Western ignorance and Muslim mayhem

Western ignorance and Muslim mayhem

Achsin el-qudsy, Jakarta

The Western fear of Islam and Muslims was not invented. To
Westerners, Islam is a symbol of all terrifying acts of violence
and anarchy. The West becomes sensitive and allergic to
everything suggestive of Islam. Sadly, the Muslim community seems
unaware of it and considers it a mere passing nightmare and an
excuse to harass them. Apparently, Muslims turn a blind eye to
the negative image of Islam that has spread and affected Western
leaders' actions and policies, particularly involving the Muslim
world.

In the Western perception, Islam is identical with violence,
terrorism, fundamentalism and the proclamation of war on the
West. Islam is seen as the only threat to the West and its
civilization. Muslims are regarded as harboring ambitions to
control the world, annul the achievements of modernity and revert
to the backward and ignorant Middle Ages.

If Islam dominates the world, all the advances achieved by the
West, including in science, technology and industry, will be
threatened by total loss and replacement by irrational mystical
practices. In turn, human existence filled with creativity and
productivity will shift to become static, rigid and counter-
progressive. This is how the Western community has portrayed
Islam so far.

The perception of Islam in the West may be due to the lack of
adequate knowledge of Islam. It is acknowledged that much of
American society is not familiar with this religion.

Unsurprisingly, therefore, the Western view of Islam appears
to be simplistic.

The Islamic image that has developed in the West has certainly
been inseparable from Muslims' own actions. We cannot merely
blame the West for all the irregularities taking place in the
Muslim world, but we should also look at the realities in the
Islamic community itself.

Among Muslim movements, there are groups that practice
violence and display anti-democratic tendencies in their attempts
to achieve political goals. A fairly large number of cases of
violence with political motives have involved Islamic circles or
Muslim activists, such as U.S. embassy explosions in some Muslim
countries, plane hijackings, hostage holding, bombings of Western
economic centers and premeditated killings of foreign citizens.

The Middle East as the heart of the Islamic world has various
examples of Islamic movements that reflect nuances of violence
rather than cultural tones of peace as desired by Islam. In
Egypt, for instance, radical actions that justify the use of
violence to reach political aims have emerged. In the 1970s, when
Egypt was under Sadat, new groups arose as a reincarnation of
Ikhwan previously banned by the Nasser government.

Most of the groups were led by former members of Ikhwan al-
Muslimin after their release from prison. What they experienced
in jail convinced them that the government was anti-Islam and the
only choice was to topple it through violent revolution.

The acts of violence they committed, rather than abrupt or
coincidental moves, were already outlined as an inherent part of
Islamic teachings. Jama'at al-Islamiyah, for example, urged that
its members perform their collective duties pursuant to the lines
of thought adhered to.

Among the precepts were to defy judges deprived of the law of
Allah; to oblige members to wage war on those opposing sharia;
and to prohibit members from joining any parliament or political
party. Such principles formed the basis of violent acts
perpetrated by the militant groups.

In general, the beliefs of these militant movements have the
following characteristics.

First: Unifying faith. Militant groups frequently make no
distinction between Islam and Islamic understanding, between
religion and religious experience. In other words, they cannot
distinguish between Islam descending from Allah through the Koran
and hadith as its source, and the Islam already understood by
Muslims in different periods and perceptions. Consequently, the
absolute, genuine teachings of Islam and the relative perceptions
of men are not clearly differentiated. Both are mostly considered
absolute so that criticism is rejected.

Second: Theocentric faith. To militant groups, all the world's
phenomena are realities they take for granted and deem
inevitable. All occurrences on earth are merely seen as the
absolute will of God, while men have no right to plan and devise
anything except to accept the will of God.

Third: Conservative thinking. Militant groups' thought is
oriented to the past, with the assumption that the past was the
best era, which must be brought back to the present. The past had
command of religious authorities. So, any intellectual attempt
they made was truth that is beyond review today. It becomes a
sacred text that defies criticism or evaluation, let alone
replacement by new creative innovations.

Fourth: Exclusive approaches. Militant groups tend to think
that their understanding of religion is the religion itself. They
consider the rules they conclude as the law of Allah that must be
followed and cannot be replaced by other human rules, let alone
those imported from heathens.

It is these features of thought that motivate militant groups
in Islam. When the ideas arising therefrom are applied to the
political sphere, acts of violence and terror are often
inevitable.

The fact that in the West Islam is viewed as a threat, future
enemy and something standing in opposition to the West can be
construed as the outcome of inadequate information on both sides.

At the same time, there are also radical Muslim movements that
present Islam as a "scary", rigid, intolerant face, justifying
hostile actions to achieving their goals. In the political
context, these groups call for the overthrow of power by force
and the murder of those considered "allergic" to the
formalization of syariah in a state. Moreover, now and again they
alienate the Muslim community itself and even deem it heathen for
not being the Islam-based society as perceived by the groups.

The best way of understanding what has so far been referred to
as a clash between the Western and Muslim communities is a close
examination of both sides' conflicting political, socio-economic
and cultural interests. Such conflicting interests can actually
be bridged by means of selective, well-defined collaboration
policies. Likewise, the two parties need to agree on clear and
consistent public policies on the rights of all citizens to
determine their own future democratically.

The writer is an activist at Muhammadiyah Scholars Network
(JIMM) and researcher at the Indonesia Institute Jakarta.