Muslim states to help fight terrorism

Muslim states to help fight terrorism

Raden Ayu Nurfini, Jakarta

When addressing a conference of the World Council of Churches
in Kuala Lumpur on Aug. 3, Malaysia's Prime Minister Abdullah
Ahmad Badawi hammered home a plethora of messages which raised
the eyebrows of many political analysts.

He touched on the core of the global debate on the war against
terror and injected a new sense of realism into the matter. He
attempted to remove the barrier blocking what he described as
the "Christian West" from seeing the Muslim world with benign
eyes. And he tried to put the debate in a realistic perspective,
though his arguments may encounter severe criticisms from the
targets he was aiming at.

The essence of his message was that the war against terror
must not be directed at a certain religion. He was actually
suggesting that when you fight terror, what you have to do is to
punish the terrorists because of their crimes, but not because
they are believers of a certain religion.

Using Badawi's logic, as he described it highly
diplomatically, the "Christian West" needs to understand that the
war against terror "must not be fought in the name of religion."
This statement was perceived to have come not just from the
leader of a Muslim nation, but more importantly from the
chairman of the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC)
which embraces about one billion people on earth.

As such, nobody should be so naive as to trivialize the prime
minister's statement. In fact, it was an elegant representation
of the track that counterterror measures should have gone along.

Only days before Badawi made his remarks, he had visited U.S.
President George Bush in Washington to fine-tune his perceptions
with the superpower's leader. And interestingly, only four days
after Badawi aired his warning, President Bush redefined his War
on Terror (WOT) terminology during a campaign address, saying
that America had actually defined the terminology wrongly. It
wasn't a war on terror, Bush said, but rather "a struggle"
against adventurers who wished to shake the tranquility of the
global order.

This was the second correction Bush has made over the past
year. The first was when he transmitted the message to Muslim
leaders while on a visit to Bali earlier this year that he would
no longer use the term "crusade" against political adventurers
aiming to boycott U.S. interests around the globe.

With Badawi's definition, as introduced at the WCC meeting,
the governments and peoples of Muslim countries must be pro-
active in the war against terror to the extent that misleading
perceptions about the religion can be rectified. Using this same
premise, if a political adventurer who happens to be Muslim,
Christian, Hindu or Buddhist carries out acts of terror while
hiding behind religious symbols, he or she must not be perceived
as representing his or her religion, albeit a fact that this may
be easier said than done. Likewise, the response toward such
adventurers must not carry the connotation of targeting a certain
religion.

Badawi must have thought that a lack of this kind of
understanding in the West is to blame for the complications that
have arisen ever since Osama bin Laden started waging his so-
called, yet narrowly-defined, "holy war" against "unbelievers"
everywhere.

If Badawi's lengthy remarks can be summarized in one line,
perhaps Billy Joel's lyrics would best serve the purpose -- "(I
take you) just the way you are." And Badawi emphasized this point
when he cited a passage from the Koran which says "to you your
religion, to me my religion." This was the reason why Badawi
deemed it necessary to tell the world that "religions must bring
out the best in us and not the worst."

But why has Bill Clinton accused George Bush of instigating
terror across the globe? Because under Bush, America's foreign
policy has been perceived as a policy of attacking the problem
rather than solving the problem. Shall we speculate that the war
against terror would produce more significant results if a
Democrat were to become the president of the United States? Even
if that could not happen, why is it that America is not winning
the war? And what are the mistakes?

If a terrorist hides behind the symbols of a religion, what
should be done is to get (or force) religious leaders to bring
him out and let them punish him for hijacking the religion; but
not punish the religious leaders with misleading public opinions
and dangerous generalizations. This is what Badawi meant when he
said that "the war against terror must not be fought in the name
of religion."

Wise philosophies apart, the reality today is that the world
is haunted by increased threats of terror. Even such staunchly
Muslim countries as Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and
its Gulf neighbors, Pakistan, and lately India, which is home to
the world's second biggest Muslim population after Indonesia, are
facing increased terror threats.

The biggest challenge now is whether the OIC can pass Badawi's
message across to the Western media which, since the 9/11
tragedy, have painted a negative image of Islam despite the fact
that some Muslim governments have been making serious efforts to
combat terror.

Given present geopolitical realities, Arab nations cannot be
expected to play significant roles. It is Indonesia and Malaysia
that must take the lead given their higher degree of foreign
policy independence as compared to the Arabs.

In the light of this, President Megawati Soekarnoputri's
recent meeting with King Fahd on the Iraq issue needs to be
followed up by enhancement of OIC cooperation so as to drive the
Muslim world as the locomotive rather than the wagon for stamping
out the threat of terrorism.

Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer's July 6 comments
could be taken as a good starting position. Moderate Muslims have
a decisive role to play in clearing the dust off the canvas and
bringing forth a more benign image of the religion as it actually
is. Their pro-active contribution could help reduce misleading
generalizations and misunderstandings of the religion, which have
led to the dangerous assumptions on which America has defined
many of its responses to terror around the world.

The wise foundation which Prime Minister Badawi has laid down
should be respected and gratefully responded to by America and
all its military and political allies. If the war against terror
is to succeed, it must not be a priority of the United States
alone. Let the Muslim nations take the lead with the full backing
of the U.S., Britain and all their military allies, and we can
finally entertain hopes rather than illusions about winning the
war.

The writer (rayu@asiamail.com) is a political analyst residing
in Jakarta.