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by Naif Al-Mutawa
Creator of THE 99
View in Arabic, Hebrew
When I was 20 years old I boarded a train for Auschwitz.
The year was 1992. Courtesy of 10 years at a predominantly Jewish summer camp in the White Mountains of New Hampshire, I was probably the only Arab child that ever grew up fearing the Holocaust. I took the initiative of seeing with my own eyes a place whose existence is held to be an absolute truth by some, so much so that its denial is punishable by law in some countries. Nonbelievers have told me that it didn't exist. Typically this debate is about heaven. What I saw was hell.
It was a dreary winter day. Having arrived in Berlin, I connected to Krakow where I took a cab to the camp. Walking around, I absorbed the unfathomable. That same winter I also visited Terezin in Czechoslovakia and Dachau in Germany trying to wrap my mind around what I had seen. I remember wishing I could go back to the days when the only Jewish camp I had ever set foot in was in New England.
Thirty years ago, I boarded a plane to Camp Robin Hood.
My parents wanted me to concentrate on strengthening my English. America was the future. I made friends at camp and I read and I wrote and I imagined. I became enamored with fiction and the endless possibilities on the pages of books. I learned about the duplicitous nature of stories. I learned that some of what I had been raised with as true was false. And I returned the favor. The most salient lesson I learned was the importance of perception in shaping how I am seen and how I see others. I would later solidify that knowledge in my education and training as a psychologist.
In 1996 I met my Manhattan optometrist, Dr. Koty, for the first time. He asked me where I was from. And when I told him I was from Kuwait, he asked if I knew what Koty was short for, replying rhetorically that Koty is short for Kuwaiti. My doctor, it seems, is a fourth generation Kuwaiti Jew born in New York. Small world. He could have been, he should have been, my optometrist in Kuwait.
It is easy to forget that for over 1000 years the only place to be Jewish and safe was among Arabs. The terrible history of persecution culminating in the Holocaust wrought on the Jews in Europe shamed the world and hastened international acknowledgment of the need to create a safe haven for the Jewish people. But one people's gain would soon become another's loss. There is no escaping the fact that the creation of a homeland for the survivors of one of history’s most terrible tragedies was in itself a tragedy for the existing inhabitants of that homeland, any more than we can escape the horrible reality of those who were gassed in concentration camps. These are mutual truths. One cannot accept one without accepting the other. To do so would be morally and intellectually dishonest. And frankly, would be the worst kind of fiction.
My children now attend Camp Robin Hood. I hope they grow up fearing the Holocaust as I did. And I hope their Jewish counterparts at camp grow up fearing the idea of waking up one day only to find that a group that had survived a terrible massacre was now being allowed to take over their home using a holy book as their deed. It is through this type of social interaction that real change can happen. Perhaps the fifth generation of Kotys will move back to Kuwait to open up their businesses. I will certainly raise my children to welcome such possibilities.
But it will take more than individual efforts based on idiosyncratic experiences to make a significant difference. It will require concentrated efforts from the educational as well as the entertainment industries in entities where prejudice has been institutionalized and fiction is routinely peddled as fact, and fact as fiction. Just as it took several positive portrayals of African-American presidents in NBC TV's "24" to pave the way for President Obama and his message of hope, so it will take a concentrated effort of established entertainment properties that represent various cultures to interact in a meaningful and exploratory way to pave the way for cross cultural communication through mass media.
When I created THE 99, I made sure that the heroes were from 99 countries to facilitate such interaction. I thought I would have to work alone. I was wrong.
THE 99 and DC's Justice League of America have joined forces. By working with their American counterparts such as Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman, THE 99 will work hard to implement President Obama's recent message of cultural tolerance. THE 99 and the The Justice League heroes are never identified by religious orientation but it is clear what archetypes they are based on. Together, they will likely explore issues of trust, multiculturalism, and how people, real and super, perceive one another. Imagine the good that can come from a frank conversation between THE 99's burqa clad hero, Batina the Hidden, and JLA's Wonder Woman the, well, the not so hidden. If we can show how perceptions are unfairly formed, we can take great leaps in a single bound towards transforming them. And what better characters to explore such issues than Superman and Batman who were created by Jewish young men from New York and Cleveland at the height of anti-Semitism and THE 99 who were created by a Muslim during the height of Islamophobia (and who went to camp with a bunch of Jews from Cleveland and New York!).
When I was an undergraduate in the United States, the Middle East Club was celebrating the Independence Day of one of its countries. We took shifts at a table to distribute falafel with a big red sign behind us that read FREE FALAFEL in bold letters. Students wandered over, mingled, learned a little history and ate some falafel. The event ran smoothly until a woman left a meeting being hosted by Amnesty International, hurried toward us, dropped her bag on the floor, pointed up to the sign with both hands and exclaimed "Whose Falafel?!" We were confused until we realized that she actually wanted to free Mr. Falafel.
Sounds like a job for Superman (and THE 99!)
* Dr. Naif Al-Mutawa is creator of THE 99, a group of superheroes based on Islamic archetypes. He is a 2009 recipient of the Schwab Foundation Social Entrepreneur of the Year Award at the World Economic Forum.
Op-ed piece by Jalal Ghazi, Associate Producer of Mosaic: World News from the Middle East
June 23, 2009 (Earlier version published at New America Media)
If you have been following the Iranian presidential election and its stormy aftermath on Twitter, Facebook and YouTube, you have seen a repressive government that has stolen the election, attacked its own people and is now challenged by a massive opposition movement demanding transparency and greater freedoms.
But, please, consider the source.
The authors of these "cyber updates" which have been cited with breathless anticipation by Western media tend to be educated elite and those with money and access to technology and knowhow. This doesn't necessarily mean that big protests haven't taken place, but these updates represent a certain upper class.
Absent from western media were the voices of millions of Iranians who supported Ahmadinejad. They tend to be more traditional and poorer. And most importantly, they do not Tweet.
Western media therefore lack answers for the obvious question: why did they vote for Ahmadinejad? The answer is simple: because they see him as a better candidate than Moussavi.
This might be difficult for a Westerner to understand. Yes, Ahmadinejad has been accused of wanting to wipe Israel off the map, developing a nuclear weapon, and has been quoted denying the Holocaust. However, from the perspective of ordinary Iranians who voted for him, these things are not important. What is important is the fact that he is the only president who has been courageous enough to stand up to the “millionaire mullahs”: a powerful group of clerics who enriched themselves and their associates after taking official positions.
After the establishment of the Islamic republic in 1979, the wealth of the toppled shah and his supporters, as well as banks, hotels, companies and other assets, were expropriated and allocated to Islamic charitable foundations, controlled by the clerics. Since then, these organizations, which are not audited, have become corrupt. There is also widespread suspected corruption among the mullahs who exploit their power to accumulate wealth.
Among the most prominent of these mullahs is former president Ayatollah Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani. Rafsanjani’s family, once small-scale pistachio farmers, is now one of Iran’s wealthiest. And Rafsanjani himself is one of Moussavi’s main supporters.
In contrast, the “incorruptible” Ahmadinejad is well known for his humble family background. He is the son of a blacksmith, brought up in the poor neighborhoods of south Tehran. During his first term in office, Ahmadinejad clashed with these millionaire mullahs when he launched an anti-corruption campaign.
Ahmadinejad’s life story, not to mention his crackdown on graft, plays well to Iranians who resent the widening gap between the haves and have nots. It was a card he played skillfully during the presidential election, when he hammered away at his opponent’s more prominent (and unpopular) supporters.
During a June 4 televised debate with Moussavi, Ahmadinejad accused his opponent of being backed by a number of corrupt political figures, including Rafsanjani.
"What are (Rafsanjani’s) sons doing in the country?" Ahmadinejad asked. "(Name) one of my ministers who have become billionaires during their tenure, or received properties.”
Political analyst Mehadad Khonry told Al Jazeera English, “Rafsanjani is believed to be in Qum, orchestrating the support of certain leading Ayatollahs to put pressure on Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, in order to work out a face-saving compromise for his faction and above all to ensure his security in the aftermath of this event.”
There are indications that Rafsanjani, who heads the Assembly of Experts, which has the power to remove the supreme leader, has managed to do just that. During his speech after Friday prayers, Khamenei criticized Ahmadinejad for his harsh words during the election campaign toward Rafsanjani, who he praised publicly. This was followed by the release of Rafsanjani’s daughter and four other relatives.
While tweeting has provided protestors with a platform to express their opposition against the way in which the Iranian elections were conducted, one wonders about the millions of Iranians who didn’t tweet as to why they voted for Ahmadinejad. Western media have spent little effort to understand their views, thus leaving a big part of the story untold.
This video from Al Jazeera English's Listening Post program covers the media's role in Iran's election, including the influence of social media networks like Twitter.
January 25, 2009
By Wajahat Ali
Originally published at the Huffington Post
Watch this Doha Debate on Link TV
As the world witnesses Muslims frequently embracing "Islamic" political parties in the Middle East, many ominously foresee this trend as an inevitable threat to "the West."
This contentious issue anchored last week's prestigious Doha Debates moderated by veteran BBC journalist Tim Sebastian in Qatar, which hosts controversial topics in front of a diverse, engaged audience of 350 people. The motion "This House Believes that Political Islam is a Threat to the West" was defeated by 51% to 49% following a vote from the passionate audience, which included several members from the "Muslim Leaders of Tomorrow Conference" who were invited to observe and participate
In support of the motion, Maajid Nawaz, a former leader of the radical Hizb ut-Tahir who has since totally renounced his affiliations, stressed that Muslims and Islam are not inherently undemocratic or extremist, but rather the modern politicisation of Islam creates a dehumanising ideology soaked in separatism and violence. As he told me after the debate, "Political Islam is an ideology. They believe in exporting this divisive ideology to Muslims in the West...Terrorists emerge from these parties. They don't believe in our same democratic values."
However, Shadi Hamid, a research fellow at Stanford University debating against the motion, disagreed: "With the exception of Hamas or Hizballah, every single mainstream Islamic party has renounced violence."
Hamid's debating partner, Sarah Joseph, Editor of the Muslim lifestyle magazine Emel, won over the audience by vocalizing her frustration at the nebulous and generalized definitions of the "West" and "political Islam."
Meanwhile, Yahya Pallavicini, an Italian Imam and government adviser, argued for the motion lamenting the misuse of religion by Islamist political parties who selfishly hijack theology to "legitimise violence" and demonise women.
The debate highlighted a glaring problem when discussing this powder-keg issue. Namely, these conversations routinely obfuscate the highly complex and diverse citizenry of the world by carelessly lumping them into simplistic categories, such as " The West" and "Political Islamists," purely for the sake of rhetorical convenience and ideological propagation.
Following the debate, I asked Maajid Nawaz to clearly define "The West." He replied: "By 'The West' I mean America and Europe."
It must be comforting for some to know that the late Samuel Huntington's antiquated model parceling the world into fictitious, neatly carved regions is still the hallmark for enlightened debates on global relations.
To be fair, the side arguing against the motion did not articulate the complex variety of "political Islam" either. Instead, they spent an inordinate amount of time on Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood as a model of non-violent Islamism.
Without nuance, one can never understand the difference in the mindset between mainstream, practicing Muslims engaging the political arena, such as Muslim Americans for Obama, as opposed to certain "political Islamists, " such as Hamas or Muslim Brotherhood. After the debate, Hamid offered clarification: "For the latter, Islam is the primary motivator for their politics. They want to see Islam and Islamic law play a larger role in public policy." They are unlike the former who merely vote like other Americans citizens based on their candidates' respective platforms, instead of a passionate desire to implement Sharia.
Sadly, many incorrectly equate the vastly different intentions of both groups merely due to their tangential nexus of being identified as "Muslim."
Moreover, right wing, xenophobic political ideologues, especially in the United States and Europe, recklessly connect all versions of political Islam with Al Qaeda as a dire warning to those who dare let such political parties gain influence and popularity. Haroon Moghal, Director of Public Relations at The Islamic Center at New York University, underscores the key differences: "Al Qaeda has no real political goals. Its main interest seems to be in killing lots of people...men, women, children, Muslim or not." Mona Al-Oraibi, a British-Iraqi Muslim journalist, concurred and like many in the audience, both Muslim and Non-Muslim, lamented over the fact that "all Islamic political expression is lumped into 'terrorism' and 'extremism."
Also, if all "political Islam" is defined as those who use the democratic system to exalt a polarizing and violent version of Islam inspired by Sharia, then how do we explain Turkey's successful AKB party: a pro-Western, democratic party that won the popular vote due to its adherence to conservative, Islamic values.
Although Islamist extremists used terrorism in Bali [2002 Hard Rock Café Bombings] and home-grown British citizens committed the atrocious 7/7 bombings in London, those acts should not be wholly imputed to the vast majority of diverse Muslim citizens worldwide committed to peacefully promoting their religious values by proactively engaging the democratic system.
Indeed, if the United States and UK truly embrace the democratic ideals they preach, they must eventually respect the wishes of a voting Muslim population, even one that freely elects hard-line Islamist parties, such as Hamas. The U.S. must engage them -- at least diplomatically -- as to not commit an affront towards the fundamental principles of free democratic elections or to the Muslim citizens that participate in them.
Furthermore, by supporting repressive regimes such as Hosni Mubarak's Egypt and Saudi Arabia's royal family -- instead of democratically elected Islamist leaders -- the U.S. reveals its glaring hypocrisy and double standards in dealing with the Middle East. This shameful Machiavellian foreign policy follows a disturbing legacy in which U.S. has deliberately circumvented Middle Eastern democracy for its owns selfish initiatives; most notably in overthrowing Iran's democratically elected Prime Minister Mosaddeq in favor of the brutal tyrant, Muhammad Shah Pahlavi, in 1953. Mosaddeq's crime? His desire to nationalize his country's most important resource, oil, and wrest it from U.S. and European control and exploitation.
However, observing the debate with the "Muslim Leaders of Tomorrow" and hearing their diverse range of opinions, one should emerge hopeful that the bulwark of reactionary, monolithic thought [whether it be "Islamic" or "Western" -- whatever you wish those terms to mean] will be stifled by this emerging generation. As Hussein Rashid, a PhD candidate in Harvard University's Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations, remarked, "One thing to keep in mind is that 'Islam doesn't speak, Muslims do.' It is Muslims who define what Islam says and does, within broad parameters. The new generation is engaged, informed, and articulate. It scares the Islamists, because [the new generation] won't fall for the ideologues."
Ultimately, the debates highlights the utter complexity and inter-connectedness of the modern, globalized terrain; one where simplistic talking points no longer suffice to have meaningful discussions about political Islam's relationship with itself and the world. As with any political ideology and process, the threat or benefit is ultimately derived from its adherents who must wield the power to use it proactively as a moderate, enlightened shield of self-determination rather than a poisonous, lacerating sword of intolerance and separatism.
Wajahat Ali is a Muslim American of Pakistani descent. He is a playwright, essayist, humorist and Attorney at Law, whose work, The Domestic Crusaders, is the first major play about Muslim Americans living in a post 9-11 America. Visit his blog at http://goatmilk.wordpress.com/.
January 28, 2009
By Wajahat Ali
Originally posted at the Guardian UK
In his historic interview with the Al-Arabiya TV channel, President Obama's inclusive and respectful rhetoric towards Muslims attempted an elegant coup de grace to the divisive, insecure and arrogant bravado of the Bush administration. For many Muslims worldwide, however, the sincerity of such honey-coated words will only be legitimized by a responsible and balanced foreign policy that is no longer rooted in selfishness and historical amnesia.
Obama optimistically told the "Muslim world" – if even such a nebulous entity exists - that his "job is to communicate to the American people that the Muslim world is filled with extraordinary people …My job to the Muslim world is to communicate that the Americans are not your enemy."
Like a skilful and eloquent Cool Hand Luke, Obama calmly exhibited respect, humility, and confidence. He finally achieved his Colin Powell catharsis. He made a decisive and public break with Bush's diminutive Dirty Harry personality and that administration's "clash of civilizations" rhetoric by acknowledging the existence of Muslims as valuable partners necessary in traversing the fragile and volatile terrain known as the global "war on terror."
Perhaps Obama reflected on the shameful legacies of his campaign, where Muslims were actively encouraged to vote and donate for his presidency, but only if they were hidden, maligned and unacknowledged – like the two veiled women whom his staffers removed from a televised Obama rally. At a fundraiser 12 days before the election, I asked a very high-ranking Democrat why Obama kept shunning Muslim Americans. He shot me a knowing look and responded, "You know - it's only 12 days before the election," thereby unsubtly and ironically reminding the Muslims present at the gathering about the detrimental electoral "taint" of being associated with our kind.
However, with his presidency and election now secure, Obama now openly welcomes and identifies with these former political kryptonites: "I have Muslim members of my family. I have lived in Muslim countries."
Many Muslims, although initially offended by what they perceived as Obama's slight towards their community despite their overwhelming support for his presidency, were nonetheless enthusiastic after hearing Obama's Al-Arabiya interview, which repeatedly stressed respect towards the "Muslim world." Faisal Ghori, an American Muslim and Principal at Middle East Ventures, a Middle East and North Africa-focused strategy consultancy, echoed the feelings of many by calling it "groundbreaking for the United States in light of the last eight years" and "a step in the right direction."
Obama's initial executive order shutting down the draconian Guantánamo Bay facility further signaled the emergence of a rare leader, making good on his promises and taking concentrated efforts at strategically rebuilding and redeeming our globally maligned image.
However, the tragedy of the Gaza crisis still burdens the hearts of many Muslims who decry Obama's words as hype and empty rhetoric in light of his refusal to directly criticize Israel for its brutal campaign in Gaza that left over 1,300 Palestinians dead.
When dealing with the Muslims, Obama urged: "We can have legitimate disagreements but still be respectful." However, his reinforced commitment to Israel – despite the humanitarian crisis and global condemnation surrounding its actions in Gaza – is both polarizing and contentious to Muslims worldwide. When Obama firmly stated: "I will continue to believe that Israel's security is paramount," many Muslims lost hope in Obama's promise – and by extension the desire for a new and "improved" US Middle East foreign policy – due to perceptions of his unconditionally-biased loyalty towards Israel.
As Asilan Ekher, a Turkey journalist chosen as one of the prestigious "Muslim leaders of tomorrow" programme, told me: "If Obama really wanted to give a friendly message to the Muslim world, he would have definitely found a way to denounce the civilian deaths in Gaza in a diplomatic way, as he must know that it is the most sensitive issue for the majority of Muslims around the world at the moment."
Noorjahan Ali Boolay, a Thai Muslim from Payap University, concurred: "I have to admit that my hope is high from listening to what Obama said [in the interview] but my heart is full of doubts and fears…. No matter how wrong, bad, or unfair the actions are, Israel will get full support and protection from America."
For a loquacious man like Obama, who stirringly denounced the terrorist Mumbai attacks and spearheaded an economic advisory team even before taking the oath of office, his relative silence on the Gaza crisis was shameful and surprising.
Moreover, Obama's rhetoric from the interview implies he will continue the US's dangerously belligerent offensive in Pakistan and Afghanistan, where pilotless drone aircraft attacks have killed more than 300 people – overwhelmingly civilians – over the past year. Obama promised the US is going to be "decisive in going after terrorist organisations that would kill innocent civilians, that we're going to do so on our terms, and we're going to do so respecting the rule of law."
However, Obama must note that "our terms," which are unnecessarily aggressive and unilateral, will not necessarily be welcomed by the beleaguered population of Central Asia, already hostage to eight years of Bush's reign of unmitigated violence. Even though the US might consider civilian deaths as collateral damage, they inspire despair and anger which can be exploited by reactionaries for their Islamist jihad agenda.
The 30-year failure of such a myopic policy towards Pakistan and Afghanistan can easily be witnessed in the blowback of violence and virulent anti-US sentiments espoused by extremists, who are housed in countries ruled by ineffectual and incompetent leaders. The same can be said about Israel and Palestine. Ultimately, Obama declared the "language we use has to be a language of respect … the language we use matters." So does enlightened diplomacy. Let's hope Obama ushers in real change by implementing both.
Wajahat Ali is a Muslim American of Pakistani descent. He is a playwright, essayist, humorist and Attorney at Law, whose work, The Domestic Crusaders, is the first major play about Muslim Americans living in a post 9-11 America. Visit his blog at http://goatmilk.wordpress.com/.
December 19, 2008
By Wajahat Ali and Ahmed Rashid
Abridged version published in Washington Post Global
Although the smoldering fires from the Mumbai attacks illuminate hateful violence, the spread of Islam in India came at the benevolent, inclusive hands of Sufi Muslims instead of the oppressive scimitar of the Mughal rulers. Personalities such as Moinuddin Chishti, a 13th century Sufi master, personified this version of Islam by demonstrating selfless charity and proactively engaging Hindu neighbors, especially the “untouchables” and downtrodden members of society. This humanistic, open-minded model of Islam is the predominant ideology of a majority of Indian and Pakistani Muslims. Unfortunately, a strain of narrow minded and oppressive literalism also exists, exemplified by 17th century Mughal emperor Aurengzeb, whose zealous devotion to his faith left a bitter, resentful legacy of tyranny and separatism.
In the aftermath of the Mumbai tragedy, Indian Muslims have been marching overtime on the streets to side with religious plurality, demonstrate solidarity with fellow Indian citizens and vocally denounce the attacks. At the rallies, such as the 5,000 march by Indian Muslims in Mumbai last week, Indian Muslims held placards that read "Our Country's Enemies are Our Enemies," "Killers of Innocents are Enemies of Islam," and a few believe "Pakistan Be Declared Terrorist State."
As observers of Indian politics know, such declarations are an important act of self-defense in a country where communal tensions between the country's 140 million Muslims and 900 million Hindus periodically flare. Muslims, more often than not, are the targets of these attacks. While international attention has focused on Pakistan, where the attackers hailed from, it's important we don't paper over the inequities faced by Muslims in India, which spawned a home-grown version of al-Qaeda in recent years, and where resentment is growing.
The discrimination can be subtle. Zahir Jan Mohammed, an eye-witness to the 2002 Gujarat pogrom/riots and a director at Amnesty International, explains that to succeed in India, Muslim Indians often felt they had to prove they were "Indian" - now they must also prove they are not "Muslim terrorists or Pakistani sympathizers." "Indian Muslims who want to break into the upper echelons of Indian society need to abdicate their allegiance to their faith and proclaim their faith towards India as their belief system...it implies the notion that Muslim Indians are less Indian or perhaps 'suspect' because they really have allegiances elsewhere," Mohammed said.
More overt discrimination was uncovered by the 2006 Rajinder Sachar Committee, formed by Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to investigate and solve the social, economic and educational problems of Indian Muslims for the purpose of including them in the mainstream population. It concluded that Muslims, who comprise 11 percent of the population, account for 40 percent of the prison population, face rampant discrimination in housing, receive substantially lower bank loans, receive less than 5 percent of government jobs, suffer from higher rates of illiteracy, and are burdened with significantly inferior infrastructure.
In addition, the rise of radical, terrorist Hindu movements, such as the Bajrang Dal, RSS and Vishwa Hindu Parishad - each involved in directly or indirectly inciting anti-Muslim violence - stokes the flames of religious intolerance and separatism. Recently, the Indian investigative journal Tehelka uncovered proof of government complicity in the slaughter of 2,000 Muslim civilians by Hindu right-wing mobs in the state of Gujarat over several months in 2002.
As Stephen Cohen, a Brookings scholar and expert on South Asia, told us, "There has been a growth of unrest among India's Muslim Population, largely as a reaction to Barbri [mosque demolition by Hindu nationalists in 1992] and Godra [event that inspired the Gujrat riots that killed nearly 2,000 Muslims] ...everyone fears the growth of a linkage between Al Qaeda and Indian Muslims, but again the worst is not yet evident."
Indeed, such government-sponsored discrimination could potentially help recruitment of disenchanted Muslims into the folds of India's indigenous militant Islamic groups of SIMI [Students Islamic Movement of India] and Indian Mujahideen, who may be involved in the Mumbai attacks. Both groups find ideological and religious nourishment for their radicalism in an extremist, literalist strain of Deobandi Islam, which reduces the world to a binary demarcation of "Dar-al-Islam" ["The House of Islam"] and "Dar-al-Harb" ["The House of War", or those lands deemed unIslamic]. However, it is imperative to note the vast majority of Muslims who adhere to Deobani orthodoxy are neither militant, violent nor supporters of terrorism. The radical interpretation of this ideology, as supported by the Taliban and to an extent al-Qaeda, rationalizes and justifies its political ambitions through such simplistic, unscholarly analysis of an Islam that is stripped from its spirituality and historical precedence.
Adherents of this group, which represents but a minutiae of South Asian Muslims, claimed responsibility for the 2008 Ahmedabad and New Delhi blasts that killed scores of innocent civilians. The nationalist, political struggle for Kashmir, which then flourished into a full-fledged, ideological militant jihad, allowed Pakistani terrorist groups like Jaish-e-Muhammad and Lashkar-e-Taiba to implant cells in India amongst Muslim Indian student youth to assist with recruitment, logistics, intelligence and training. As Adrian Levy, author of Deception: Pakistan, United States, and the Secret Trade in Nuclear Weapons, explains, "The Student Mujihadeen groups from India seem to have middle class membership, with academic and professional backgrounds, computer literate, with money, and have come under the influence of Islamist groups." The intolerance and belligerence of these groups find their ideological partner in the violent, Hindu nationalist groups who feel compelled to "purify" India by removing its "unclean" minorities. In these moments of chaos and fear, collective anger could ignite catastrophic, reactionary sentiments, and poison the well of a historically tolerant and multicultural citizenry.
So, whilst we need to focus on the cause of extremism in Pakistan - a pressing problem that threatens to overwhelm both the Pakistani and Afghan governments - we must use the events of this month to remedy India's inequities towards its minorities and pacify the rhetoric of bigotry espoused by the country's religious zealots.
And so we return to the story of India’s beloved Sufi mystic, Moinuddeen Chishti, and his mazaar [shrine] in Ajmer, Sharif, where thousands of lovers from all walks of life congregate to this day for blessings and prayers. The gamut of India’s diverse citizens, whether he be Muslim, Hindu, Sikh, or Christian, all share in the daily langer, which is freely distributed food cooked in a large, communal pot. It is both ironic and hopeful that this existing spiritual tradition of tolerance and inclusivity resonates more powerfully than bomb blasts in lighting the future for Hindu and Muslim relations in India.
Ahmed Rashid is a Pakistani journalist and best-selling author of Taliban and Descent Into Chaos: The United States and the Failure of Nation Building in Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Central Asia.
Wajahat Ali is a Muslim American of Pakistani descent. He is a playwright, essayist, humorist and Attorney at Law, whose work, The Domestic Crusaders, is the first major play about Muslim Americans living in a post 9-11 America. Visit his blog at http://goatmilk.wordpress.com/.
