Tackling the terrorism challenge

by Ahmad Y. Majdoubeh

The Arab world, more than many other parts of today's world, has to deal with many daunting problems and challenges. Add to the long list now the terrorism challenge.

Of course, terrorism (with or without quotation marks) is not a new problem to the Middle East or the Arab world at large. From the beginning of the century until now (but more intensely now), many Arab countries have had to deal with Israel's state-sponsored, state-supported, and now state-adopted and state-carried out terrorism. Additionally, a number of individual Arab countries have had to battle terrorism much earlier than Sept. 11, 2001. Egypt, for instance, bore the brunt of many sustained terrorism acts for years. So did Algeria (in a bloodier, more horrific fashion) and Saudi Arabia (to a lesser extent then). However, the terrorism challenge I am talking about here is the one that has escalated, intensified and infiltrated the Arab world in the aftermath of Sept. 11, in the aftermath of the US-led coalition's invasion and occupation of Iraq and (very ironically) in the aftermath of the US-led war against terror.

This new wave of terrorism - which has affected not only Iraq but also Jordan, Syria, Saudi Arabia, and possibly other Arab countries, in addition to many world countries, as recent incidents, including the abominable beheading of an American in Saudi Arabia and of a South Korean in Iraq have made clear - cannot but be taken, and tackled, more seriously than it has been so far, and at the pan-Arab level.

We all know, by now, that Islam has nothing to do with this so-called Islamic or Islamist terrorism. On the contrary, Islam condemns, very clearly and very articulately, all forms of bloody, barbaric practices. Islam has strict and clear-cut premises, codes and strategies which it expects Muslims to adhere to even in war situations when hostile armies are meeting face to face in the battlefield. The fact that some head-covered individuals appear on television reciting Koranic verses and threatening, in vulgar Arabic tones, so-called infidels or collaborators does not make them Muslim.

As a matter of fact, the vast majority of Muslims throughout the Arab and Islamic worlds are as baffled by these individuals, their appearance and their acts as anybody else in any part of the world.

Evil knows no borders; it can never be condoned, no matter what form it takes or what language or method it adopts. Islam and Muslims have nothing whatsoever to do with this form of terror, which the majority of Muslims sees as totally alien to them. If anything, Islam and Muslims are victims, because acts of evil, murder and abominable terror are committed in their name. Islam and Muslims, in other words, are being hijacked by these perpetrators of terror.

For Arabs and Muslims to say this to the world - i.e., to declare that this wave of terrorism has nothing to do with them, their causes, their rights, their demands, their beliefs, their approach, their strategies and their religion - is important, but it is not enough. Nor is it enough or useful for them to blame the rise of such wave of terror on some sort of a dark, evil party which aims to frame and create trouble for them. Belief in conspiracy theories does not solve the problem.

What is required of the Arab world is: a) to recognise terror as a problem that has to be addressed, even when it dissociates itself from it, and b) to work out a strategy to battle it and eliminate it.

Several reasons must compel the Arab world to do so. The first has already been stated: to protect the refined, civilised religion of Islam from these impostors and from those who abet and support them. The second has to do with the fact that much of the violence that is committed by such terrorist groups harms the aspirations, interests and causes of Arabs and Muslims more than it harms those of others.

The Arab world needs to battle this wave of terror at: each individual Arab country level, pan-Arab level, Islamic level, and at international level.

If this is not done, i.e., a) if Arab countries continue to feel sorry for themselves but do not cooperate among themselves and others to battle this disease and b) if the international community leaves the battle to the US alone, terrorism will continue to affect us and the world in still more tragic and horrific ways.

It is time to recognise this fact and act.

This article originally appeared in the Friday-Saturday, June 25-26, 2004 edition of the Jordan Times. It is used here with permission.