Europe under attack – again

Muslims of the world, please wake up

The Brussels attack this week has been termed as “another low by terrorists in the service of hatred and violence,” by Donald Tusk, President of the European Council. Such refuting statements have emerged from all corners of the globe, including war-torn areas like Afghanistan and representatives of the poverty-struck areas in the form of African Union.

However, there is one group that proudly endorses this attack, and we all know who that group really is. Yes, You-Know-Who or ISIS issued a statement which stated, “Islamic State fighters opened fire inside Zaventem1 Airport before several of them detonated their explosive belts,” and called the bomber that attacked Maalbeek metro station a martyrdom bomber. With these brutes, using or rather abusing the name of our beautiful religion, can we really blame the west for the rise in Islamophobia? Maybe not.

Two attacks were carried out in Brussels on Tuesday, March 22. One attack was on the airport in Zaventem, and the other on Maalbeek metro station. Property was damaged, glasses were shattered, and above all precious human lives were lost. This is not the first attack in Europe, and apparently the masters of Middle East are now out and about in Europe. What comes next? You never know but a dangerous pattern is emerging. And this will have repercussions on Islamophobia and the border control policies of Europe.

“This pattern rings alarm bells,” said Khurshid Mahmud Kasuri, former foreign minister and the author of recently launched book Neither a Hawk, Nor a Dove. “They are badly tarnishing the face of Islam.”

Kasuri is right of course. However, the situation has already reached a low, and steps need to be taken urgently to form a counter-narrative.

The signals and the motives

Al Qaeda was the hype earlier. However, with ISIS, things are quite different. Yes, both strive for some sort of caliphate, but the mode of operation both use are pretty different. Nicolas Henin has been a hostage of ISIS, and later on wrote a book termed Jihad Academy. He talks about the differences between al Qaeda and ISIS. ISIS focuses more on territorial gains, is more savvy in technology and through its PR tries to focus more on recruiting the troubled ones, the ones more prone to being rebels as opposed to al Qaeda that was more or less a movement for the better off.

However, what are the motives behind the recent terror pattern? And what exactly does this signal as opposed to the previous ones by al Qaeda?

Kasuri gave his insights on the issue. He firstly compared AfPak to the Middle East problem.

“When we consider AfPak, there were two perspectives post 9/11,” he said while talking to DNA.

“One was the American perspective and then there was this Taliban perspective, who according to themselves were fighting a war of independence. Even the radicalisation over there did not remain localised. And then there was this American propaganda at the start. They were taking on the Soviet Union in the form of Afghan Jihad and also trying to avenge Vietnam.”

“Then in the Middle East, the American vision was to get rid of Saddam,” Kasuri went on. “However a lot of other issues arose due to this. There was this refugee crisis, and later sectarian issues, which I won’t even get into since your topic is different. In short, there was a lot of destabilisation which continues to this day. The Iran-KSA rift is very unfortunate for the Muslim world.”

However, this destabilisation and radicalisation has not been limited to the Middle East, as talked about earlier. The tentacles can very well be seen in Europe. According to Kasuri, the discrimination in Europe created a vacuum already, which was manipulated successfully by ISIS or ISIL.

“When we compare France and Belgium to the US, American society is more accepting,” he stated. “Muslims do exist as a major chunk in France, and around five to six per cent in all other European countries more or less; however they have not been assimilated in the society. Many of them live in ghettos without good jobs. Hence they are really susceptible to any message in which they see any form of acceptance. ISIL took advantage of this and through internet recruited in these areas. These grievances or perceived grievances rather were exploited by ISIL.”

Ali Arqam is a journalist and researcher. He also talked about the shift in the pattern of militancy that is taking place recently.

“This is a very frustrating situation that has emerged,” he said.

“Earlier the militancy was different in scope. Now it is reaching the urban centres, which is a major shift to the containment that could be seen earlier. Things have become more threatening and violent. You can look at the London bombings, Charlie Hebdo shootings, Paris and now Brussels.”

Common sense dictates that nothing happens without a reason. There have to be certain motives of this shift. Arqam too offered his insights on the issue. He thinks that the ideology of various groups housed in Europe is very susceptible to the ideology propagated by ISIS.

“There are various religious groups all over Europe that have an inclination toward ISIS, and they are not discouraged,” he lamented.

ISIS made use of this ideological cover, and used different new age technologies to spread its tentacles in Europe.

“ISIS has emerged as a new phenomenon recently. Generally Generation X are involved,” Arqam commented. “Multimedia, social media and other technologies are being used to recruit people. ISIS has been savvy with technology, and has been utilising it for the sake of influencing.”

With Europe under attack, the world can predict a new chapter of terror. ISIS has gone a step beyond al Qaeda. What remains to be seen is how far it really spreads its outreach.

Possible repercussions and ever increasing Islamophobia

Newton talked about physical objects and devised a law stating every action having an equal and opposite reaction. When we talk about ideological things, the reaction can sometimes be more than equal. This is what we can fear now. There is going to be a reaction from the west, which can be more than equal in magnitude to the action taken place.

“The effect of such incidents will simply be maligning the name of Muslims and Islam. And this will cause a lot of trouble,” said Dr Mahdi Hasan, a noted academic and analyst.

“Militancy has increased recently, and this needs to be taken seriously since these militants are supposedly doing it for the sake of religion. However, whenever religion has been sued for political or economic ends, the result has always been violence. This is exactly what is happening now.”

Even other than explicit terrorism, what is unfortunate about the situation is the manipulation of religion by Muslims in order to achieve their ends.

Kasuri thinks that in case of any further manipulation, Muslims would be the ones facing maximum repercussions.

“Well, in case of any manipulation, the Muslims themselves will have to bear the brunt,” he predicted. “Even Pakistan has faced it. Changing the narrative was a part of NAP. We face destabilisation internally because of manipulation of religion.

However, can we blame the west alone regarding Islamophobia? Ali Arqam has a different take on the issue, and thinks the notion of Islamophobia has been broadly exaggerated.

“I think we should not promote the narrative of Islamophobia as we will then have to bear the brunt ourselves,” Arqam said.

“I do not see Islamophobia that way. You can call it a prejudice or bias against Muslims. But even until now, we have not seen violence being used against Muslims in ways that the Muslims have been using against the west. If we look at the religious manipulation and reformation going in our own country, we cannot really spread a notion that Islamophobia is a reality. Even without this, there are a lot of bombings on religious places going on in which Muslims are being killed already.”

However, there are going to be repercussions in the form of security measures taken by EU, which obviously make sense. We cannot keep on bombarding someone’s house and not expect them to shut their doors to us.

Arqam stated the same.

“Obviously, there will be repercussions in the form of border security and checks on migrants. A right-wing already exists in Europe which will oppose Muslim migrants entering Europe even more now.”

So well, let us see what really happens. One prediction is a rise in Islamophobia. The other one is a tighter border security regime. There is also a high probability that both would happen.

Islam then and now

What concerns us the most is that the religion of peace is now broadly misinterpreted to be the grounds for terrorism and militancy.

Kausri talked about this angle.

“Islam is definitely not what they are portraying, and this is what we need to change,” he stated.

“It is the religion of peace. And now it is a challenge for the Muslim world to do something to lessen the Islamophobia prevalent in the world.”

He thinks that the narrative about Islam has changed in recent times and even the Muslims have to be blamed for this.

“We need to develop an effective counter-narrative to the narrative about religion that has been developed by ISIL and al Qaeda,” he stated.

“We need to realise that the problems will be faced by all Muslims otherwise. Around eight million Pakistanis are settled abroad. All of the major European powers house five to six per cent Muslims. We need to promote the message of true Islam. When we were young, there were a lot of stories of the Prophet of Islam (PBUH). An example includes the story in which a woman used to throw trash on the Prophet (PBUH) daily, and one day when she did not do so he (PBUH) went to inquire about her health. She converted into Islam, touched by this act of kindness. Unfortunately, no one spreads such things about Islam now. We do not hear these stories any longer.”

Another ironic fact recently is the lack of Islamic model of government in the Muslim country. Almost all of the Muslim countries in the Middle East are ruled by dictators, resulting in agitation in the masses. Islam never allowed this in the first place.

“If you look at Muslim countries, there is hardly any country with representative government,” said Dr Mahdi Hasan. “There is a lack of democracy everywhere in Islamic countries. The effect is the lack of respect internationally, and even locally the masses do not support these governments. And hence the decisions taken by them do not reflect the will of the people either. To understand the extent of the problem, you need to see that Pakistan is the Muslim country which is supposedly one of the more democratic ones. And we all know how democratic Pakistan really is.”

So well, it is unfortunate that even the Muslims themselves have totally deserted the narrative that was propagated by Islam in the first place.

Time for some action

Yes, it is high time that the Muslim world arouses from its slumber and starts taking some much-needed action regarding this narrative that has engulfed the reputation of Islam.

Kasuri thinks that a lot of steps need to be taken diplomatically. He offered some examples from his tenure.

“When I was foreign minister, we did the Makkah Summit on Islamophobia,” he said.

“Again we strove on the level of UN and to get OIC an observer status. Then there was this theory of Clash of Civilisations put forward by Huntington. We argued that this clash of civilisations was not inevitable. Rather we prompted a dialogue between civilisations. During our time, even high representative of EU had talked to me about this and shown willingness to work with Pakistan. This was a big achievement.”

He suggested that Pakistan needs to take an active role in the current scenario.

“Somebody has to own the problem,” he asserted. “The foreign office and government of Pakistan should work to make OIC active on these issues. “

However things are not as ideal as they were back in Kasuri’s time, both for Pakistan and the wider Muslim World. He also talked about the hurdles.

“The dilemma is that our government is not active internationally. We do not even have a foreign minister,” he lamented.

“Pakistan’s standing in the international community has changed dramatically. However this is the time. Pakistan needs to realise the sensitivity of the problem.”

Even other Muslim countries are facing existential threats.

“Turkey was earlier very active in countering Islamophobia,” he pointed out. “However it is now stuck in its own problems of Kurds and the Syrian border. KSA was a major proponent of the Makkah Summit earlier. Iran too is an important Muslim country. However, the Muslim world today remains passive on countering the issue of Islamophobia.”

It is true that the tentacles of the problem have spread a lot. It is also true that the west has played a major role in creating a power vacuum in the Middle East. It is however also true that things cannot be ignored any longer, and someone has to take the initiative, as Kasuri pointed out.

“If no other Muslim country owns the problem now because of their internal problems, at least Pakistan should.”