In Search of a Third Voice

Posted by Behrooz Moazami on October 22, 2001 at 14:28:38:

This short piece was written originally for a Teach-in held on September 21, 2001 at New School University. It was modified and published in the October issue of "Europe.NYC" the Newsletter of New York Consortium for European Studies.

Behrooz Moazami,
Post-Doctoral fellow, the European Union center of New York.

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In Search of a Third Voice

"In this moment of airless shock when hot tears sting disbelieving eyes, the only thing I can find to say, the only words that seem to fit, must be addressed to the unknown author of this suffering. You monster. You beast. You unspeakable bastard. What lesson did you hope to teach us by your coward's attack on our World Trade Center, our Pentagon, us? What was it you hoped we would learn? Whatever it was, please know that you failed."

These words, by Leonard Pitts of the Miami Herald, were printed on the op-ed page of the New York Times September 13th under the rubric "The Barbarians will learn what America's all about." This is Pitt's description of what America's all about: "We are fundamentally decent, though peace-loving and compassionate, and we are...people of faith, believers in a just and loving god."

For the past weeks now, the military might of peace-loving and compassionate America has been mobilized to track the terrorists down by Operation Infinite Justice. But do we know who these "bastards" are, and do we know what their motives are? Many seem to think they know.

Thomas Friedman of the New York Times writes on September 14th: "The terrorists who hit the U.S. this week are people who pray to the God of Hate. Their terrorism is not aimed at reversing any specific U.S. policy. Indeed, they made no demands. Their terrorism is driven by pure hatred, nihilism, and its targets are the institutions that undergird America's way of life, from our markets to our military."

Friedman, who is more seasoned than many, proposes a more "sophisticated" political and military strategy. He argues that America not only should dispatch her military forces, but also should take sides with "the good guys" in what he calls the "civil war within Islam, between the modernists and the medievalists."

I would argue, however, that both policies-military force or a strategic intervention-are wrong, and would have catastrophic results. The crux of the matter is not a division between decent people and monsters. It's not principally about good and bad guys-whether decent Americans, some Islamic monsters, or Islamic good guys-in the Middle East and elsewhere. This is a personified demagogic view shared by too many politicians, journalists, and academics.

The key to the puzzle lies elsewhere-in politics, period. It lies in American's policy in the Middle East. In the policies exercised by states that base themselves outright on some sort of religious identity (Israel) or on religious inspired laws (sharia) as in Iran, Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Pakistan, or on religious fervor (such as Egypt), or on dictatorships, such as Iraq. A majority of such Middle Eastern states have been American clients. (We must remember that America supported Saddam Hussein when Iraq was fighting Iran.) The political key also lies in the fact that the secular projects of democratization either have been defeat or weakened, and political parties and groups that have based their politics on some variety of religious or political exclusion have grown.

We must first untangle the political developments over the last 50 or 60 years in that Pandora's box called the Middle East. Such a step requires serious rethinking. We must begin to formulate a third voice against the madness of terrorism and the stupidity of cowboy-and-Indian war whoops of military response, against the fanaticism of religiosity, and against witch-hunts in the name of "security." We must find a voice based on reasoned understanding, on precise knowledge, on the cherishing of human beings and human life, on the defense of peace as well as liberty. In this attempt, let me share a few preliminary observations.

First: The allegation that the terrorists were direct operatives of Osama bin-Laden has not yet been proven and needs to be documented with hard evidence. The terrorist profiles do not exactly fit the profile of bin-Laden's typical operatives, known as Afghans-Arabs, who are mostly of peasant origin. If these terrorists prove to be bin Laden operatives, then we are witnessing a new generation of Islamic terrorists.

Second: American foreign policy in the Middle East until very recently has favored and supported Islamic rather than democratic political solutions. Examples include: 1.) The CIA mobilization of the ulama (the religious scholars) in support of the military 1953 coup led to overthrow the Iran's elected national government; 2.) Facilitation of emergence of Khomeini as the undisputed leader of the Iranian Revolution (1979); and 3.) The CIA actively supported Afghani's Mujahedeen in their fight against the Soviet invasion, including establishing a close relation with bin-Laden and other Afghan-Arabs and helped the Taliban to take power in Afghanistan.

Third: The main problem in the Middle East, and what invokes the recent wave of Islamism at large, is Israeli's refusal to recognize the legitimate rights of Palestinian to form their own states in the 1967 occupied territories. The dangerous results of the policies of Netanyahu, Barak, and Sharon have been the radical development of Islamism in the Arab world.

Fourth: To reduce the danger of further religious extremism, we must help desacralize the on-going battles over sacred sites. I would argue that this is possible only by the internationalization of Jerusalem. This should serve as the basis for a political solution to the enduring crisis of the Middle East.

Let me end with an optimistic note. An old Persian proverb says that if you plant wind you will harvest storm. Let us try at least to plant the quiet air of peace to harvest clear skies.

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