed rise up against the oppressors (particularly of the white kind) and take a stand against the aggression that they are called terrorists and extremists. It is only when they fight not themselves but the aggressors that the real spin begins.)

Shahid Alam, however, points out that violence has been used in fighting Western aggression, specifically in the late 1800’s when Britain took over parts of China. The Chinese resorted to 'asymmetric warfare' in combating the British troops.

"the mass of people take an active, nay fanatical part in the struggle against the foreigners. They poison the bread of the European community at Hongkong by wholesale, and with the coolest premeditationThey go with hidden arms on board trading steamers, and, when on the journey, massacre the crew and European passengers and seize the boat. They kill and kidnap every foreigner within their reach."

His article is really worth reading, not only for the historical perspective that he brings, but also his analysis of the Chinese uprising and it geopolitical affects across the region. He contends that if Britain had forced their presence into China crushing the popular war of the locals, they would have broken China into pieces and prevented it from becoming the docile economic power that it has become today.

“Imagine a world today--and over the past sixty years--if the West and Japan had succeeded in fragmenting China, splintering the unity of this great and ancient civilization, and persisted in rubbing China's face in the dirt? How many millions of troops would the West have to deploy to defend its client states in what is now China--the Chinese equivalents of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Jordan, Egypt, Pakistan and Iraq? If Vietnam bled the United States, imagine the consequences of a quagmire in China?

Would the United States prefer this turbulent but splintered China--held down at massive costs in blood and treasure, with bases, client states, wars, and unending terrorist attacks on American interests everywhere in the world--to the China that it has today, united, prosperous, at peace; a competitor but also one of its largest trading partners”

But maybe that’s the whole point behind it all? Maybe the ultimate goal is to maintain instability in the region, preventing any semblance of unity or cooperation amongst the indigineous Islamic peoples.

Shahid Alam displays a bit of naiveté by comparing the threat posed by China to the lone superpower of the 19th century to the threat posed by Islam to the lone superpower of the 21st century. Islam was an actual dominant world power for centuries while the same cannot be said of China.

The West has no interest in promoting a fully functional society in the Islamic world. In fact that would be detrimental considering the historical realities of what the Islamic world once accomplished.

So it seems Professor Alam has, by citing the example of China, indirectly strengthened the case for Western meddling in the Islamic world.