One of the most renowned lines that define terror is that it is a “clash of civilizations.” It was started by Princeton University professor Bernard Lewis in his 1990 article, The Roots of Muslim Rage. Most recently, it was expounded by CNN’s Harvard trained political scientist Fareed Zakaria in his book The Future of Freedom.
After the July 11 bomb attacks in Kampala, I have come to fully understand that war is serious business, and more serious when it reaches your house. If the July 11 had happened in Mogadishu, it would have passed as a small inconvenience; maybe also as a lead story on Aljazeera TV. Kampala would be normal business, mindless of our large military presence in this coastal country. As it has always been, we would have absentmindedly asked: When will these people stop fighting? This question assumes that fighting groups in Somalia are unintelligent brutes fighting and killing each other — without reason. It also assumes that increased military intervention in form of peacekeeping missions can help save Somalis from finishing off each other; that foreign nations can help export liberty and other freedoms to Somalia, even if they seem uninterested in them.
Analyses of the Kampala bombings have become so emotional, as it were in post 9/11 America. The accusations are that Islam, a barbaric, pre-modern or even “anti-modern” religion that espouses terror and mass killings has shuttled misery to Kampala. Hijab covered Muslim girls, and men with long beards or those wearing turbans are now the unfortunate recipients of public rage as the “bad guys”. Perhaps the unsaid question that Muslims have to answer is; why have you remained Muslim, even after seeing the tragedy that this religion has brought to us?
In a discussion with a colleague, I asked him what took America in Somalia against the Union of Islamic Courts that had tried to give this country a resemblance of a government after 14 years of civil war. “The Sharia is barbaric; you can’t have a country run on it and you expect the international community to look on”. This was his answer. His argument that the Islamic Courts had put in place an administration that cherishes stoning the adulterous, amputating thieves and compulsory wearing of full body garments, underscores a major malady to culture talk. This is the argument advanced to pit Islam against human rights and modernity and as a justification for foreign intervention. Bernard Lewis called this “a clash of civilisation”. I doubt my colleague considers Islam a civilisation with facets larger than the things he mentions to affirm its recklessness.
The current war on terror has changed the landscape of violence. As Prof. Mahmood Mamdani has argued, modern violence is considered the inevitable hallmark of progress. Israel’s shelling of the Gazans in late 2008 was considered crucial for Israel security, and so is the war in Afghanistan and in Iraq—for American safety. But as is in all violence, state managed or scattered manifestations by the suicide bombers, the dead will never be warriors, but civilians.
After 9/11, frightened Americans considered any Muslim led country an enemy (to progress). I believe this was a fatal miscalculation. It piled all Muslims behind Osama bin Laden, which Americans had managed to subdue all along. In America’s new Frontlines, Somali-born Aljazeera journalists Rageh Omar and Muhammad Adow note how the Union of Islamic Courts had brought peace to Somalia. Operating like district chairmen, mullahs in the south ensured law and order; they dealt with robbery points such as roadblocks, and ensured that errant military personnel were brought to justice. But of course, they used Quran or Sharia as their source of jurisprudence and administration. Warlords in the North, who surely thrived under chaos, were shocked by the rapid spread of peace and popularity of the courts. They were not alone though, they had another equally distraught friend — America.
Fear: Post 9/11 “saw a country struck by amnesia”. Misled by the hypothesis of “clash of civilisations”, America was fearful of another stable Muslim led regime, (that it would provide haven for jihadists). In usual American fashion, the United States sought to bring the union of Islamic Courts down. Using the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), it secretly shuttled cash and ammunitions to warlord controlled parts of Mogadishu. Faced with defeat in this move, with pro-Courts Somalis staging a well choreographed and spirited defence, America sought conspiracy with Somalia’s arch enemy, Ethiopia. Somalia was sent to the dogs. But the ugly byproduct of this was steaming fury. Somalis are angry. And as Franz Fanon has written “man is no to scorn of man, a no to the degradation of man, a no to the exploitation of man …” And in the defeat of the Islamic Courts militia in 2005, an angry wing was born, the Al-Shabaab. It emerged fighting Ethiopia, America and all its allies. It is at this point that Uganda sends troops to Somalia on a peacekeeping mission. It was a naïve move. Viewed through the lens of a conspirator, Uganda has imported terror in an attempt to export peace.
It would be rather absurd to explain this as a clash of civilisations, but rather, a clash of modern colonial intentions. But the most unfortunate part of this bargain for America, and specifically for helpless Uganda is that the attack was on a Muslim country. Muslims have a special attachment to life and to the values that govern it. But as G. W. Hegel has written in respect to the 1789 French revolution, men are able to die for a cause of greater value than life itself, and at this rate they are ready to kill for the same cause. All Muslims across societies are potential victims of violence. But with a misguided cultural talk, Ugandans have the potential to drag their Muslim compatriots into supporting Al-Shabaab.
Source:independent.co.ug
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