EVEN SNAILS HAVE THE RIGHT TO LIVE
A commentary against the West’s misguided anti-terrorism
strategy
Dr Rashid Ali Al-Saadi
“… A few
really dedicated people can offset the ill effects of masses of out-of-harmony
people, so we who work for peace must not falter”
– The Peace Pilgrim
Once, when my family and I were visiting a
friend in Switzerland, my kids started collecting snails in the back garden. My
host knew us very well. After seeing the children subject the snails to torture-play,
she gathered them together and told them, “Look, even a snail has the right to
live – we don’t decide whether snails live or die!” From this brief, but
effective lesson my children learned a fundamental tenet of justice: don’t
oppress the weak. It is a lesson they still remember and practice.
The Muslim Brotherhood, like any other
oppressed group, has a right to live and to determine its own destiny. We cannot isolate or annihilate them. Not only
would it be an impossible task, it would also be a desperate and unsustainable one
that defies the lessons we’ve learned from history.
Western countries agree that, for many
reasons, terrorist organizations and/or Islamist parties should not be allowed
to govern countries in the Arab world. On the face of it, the West appears to
be afraid that those nations would, in due course, become enemies (particularly
against Israel) and would build up nuclear arsenals that would destabilize the world.
However, the more likely reason that the West opposes them is fear of economic
loss. Whatever the reason, the West’s strategy is unsustainable, exorbitantly
expensive in the long run, and simply misguided. There are more practical and
economically effective means to build a better world.
* * *
Since FY 2001, the United States has spent $1.5 trillion fighting “wars against terror”. The true cost is around $5 trillion due to interest on the debt it accrued and
the cost of homeland security and veteran care. Most of the US defense planners or leaders who underestimated the
durations of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan did so in large part because they
failed to comprehend what is entailed in dealing with other, complex cultures.
Just imagine how the strategies of other American government departments,
dependent on the US Department of Defense, were affected socio-economically by
such a misjudgment. Because of their commitment to stand by the U.S. in this
effort, NATO and the UK were also affected.
While these misjudgments were significant and
costly, one of the greatest failures was in understanding why terrorist
organizations do what they do in the first place. This understanding may have
not only prevented drawn-out wars, but also prevented the attacks that prompted
them. But why do these terrorist organizations do what they do? Simply put,
they feel oppressed. Members of terrorist groups been gradually dehumanized
over the years, and they are, quite naturally, fighting back to restore their lives,
values, and dignity. The fight against terrorism has to be ideological and
educational, not military. The philosopher Paolo Freire once theorized that if the oppressed succeed
in overthrowing the oppressor, they themselves become the oppressor and act with
the same cruelty. Freire also posited that oppressors cannot recover from this
behavior on their own; only the oppressed can help them learn how to treat
others fairly. Therefore, the oppressed have two tasks: one, to liberate
themselves, and two, to help liberate their former oppressor. Applied to
anti-terrorism, this leads to the realization that the West’s anti-terrorism
strategy does not embrace this philosophy – a philosophy that is essential if
we are to solve the ongoing struggle with terrorism and end the ‘war’ against
it.
Part of the trouble is that the oppressed are not always capable of
undertaking this intricate task. To enact it, a facilitator is needed to teach
the oppressed how to do it. This facilitator can be anything – a country, an NGO,
the United Nations or even a phenomenon, such as globalization. In the case of
the Muslim Brotherhood., they, as the oppressed, took
power democratically and then began acting in the same way that their
predecessor had, becoming the new oppressor. What happened afterwards – the
military coup – was categorically wrong, but the Muslim Brotherhood had antagonized
the military by trying to prosecute their intelligence heads. Instead, upon
taking power, a facilitator should have assisted the Muslim Brotherhood in
developing a way to govern the Egyptian people fairly and to deal with the
previous regime in a way that was based on the “oppressed philosophy" .
If, for instance, the forces of globalization had, collectively, been
“appointed” the facilitator, then the Muslim Brotherhood would have been
allowed to continue as a political party, but they would have ultimately failed
unless they faced up to the tough issues that are a direct consequence of globalization.
This, in turn, would have forced them to make major concessions or change their
ideology to some extent to better align it with global norms. Globalization might
prompted acceptance of certain Western values like banking principles, women’s
liberation, and true democracy. The Muslim Brotherhood would eventually have
had to concede the validity of these new ideas. These global norms can be
accommodated within Islamic Sharia law, provided that the law is interpreted or
changed accordingly. Sharia scholars can use concessions based on contemporary
circumstances to rewrite laws to suit these circumstances. The Renaissance
Party in Tunisia has faced the same issues, but unlike the Muslim Brotherhood, they
accepted certain Western values and still embrace them.
The change in the Muslim Brotherhood’s ideology must be genuine; otherwise,
they will come under intense pressure locally from moderates and those affected
by the ‘culture of silence’ will revolt against them. If they continue to ignore this necessity,
they will be isolated, the economy will suffer and they will ultimately be replaced.
The West has tried to encourage the development
of new democratic societies. However, actively isolating the Muslim Brotherhood, as is currently happening,
will create an oppressed people; this isolation will force them to struggle
underground in what will later be called terrorist organizations. Ironically,
then, the West will have helped to create these organizations through its
anti-terrorism strategies. This is definitely unsustainable.
Researchers over the past decades found
pertinent facts about terrorism that support the philosophy of the oppressed.
RAND, for example, found that terrorist groups dwindle if they are allowed to
participate politically. Conversely, terrorist groups of 10,000 or more
members are victorious more than 25% of the time. Given that the Muslim Brotherhood has a
membership in the tens of millions, they are highly likely to succeed. Along
the same lines, enraging millions of Muslims has only led to an enormous growth
in the number of wanted terrorists since the 1990s. It is vital, then, to recognize
that political and economic
factors sustain conflicts. Reducing poverty and unemployment, increasing social
justice, and stopping corruption will lead to a decent standard of living and
reduce resentment. However, the best, most long-term, and evidence-based
solution is the creation of democratically
elected governments.
Together, these strategies will substantially
reduce terrorism and build harmonious societies. Only a very small number of
extreme and uncritical enthusiasts or zealots will remain who will need to be
controlled by government police and intelligence agencies. That's it!
* * *
The Dalai Lama put it this way: “All that is necessary is for each of us to
develop our good human qualities.” We need to be able
to instill values in younger generations through liberatory education, which
will also rescue them from the ignorance and illiteracy that would make them targets
for extremism. We also need to allow nations to aspire to freedom and dignity
by allowing them to publicize their experiences and interact with the rest of
the world. Eventually, as Paolo Freire explains, they will help us to
understand how to treat them better – just as my kids learned about how to
treat the oppressed from the snails.
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