The fight against terror

by Editor · July 20, 2005

Even with the benefit of some distance since this month’s terror outrage in London, it is difficult to come to terms with the reality that civilians are being arbitrarily murdered in the name of God.

Pope Benedict rightly described the terror attacks on London Underground trains and a bus as “barbaric acts against humanity”.

What a perverted image of a just God the perpetrators and supporters of such acts must have to massacre innocent people (compatriots even) in his name. Killing in the name of religion is the perfect antithesis of God’s love.

Muslim leaders in Britain have been blunt in their denunciation of the attacks. The country’s senior Muslim cleric, Sheikh Zaki Badawi, declared terrorism “totally contrary to Islam” and “an evil that cannot be justified”.

Alas, the response from the Arab world has been mostly lukewarm. Much good could be accomplished if credible Muslim leaders were to issue a fatwa against those who perpetrate terror, even if such an act would require tremendous courage.

Western leaders also bear a responsibility for the rise of terrorism in their own countries. When US President George W Bush used the ill-advised word “crusade” to describe his invasion of Iraq, he supplied Islamic fundamentalists with a handy catchword with which to attract would-be jihadists.

The invasion of Iraq, far from fighting terrorism, has exacerbated the problem, as the late Pope John Paul II warned it would. It is no accident, surely, that terror attacks bearing the benchmarks of the al-Qaeda network have been perpetrated against Britain, Spain and Australia (via Bali), three of Mr Bush’s most fervent allies in the invasion of Iraq.

The pitiless flattening of Fallujah, with its thousands of civilian dead (which the US did not even bother to count), will have further inflamed rage against the West among many Muslims worldwide. To the West’s shame, the international indignation over Fallujah did not nearly match the justified outrage over the London attacks. The tragic irony is that before the Iraq war, 2 million people marched in London in a protest against the proposed invasion.

To understand why ordinary Muslims join terrorist organisations, we must understand their frustrations: the slaughter at Fallujah, the humiliations at Abu Ghraib prison, the injustices committed against Palestinians – Mr Bush and his allies talk liberally about the “war on terror”. This dichotomy is not helpful. It gives terrorists the status of combatants. If Mr Bush understood history, he would know that wars end either with negotiated peace treaties, or, less frequently, with the destruction of the enemy. Clearly, no peace can be negotiated with jihadists, nor can the terror network be vanquished.

The real answer is in understanding how Islamic fundamentalism works, why it is there, and how it is able to recruit members and maintain support. The goal cannot be victory by military means, in itself an impossible proposition. If Islamic fundamentalist terrorism can be beaten, then it is by giving would-be jihadists fewer reasons to join up, and starving terrorist organisations of their lifeblood.

From the West’s side, this means at a minimum that all military aspirations in the Middle East are abandoned, and that an equitable solution must be arrived at for Palestine.

Moderate Islam, meanwhile, needs to win the theological argument against militant fundamentalism.

The fight against terrorism must not be framed in military terms, much as this appeals to a gung ho constituency. That fight will have to be for the hearts and minds of Muslims.