For much of the Muslim world September was full of violence and unrest as in the preceding months, but signs of some unusual reflection too were evident. Caught in a whirlpool of reactions and responses to an internally and externally hostile environment, we are a people so desperately in need of constructively breaking the reactive cycle. September brought with it some hope.
Suicide bombers struck in Baghdad and in Bali leaving dozens, mostly Muslims, dead. In Gaza violence claimed four Palestinian lives. Hamas reacted by targeting the Israeli security forces. Infighting between Hamas and Palestinian security forces also broke out. Vote counting in Afghanistan’s landmark elections took place amidst accusations of rigging. In Pakistan the high voter turnout marked the local government elections but the opposition, the press and even some neutral observers questioned the credibility of the election process in specific constituencies. In Uzbekistan the government is being accused of trying to declare an arrested human rights worker as mentally ill. Yelena Urlayeva, held in a psychiatric hospital, was arrested a month ago for distributing leaflets bearing a political cartoon.
In Morocco a leading Islamist activist, Nadia Yassine of the banned but widely popular Justice and Charity Group, is reportedly awaiting trial on charges of insulting King Mohammed VI. She could face up to five years in jail if convicted. Yassine was put on trial earlier this year for saying that she would prefer a republican system to Morocco’s hereditary monarchy. Meanwhile in Egypt where Hosni Mubarak, the longest serving president in the Muslim world, won the recent presidential elections by 88.6 percent, criticism of a rigged election continues unabated. The election was marked by a low turnout.
Problems with the external context too continued to impinge heavily on the Muslim nations. In Tehran Iranian students protesting against the Washington-led IAEA pressure over the nuclear issue threw stones and petrol bombs at the British Embassy. The protesters called for the expulsion of the British ambassador and urged a repeat of the US Embassy hostage taking of 1979. Britain helped draw up a resolution at the UN nuclear agency agreeing to report Iran to the Security Council for breaking its nuclear commitments.
In Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Egypt, Bush’s new appointee Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy Karen Hughes faced stinging criticism of US policy in Iraq, of a “climate of hate” faced by Muslims in the US, of US abuse of the Abu Gharaib and Guantanamo Bay prisoners. Angry women told Bush’s advisor that they loved their traditional dress and did not require a Western prescription of women’s emancipation. The Arabs, they argued, wanted “Arabized” democracy, not a Westernized one.
On the positive side, the Algerians voted for reconciliation. They overwhelmingly approved a government peace plan to end the civil war between the state and the religious parties that began in 1992. Algerians seek a fresh start promoting peace and reconciliation and an end to “the black decade” of the civil war.
In Iran too the former president and an influential member of the Guardian Council and the Expediency Council Hashemi Rafsanjani advocated diplomacy and dialogue with the Europeans and the IAEA over confrontation and agitation in dealing with the nuclear crisis.
Meanwhile in Kuala Lumpur at the first World Islamic Economic Forum (WIEF), Pakistan’s prime minister presented a 10-point road map for the economic and social revival of the Muslim Ummah and urged the Muslim countries to enter into multilateral free trade agreements (FTA) and restructure institutions like the Islamic Development Bank. “Muslims should recognize that first and foremost, the remedy for our malaise lies within,” he argued. He urged the educated Muslims to take up the leadership role and called for inter-faith and inter-civilizational harmony and a proactive approach to resolve conflicts instead of remaining mired “in conflicts and prejudice.” The prime minister said the recommendations of the OIC Commission of the Eminent Persons to be put forward at the OIC extraordinary Makkah Summit “will provide a road map for the Muslim Ummah to pursue the path of reform and reorientation for peace and development.”
Proposing practical steps like entering into multilateral free trade agreements among Muslim countries including free flow of labor and material resources, reinvigorating the Islamic Development Bank for the establishment of an Islamic Economic Union, the prime minister said that “the Ummah needed to create a world-class capital market to attract international capital to enable the Muslim countries to finance their development and growth.”
And statistics are very depressing: Some 24 percent of the world’s Muslim population earn less than a dollar a day, an average of 39 percent lived below the poverty line. Muslims who form 19 percent of the world population earn only six percent of its income. The OIC member countries with a population of 1.25 billion possessed 70 percent of the world’s total energy and 40 percent of the raw material, but Muslims all over the world were weak and vulnerable.
Clearly from within the most important Muslim forum an economic, political, social and ideological reform agenda was articulated. This included the imperative for ijtihad to enable Muslims to adapt to contextual changes. In Kula Lumpur the OIC representatives fully supported the Pakistani prime minister’s assertion that there was no substitute for good governance, empowerment of people, effective management, structural reforms, consistency of policies, transparency and accountability, freedom and equality and the empowerment of women and minorities.
All these steps are indeed indispensable to the development of the Muslim Ummah. The luxury of angry reaction is no longer available to those who strive to progress. Such an approach can only be at our own peril.
Whatever the external pressures and problems facing the Muslim world, the critical solutions will come from within. Muslim nations should political and legal framework that ensures both public participation through elected representation in the management of society and the accountability of those who exercise political and state power. Without such internal reforms we will find it virtually impossible to tackle the external challenges.
