Perhaps the most positive outcome of the Sept. 11 outrage in the United States is that it made us Arabs more introspective and consequently more reasonable and realistic when taking a stand. Some of us have even gone so far as inflicting wounds on ourselves — far beyond the limits of objective criticism and reason.
These self-wounding critics think that to be realistic means to sidestep several major issues within the Muslim community. They think that the issues should be ignored because the solutions to such issues may not agree with the interests of the United States.
The illogical critics have also started describing our support for genuine issues of concern to the Muslim community as being prompted by "blind emotions." They place us among "the enemy states that have been driven by the views of certain selfishly motivated countries, which put on a mask of Islam."
We have also been accused of providing those selfishly motivated countries with both men and material.
In one of his articles, one of these critics has urged us to review our relations with India. He described India as a country having a rich heritage of culture and civilization. He claims that "The largest democracy in the world" has never attempted to be a colonial power! He wants our relations with India not to be influenced by the Kashmir issue, which he described as "a regional issue" between India and Pakistan. He believes that "we have been driven by our Islamic zeal to agree with Pakistan, a Muslim state, and to ignore certain important facts."
The writer has, like anyone else, the right to admire any country he likes. However, it is unfair to neglect certain universally recognized values. It is also a gross injustice to describe the upholders and supporters of such human values as sentimental Islamic zealots.
In fact, zeal for Islamic values is a praiseworthy quality obligatory on every Muslim. Without our zeal and support, millions might have perished under oppression or hunger in various parts of the world. Contrary to what the writer said, Kashmir is not a regional issue of concern only to India and Pakistan. It is basically the issue of an occupied people demanding their legitimate rights. Several resolutions within the United Nations have supported the rights of the Kashmiri people to self-determination. Contemporary history also supports the demands of the Kashmiri people.
The Kashmiri people have been oppressed and their basic rights violated by the mighty Indian Army for over half-a-century. The inhuman violations are not the inventions of a few zealots but historical facts attested to by Amnesty International and other human rights organizations. The annual reports of these organizations over the past several years have invariably drawn international attention to the systematic violations by the Indian authorities of the rights of the Kashmiris.
We all hope for a peaceful settlement to the issue and urge the Indian intellectuals to pave the way to that. However, we should hold fast to our right to support the demands of our Kashmiri brothers in their struggle for self-determination and for ending the atrocities they have endured.
On the contrary, if we decide to leave them to the mercy of their oppressors, by the same token we will be obliged to end our support for such causes as the Palestinians, Chechens and the Muslims of Turkestan.