Smokers’ Corner: The not so sudden spring
Right after the tragic 9/11 episode, a series of books and debates (on TV) appeared in the US and Europe trying to figure out exactly what had happened.
One of the most common expressions reflecting the bafflement that gripped western societies during the testing period was, ‘why do they hate us?’
This is when a succession of authors and academics rose angrily to suggest that the answer to this question was always in front of western governments but they chose to ignore it. And no, the answer had little to do with American foreign policy, as such.
Because to authors and intellectuals like Christopher Hitchins, Walid Phares, Sam Haris, Brigitte Gabriel, Tariq Fatah, etc., and even to well-known authorities on Islamic politics and culture, Vali Nasr, Ziauddin Sardar and Madawi Al-Rasheed, the answer to the question lay in the West’s own self-imposed ignorance of what had been brewing and spawning right underneath its nose.
In a series of papers and books written after 9/11, these authors (and more) explained how in a two-pronged onslaught, oil-rich Arab monarchies bankrolled a destructive Islamist narrative that, on the one hand, gave birth to violent extremist and sectarian monsters in Muslim countries, and on the other hand, raised a stream of apologists within American and European intelligentsia.
It were these apologists — bred and buttered in some of the finest educational institutions in the west, regularly and liberally funded by ‘petro-dollars’ — who played a major role in keeping western societies ignorant of a growing social and ideological threat that eventually mutated into the horrors of widespread violence perpetrated by men and women in the name of faith.
Take for instance the reaction to 9/11 and to the extremist violence witnessed in Muslim countries amongst a large portion of Western academia after the WTC fell.
Established authors like Tariq Ali, Karen Armstrong, Tariq Ramazan, John Esposito, Akber S. Ahmed and a number of others indirectly linked 9/11 episode to the United States’ ‘pro-Israel’ foreign policies and ‘cultural imperialism’.
Such authors, especially to those living in lands that have become havens for murdering marauders and suicide bombers, must seem like ignoramuses. They should be reminded that this madness of ‘avenging the US and the West (supposedly) for its lopsided policies’ are NOT liberating expressions of defiance, but a show of utter hatred not only against the West (or the Jews), but also against Muslims as well.
Jihadist violence that is explained away by the apologists as an expression of a Muslim uprising against western imperial designs and injustices, has killed and maimed more Muslims than it has people of ‘enemy faiths.’
In the end, really, it’s just about hoards of fanatics out to attack humanity of any creed, colour and political disposition. And those who give such actions an apologetic and analytical ring are simply sounding silly.
Academics and intellectuals who rose to challenge the apologists, cited the year 1973 as the starting point of the creation of the modern-day ‘Islamist apologist.’ As the 1973 Arab-Israel War wound down, oil-producing Arab countries slowed down oil production triggering an unprecedented price hike in oil products that began filling the coffers of these countries like never before.
This was supposedly done to punish the US and western governments for their support to Israel. However, money began to be pumped into western educational institutions to influence the creation of a narrative within the West’s prime academic circles.
The narrative was not only critical of Israel but also of secular democratic movements taking shape in the largely dictatorial Arab countries.
All the while most of these rich Arab dictatorships remained in the ‘American camp’ and authors like Walid Phares suggest that the narrative was largely anti-democracy but in the guise of being anti-Israel.
Phares and Al-Rasheed go on to say that the recent Arab Spring was an evolutionary culmination of the kind of democratic dissent that was brewing in the Arab world ever since the 1970s. But the presence of such dissent was willingly ignored by a large number of western academics whose universities and departments were being bankrolled by the petro-dollar. The existence of democratic dissent in the Arab world was never mentioned seriously in their elaborate analysis of the Middle East.
The petro-dollars erected puritanical madrassahs and ‘Islamic Research Centres’ in developing Muslim countries eventually moulding a fanatical mindset that was not only repulsed by the West and the US but also by those Muslims who didn’t fall into the category of ‘true faith.’ In the West the phenomenon was subtler.
The funding in this respect grew two-fold after the 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran. Seen as a ‘Shia uprising’, the Arab monarchies became more aggressive in their ‘educational ventures’ when Iran’s Islamist regime began to fund the proliferation of its own version of Political Islam.
In this war of funded narratives the truth got seriously muddled: Posing to safeguard Islam from the influence of atheistic communism and Jewish hostility, the truth was that the petro-dollar was being used more to safeguard the dictatorships and monarchies in the Arab world from western concepts such as democracy.
In the West and the US, the petro-dollar rolled out apologists from prestigious universities who (both consciously and at times otherwise), bypassed the atrocities of Arab dictatorships and monarchies against political dissent and human and women’s rights, to explain Islamist violence as some kind of a liberation movement against ‘Western/US imperialism!’
A decade after 9/11 and with the emergence of phenomenon like the Arab Spring, the western governments have now finally become aware of the intellectual charade exercised by the apologists present within the western intelligentsia.
On the other hand, this intelligentsia has begun to start sounding mighty silly for calling violent and anarchic Islamist militancy an expression of Muslim reaction to ‘US imperialism’ — especially in the wake of democratic uprisings in the Arab world that, instead, have held their own dictators and kings as the real culprits.
What if 9/11 was a false flag? That would mean that our intellengnsia created this hate to keep the military-industrial complex in the war business and continue to prop up the petro dollar. If 9/11 was a attack created by our own people then this story and its suggestion becomes moot.
Seems like a "conspiracy theory"….looks like some one is following "zion hamid's" footsteps….ahem ahem :S
A blog is an opinion… Treat it as such. NFP's views are generally very well informed and provides an unique perspective to events which I personally enjoy, despite not agreeing with him 100% of the times. Is reading a different viewpoint without abusing the author so difficult?
Good article
excellent conclusion – very powerful.
NFP in your polemic against the 'Jihadi terrorism' you are making an almost absurd proposition that there is no such thing as American imperial ambitions and an oppressive Israeli occupation of palestinian lands. The resentment against these exists widespread and it does express itself as violent extremism, which is despicable. By the way the dictators and kings that you mentioned and that the people are finally getting rid of were part of the same US policy of hegemony towards the region.
It is realistic to opine that over the years since 1973 anti-semantic sentiments were brewing underneath uneasy self-imposed truce between Muslims [Arabs specially] and the west. This was just the matter of time, a bomb was ticking to explode, which did go off on 9/11. The countries jolted by Arab uprising are those, characterized by poverty, unemployment and illiteracy like Egypt, Tunisia, Yemen and even Syria is not an exception at all. However, this Arab uprising may be viewed in another perspective also; USA cum Israel could foresee uselessness of their select few men in the Chair. These countries had to be subjected to conclusive repression [still to come], planed over the years by the state of Israel and America's friends in presidencies were the obstacle. As the logic suggests: remove these men and pave way for islamists to the presidencies so that an excuse may be engineered that this country was punished because there were Islamist in-power. It had been western modus-operandi; back the rebels first and then squeeze them back into the caves exactly as create Mujahids first and decimate them later. Egypt qualifies for this criterion, Yemen more than that and Libya is ripe to be put to the test, Syria [gonnabe] safe haven for Al-Qaida. Time will tell the truth but Muslims have to be watchful for what they do may be a trap they might fall in. In this complex world it has transpired vividly that if America is your friend, you do not need enemies.
To suggest that american policies have nothing to do with what we are witnessing today is ignorance of the highest order.
This reminds me of Bob Dylan's Song " Slow Train Coming" of 1979, with lyrics going as:
…"All that foreign oil controlling American soil
Look around you, it's just bound to make you embarrassed
Sheiks walking around like kings, wearing fancy jewels and nose rings
Deciding America's future from Amsterdam and to Paris
And there's slow, slow train coming up around the bend….."
Hi NFP!
Your articles are so well-composed and wittily written that some even don't come to terms with the eloquence and/thus misinterpret them
Great article once again NFP. You are one of those courageous people who has the ability to say the right thing. There are two major ailments of Muslim world: Saudi Arabia and Iran. Both in the guise of US-Israel hatred are projecting their agendas and ideologies. Unfortunately, the war within the Muslim world is not about US or Israel; it is about sunni and shia. Even the so-called Arab springs (and what's happening in countries like Syria and Bahrain is all about supporting ant shia elements). and finally, you are right: petro dollars had been used to influence the hearts and minds of students. I am not surprised to see so many ignorant comments negating you on this page. Keep it up.
I would say an ok article Comrade. Waiting for the next one. For now I need petrol for my car oh wait I need money first, damn it I don’t even have a car. Rikshaw, Sadar jaoge bhai.
A lot of repetitive statements, but no concrete examples to back then up. Any specific universities/institutions in the West that he can name, which are being funded by petro-dollars?
A usual, more superficial than substantial.
Many universities are funded by Arabs, atleast in their personal capacities. Personally I have seen buildings constructions funded for the Medical centers of Cornell and University of Texas . I dont know of other branches
keep it up NFP
kindly write something about sectarian streaks/or inclination in pakistan armed forces……..
Refreshing to see a Pakistani liberal willing to confront not only the extremist mentality but also apologists like TariqAli, Armstrong and Tarq Ramdan.
We, as Pakistanis, must finally realize that Saudi and Iranian propaganda and influence on our politics and society has been as harmful to us just as the follies of the United States.
Agree with Marvi. No immediate solution to this sadly.
agree
Excellent article and true NFP.
the author has very poor expression; instead of using simple words, ideas and expressions,which can be understood by a common man, the author becomes vague in expressing ideas. it is to the author's disadvantage that many people read his article but do not understand,even in 2/3 readings, what the author wants to say!!!!!!!!
how about honing ur english skills? I mean if u can't read an english article in an english daily…it means u don't know english brother.So please stop whinging and try ur luck on urdu dailies or some vernacular one.Excellent article NFP sirji.You rocks!!
circuit00
My english is very good. have been living in uk for ten years and still struggling to get what author is getting at in this article. NFP is usually fantastic but this article is rather poorly written.
Or maybe it's some you DON'T want to get?
You are right about how authors cannot keep it simple and lose their audience trying to be cheeky. Salman Rushdie is a prime example of this and I refuse to read the tacky writers that I dont understand. That said, Smoker isnt one of them. He does a decent job most times and people disagreeing with him are usually the ones that disagree with him.
Mr. Ali you are right, general audiance in Pakistan may not be able to understand some of the difficult words and expression as in this article, and may interpret diferently of what is being said. Simple the better.
Amazing. I think Paracha is certainly the first Pakistani writer to highlight the other side of the way extremist thought was imposed. Everybody talks about madressas being funded by Arab money, but Paracha is quite right to point out that the same money has gone onto a number of western universities too.
I am sure NFP's thesis will be sounding a little to perplexing to those who have become apologists of extremists, and that too, without even knowing this.
I may disagree with Paracha on various issues, but what fascinates me about his articles is that how he takes on and challenges both sides of the divide, the right as well as the left. He takes no prisoners.
Why did all the uprising happen only in relatively poor arab countries? Why no uprising in SA, UAE, Kuwait, Oman etc? Does that mean that people generally do not care about the type of political system as long as their stomach are filled?
True. NFP conveniently fails to acknowledge that the democratic setups that we've had (even if their rules were limited by military dictatorships) have been poor examples to convince the population that they're what we should be going for.
But Ali, NFP is quite right to suggest that the Arab Spring uprisings were more against these Arab dictatorships and far less against either US or Israel.
I think many over here are missing the part in which he, again, quite rightly suggests that the petro-dollars that were pumped into western educational institutions were more to keep democratic dissent in Arab monarchies and dictatorships away from public eye.
There are two reasons for that; 1) UAE, Kuwait have low population and they are very happy with their government and for Oman and KSA, it had started their but they have very strong support from US for KSA and UK for Oman so no attention in the media and other areas were paid. This is what he is talking about Petro-Dollars keeping the eyes shut.
Brilliant stuff, NFP. This time you will not only arouse the anger of the reactionaries but also of the so-called liberals bred on petro-dollars. Kudos.
The writer seems to have little idea of what is he talking about. The masses resented both the "autocrats" and their US patrons. The masses firmly opposed Israeli policies and US support for those policies. Egypt is a clear example of the backlash. The Muslim Brotherhood and the Salafists swept the parliamentary elections. Muslim Brotherhood murdered former Egyptian President Anwar Sadat for signing Camp David treaty under US pressure. Al Qaeda's Ayman al-Zawahiri was a member of Muslim Brotherhood which he joined when he was 14. One of the 9/11 hijackers Mohammed Atta was an Egyptian and a member of the Brotherhood. Both were educated middle class Egyptians. (by the way even Zulfikar Ali Bhutto opposed Anwar Sadat's appeasement of the the US and Israel)
I agree. Piracha makes no sense here.
Crude oil is not about petrol for our automobiles and motorbikes. Aside from heating oil, the diesel oil for ships and trucks and trains – it is about plastics. Almost all plastic products we own are made from crude oil. That is why China wants oil. China and India are raising the world demand for more oil.
Anyone who complains about the use of "oil" would prefer not to have a world economy.
Too little and superficial knowledge is dangerous. Unfortunately this article is an excellent examplr of this
Unfortunately, most of his articles are excellent example of not only superficial knowledge but also of junior high standard.
So which western universities did you guys go to? I smell oil.
Ms Marvi! They have a right of opinion. Why are you labelling them?
The 9-11 attack came out of the blue, both for New Yorkers and for Americans, and apparently for Washington.
It was immediately compared to the Japanese "sneak attack" on Pearl Harbor Hawaii on December 7, 1941,
After which president Franklin Delano Roosevelt told the American people. "and we shall gain the inevitable triumph so help us God." … and So America did.