Western Subversions of Muslim Progress

BY ISHTIAQ AHMED (IDN) *

One of the puzzles modern social scientists and historians have to address, particularly of Muslim origin, is whether the current nihilistic, violent, rabidly irrational behaviour of sections of Muslim societies is something to do with an essential, intrinsic nature of Islam, or, if it is the result of western machinations that have driven them towards patently destructive conduct.

I shall address the internal structure of Islamic totalism as a major hurdle to democratisation, economic growth and progress in some future essay, but here I want to shed light on the way the west has consistently promoted reactionary Islamism, subverted progressive nationalist regimes, and thus controlled the destinies of the Muslim world by tying them down to a medieval mindset.

It has done so up until now in the context of geopolitical and ideological concerns that are external to the Muslim world. Thus the fear that Russian and German influence may penetrate Muslim societies of west, southwest and south Asia made Britain promote Islamism in opposition to modernising elites and regimes in the Muslim world. Later it was fear of the spread of Communism which promoted the new leader of the western world, the US, to continue with the same policy.

The classic case is how the British dismembered the Ottoman Empire. The captive sultan was made to sign the Treaty of Sevres (1920) according to which Turkey would give up all its territories in Asia Minor and become a third rate petty state in the Anatolian hinterland. The British sent two of their trusted Muslim protégés in India, Syed Amir Ali and the Aga Khan, to write letters to the Turkish people to support the sultan and not Atatürk.

Such intrigues failed to crush Turkish resistance. However, when Atatürk gave up his claims on Kirkuk and Mosul British greed for the moment was satisfied, and thus the Turkish revolution could be saved. The Treaty of Lausanne of 1923 conceded Turkish sovereignty on territories which constitute contemporary Turkish republic.

The second Western attack on Muslim modernisation was when King Amanullah of Afghanistan initiated an impressive programme to modernise his country. Industrialisation, modern education, liberation of women and many other such ideas were in the pipeline but the British in India recruited the most reactionary Mullah of Afghanistan, Mullah Shore Bazar, and a notorious bandit, Baccha Sakka, to launch a counter-revolution. They succeeded in overthrowing King Amanullah who was sent into exile in 1929.

The third assault on Muslim modernity was the overthrow of Prime Minister Mossadeq of Iran in 1953 because he had nationalised the Anglo-Iran Oil Company. The British and American intelligence services joined ranks and with the help of reactionary sections of the Iranian clergy masterminded the agitation that brought to an end the Mossadeq era.

The Shah of Iran established a dictatorship that left no room for secular democratic parties to function. Consequently only radical sections of the Iranian clergy could successfully bring down the Shah. Ayatollah Khomeini became a hero and trendsetter of Islamists all over the world.

Chronologically speaking it was not Wahabism that set in motion forces that undermined modernising processes in the Muslim world; it was Khomeini's reactionary revolution that initiated it. The Saudis reacted violently to Khomeini's bid to capture the leadership of the Muslim world. Their rivalry drove Muslim societies more and more towards extremism.

With regard to the Arab world, US foreign policy aimed primarily at containing the spread of Soviet Communism. People like Bernard Lewis who are now in the forefront against Islamism where advising US administrations to support and bolster fundamentalist and conservative regimes against the nationalists and socialists of the Arab World. Thus the Muslim Brotherhood was promoted by the CIA against Nasser of Egypt. The Eisenhower-Dulles Doctrine of 1957 was meant to create a conservative Arab alliance against radical regimes. An excellent book on this period is Robert Dreyfuss' The Devil's Game.

The full benefit of such policy was reaped when the international jihad against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan was launched in the beginning of the 1980s. I have heard CIA agents say it on television that promoting international jihad was a legitimate foreign policy as it helped achieved the dismemberment of the main threat to US interests posed by the Soviet Union. On the other hand, the Islamists make the counter-claim: that they used the west to defeat Soviet atheism and will now advance their own global agenda of Islamism and defeat the west.

This is a false sense of power, because it makes no sense that the west will let their creature, Islamism, hurt their vital interests in the long run. If trillions of dollars could be spent on developing weapon systems that would have destroyed the Soviet Union many times over, then Islamism which up to now has managed only 9/11 cannot be an impossible enemy to defeat.

My fear is that the attack on Islamism could result in an attack on ordinary Muslims who really have had no role to play in this confrontation. I have absolutely no illusions that the US in particular will not hesitate to use excessive, unprecedented force in such a situation. After all the merciless bombing of Vietnam in which three million Vietnamese lost their lives as against 55,000 Americans happened in our own life time.

It is high time Muslim intellectuals stop cultivating the victimhood complex and instead make a correct analysis of western military, technological and economic power as well as assess dispassionately Islamism as a counterweight to western domination. Also, democracy and open societies have created dynamism in the west that adds great strength to it. What have we to offer to our people? I have no doubt that all sensible Muslims would agree that angry slogans, suicide bombings and calls to jihad cannot change the world.

We need to invest in education, science, technology, economy and in social progress. Southeast and East Asia used to be poor and sluggish, but now this part of the world is the most dynamic in terms of economic growth and social progress. They have adopted tough policies on drugs and other excesses of western decadence, but learnt the right lessons on how to make the economy grow and create prosperity. The Muslim peoples in south and west Asia will have to learn from them.

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* This article was first published in the News International on 28th July 2007. The author is a visiting senior research fellow at the Institute of South Asian Studies (ISAS), National University of Singapore on leave from the University of Stockholm. Email: isasia@nus.edu.sg.