Islam and the West

Oleh: K.H. Abdurrahman Wahid

I think one thing should be made clear in advance, and that is that the radical terrorist attacks in New York on the WTC on September 11, 2001, were the result rather than the cause of something else; they were the result of a combination of many things. First, the geopolitical situation has made clear to Muslims, or parts of the Muslim community, that they have no other way to win the encounter with the West except by committing violence. And violence means terrorism. That is why some Muslims carried out these attacks. They made sure that by enacting terrorism against the United States, the whole world would learn about this. This of course cannot be seen as a right thing. But we have to know the reasons for that.

Second, we are tackling the problem of the terrorist by such means as bombing Afghanistan, sending special forces there by the US and so on. Although, in many ways, this has a link to what happened to the WTC on September 11, 2001, other considerations also dictated these actions. This we have to remember always. There is not one single factor. According to several writers–Muslims of course–the geopolitical consideration, especially the sources for oil in the Middle East and Central Asia, was the cause for bombing Afghanistan. There was also the view, expressed to me by several Ambassadors–Muslim of course– that the bombing was caused by something else. Now we see the emergence of across-the-border-merchants who are not tied to specific national perimeters. They have become international and hence they are not bent to any nation state. Because of this, the United States has to act in order to subdue these people. This is one theory. But the most important thing for us is that the September 11 tragedy was a reaction that caused another reaction taken by the United States, the bombing of Afghanistan.

These are two separate things, which are not directly connected. Thus, the first thing is that we have to try to find the reasons for that terrorist act in New York on September 11. We have to do this seriously, not in the way it was done by the United States who were loudly yelling about terrorism in a generalized way. I do not think they were right because different people have different reactions to the phenomenon. Because of this, we had a meeting several months ago here at the J.W. Marriot Hotel in Jakarta with representatives from Islamic countries — intellectuals, and people from various professions– who came here especially for the occasion. The result was that we decided to organize ourselves into a non-governmental association. We called it, the Association of Individual Muslims (AIM). We had a subsequent meeting about this in London last month, and we would like to officiate this association in Senegal, maybe at the end of this year.

The aims of this Association are to explain to the West and to other countries –the so-called advanced countries– the real situation in the Islamic World, and about Islam, because as was related by Muslims living in America right after September 11, 2001 they now know how they feel being a minority because they are treated badly in the United States. So, I think it is most important to explain to advanced countries, especially to Western ones, that Islam is actually an anti-terrorism religion, because in Islam the use of violence is not condoned. The only reason for Muslims to resort to violence — as described in the Quran — is if they are evicted from their houses. At present, they are in no way subdued or colonialized by other powers, and thus they should not resolve their problems through violence.

Third, we should explain to our fellow Muslims that reactions to developments in technology and science of course different. To mention but one example. When Professor Samuel Huntington came to Tokyo, I was also invited by the biggest newspaper in the world, and we talked about the counter of civilizations or clash of civilizations. I said to professor Huntington,

You see the trees but not the forest or the forest not the trees. You said that there is the clash of civilizations between the Islamic world and the Western world, but please remember that hundreds of thousands of Muslims study in the West every year, among them those who support Western civilization. And we took from you the fact that I now wear trousers instead of a sarung to show that I took more from the West than study alone. But of course we cannot be equal to the West because, of course, we have our own traditions. So you see the differences but not the similarities created by education when thousands of Muslims, hundred thousands go to the West every year. And you also use double standards in your treatment of Islam and other civilizations. The double standard is evident in your relating to orthodox Jewish groups in Jerusalem who thought that on the Sabbath people should not work. Because of that they threw stones at cars passing on that day, because in the passing cars there are people working. But you always said that, well they are dissimilar to us, but they are still our children. So the use of double standards must be stopped.

By that time, the former Prime Minister of Australia, Bob Hawke, said, “Professor, I declare in boxing terms, you are defeated by your enemies”. That was the first time in my life, that a discussion had a winner and a loser.

The fourth item I mentioned was that there are of course actions that show Muslims using violence because they feel they are threatened. You know it is always important to remember that in reacting to the challenges of the modern world, Muslims always resort to their own traditions with the result that they feel that there are differences between their Islamic tradition and the Western tradition. But the reaction to that difference is sometimes violent, and sometimes not. This is what we should remember. Hundreds and thousands of Muslims in socalled Western states have resorted to their Holy Books and Prophetic Traditions — the Quran and Hadiths — directly without using any interpretation such as those developed through-out the centuries. It is like this ‘alim, this man of religion, from Pakistan during Benazir Bhutto’s days who came to my office and said to me “please recite al-Fatiha for Pakistan”. I said, “Why?” He said, “because they are led by a woman, and the Prophet said that a community that is led by a woman will go astray”. I said “well, that Hadiths was given by the Prophet in the seventh or eighth century A.D. on the Arabian Peninsula. At that time, society saw leadership in a personal way, in terms of matters in their personal life. So a leader, especially a tribal chief, had to find and distribute water for irrigation, had to wage war, had to lead tours of commercial caravans to other countries, and had to do this and that, and all this needed strong physical work. Because of that, women could not be leaders. But now it is different.

Leadership has the agreement of a cabinet. The majority counts. A cabinet always has to consider the acts of parliament. The majority of the membership of parliament is male and parliament is overseen and observed by the Supreme Court, to check whether they violate the constitution or not. And the Supreme Court is all male, so I said, “what are you worrying about the leadership of Benazir Bhutto?” He said to me “Ok, I understand you, but please recite al-Fatiha anyway”.

So you can see here that the reactions are different because they do not quite develop the appropriate historical perspective of things. Because the people are disappointed with the West, and especially those who failed in the competition against people in the West such as Osama bin Laden, turn to violence. It is important to explain this to Muslims at large.

The fifth thing to do is that we have to convince Muslims and non-Muslims that the so-called humanitarian approach and pluralistic way of thinking should be introduced to the Muslim community everywhere. This is important because we see now that people always say that Islam has something else, something unique, not related to the so-called “West”. For me those are all lies. For me, Islam, throughout history, has interacted with other civilizations including the West. As the previous speaker put forward, in Islamic society, rights of minorities, including non-Muslim ones, are protected. But how can we protect them if we do not understand them? This is important. Inter-religious dialogues should be encouraged as much as possible, especially among the Islamic community.

So these steps are, I think, the most important ones to be taken after September 11, 2001, in order to face the reality that we are different from the West but we are headed towards the common goals of humanity, and the common goals of enlightenment. Democratic institutions should be established; it should be introduced bit by bit to the Muslim community everywhere. So, there is so much to do now to enlighten Muslims that we need democracy, we need humanity, and we need progress as well.

The traditions of our societies play an important role on this matter. In the Middle East, there is no tradition of NGO activities. That is why — in the Middle East — if you are against the government’s policy and the government is repressive like in Egypt, you have no other choice but to say that you are against the West. And if you are against the West in one issue, then you are against the West in other issues as well, and against all Western types of activities and manifestations. We have to introduce the tradition of NGOs, real NGOs, because the so-called NGOs in the Middle East, like al-Hilal, the Red Crescent—the Muslim equivalent of the Red Cross–are not really NGOs. The President installs the chairman. The government does everything just like in Singapore. So then we have to make sure that there are differences between Islamic societies everywhere. The traditions of NGOs are more apparent in this region, in South-east Asia for example, while the NGOs in South Asia, such as India and Pakistan are becoming so extreme that it is difficult to talk to them. This is why different kinds of responses to factual developments within communities should always be borne in mind.

Back in 1998, I went to Japan at the invitation of the United Nations University under the late Dr. Sudjatmoko. I was asked to present some notions about the idea of Islamic Research. I said that in Islamic Research we have to create so-called “area studies” of the Islamic world. In my view, research is very important for Muslims. We should study them at length. One area is the black African Sub-Saharan communities. They have their own distinct Islamic civilization. Then we need to study North Africa and Arab cultural, economic, political, and scientific traditions, as their cultures are very different. The third one is the Turkish version or Afghan cultural manifestation. The fourth one would be South Asia, or the area that encompasses Nepal, Pakistan, India, Sri Lanka, and Bangladesh. The fifth would be Southeast Asian Islam and the sixth would be the Muslim minorities in technologically advanced countries, like the West So we should do things properly by conducting research in area studies in Islam. This is very important since we cannot talk without touching on the subject of a particular culture of area.