Radical Islamists in the modern world

It is not the first time that President Musharraf has had to take such a line. In January 2002, after 9/11, he gave an address to the nation in which he asked Pakistanis, "Do we want Pakistan to become a theocratic state? Do we believe that religious education alone is enough for governance, or do we want Pakistan to emerge as a dynamic Islamic state?"

Musharraf’s position was not driven by mere ideological conviction. Given that Pakistan had provided training camps for the Taliban, in the wake of 9/11 the United States and India told Musharraf that Pakistan’s policies had to change. If not, the US intended to impose economic sanctions, while India would step up military action in the disputed Kashmir border. Although 15 of the 19 attackers in 9/11 were Saudi Arabians, Pakistan has been a key link in terrorist activities. In the past 25 years, the number of madrasas (Islamic schools) has gone from a mere 3,000 to over 39,000. In these schools, many of which are supported by funding from Saudi Arabia, boys study to be mullahs. The core of the curriculum is the Qu’ran, and there is no exposure to modern subjects. The boys are given board and clothing since, because of the decline of Pakistan’s state education system, many of them would be out on the street were it not for these schools. This is the system that Musharraf is trying to dismantle.

Nonetheless, radical Islamists have never got more than five percent electoral support from the general populace in Pakistan. It is also true that Islamic extremists are very much a minority among Muslims world-wide. But the London bombings demonstrate that the problem of Islamic terrorism is not merely that terrorists come from Muslim nations. The London suicide bombers were British citizens, and had grown up in that country. So the deeper question now is this — What is it about Islamic ideology that encourages individuals to take such extreme action?

Muslim leaders have pointed out that Islam does not approve of suicide nor the killing of civilians. However, religious texts are always open to interpretation, and the suicide bombers seem to have their own ideas about what the Qu’ran does or does not say. Moreover, there appears to be a strong element of ethnic solidarity underlying the terrorist acts — clearly, the British suicide bombers saw themselves primarily as honorary Arabs, rather than Britons.

This reflects the recruiting success of Islamic fundamentalists. In the 1980s, Pakistani imams targetted young, black inmates of British prisons. That recruitment was a key link to the infiltration of the Wahabi brand of Islam, which comes out of Saudi Arabia, into the Caribbean. This branch of Islam teaches in one textbook that "It is compulsory for Muslims to be loyal to each other and to consider the infidels their enemies."

Trinidad and Tobago is not immune to such ideology, as July 27 1990 proved. And moderate Muslims here must do their part to ensure that such fundamentalism does not take root — or, if this has already happened, to ensure that this poisonous tree bears no further fruit. Doing so requires Muslims to do more than reiterate the Qu’ran’s disapproval of terrorist acts. They must also demonstrate that Islamic tenets are compatible with the modern world. They must publicly and emphatically agree that secular law is separate from religious law, and that religious loyalties should be confined to the private sphere. Support for these tenets can be found in Islamic traditions and, although they may seem self-evident, such insistence is necessary to change the negative image of Islam.