Islamic Fundamentalism and Violence: Clash of Meanings?

Mehmet Zafer Demir/Denmark/2007

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For Zümrüt...

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Islamic Fundamentalism and Violence: Clash of Meanings?

- The pigeons can be able to continue to live even inside of city and crowds. I would

not deny that they live timorously, but freely -

-Hirant Dink1, 2007-

Introduction

We are witnessing an age in which unresisting manipulations, fig leaf conceptualizations,

misleading retrospective narratives, and vulgar ideological prognostications fall upon the

people like starving vultures on a carcass. Had all these been the only case we encounter and

had all these been in an abstract form, as they sound, we would have called them a mere

speculation belied by a scaremonger and would have accused of them being pessimistic even

apocalyptic. You have also an unremitting cycle of violence that is neither an abstract thing

nor is it a speculation. The inferno in Iraq, the cauldron of Afghanistan, the chaos in Somalia,

the torpor and tragedy in Palestine and Israel are at point, if we do not list other horrendous

places surrendered by bayonets and bombs. What is more, the soi-disant civilized modern

places such as New York, Madrid, and London and quasi-modern places such as Istanbul,

Bali, and Taba have been and are still vulnerable to be targeted by unpredicted violence by

means of incalculable methods.

1 Hirant Dink is a Turkish-Armenian journalist and intellectual. Just as Orhan Pamuk, he was an opponent of crypto-fascist Turkish regime’s claims pertaining to Armenian Genocide. He had been convicted of “insulting Turkishness” and received a six-month suspended sentence. After one week he wrote above sentences, he was killed by a gunman in the middle of Istanbul on January 19, 2007.

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In order to have some understanding of all this, we are dealing with Islamic fundamentalism/

Islamism/ and violence as well as their interrelatedness in the context of a globalized world.

Academicians, be they “Western” and “Muslim” and political agents, be they Islamists and

their political adversaries, are foolishly at loggerheads over the very meaning of Islam and

even its very name. It is necessary here to accentuate the discrepancy between Islam as a faith

and Islamic Fundamentalism/Islamism as a political project and a political ontology. In a very

broad sense, A Muslim who declares him/her self as a Muslim can be a liberal, a conservative,

a socialist etc. and who does not refer to sharia , Islamic law, to shape his/her political

orientation. By contrast, an Islamic fundamentalist/Islamist whose political orientation totally

is based on sharia, although they only call themselves as a Muslim. Whilst for a Muslim

Islam is associated with private realm, for an Islamist or Fundamentalist Muslim Islam is

associated with private as well as public realm. Accordingly, what we are dealing not with is

Islam as a faith and Muslims as an individual, but Islamism/Islamic fundamentalism as a

political project and Islamist/Islamic fundamentalist as a political agent. Amid this complex

and confusing concepts and labels, where to situate Islamic fundamentalism and violence?

What are the reasons for this opaqueness? Is Islam/Islamic fundamentalism synonymous with

terrorism? Is there any acceptable and universal definition of terrorism? Why are we exposed

to a lack of common vocabulary pertaining to political Islam and its concepts? What does the

concept of jihad or global jihad means as a political discourse and action? How do Islamists

justify their resorting of violence? What is the role of the US on Islamic fundamentalism and

violence? Are we witnessing a global Islamic fundamentalism in the form of a brutal

terrorism vis-à-vis an American Fundamentalism that wages the “war on terror” but functions

nothing other than a sort of terrorism?

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Clash of Emotions?

Let us look at prevailing world politics from the perspective of what Dominique Moïsi calls

the “clash of emotions” so as to understand the phenomenon of Islamic Fundamentalism and

its connection with violence. Whilst the Western world, the US and the Europe, displays a

culture of fear, the Arab and Muslim worlds are in the case of a culture of humiliation as to

Moïsi’s recent analysis. Whilst culture of fear and culture of humiliation are closely

interrelated, most part of Asia is a bystander with regard to that conflict, Moïsi to some extent

confirms Huntington’s thesis of “clash of civilizations, and displays a culture of hope, which

is beyond my focus. Culture of fear, asserts Moïsi, seems to provide a unity within the

Muslim world and transforms it into a culture of hatred. There are also some areas like Russia

and parts of Latin America where all of these moods simultaneously can be observed. What is

the reason for culture of fear is to be targeted by the terrorist attacks executed by radical

Islamists and is to be conquered demographically and is being “Eurabia”, along with the

economic destabilization and job cuts as a result of globalization and being under the control

of an outside power either in the form of a friendly one, the US, or in the form of a faceless

one, The European Commission. All of these, for Europeans, writes Moïsi, are about “a sense

of loss of control over one's territory, security, and identity -- in short, one's destiny”.

Americans worry about their economic problems too, but not the same as Europeans do. Their

fears appear

“…in their bodies, with the plague of obesity; in their budgets, with the huge deficits; and in their spirit, with the loss of appetite for foreign adventures and a growing questioning of national purpose.”

Whilst Europeans show “a combination of escapism and appeasement” in the face of their

fears, the Americans implement an offensive strategy via an aggressive, forceful and

optimistic rhetoric, i.e. the violation of human rights in Guantánamo Bay, the difficulties for

foreigners in the airports of the US, the invasion of Iraq – let me add the air raids in Somalia

last month – (with virtually no end) which make them unpopular in the realm of international

community and do away with their claims of moral superiority. According to Moïsi, the

demise of the Ottoman Empire as a result of World War I, the fact that the creation of the

state of Israel gave rise to appear the culture of humiliation. The protracted conflict, then,

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between Israel and its neighbours changed it to the culture of hatred, of which national

character took shape a religious character betwixt Muslims and Jews, even betwixt Islam and

the West. Yet the culture of humiliation is not only at stake in the Middle East, but also in the

West among Muslim diaspora. Moïsi takes as an indicator for this the insurgency in Paris

during the fall of 2005. Moïsi argues that there is an evolution in the daily life toward

secularization in Europe, and that the importance of religion in the daily life is rising in the

Muslim world. Event though the same contrast is at stake between the United States and the

Muslim world, it is not as profound as in Europe. Because the United States is still deeply

religious and its religious revival is a lately phenomenon. “Yet fundamentalism within Islam”,

Moïsi writes, “is unique in the sense that it is animated by a dual sense of revenge: by the Shiite

minority against the Sunni majority and by the fundamentalists against the West at large”.

Just as Huntington, Moïsi argues that there is a real threat posed by “Muslim world’s culture

of humiliation” which is directed to Europe and the United States. Moïsi concludes his

analysis that either appeasement or military solutions are unable to get rid of the threat and

that culture of humiliation cannot defeat the West. Yet, the West can be defeated, if it betrays

its “liberal” values and does not take into consideration “its respect for law and the

individual”. “The challenge”, writes Moïsi “is not figuring out how to play moderate Islam against

the forces of radicalism. It is figuring out how to instill a sufficient sense of hope and progress in

Muslim societies so that despair and anger do not send the masses into the radicals’ arms.”2

Moïsi is right in saying that the United States and Europe displays a culture of fear. It can

even be argued that this culture of fear has produced a sort of a culture of paranoia that has

been obvious in the Afghanistan and Iraq invasion campaigns, which have been slandering

any criterion of so-called international law and the notion of so-called legitimate nation-

states’ sovereignty. – As to what criterion in the Middle-East the borders of the so-called

“sovereign” nation-states had been and are currently being drawn?3 (What is legitimate is that

which is illegitimate and vice-versa in this context of the so-called post-cold war period. Have

2 Dominique Moïsi, “Clash of Emotions”, Foreign Affairs, January/February 2007I am grateful to Gideon Rose, Managing Editor of Foreign Affairs. He had emailed the article to me before it published.3 Esposito also argues that drawing the borders and nation-building process in the Middle East are symptomatic: “Nation building in the Muslim world with its artificially drawn borders superficially uniting peoples with diverse centuries old identities and allegiances was a fragile process that bore the seeds for later crises of identity, legitimacy, power, and authority” John L Esposito, Unholy War: Terror in the Name of Islam, Oxford 2003. p 79.

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we already entered to an age of clash of reversions?) It is the fact that in Europe

Islamophobia has seriously increased since September 11.4 We would not deny the

importance of the phrase of culture of humiliation because of the fact that the experience of

colonization of the Islamic world - with a few exceptions such as Iran and Turkey; but had not

they been experienced a sort of semi-colonization? - has generated a mishmash of ambivalent

emotions that have mostly been revealed in the form of resentment and hatred that generated a

“will to rebel”. (Is this not similar to victim’s hatred against his/her rapist? But who has been

victim in the colonized world, the elites backed by their masters or the masses victimized by

permanent wretchedness?5 Can we find one the reasons of the detonation of Islamic

fundamentalism in this complicated victimization? Would not one argue that this “dual sense

of revenge” has been behind the “resurgence” of Islamic fundamentalism instead of the dual

sense of revenge of Shiite minority against Sunni majority and the fundamentalists against the

West? ) So, the assumption of a monolithic, homogeneous “Islamic world” in Huntingtonian

sense, with a very generalization so as to confirm the new conflicting conceptualization and

overlooking a plethora of complexities such as power relations within the Islamic world itself

and its repressive regimes’ relations with the Western powers are quite beyond the pale. Even

though it has merits in terms of indicating the prevailing tensions and offering more or less a

realist picture of world politics, it raises more questions than it answers: Is culture of

humiliation the one and only mood Islamic world displays?6 Is it not displaying “a sense of

loss of control over one's territory, security, and identity -- in short, one's destiny” too? If

there is a threat, is culture of humiliation the one and only reason for that threat? What about

the threat posed by global capitalism? Are “radical arms” attractive for Muslim masses just

4 See the report prepared by European Monitoring Center on Racism and Xenophobia: “Muslims in European Union: Discrimination and Islamophobia”, EUMC, 2006 http://eumc.europe.eu 5 I shall refer to this term in the end of the discussion. But Fuller’s approach can give some clues to certain extent for this moment: “Muslim rulers fear offending their protectors in Washington, Muslim publics have little or no influence over policy within their own states, bad leaders cannot be changed, and public expression of dissent is punished, often brutally. This is the "stability" in the Middle East to which the United States seems wedded.” See, Graham E. Fuller, “The Future of Political Islam” Foreign Affairs, Mar/Apr 20026 According to Baudrillard, for example, the humiliation is no longer unilateral one: “Only an analysis that emphasizes the logic of symbolic obligation can make sense of this confrontation between the global and the singular. To understand the hatred of the rest of the world against the West, perspectives must be reversed. The hatred of non-Western people is not based on the fact that the West stole everything from them and never gave anything back. Rather, it is based on the fact that they received everything, but were never allowed to give anything back. This hatred is not caused by dispossession or exploitation, but rather by humiliation. And this is precisely the kind of hatred that explains the September 11 terrorist attacks. These were acts of humiliation responding to another humiliation.” See Jean Baudrillard, “The Violence of Global”, Trans., Francois Debrix www.ctheory.net/articles.aspx?pid=385

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because of despair and anger? What about the lack of a real alternative for them? If culture of

humiliation united the Islamic world, what about Shiite minority’s revenge against Sunni

majority?

What can we conclude from Moïsi’s analysis and our criticisms? Whatever has merits his

analysis; it at least provides us a picture of the prevailing world politics in which we have a

Muslim world and Islamic Fundamentalists with a sort of resentment against the “West”. That

is to say, we currently have an antagonism and an existing conflict between them in the form

of a “global jihad” and the “war on terror”. Likewise, there are also conflicts between Islamic

Fundamentalists and the regimes in which they operate; if we do not mention the conflict

between them selves. So, the implications on the phrase of “culture of humiliation” and its

nature, and accentuating on the United States’ “deeply religious” character that is crucial as to

the claim of “clash of fundamentalisms” posed by Tariq Ali – it will be discussed later on –

should be especially kept in the mind for the rest of discussion. We are now dealing with the

struggle over the meaning of Islam and opaqueness of the concepts.

Opaqueness of concepts and clash of meanings:

Islamism, Fundamentalism and Terrorism:

We have drawn the lines pertaining to this discussion’s borders and put the questions. We

shall answer them through the discussion. It is necessary here reemphasizing some of

aforementioned questions: What are the reasons for this opaqueness? Is Islamic

fundamentalism synonymous with terrorism? Is there any acceptable and universal definition

of terrorism? Why are we exposed to a lack of common vocabulary pertaining to political

Islam and its concepts?

All disputes about Islamic fundamentalism itself aside; there are much debate about even

labelling it, which is itself vulnerable an arbitrary neologism and permutations. Apart from

Islamism and fundamentalism, a plethora of labels such as Islamo-fascism, militant Islam,

radical Islam, Jihadism or Jihadists, Islamic extremism, Islamic fanaticism, are circulating in

the academia and public opinion around the world. Whilst most of them are being used in a

pejorative sense with ideological impulses; none of them are being accepted Islamists or

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Islamic Fundamentalists. - The term fundamentalism is being perceived much more

pejorative than Islamism by Islamic fundamentalists.7 Some does not find the term

fundamentalism appropriate because of its specific protestant origin in the beginning of

twentieth century.8 Esposito, for example, prefers to speak of Islamic revivalism and Islamic

activism instead of fundamentalism.9 I have used the both terms Islamism and Islamic

Fundamentalism. As I stated earlier, a Muslim who refers to Sharia either to design his/her

social life and or to shape his/her political orientation; we can call him/her as Islamist and

his/her ideology as Islamism. Likewise, if a fundamentalist ideology is based on following

four tenets: “(1) that there is one set of religious teachings that contains the fundamental, basic, and

essential truth about humanity and the deities, (2) that this truth is opposed by forces of evil, which

must be vigorously fought, and (3) that this truth must be followed according to unchangeable

traditions; and (4) that those who espouse this ideology have a special relationship with the deities.”10

If this is the case, we can label Islamists as fundamentalists too. – As we shall see in the

discussion pertaining to Sayid Qutb later on. Yet, I do not find an insistence on one of them

appropriate. Nor should Islamic fundamentalism be a metaphor for fundamentalism in

general. To be sure, we can speak of a Christian, Jewish, and Hindu, etcetera, fundamentalism

as well. Likewise, a distinction can be made between the movements that are adversaries for

quasi-democratic process in the Muslim World such as Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood and

transnational “terrorist” organizations such as al- Qaeda. We may call the first and the like

Islamists. Islamic fundamentalism may be appropriate for the latter and the like. Yet, in any

case we should be aware of this complexity, and use this distinction only in certain

circumstances. Otherwise, we would find ourselves in the trap of “clash of meanings” as such.

Martin Kramer in his article has made the genealogy of the terms Islamism and

Fundamentalism in details. He concludes his analysis in the following way:

“The actions of Muslims will affect the Western choice of terms. But Western perceptions, hopes, and prejudices will play an equal or greater role. Debate over terminology has always surrounded the

7 I know some fundamentalists who call themselves as “Islamists” in Turkey but they agonizingly reject the label of fundamentalist. 8 See Najib Ghadbian, “Political Islam and Violence”, New Political Science, Volume 22, Number 1, 20009 John L. Esposito, The Islamic Threat: Myth or Reality?, Oxford, 1992, p.7 10 Benjamin Beit-Hallahmi, "Fundamentalism"The Oxford Companion to the Politics of the World, 2e. Joel Krieger, ed. Oxford University Press Inc. 2001. Oxford Reference Online. Oxford University Press. Aalborg University Library.17 January

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West's relations with Islam, and its outcome has been as much a barometer of the West's needs as a description of the actual state of Islam”.11

All this exactly sounds like a “clash of meanings” to me. Whilst Western “perceptions”,

“hopes”, and “prejudices” are placed on the one side, Muslim “actions” on the other. In this

so-called clash, the fact that which one has led to produce each other is blurry, though Kramer

follows the tracks of the terms’ venture until Voltaire, who had used the term Islamisme in the

sense of Mahometanisme, The religion of Prophet Muhammad. What is crucial here is that the

term fundamentalism is an American product; – A kind of brand name like

McFundamentalism? - But Islamism is a French product in the 1970s onwards. What

explains these attempts of permutations? Could it be the fact that the traditional Europe versus

the US competition or that of a response to “being under the control of an outside power”, as

Moïsi would put it? 12 If so, here is a so- called clash within the “West”, but not between the

“West” and Muslims. Where have all the Muslim’s actions gone? It was the time after

François Burgat published L'Islamisme au Maghreb (Islamism in Maghreb), the Algerian

Islamic Salvation Front’s (FIS) leader Abbassi Madani was complaining:“In your book, you

must first of all change the title! Why ‘Islamism'? It is Islam that is at work in Algeria, nothing but

Islam. We are Muslims!”13

Let us leave aside the “debate over terminology” to unbalanced pendulum of “West’s

relations with Islam and look at the “actual state of Islam” or the actual meaning of Islam. – If

any. But herein lies a trap that the academia, the callous political actors, be they with suit and

limousine or bearded and with a rifle; or bearded and with suit, and as always the “multitude”

repeatedly and intransigently falls into in their perceptions and declarations. A state of

opaqueness, a cul-de-sac, on which all the political discourses, argumentations,

demonisations, justifications, and denunciations, have been constructed, and through which

all the political actions are executed pertaining to this realm that we call the “clash of

meanings” on Islam.

As such the prevailing clash of meanings is something like this: There is a religion called

Islam that has a “real” essence but no perspective is consistent with each other even on the

11 Martin Kramer, “Coming to terms: Fundamentalists or Islamists? ”, Middle East Quarterly, Spring 200312 But, in Huntington’s “conflict obsessive” mind such a thing is impossible. Precisely because, reactions to September 11 have become “strictly along the civilizational lines”. He argues in his article of “The age of Muslim Wars” that the proof for this claim is Le Monde’s headline: “WE ARE ALL AMERICANS” It seems to me that his plane of “McCivilizational (Air) lines” which takes up from “Clash of Civilizations”- which is a kind of paranoia-; consequently has landed “The age of Muslim Wars”, which is a kind of a double paranoia! See, Samuel P Huntington . “The age of Muslim Wars”, Newsweek, Dec 17, 2001.Vol.138, Iss. 25. 13 Cited in Martin Kramer, “Coming to terms: Fundamentalists or Islamists?”

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minimum level with regard to that “real essence” by means of essentialist rhetoric. From the

“Western” “state intellectuals’ perspective, this essentialism is not simply an essentialist

perception of “Other”; but it is saturated with an attempt for being hegemonic on the “real

essence”. It is more than a new sort of “Orientalism”, more than an academic illusion; it is a

“political” strategy. The adversaries, be they academicians and political actors, always play

to this real essence, supporting their claims based on Islamic sources. The common strategy is

that any sides accuse of each other by misrepresenting, misinterpreting, exploiting and

usurping even hijacking – a cliché that has become popular after September 11 – the real

essence of Islam. Had the “sides” or their discourses’ horizons been clear-cut in terms of their

positioning against each other or even between themselves, the task would have been easy.

The case is that any sides are categorically shaped as to multifaceted “political” lines, - which

is very complicated too, but not paranoid as “Civilizational lines” is. The case is certainly

understandable in terms of political actors, who are naturally and inextricably self-justifying,

be they either a legitimate state officials/representatives or the clandestine cadres of a

transnational “terrorist” organization. The dilemma rises for the academia, which claims a

somehow universal objectivity so as to be able to be acceptable and is itself supposed to put a

certain distance, as to a somehow universal moral criterions, between the political powers and

itself. But, alas, this is not often the case. Leaving aside absolute questionable nature of a

universal morality, that is always already vulnerable to any kind of cultural relativity and

incommensurability, with regard to the quality of academia itself, one can never be able to see

even a tiny track of that distance and sensibility within the academia so much so that the

pseudo-objective knowledge produced by academia pertaining to “the real essence” of Islam

becomes categorically always already unconvincing.14

14 In order to specify the case, for example, I accept the contention suggested by Tariq Ali that those such as Huntington, Fukuyama who are the “state-intellectuals” in the sense that they work for or emerge from “the bowels of the US state machine”. p.276. See Tariq Ali, The Clash of Fundamentalisms: Crusades, Jihads and Modernity, Verso, 2002. Enriched by a media studies and hermeneutical perspective, for a critical account of academia, see also, Jacob Bosch, Academic Trends and Continental Philosophy: Where have all the Intellectuals Gone? Unpublished Master Thesis, Aalborg University, 2006. Edward Said depicts the intellectuals who talk about terrorism nineteen-years ago in the following day: “Talking about terrorism can therefore become an occasion for something other than solemn, self-righteous pontification about what makes ‘us’ worth protecting and ‘them’ worth attacking. In education, politics, history and culture there is at the present time a role to be played by secular oppositional intellectuals, call them a class of informed and effective wet blankets, who do not allow themselves the luxury of playing the identity game (leaving that to the legions who do it for a living) but who more compassionately press the interests of the unheard, the unrepresented, the unconnected people of our world, and who do so not in ‘the jargon of authenticity’ but with the accents of personal restraint, historical scepticism and committed intellect.” Edward Said “Identity, Negation and Violence” New Left Review I/171, September-October 1988.

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Let us make more concrete and visible the case. Esposito argues that Osama Bin Laden uses

“Islamic Doctrine and law to legitimate terrorism”, in doing so, he hijacks Islam.15 It was

George W. Bush who said that the al-Qaeda operatives are “a part of lunatic fringe and

religious usurpers. They are misrepresenting and hijacking Islam to serve terrorism.” 16 It does

not mean that an academician is always categorically on the “wrong” side in the case of using

the same argument with a political actor. But is it only a coincidence? Or does it mean that all

the distinctions between academia and political authority ought to be done with away in the

case of the “war on terror? What has been hijacked and from where? Who has the authority to

decide about the “hijacking” and as to what criterion?

The veteran Orientalist Bernard Lewis also speaks of the “real essence” of Islam”. With his

book’s title, one can easily predict of what he will talk about: The Crisis of Islam. In the

chapter IX titled “The rise of terrorism”, he begins his tirade under the guise of “academic

objectivity” in this way:

“Most Muslims are not fundamentalists, and most fundamentalists are not terrorists, but most present-day terrorists are Muslims and proudly identify themselves as such. Understandably, Muslims complain when the media speak of terrorist movements and actions as “Islamic” and ask why the media do not similarly identify Irish and Basque terrorists and terrorism as “Christian.” The answer is simple and obvious—they do not describe themselves as such. The Muslim complaint is understandable, but it should be addressed to those who make the news, not to those who report it. Usama bin Ladin and his Al-Qa‘ ida followers may not represent Islam, and many of their statements and their actions directly contradict basic Islamic principles and teachings, but they do arise from within Muslim civilization, just as Hitler and the Nazis arose from within tendom, and they too must be seen in their own cultural, religious, and historical context.”17

Does not sound the Lewis’ first sentence just like, “Most heterosexuals are not racists, and

most racists are not terrorists; but most present day terrorists are heterosexuals and proudly

identify themselves as such.” or something else just as this kind of confusing world plays?

The base for his argument is some peoples’ identification of themselves “as such”. Yet, their

Islam cannot be an Islam “as such”. Their statements and their actions contradict basic

principles of Islam “as such”, as if Lewis has an Islam “as such”. Likewise, What Lewis and

others do is just to report what is made by these crazy men, as if Lewis and others are just

speakers who work for al- Jazeera. And Muslims should not worry about by these evil labels

simply because “We Westerners” have also such crazy evil terrorists in “Our” own cultural,

15 Esposito, Unholy War: Terror in the Name of Islam, p.22 16 George W. Bush, September 20, 2001. Cited in Quintan Wiktorowicz and John Kaltner, “Killing in the Name of Islam: Al-Qaeda's Justification for September 11” Middle East Policy, Volume X, Summer 2003, Number 2 17 Bernard Lewis, Crisis of Islam, Westminster, 2003, p.137 ((Emphasises are in original text))

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religious and historical context. (So, too much sarcasm contradicts basic academic writing

principles as such.)

When we talk about terrorism, clash of meanings takes a form of tragedy, for which any kind

of clash is a sine qua non. Yet, we are dealing not with tragedy as a form of literature; of

course we are dealing with somehow a tragedy; which is not fictional, rather it is as real as

bare violence. Edward Said, a scholar of comparative literature, offers a way to understand the

very phenomenon of terrorism, which deserves to be quoted in extenso:

“As a result, even though attention to terrorism has quite noticeably diminished, the word still comes easily, trippingly to the tongue. […] The reason, of course, is that mainly in the United States, but also generally speaking in the West, terrorism is by now permanently, and subliminally associated in the first instance with Islam, a notion no less overused and vague than terrorism itself. In the minds of the unprepared or the unalert, Islam calls up images of bearded clerics and mad suicidal bombers, of unrelenting Iranian mullahs, fanatical fundamentalists, and kidnappers, remorseless turbaned crowds who chant hatred of the US, ‘the great devil’, and all its ways. […] To my knowledge, of no other country, no religion, culture or ethnic group except Islam and its societies, has it been said that terrorism is, after a fashion, endemic. […] No less strange was the common agreement in expert literature and rhetoric that no real definition of terrorism was actually possible. [….]But I also want to say that in the specific case of ‘talking terrorism’ in the Middle East, distinctions and connections have simply not been made enough. There has been terrorism, there has been cruel, insensate, shameful violence, yes, but who today can stand before us and say that violence is all, or even mainly, on the side of the labelled ‘terrorists’, and virtue on the side of civilized states who in many ways do in fact represent decency, democracy, and a modicum of ‘the good’? […] The concurrence between such notions and the world-view promulgated by the media is therefore quite close. The history of other cultures is supposed to be non-existent until it erupts into confrontation with the United States, and hence is covered on the evening news. Most of what counts about foreign societies is reduced first into sixty-second items, then into the question of whether they are pro- or anti-American (freedom, capitalism, and democracy). The ultimate choice facing the professional interpreters of, or experts on, ‘other’ peoples, as these experts are framed by the media, is to tell the public whether what is happening is ‘good’ for America or not, and then to recommend a policy for action. Every commentator or expert a potential secretary of state.”18

I also quoted Said in order to show that how a text that was written almost twenty-years ago

can be able to depict the opaqueness of the term terrorism in this precise way, which is

acceptable even for today. With a little bit more attention, however, one can easily see the

strategical shift we mention, as we just saw the short discussion pertaining to Esposito, Bush

and Lewis. Despite the fact that there could still be the “unprepared” and unalert minds”,

the new strategy tends to separate the images of those “bugbears” from the “real essence” of

18 Edward Said “Identity, Negation and Violence” New Left Review I/171, September-October 1988. (Emphasises are in original text)

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Islam by arguing that these “crazy” people are not dangerous due to their religion, but their

own “craziness” as such:

“Violent ideas and images are not the monopoly of any single religion. Virtually every major religious tradition— Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, Sikh and Buddhist— has served as a resource for violent actors. Perhaps it is not fair to label Osama bin Laden a Muslim terrorist or to characterize Timothy McVeigh a Christian one— as if they were violent because of their Islamic and quasi-Christian beliefs. But the fact that religion is in their backgrounds, and behind so many different perpetrators of public violence, indicates that all religions are inherently revolutionary. They are capable of providing the ideological resources for an alternative view of public order.”19

Herein the strategical shift can be seen in a different dimension. Jurgensmayer does not apply

to the verbal hocus-pocus as Lewis does. He clearly makes the distinction between the

individuals who are the perpetrators of violence and the religions. And these people should

not be labelled as to their beliefs. Why? Simply because, their beliefs are “quasi” beliefs, but

not the “real” ones. The questions inevitably arise: Which religion is in their backgrounds?

Which religion is “revolutionary” one? Is the one which what Jurgensmayer calls “quasi”? Or,

is the one which is in Jurgensmayer’s mind that he never mentions? The same logic is still

at work: Some people are “hijacking” the religions, but from where?

The opaqueness of the term terrorism and the exploitation of it as a strategical means by

“potential state secretaries” are not only responded with a rejection, but also generate

reversions in the language of a famous Arab poet:

We are accused of terrorism:if we defend the rose and a womanand the mighty verse ...and the blueness of sky ...A dominion ... nothing left therein ...

[….]

A homeland forbidding us from buying a newspaperor listening to the news.A dominion where birds are forbiddenfrom chirping.A homeland where, out of terror,its writers became accustomed to writing aboutnothing.A homeland, in the likeness of poetry in our lands:It is vain talk,

19 Mark Juergensmeyer, Terror in the Mind of God: The Global Rise of Religious Violence. University of California Press, 2000. p 14.

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no rhythm,imported

[…]

We are accused of terrorismif we defended our landand the honor of dustif we revolted against the rape of peopleand our rapeif we defended the last palm trees in our desertthe last stars in our skythe last syllabi of our names

[...]

I am with terrorism

as long as this new world orderis sharedbetween America and Israelhalf-half.

[…]

I am with terrorismwith all my poetrywith all my wordsand all my teethas long as this new worldis in the hands of a butcher.I am with terrorism20

Political ontology of Islamic Fundamentalism and

clash of meanings over Jihad:

In the preceding discussion, we sought to analyse the opaqueness of the concepts of

fundamentalism, Islamism, and terrorism, through which we have reached the fact that a clash 20 Nizar Kabbani, London, 15 April 1997. Cited in Tariq Ali, Bush in Babylon: The Recolonozation of Iraq, Verso, 2003, pp.7-13 Likewise, another ironic reversion has been declared by Osama bin Laden: “In the October 2001 interview with al-Jazeera Television, bin Laden declares that the “brave men” who conducted the 11September attacks did it “as a matter of self-defense, in defense of brothers and Sons in Palestine, and to liberate our sacred religious sites. If inciting people to do that is terrorism, and killing those who kill our sons is terrorism, and then let history bear witness that we are terrorists”. He added, “Just as they’re killing us, we have to kill them so that there is a balance of terror.” p.190 See, Muhammed M. Hafez, Why Muslims Rebel: Repression and Resistance in the Islamic World, Lynne Rienner, 2003

15

of meanings is at work and play. Herein we are segueing into the discussion in that the

analysis of Islamic fundamentalism as a political ontology and investigating the prevailing

clash of meanings over the concept of jihad itself are necessary.

In order to understand what Islamic fundamentalism’s main tenets are, we ought to choose to

analyse the text written by Sayyid Qutb: Ma'alim fi 'l-Tariq (Milestones), a.k.a. Signposts.

Another work that he completed in the prison Fi zilal al-qur’an (In the Shade of the Qur’an)

(30 volumes) is the most widely-read Qur’anic exegesis among the Muslims in the world. But

Milestones is the manifesto of Islamic fundamentalism and is said to have been published in

close to 2,000 editions.21

Qutb’s political ontology was supposed to be based on a political text, i.e. the Koran.

Scripture, asserts Zeidan, is central to all kind of fundamentalisms, i.e. Christian, Jewish etc.

The sacred text is absolute reference so as to justify their existence. Fundamentalism regards

the text as “inerrant” and “timeless”. This is why; fundamentalists are generally called “blind

literalists” by their adversaries and academia.22 If we accept that this is the case for

fundamentalists, then, the “blind literalists” are in a very paradox: they seek to open the eyes

of the people by means of a sort of darkness. Yet, Qutb will absolutely reject this simply

because its brightness is absolute and unquestionable; it is a “treasure”. If one wants to enjoy

the Koran’s “treasure”, then one must accept it with this spirit: “the spirit of knowing with the

intention of acting upon it”. One would be reminded here that the Koran, asserts Qutb, did not

come as a book that has intellectual content, nor is it a book of literature, nor a book of stories

or history. It, however, contains all these dimensions. And it, then, transcends all these facets

and is transformed into “a way of life, a way dedicated to God.”23

21 It is available in full text at least two websites: http://www.youngmuslims.ca/online_library/books/milestones/hold/index_2.asphttp://www.islamistwatch.org/main.htmlI have used the latter. But the problem is that there are no page numbers. That is why; I will give the subtitles, when I refer to Milestones. 22 David Zeidan, Resurgence of Religion: A Comparative Study of Selected Themes in Christian and Islamic Fundamentalist Discourses, Brill, 2003, p.128-923 Qutb, Milestones, “The Unique Quranic Generation” It should be noted that Qutb’s political ontology, in particular, and Islamic fundamentalist discourse, in general, cannot be understand from a rationalist perspective in the strict sense and cannot be grasped in the rationalist paradigm their “inner logic”, namely their own perception of things. Since Roxanne L. Euben prefers to handle the situation in this manner, which is wholly acceptable: “In contrast, it is precisely this vision that I place at the center of an account of Islamic fundamentalism. My analysis of Qutb’s political theory provides an exploration of one particularly influential ethico-political vision within modern Sunni Islamic fundamentalism. This vision, I suggested in chapter 3, challenges modern political sovereignty and offers a moral indictment of post-Enlightenment political theories such as Marxism, liberalism, and socialism, which assume the exclusion of religious authority from the political realm. I argued that the insistence of Qutb’s Islamic fundamentalist thought on divine sovereignty is a rebuttal of and antidote to rationalist discourse itself, that is, the Western discourse that has posited reason as the source of truth, knowledge, and authority. In chapter 4, I extended this reading by illustrating the ways in which Qutb’s

16

Qutb has constructed his political ontology based on the Koran and defined it as “a way

dedicated to God”. What is, then, its uniqueness? Which dimension renders it distinguished

from other “man-made” political ideologies? Its uniqueness lies at the conception of

servitudeness and worshipping. Qutb claims that some people worship others under the “man-

made” systems.24 By contrast, all men become free from the servitude of some men to others –

A repetitive theme; Qutb frequently refers to this throughout the Milestones - only in the

Islamic way of life, only devoting themselves to the worship of God, only deriving guidance

from God and only bowing before God.25 No matter how Qutb has established this

conception; the “sovereignty” must have be taken from the “men” so as to provide a “new and

firm base” for his political ontology and it has been already done and given to “the Perfect”,

“the Real Being”, and “God Most High” from which the ubermensch of Qutb must be taken

his/her concepts of life, the principles of government, politics, economics, and all other

aspects of life.26

It is here that the concept of jahiliyah (The state of barbarous ignorance; Jahili is the adjective

of jahiliyah) must come into focus precisely because one can never be able to comprehend the

political ontology of Qutb and Islamic fundamentalism itself without grasping the concept of

jahiliyah, through which Qutb produces an “other”. “State of jahiliyah” to some extent

resembles Hobbbesian “state of nature”. Whilst in state of nature no body has safety, in state

critique of post-Enlightenment rationalism engages him not only in a repudiation of modern, Western assumptions and arguments about the bases of political life, but in a rejection of a prior generation of Muslim modernists who sought to render Islam as the religion of reason and, thereby, as compatible with an originally Western paradigm of modernity.” p.165 See, Roxanne L. Euben, Enemy in the Mirror, Princeton, 199924Qutb’s notion of worshipping (i.e. the perception of political relations between people as an act of worshipping) is based on this hadith:(The words and actions of Muhammad, the second source of Islam after Koran) “Tirmidhi has reported on the authority of 'Adi bin Hatim that when the Prophet's message reached him, he ran away to Syria (he had accepted Christianity before the Prophet's time), but his sister and some of the people of his tribe became prisoners of war. The Prophet--peace be on him--treated his sister kindly and gave her some gifts. She went back to her brother and invited him to Islam, and advised him to visit the Prophet--peace be on him. 'Adi agreed to this. The people were very anxious to see him come to Medina. When he came into the presence of the Prophet, he was wearing a silver cross. The Prophet--peace be on him--was reciting the verse. "They (the People of the Book) have taken their rabbis and priests as lords other than God". 'Adi reports: "I said, 'They do not worship their priests." God's Messenger replied, "Whatever their priests and rabbis call permissible , they accept as permissible; whatever they declare as forbidden, they consider as forbidden, and thus they worship them." ” He adds: “This explanation of the above verse by the Prophet--peace be on him--makes it clear that obedience to laws and judgments is a sort of worship, and anyone who does this is considered out of this religion. It is taking some men as lords over others, while this religion has come to annihilate such practices, and it declares that all the people of the earth should become free of servitude to anyone other than God.” Qutb, Milestones, “The Cause of Jihad”

25 Qutb, Milestones, “Introduction” (My emphasis)26 Qutb, Milestones, “The Unique Quranic Generation”(My emphasis)

17

of jahiliyah only the “true believers” has no safety in terms of the both worlds’ responsibility

so that they must alter this state in which they live. Qutb reaches the conception of jahiliya via

a harshly demonization and via repeating the conception of servitudeness:

“If we look at the sources and foundations of modern ways of living, it becomes clear that the whole world is steeped in Jahiliyyah, and all the marvelous material comforts and high-level inventions do not diminish this ignorance. This Jahiliyyah is based on rebellion against God's sovereignty on earth. It transfers to man one of the greatest attributes of God, namely sovereignty, and makes some men lords over others. It is now not in that simple and primitive form of the ancient Jahiliyyah, but takes the form of claiming that the right to create values, to legislate rules of collective behavior, and to choose any way of life rests with men, without regard to what God has prescribed. The result of this rebellion against the authority of God is the oppression of His creatures. Thus the humiliation of the common man under the communist systems and the exploitation of individuals and nations due to greed for wealth and imperialism under the capitalist systems are but a corollary of rebellion against God's authority and the denial of the dignity of man given to him by God.”27

It should be noted that Qutb does not define his political ontology some sort of rebellion

against jahiliyah but rather it is jahiliyah which is itself a state of rebellion against God’s

sovereignty on earth. That is to say, Jahiliyah has not only all the dimensions of evilness but

also is an eternal struggle: from Adam versus Satan to Muhammad versus Mecca style

idolatry and to the “true believers” versus capitalism and communism and the “Muslims” who

do not implement sharia and who do not accept the unconditional sovereignty of God over all

aspects of their life. Likewise, he equates the rebellion against God’s authority with dignity of

man whose task is only take back the sovereignty from man-made systems so that man would

be able to regain his dignity. As a result, the jahili society is the rest of the space where God

is one and only sovereign; - because God says in the Koran: "It is He Who is sovereign in the

heavens and sovereign in the earth." (43:84) - accordingly “All the societies existing in the

world today are jahili”.28

Under such a condition, the “believer”, the “true Muslim”, the Muslim ubermensch inspired

by Qutb’s political ontology must alter the existing jahili society that means corruption,

degeneration, and depravation and so on. In order to do this, a practical strategy is necessary:

“When Jahiliyyah takes the form, not of a 'theory' but of an active movement in this fashion, then any attempt to abolish this Jahiliyyah and to bring people back to God which presents Islam merely as a theory will be undesirable, rather useless. Jahiliyyah controls the practical world, and for its support there is a living and active organization. In this situation, mere theoretical efforts to fight it cannot even be equal, much less superior, to it. When the purpose is to abolish the existing system and to replace it with a new system which in its character' principles and all its general and particular aspects,

27 Qutb, Milestones, “Introduction”28 Qutb, Milestones, “Jihad in the Cause of God”

18

is different from the controlling jahili system, then it stands to reason that this new system should also come into the battlefield as an organized movement and a viable group. It should come into the battlefield with a determination that its strategy, its social organization, and the relationship between its individuals should be firmer and more powerful than the existing jahili system.”29

Herein a new concept enters to Qutb’s political ontology: jihad. Qutb begins the chapter

dealing with jihad with a long quotation from Ibn Qayyim’s book Zad al-Mitad (Provisions

for the Hereafter). Ibn Qayyim (1292-1350) who was a Sunni theologian and a scholar of the

Hanbali School, which was known for its very strict literalist interpretations of the Koran. He

was a pupil and disciple of Ibn Tammiya (1263-1328) who was also a scholar of the same

school. Ibn Tammiya had issued a fatwa to wage jihad against Mongols during Mongol

invasion of the present day Iraq (If there is still such a country), Syria and part of Egypt. Ibn

Tammiya’s ideas had been reinterpreted in the late eighteenth century by Abdal Wahhab, who

was founder of Wahhabism, which is the state religion of present day Saudi Arabia. Qutb had

used this tradition to produce and justify his jihad theory. (Osama Bin Laden have been using

all this tradition for his global Jihad, along with Abdallah Azzam’s jihadist vision, which was

developed by Azzam during the Afghan Jihad in the 1980’s supported by the United States

against the Soviet Union)

The notion of jihad is inevitable and final step for Qutb’s political ontology. The believer who

belongs to an “Islam” which is a way of life dedicated to God that is under the siege of

jahiliyah that must be abolished by any means necessary and the struggle must continue

forever:

“This movement uses the methods of preaching and persuasion for reforming ideas and beliefs and it uses physical power and Jihaad [sic] for abolishing the organizations and authorities of the Jahili system which prevents people from reforming their ideas and beliefs but forces them to obey their erroneous ways and make them serve human lords instead of the Almighty Lord. […] No political system or material power should put hindrances in the way of preaching Islam. It should leave every individual free to accept or reject it, and if someone wants to accept it, it should not prevent him or fight against him. If someone does this, then it is the duty of Islam to fight him until either he is killed or until he declares his submission. […] Thus the struggle does not end here, and the real decision cannot be reached here. Any judgment based on that part of it which took place on earth is therefore incorrect, as this judgment will concern only a small and rather insignificant part of this struggle.”30

We have analysed the main aspects of the political ontology of Qutb and Islamic

Fundamentalism. We have to look at the debates over jihad in the expert literature now. In

doing so, we will be able to see whether the clash of meanings is at work and play or not.

Before moving forward, it is worth emphasizing that what position Qutb takes in the context

29 Qutb, Milestones, “The Characteristics of the Islamic Society and the Correct Method for its Formation”30 Milestones, “The Cause of Jihad” and “This is the Road”.

19

of clash of meanings we mention. Qutb’s position is consistent with his entire political

ontology:

“No doubt the Shari'ah is best since it comes from God; the laws of His creatures can hardly be compared to the laws given by the Creator. But this point is not the basis of the Islamic call. The basis of the message is that one should accept the Shari'ah without any question and reject all other laws in any shape or form. This is Islam. There is no other of Islam. One who is attracted to this basic Islam has already resolved this problem; he will not require any persuasion through showing its beauty and superiority. This is one of the realities of the faith.”31

If we look at the “expert literature” as well as the texts written by Islamic fundamentalists

dealing with the concept and the phenomenon of jihad, then we will inevitably see a bare

clash of meanings. In this realm, everyone has their own jihad. Islamic sources such as Koran,

hadith and interpretations of next generations’ scholars have been used so as to justify the

ideological positions. Whilst Islamic fundamentalists seek to produce a dynamic, mobilizing

notion of jihad, the experts in academia, be they “Westerners” or Muslim apologists, speak of

a peaceful or spiritual jihad. And everyone can be comfortably able to reach and justify their

own positions, thanks to a plethora of literature and a long history of Islam. The case is

understandable in terms of Islamic fundamentalists who simply need to justify their actions

and will inevitably be selective in their interpretations.32 But in the expert literature the same

selectivity will likely led to discredit the academia. As a result, the concept of jihad and Islam

oscillates between “moderate” “apologist” Muslims’ or “Western” academicians’

spiritual/defensive and ‘radical militant extremist’s offensive jihad and between the religion

of peace and the religion of sword.

Richard Bonny in his book of Jihad: From Qur’an to Bin Laden after giving quantitatively

enormous data throughout four hundred pages concludes in this way:

“The imperative for a modern, enlightened Islam is to stress the importance of the ‘greater’, instead of the lesser, jihad. A preoccupation with the ‘greater jihad’ will help the reassertion of an Islam that is “enlightened” in the sense of being a full participant in the dialogue of civilizations and an equal player among the world’s great faiths. It is an objective that has to be nurtured and guided by the political and religious leaders of the Islamic world.”33

31 Qutb, Milestones, “The Unique Quranic Generation”(My emphasis)32 As David Apter has aptly pointed out, “People do not commit political violence without discourse. They need to talk themselves into it.” Cited in Hafez, Why Muslims Rebel: Repression and Resistance in the Islamic World , p.15733 Richard Bonny , Jihad: From Qur’an to Bin Laden, Palgrave,2004, p.404

20

The opaqueness of the terms like “modern”, “enlightened Islam”, the questionable character

of any kind of “imperativeness” and all of these relativistic conceptualizations’ very

vulnerability to ideological exploitations aside, Bonny’s emphasis is over the very concepts of

the “greater” (Jihad-e- Akbar) – struggle against oneself - and the “lesser” (Jihad-e-Ashgar) –

armed struggle against the unbelievers - jihad on which he establishes his ideological

argumentation. But herein we should focus on the concepts of the “greater” and the “lesser”

jihad which are based on one of the sayings of Muhammad. It was the time after the Tabuk

Battle Muhammad, according to disputable report, had said: “We have returned from the

lesser Jihad to the greater Jihad”. No wonder that Abdallah Azzam - who is contemporary

jihadist theorist of global radical Islam34 - rejects this hadith’s authenticity and labels it as a”

fabricated hadith” by referring to Ibn Tammiya and a number of other Islamic scholars.35 But

Bonny is very careful about this issue and does not forget to quote Tammiya to accuse of him:

He has refuted this tradition categorically.36 Who refutes who categorically? David Cook

explains this vulgar perplexity in this manner, which seems acceptable:

“Yet the fact that the majority of contemporary Muslims do not actively participate in militant jihad demonstrates a decisive rejection of which the radical Muslims are keenly aware. In chapter 2 I cast doubt on the reality of the “greater jihad” for reasons that I consider to be historically sound. In reading Muslim literature— both contemporary and classical—one can see that the evidence for the primacy of spiritual jihad is negligible. Today it is certain that no Muslim, writing in a non-Western language (such as Arabic, Persian, Urdu), would ever make claims that jihad is primarily nonviolent or has been superseded by the spiritual jihad. Such claims are made solely by Western scholars, primarily those who study Sufism and/ or work in interfaith dialogue, and by Muslim apologists who are trying to present Islam in the most innocuous manner possible. Presentations along these lines are ideological in tone and should be discounted for their bias and deliberate ignorance of the Muslim sources and attitudes toward the subject. It is no longer acceptable for Western scholars or Muslim apologists writing in non-Muslim languages to make flat, unsupported statements concerning the prevalence - either from a historical point of view or within contemporary Islam— of the spiritual jihad. Thus far these writers have offered no evidence as to whether the spiritual jihad was actually the primary expression of jihad. It is incumbent upon them, therefore, first to prove that this doctrine had some type of reality outside of the Sufi textbooks and second to demonstrate that either a substantial minority or a majority of Muslims historically believed and acted upon it or that the spiritual jihad actually superseded the militant jihad. Thus far no scholar has accomplished this.”37

34 David Cook, Understanding Jihad, University of California Press, 2005. p. 161.35 Abdallah Azzam, Join the Caravan, “Conclusion” and footnote 71. http://www.islamistwatch.org/main.html36 Bonny, Jihad: From Qur’an to Bin Laden, Palgrave,2004, p.4037 Cook, Understanding Jihad, pp.165-6

21

Yet, Bonny will likely rebut this categorically due to the fact that he has already located

himself in one of the front lines of clash of meanings. It is not surprising that he ultimately

offers a new and strange kind of jihad: “There must be a jihad against militant jihad”. And

there must be, he goes on, a struggle against terrorism. Because this new fanaticism never

shows any respect for the“values of civilization”. “Terrorism must be defeated” but in “more

subtle” or “better calibrated” ways instead of prevailing the “war on terrorism” deployed by

the “West”. And of course, “clear distinctions” should be made “between the general interests

of the international community in suppressing terrorism and the short-term pursuit of any one

state’s hegemonic ambitions.”38 If ever there were ultimate ethical collapse of academia, this

was it.

As Cook aptly pointed out dealing with the lack of proof pertaining to the non-violent

character of jihad in the Islamic sources, one cannot substitute jihad with a spiritual one. It is

a political action which uses violence like all the political actions might have used. Likewise,

insistent on either jihad’s violent or non-violent nature is not the fundamental aspect of the

issue. That is to say, no matter the interrelatedness of Jihad or Islam with violence. Rather it is

a matter which belongs to theoretical level. By contrast, violence is distinguished by its

instrumental character.39 Conflating the both inextricably allows to the very clash of meanings

that reaches nowhere.

Conclusion

I have argued that what we are witnessing is not a clash of civilizations, nor a clash of

emotions, though we can be able to see some sort of symptoms of the both either in the form

of somehow cultural hostilities or in the form of ambivalent emotions. Rather, we are living

in an era where clash is in the form of an epistemological violence that we call clash of

meanings. Yet, that is not to say that it is merely at work and play. Rather, it is a background,

a phase of preparation, a means of justification so as to use or conceal bare physical violence.

I have also analysed the political ontology of Islamic fundamentalism by only attempting to

show its ‘whatness’. There is still a further short evaluation to be made for it. I called it 38 Bonny, Jihad: From Qur’an to Bin Laden, p.42039 See Hannah Arendt, On Violence, HBJ Book, 1969

22

political ontology due to the fact that it is about creating a being – in this world – that only

belongs and obeys to a God who has to have any kind of human possessions, i.e. sovereignty,

governance and all kind of human relationships, either in this world or in the next. And in the

political ontology of Qutb and Islamic fundamentalism this struggle does not end in this world

that is not a place where that being cannot reach the ultimate decision.40 Thus, the political

ontology of Islamic fundamentalism is a weak one. But, its powerfulness lies in this weakness

itself too. This paradoxical character of the political ontology of Islamic fundamentalism can

be articulated as a “political ontology of nonexistenceness” which has generated the political

act of sacrificeness of the global jihad, i.e. the brutality of al-Qaeda attacks.41

Yet, we always should bear in mind that we have to slough off our unilateral perspectives, as

long as we live in this epoch. What is at work and play is a brutal festival of unbridled

violence deployed by Islamic fundamentalists by means of the “global jihad”42 and by a

fundamentalist global capitalism by means of the “war on terror”. Whilst the first defines its

rival “Crusader Zionist Enemy”, the latter labels its enemy as “terrorist, extremist” (With

virtually no end). It is not difficult to suppose that the both sides have their own justifications

to deploy their actions. Most people see this as a simple dichotomy. The case is much more

complex:

“…the global capitalist liberalism which opposes Muslim fundamentalism is itself a mode of fundamentalism, so that, in the current ‘war on terrorism’, we are dealing with a clash of fundamentalisms. Despite its rhetorical efficiency, this doxa obfuscates the opposite- much more unsettling- paradox: the Muslim fundamentalists are not true fundamentalists, they are already

40 See the quotation of Qutb in page 17.41 Compare these with Baudrillard’s perspective: “This is terror against terror – there is no longer any ideology behind it. We are far beyond ideology and politics now. No ideology, no cause – not even the Islamic cause – can account for the energy which fuels terror. The aim is no longer even to transform the world, but (as the heresies did it in their day) to radicalize the world by sacrifice. Whereas the system aims to realize it by force […] Relatively speaking, this is more or less what has happened in the political order with the eclipse of communism and the global triumph of liberal power: it was at that point a ghostly enemy emerged, infiltrating itself throughout the whole planet, slipping in everywhere like a virus, welling up from all the interstices of power. Islam. But Islam was merely the moving front along which the antagonism crystallized. The antagonism is everywhere, and in every one of us. So, it is terror against terror. But asymmetric terror. And it is this asymmetry which leaves global omnipotence entirely disarmed. At odds with itself, it can only plunge further into its own logic of relations of force, but it cannot operate on the terrain of the symbolic challenge and death – a thing of which it no longer has any idea, since it has erased it from its own culture” Jean Baudrillard, The Spirit of Terrorism and Requiem for the Twin Towers, Trans. Chris Turner, Verso, 2002, pp.9-10, 14-542 “In the end, the globalist radical Muslim vision of jihad is world domination (see appendix). Islam must come to dominate the world in its entirety, in accordance with the radical Muslim interpretation of Quran 8: 39, “And fight them, so that sedition [temptation] might end and the only religion will be that of Allah.” Clearly this absolute vision does not speak for all Muslims, but it does have a resonance for many.” Cook, Understanding Jihad, p.161

23

‘modernists’, a product and a phenomenon of modern global capitalism – they stand for the way the Arab world strives to accommodate itself to global capitalism.”43

If this is the case, then, what position should be taken? Zizek defines the battle in this manner:

“Consequently, even if terrorism burns us all, the US ‘war on terrorism’ is not our struggle, but a struggle internal to the capitalist universe. The first duty of a progressive intellectual (if this term has any meaning left it today) is not to fight the enemy’s struggles for him.”44

Whatever our position, the battle is going on and it will continue. The both sides have had

victorious and callous figures such as Bush administration; the weapon merchants bin Laden,

Zawahiri, the corrupt monarchies, totalitarian regimes, and etc. as well as victims killed by

bombings, and artilleries. To be sure the permanent wretchedness is not only related to the

Muslim masses; but also the “Western” masses. They are all sharing the same destiny; but

asymmetric one in terms of relativity of poverty and vulnerability to it. The brutal assault of

global capitalism and American imperialism has generated cruel counter-attack of global

jihad, which has conflated the violence it already has and has not showed less brutality than

its rivalry. None of them are capable to be the zeitgeist of the age in which we live. But they

are at work and play. The decision of war has been already taken in the name of us in

absentia. What we can be able to have is just a sort of dejection and amnesia without which

anyone can no longer be able to be alive. Dignity has been prohibited. Remembering has been

prohibited. Humiliation has been prohibited. And forgetting has been prohibited.

43 Slavoj Zizek, Welcome to the Desert of the Real! : Five Essays on September 11 and Related Dates , Verso 2002, p.161 Tariq Ali sees American Imperialism as the mother of all fundamentalisms: “None of the cultures/civilizations spawned by the three monotheistic religions are monolithic or timeless. Despite the differences between them, they are all affected by the world they cohabit. Times change and they change with them, but in their own way. A striking feature of the present is that no mainstream political party anywhere in the world even pretends that it wishes to change anything significant. If it is true that history and democracy were born as twins in Ancient Greece, will their deaths, too, coincide? The virtual outlawing of history by the dominant culture has reduced the process of democracy to farce. The result is a mishmash of cynicism, despair and escapism. This is precisely an environment designed to nurture irrationalisms of every sort.Over the last fifty years, religious revivalism with political edge has flourished in many different cultures. Nor is the process finished. A major cause is the fact that all the other exit routes have been sealed off by the mother of all fundamentalisms: American Imperialism.” p.281. See Tariq Ali, The Clash of Fundamentalisms: Crusades, Jihads and Modernity

44 Zizek, Welcome to the Desert of the Real! : Five Essays on September 11 and Related Dates, Verso 2002, p.55

24

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