The New Nation - Internet Edition

S Sayyid

Of the many strange permutations that the so-called 'war on terror' has thrown up, perhaps none is stranger than that by which the distinctions between Left and Right which orientated Western metropolitan politics since the time of the French Revolution have seemingly collapsed in relation to the 'Muslim question'.

The demise of the Left/Right split was perhaps almost inevitable with the end of the Cold War, and the installation of neo-liberalism (and its multiple variants) as the only way of organising societies. There was, however, always the hope or expectation that some of the advances made by anti-colonial and anti-racist struggles would survive this neo-liberal dispensation. It was even argued that neo-liberalism would underwrite anti-racism and anti-colonialism. Free markets would lead to societies that were free, unencumbered by exclusions based on irrational factors such as gender, sexual orientation, disability and race. Deng's famous quote - It does not matter whether a cat is black or white as long as it catches mice - would seem to capture this possibility.

A colour blind meritocracy beckoned. Certainly, in the Anglophonic plutocracies, etiquette changed so as to mitigate the most blatant expressions of racist opprobrium. Racism became uncouth as well as uncool. It was no longer the common-sense, no longer the part of uncritical chitter chatter of the genteel and well-heeled. Its only outings a matter of scandal: the drunken outburst, the off-cuff, off-mike remark, the private joke that leaked into public domain…With the marginalisation of the blatant language of racism from public discourse, one would have assumed that circumlocutions like: "some of my best friends are black…" and "I am not racist but…," would also have been cast into the dustbin of bad manners.

It is therefore curious, to say the least, to see the return of these racist circumlocutions. In train of these turns of phrase, follow the themes that characterised racism: individual behaviour as the product of racial belonging, different races incorporate distinct values, white race is superior to other races…Of course, it could be argued that horrorism of the Holocaust put paid to the idea of a science of race, and with the collapse of 'race' as meaningful grouping of human beings, racism became impossible. The science of race was concerned with the production of race, rather than simply with its discovery. The measurements, the experiments, the classifications, were all attempting to allay the anxiety which underlay Western racism - so-called human races were not sufficiently analogous to animal species as not to require the policing of miscegenation. This fundamental inability to sustain race as a stable category did not prevent the deployment of all the panoply of practices developed to sustain the racial order. The echoes of these measures have recently been played out in the perhaps, the momentary 'urge', (don't you feel it sometimes), of our most famous Blitcon writer: strip-searches, collective punishments, deportations and internments…

One can detect the rehabilitation of racism, its stealthy re-occupation of the citadels of the kommentariat, in the recycling of colonial verities as contemporary core values, the nostalgia for Empire that animates much middle brow cultural output. This time, of course, racism is different. It's a racism that is savvy enough not to be caught wearing jackboots or leaving burning crosses as calling cards. It's a racism that rejects racism that is happy to find racism among those it despises. It's the racism that takes up the White man's burden for the new American Century. It's a humanitarian intervention not a mission civilisatrice. It only wants to spread democracy not to expropriate resources It does not want to exterminate ignoble savages, only to domesticate unruly Muslims.

The figure of the Muslim is vital for this racism without racists. Because Muslims are not a race, any and all forms of discrimination and violence disproportionately directed at them is thinkable and doable. Because Muslims are not a race the systemic violations directed against them cannot be racially motivated. Because Muslims are not a race their subjugation is not racism. Thus most themes associated with previous expressions of racism can be (and increasingly are) brought back into style. Muslim extremists can join the Black mugger, the Gypsy thief, the Jewish anarchist…as the stars of racism's narratives. Expertly opined, scientifically classified and institutionally enshrined, Muslims are inserted into a pubic discourse as almost isomorphic replacements for previous arch-villains of racist anxieties and fantasies. The Muslim as arch-villain (and its always, of course, a he - since there are no Muslim women - except those waiting to be rescued by strong Western arms) can help mend the holes in the tattered fabric of the old style racism, which struggles of various anti-colonial and civil rights movements in various parts of the world had done so much to rip to shreds. In this stitch-up the usual suspects of what used to be the Right are joined by many in what used to be the liberal left. The normalisation of the Western enterprise which is the eventual consequence of the struggle for racial justice, can be deferred, perhaps forever. By relying on Orientalism in which Islam historically functioned as a counter-factual paen to What Went Right With the West, the demonisation of Islam and Muslims becomes the implicit valorisation of everything that is considered to be Western.

This is why when listening to Martin Amis' various public pronouncements about Islam and Islamism, one can't help but think this is what Alf Garnet would sound like if he had swallowed a dictionary. That curious mix of ignorance (will someone tell Amis that Baghdad is not generally considered to be the third holiest city in Islam, and Islamism includes Shi'as, Sufis as well as Sunnis…) and priggish certainty which characterises racist speak is unmistakeable whether its mouthed by novelists or thugs, bores or bullies. Racism's ventriloquists can get away with it, not just because it's the dummy that does most of the talking but also because it's only bad-mouthing Muslims and they are not a race.

Racism, however, did not and does not depend on the actual existence of races. In the last fifty years the two communities in Europe which have been subjugated to the most intense forms of racist genocidal violence were the German Jews and the Bosnian Muslims. Clearly, in both cases being Jewish or being a Muslim was not about endorsing a set of beliefs or engaging in set of practices.

When the Nazis and Serbian ultra-nationalists called, it was not the practice but the population that they targeted. Races were never exclusively biologically determined but rather socially and politically produced. Bodies were marked at the same time as religion, culture and history. Territories were marked and used to group socially fabricated distinctions between Europeanness and non-Europeanness.

A woman who dons the hijab becomes subject to all the effects of mundane racism: from the dirty looks, to random threats of violence, regardless of her phenotype.

If it is possible, for some people to detect anti-Semitism lurking beneath anti-Zionism, why is it so difficult to imagine that attacks on movements for Muslim autonomy could also be manifestations of racism, especially since so many of these attacks rely upon metaphors, and assertions long associated with it? If it talks like a duck and walks like a duck it is feasible it might just be a duck.

(S Sayyid is a Research Fellow at the University of Leeds)

Tanvir Ahmad Khan

President Pervez Musharraf conceded the other day that more than a thousand Pakistani soldiers have lost their lives in the long tribal belt adjoining the border with Afghanistan. They were members of a formidable force of 90,000 troops deployed by Pakistan to deny the Taliban sanctuaries amongst kindred tribes on the Pakistani side of the Durand Line. Initially, this deployment, which contravened the solemn assurance given by the father of the nation, Mohammad Ali Jinnah, that unlike the imperial British Indian Empire, the successor Muslim state of Pakistan would refrain from sending troops into the six autonomous tribal agencies, was considered to carry a very low risk. It had no hostile intent towards the Pushtun tribes who had been fiercely loyal to Pakistan; its main purpose was to ensure that the Taliban and other resistance groups in Afghanistan would not use Pakistani soil to disrupt the parliamentary and presidential elections envisaged in the Bonn agreement as the building blocs of a post-Taliban democratic Afghanistan. Unfortunately, the Bonn blue print unravelled fast as the institutions created by it - the presidency of Hamid Karzai and the parliament - were unable to bring about the intended pacification.

The resurgence of the Taliban in early 2006, produced divergent explanations and bouts of bitter recriminations as western capitals, Kabul and Islamabad played the blame game. The Karzai Government and the US tended to shift the emphasis from the military, political and economic failures inside Afghanistan, to interference in that country from Pakistan's "Texas-sized" tribal belt. The National Intelligence Estimate made by sixteen or more intelligence services in the US in 2006, not only attributed the resurgence of the Taliban to Pakistani sanctuaries but also, rather dramatically, held Pakistan responsible for the resurrection of Al-Qa'ida in the mountain fastnesses of its north western territories.

Nato sources often reinforced Kabul's contention that home-grown terrorism did not have the strength and resources to prop up a major uprising in a country protected by sizeable foreign military forces armed with highly sophisticated weapons.

Considering that a vastly larger and better equipped occupation army is being worsted by an indigenous insurgency in Iraq, this was a highly disingenuous approach. In any case, it ignored the basic elements fuelling the resistance. The American invasion overturned the ethnic basis on which the Afghan state had been organised since mid-18th century. The Taliban were the children of Pushtun tribes which felt dispossessed by the occupation army. As Nato revealed plans for an open-ended military presence, the Taliban were able to turn this initial ethnic cause into a national struggle against alien rule. They were able to challenge the rhetoric of liberty by convincing the Afghans that it was another great game being played ruthlessly by governments, oil and gas multinationals and intelligence services. If an over-riding ideological factor was still missing, it was provided by western politicians and ideologues who tend to frame every conflict in the region as part of a long drawn battle against militant political Islam.

Once the insurgency was formulated in these Manichean terms, the logical war aim became a total extermination of the Taliban. The American resolve not to negotiate with any group from amongst the loosely defined Taliban and to keep them out of the mainstream of Afghan politics as a legitimate political force strengthened the hands of the hard-line leadership and enabled it to widen the arc of hostilities. The insurgency has also been helped by half-hearted reconstruction campaigns and rampant corruption in the use of foreign assistance. The inadequate Nato forces, some of which work only in non-combat areas, led to indiscriminate use of US air force and special forces causing a large number of civilian casualties.

Pakistan finds itself caught between a rock and a hard place. President Musharraf's reversal of the policy of supporting the Taliban in 2001, had alienated a large section of his own people. Collective memory, shared ethnicity and traditions, bound the Pakistani border tribes to the Taliban. Pakistani troops were now seen to be assisting foreign occupation of a land mythologised during the long sub-continental Muslim struggle for independence as a zone of succour and relief. For the first time in nearly six decades, the Pakistan army faced an armed resistance on its side of the border. Instead of bringing peace to Afghanistan, Islamabad ended up importing the Afghan conflict which has led to deadly combat in a difficult mountainous terrain as well as suicide attacks all over Pakistan.

Pakistan is often portrayed as having pursued an Afghan policy based on a faulty doctrine of strategic depth. The reality is more complex. Pakistan's role in defeating the Soviet Union blurred the normal distinction between two separate states and its strategists began to conflate the security of the two countries. Secondly, Pakistan has all along wanted a friendly government in Kabul as its dream of reaching out to the emerging Muslim states of Central Asia, and its ambition to become an energy corridor of the region - a veritable land bridge between Central Asia and South Asia - depend heavily on Afghanistan.

Pakistani planners visualise Afghanistan as a major highway of the regional economy. Even in the present strained situation in the tribal belt, Pakistan is Kabul's lifeline providing the Afghans with a substantial portion of their day-to-day needs and material for reconstruction.

The Nato powers are anxious to maintain an Afghan-Pakistani coalition to bolster the war effort but show little inclination to let the two neighbouring countries make any significant policy contribution to the grand strategy. A conflict that Nato statesmen are willing to stretch over a whole generation can only be a major factor of instability for the two countries.

Pakistan and Afghanistan have their destinies as intertwined today as 2500 years ago but they are as yet incapable of persuading the western coalition that a better policy would aim at turning Afghanistan into a friendly but fully sovereign state making its decisions without an alien shadow. This would mean a redefining of war aims and perhaps a deliberate decision to keep Afghanistan out of the structure of direct power projection by the US in the Eurasian landmass, the Gulf, South Asia and China.

(Tanvir Ahmad Khan, Former Foreign Secretary of Pakistan)

Abdelwahab El-Affendi

The attitude of mainstream Islamist groups to political violence was recently the subject of a heated (and thankfully non-violent) debate at the Centre for the Study of Democracy (CSD) of the University of Westminster in London. At a conference organised by CSD's Democracy and Islam Programme at the end of October, Islamist leaders were challenged by diplomats and academics from Europe and the US to clarify their stance of democratic participation, and their answer was not, sad to say, that clear cut.

This was the second encounter of its kind organised by CSD, having convened a workshop last year entitled 'Electing Islamism: Islamist politics and the prospects for Arab democracy'. In that event, key Islamist leaders from Arab countries (including Iraq, the Arab Gulf and North Africa) were questioned by academics and diplomats from the West and the Arab world on their contribution to the democratisation process. That encounter was judged necessary in view of the stunning electoral successes achieved in the previous couple of years by Islamist groups in Egypt, Palestine, Bahrain, Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Algeria and elsewhere. This has made Islamists crucial players in democratic politics in the Arab world, practically holding in their hands the fate of the fledgling democratic experiments in that vital region.

In that meeting, Islamists defended themselves against charges of having become an obstacle to democratisation by failing to evolve a viable programme for government or building broad coalitions to challenge entrenched regimes. The debate was inconclusive, since the movements did not appear then on the verge of a major breakthrough similar to the one Turkey has seen in 2003. But so much progress was made that it had been agreed by all those present to resume the conversation again this year.

In the meantime, a major event with a serious impact on the debate intervened, namely the "coup" executed by the Palestinian Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) in Gaza last June. Hamas, it is to be noted, was not included in last year's conversation, which involved the only movement that is committed to peaceful political engagement. However, the Hamas coup cast a long shadow on Islamist political participation for two reasons. First, most Islamic movements continue to support Hamas and its military tactics. In all fairness, this attitude is not restricted to Islamist groups, since the majority of opinion in the Arab world backs Hamas, and this includes the bulk of pro-western regimes, such as those of Egypt and Saudi Arabia. However, Islamists have since the time of Hasan al-Banna used the argument of the need to fight foreign enemies as a justification of maintaining a military option, which they also tended to deploy in internal political battles.

At present, groups such as Hamas, Hizbullah, the Sadr group in Iraq and various other Iraqi "resistance" movements argue that their armed wings are purely there to fight external aggression. The decision by Hamas to use its military wing to fight its political rival and mount a coup against the very government it has been democratically elected to run has created a serious credibility problem for all other Islamic movements, especially since it is a reminder also of how the armed wing of the Muslim Brotherhood had also earlier engaged in political assassinations and similar acts in the 1940s. It was accusations by Nasser in 1955 that the group attempted to assassinate him which led to the dissolution of the group, and it remains illegal to this day.

Opponents of the Islamists continue to argue that their commitment to democracy is tenuous and temporary. They would take the first opportunity to turn against it when they can. What Hamas did has lent credibility to this accusation. For Islamists, the "Hamas challenge" is to sufficiently demonstrate that these accusations are groundless.

In addition, the justification of violence by non-state actors in defense of the realm against foreign enemies practically arrogates to the groups staking this claim for the authority of the state. For legitimate violence (both in Islamic doctrine and in modern norms) is the prerogative of the legitimate state. The decision by non-state groups to take this role of defense underlines the fact that the state is unable or unwilling to shoulder this essential function. At best, then, this step could underpin and perpetuate a defective state; at worst, it could undermine the very concept of statehood and create a generalised Hobbesian anarchy where only the rule of the jungle prevails.

It may thus be absolutely essential to build a water-tight barrier between violence and politics. In the case where the state fails to live up to its role of defending the country, the solution would not be to build alternative military structures.

This would artificially prop up this defective state while sowing the seeds of a dangerous parallel military apparatus, thus giving the people the worst of both worlds. The correct approach would be to reform and re-establish the state, not "subsidise" it by doing its job for it. The same can be said about the US policies of arming militias as a counter-insurgency tactic in Iraq.

In response, the Islamist leaders agreed that politics must remain peaceful and argued that modern Islamism did prefer and preach peace. As far as they are concerned, they maintained, it is the regimes which continue to perpetuate violence against the largely peaceful Islamic opposition. They also admitted that there were occasions when Islamist groups did advocate or practice violence, and that they were wrong to do so. Crucially, however, they refused to distance themselves from the violence of Hamas or the "resistance" in Iraq. And while some agreed that Hamas has probably committed a gross blunder when it perpetrated its coup, they argued that it had been provoked

In sum, the principled commitment to non-violent politics by the leading participants in the debate was encouraging. This is especially so for the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt which is under extreme provocation. Some groups such the Algerian Society of Peace Movement has stuck to its principled stance during the dark days of the Algerian civil war of the 1990s. Other groups, such as the Tunisian Nahda party and the Justice and Development party in Morocco, have gone further than most in committing themselves to peaceful pluralistic politics.

However, the maintenance of a grey area where non-state violence is legitimated in the name of resistance tends to undermine this commitment to peaceful politics. It is extremely difficult for groups with armed capability to resist the temptation to use it to further their internal political agenda, as Hamas has recently done. The workshop was aptly entiteld 'Islamism, Democracy, and Political Violence in the Arab world: The Hamas Challenge'. Islamists will have to meet this challenge if they are to contribute positively to democratisation in the Arab world and elsewhere.

(Dr Abdelwahab El-Affendi is a Senior Lecturer at the Centre for the Study of Democracy, University of Westminster)