Terrorism and terrorists

Terrorism and terrorists

Opinion articles in The Jakarta Post often share an angle on
Indonesian Islamic terrorism: It is not Indonesian and it is not
Islamic. Karen Armstrong's article Blame the politics, not the
religion of Islam(The Jakarta Post, July 13), offers a similar
view of international Islamic terrorism.

This heads off the obvious question "what is wrong with
Islam?", but results in questionable arguments. For example, she
says the term "Wahhabi terrorism" is inadmissible because most
Wahhabis do not commit acts of terror. In fact, it would be right
to refer to "Wahhabi terrorists" if they were motivated by
Wahhabi ideology, regardless of whether terrorists were a
majority of the Wahhabi community.

According to her we should not use the term "Islamic
terrorism" because terrorism is not caused by Islam itself, and
even if it is, calling it so makes Muslims more likely to become
terrorists.

That Islam does not cause terrorism is true in that religions
do not act. Ideas exist in the minds of men and women. Whether
they are dangerous depends on what men and women do as a result
of them.

The essential idea of Islam is that there is a right way to
serve God, which is to follow the rules of Prophet Mohammad. Now
in truth there might be many ways to serve God, or there might be
no God at all. But in the eyes of Muslims, people who believe
such things are on the wrong track, or are wandering in the
spiritual desert.

This idea creates at least two clear dangers. First, the laws
of Mohammad are designed for Arabian society 1,400 years ago.
Muslims may fail to adapt them to the modern world. The result in
Muslim-governed nations will be social tension and economic
stagnation. In non-Islamic states the result will be difficulty
integrating with the rest of society.

Second, Muslim governments may be undemocratic. If the law of
the Koran is the law of God, it is risky to consult the people,
in case their will contradicts the Koran. The result is the
exclusion of anyone other than devout Muslims from the governing
process and intolerance of dissent.

Many Muslims avoid these dangers, adapt to the modern world
and tolerate non-Muslims. For example, they may say "I am not
dancing for religious reasons, but other people are welcome to
dance if they want to." Other Muslims, such as those in the
government of Indonesia, may say "We are not dancing so nobody is
allowed to dance for a month as a mark of respect for us." Their
concept of tolerance is that non-Muslims must do the same as
them, but they must never do the same as non-Muslims.

A literal and intolerant interpretation of the Koran as God-
given is the basic ideology for fundamentalist terrorists. They
resort to violence when they cannot impose their version of
Islamic law through political channels. Muslims who follow a
pragmatic and tolerant version of Islam may wish that the
extremist branch would wither and die. But this does not alter
the fact that they come from the same root.

JOHN HARGREAVES
Jakarta