Roots of terrorism reach into the past

QueEx

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<font size="5"><center>Roots of terrorism reach into the past</font size></center>

By Harout H Semerdjian
Asia Times
August 4, 2005

Speaking Freely is an Asia Times Online feature that allows guest writers to have their say. Please click here if you are interested in contributing.

The roots of Islamic terrorism are not in the founding of the modern nation-state of Israel or in the US-led war in Iraq, as some wrongly assert. These events have merely fueled worldwide Islamic terror in the name of Allah, or God, and once again exposed the hostile face of Islamic fundamentalism. The recent acts of international terrorism are a modern-day demonstration of the deadly magnitude of terrorist objectives, particularly as they transpire on North American and European soil. What we are experiencing today, however, is not a new phenomenon in world history.

With the birth of Islam in the 7th century came its steadfast dissemination, often through violence and jihad, or holy war. Over centuries, millions have converted to Islam through good faith while others have done so through subjugation and force under the ultimatum of the medieval sword. On Western soil, this form of terror is largely a new reality to cope with and is now even deemed a threat to the very existence of civilization.

The eminent French writer Victor Hugo once appropriately remarked that "If a man has his throat cut in Paris, it's a murder. If 50,000 people are murdered in the East, it is a question." For centuries entire indigenous populations in the Middle East and elsewhere have been exterminated in the name of religion. While the patterns of such events are not exactly the same as what we are witnessing today in the form of Al-Qaeda-inspired violence, the thought process behind the systematic and orchestrated murder of innocents is. In the last 200 years, such sadistic acts have been further exacerbated by the advent of nationalism. Unfortunately, the breadth and scope of these crimes have been ignored by European powers due to a combination of short-term interests and short-sighted policies, often yielding tragic results.

The first people in the modern-era to collectively fall victim to Islamic terror were the Armenians of the Islamic Ottoman Empire. What is today the eastern portion of the Republic of Turkey was for three millennia the homeland of the Armenians. This land that had nurtured generations of these people 2,000 years before the Turkic invasions of the 11th century, became a distant land for them almost overnight in 1915. The outcome was one of the worst quantitative measures of terror and genocide in human history, resulting in the massacre of 1.5 million people and the destruction of an astounding 4,000 Christian churches and monasteries. An entire people was systematically targeted and annihilated on the grounds of their religion and what it represented in the confines of the Islamic empire.

While this forgotten genocide, long ignored by the West, was a calculated result of Turkish nationalism and racist policies of Turkification, Islam was the ideological weapon for mass annihilation and slaughter. "Whoever kills seven Christians will go to heaven," Islamic clerics and town criers would call out. For backward, rural Kurdish and Turkish religious communities, killing gavour (infidel) Armenians was an opportunity for salvation, while for the Turkish government it was the ultimate weapon for genocide.

This is the same logic and method recently employed by Al-Qaeda, the Taliban and other deadly Islamic terror groups to incite their people against peaceful populations. Religion is a powerful ideology, and ideology has proven to be the single most destructive element in history. Today's Turkey - a member of NATO - is considered a strategic US ally in the Middle East. It is in this very context of alliance that the United States should expose this dark chapter in world history and require Turkey to own up to its Ottoman past, and hence secure a more reliable and responsible partner in the region. This is particularly important if this partner is said to be committed to fighting extremism and terrorist-prone elements within its own borders and in surrounding regions.

In Israel today, Islamic terror against the Jewish "infidels", as Islamists have long labeled them, has claimed the lives of hundreds of innocent civilians. Afghan Mujahideen, the Islamic world's favored religious fighters, have long been known to assist the struggles of Islamic countries and regimes. Recently, Azerbaijan hired hundreds of such mercenaries to fight the Armenians in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. These very mercenaries were later exported to Chechnya to fight against Russians in the name of Islam. In Africa, the Islamic Janjaweed militias of Sudan are annihilating thousands of indigenous Sudanese in Darfur.

Needless to say, the pinnacle of recent Islamic terror for the West was September 11, on the very soil of America - the nation that has been a global safe haven over the years to refugees fleeing war, ethnic conflict and religious discrimination, including large numbers of Muslims. Despite being a prime target of terror, America still continues, though often controversially, to aid and assist Arab and other Muslim countries. This is primarily because America distinguishes Islamic extremists and terrorists from Islamic moderates, who understand that the real message of Allah as one of peace.

Islam is a noble religion based on respect, love, charity, good morals and values. In fact, the Koran calls the Christians and Jews, the two other Abrahamic faiths, the "Peoples of the Book" who ought to be protected. During the Turkish genocide of Armenians, it was the Muslim Arabs of the Levant and Mesopotamia who honorably gave shelter to the homeless and ravaged survivors. Islam has given the world a tremendous amount of knowledge, piousness and wisdom. Meantime, however, exploiters of the religion have unleashed an incredible degree of havoc on peaceful populations in the name of their faith. What we have witnessed among certain Muslim regimes over the past century is nothing more than an abuse of Islam for reasons of expedience and convenience. Their actions have been atrocious, immoral, and bellicose acts of desperation to dominate and dictate.

The war that rages today within our own borders is a new, globalized variant of international terrorism. This latest extent of Islamic terror, quite ironically, has been advanced by modern, Western technology. This is a clear contradiction of the terrorists' struggle against modernization - and hence a clear sign of convenience of choice by the fighters as well as an indication of the incoherence of their jihad.

The events of the last century, and particularly in the last decade, should embolden the West's commitment to fighting worldwide terrorism. This, however, cannot and should not be done without careful consideration of the historical development of today's problems. The way Islam has been exploited in the past has not been rectified one iota by the inability of the international community to call a spade a spade, or for that matter, a genocide a genocide. Truth has over and again been sacrificed to the expediency of political alliances and short-term interests, and thus the collective sense of being "beyond reproach" has prevailed in many countries where those who mastermind mass violence have lived. Herein lies the root of the reprehensible thinking that a people, a race, or a country "have gotten what they deserved" upon completion of a violent or terrorist act. Ironically, the same expediencies mentioned above may lie at the very root of the terrorist problems we are encountering today. US President George W Bush has rightly demonstrated increased determination in countering and fighting terrorism; hopefully he can match that resolve with an equal will to understand its real causes, and to remedy some of its most blatant manifestations through clear recognition.

We need to strengthen this effort by promoting education and knowledge about historic and current issues of vital importance. The key in countering current acts of violence lies in understanding and absorbing lessons of history, and helping to set the historical record straight. Our fortitude and capacity to acknowledge past acts of terror will assist our current efforts in countering terrorism. Additionally, our findings and know-how in this regard should be exported abroad in defense of commonly upheld and applied standards of humanity. We are not there yet - neither in reality nor in the perception of the majority of our counterparts in the international community. Our global partners in this effort deserve our assistance and support, as well as the chance to benefit from our own introspection.

Harout H Semerdjian is a Research Associate at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government. He holds dual MA degrees from the Fletcher School of Law & Diplomacy and the University of California, Los Angeles. He may be reached at harout_semerdjian@ksg.harvard.ed

http://atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/GH05Ak03.html
 

Zero

Star
Registered
I think the article's assessment is rather unfair. The same could be said about Christian aggression and atrocities throughout history. The problem is not in a single faith it's in the abuse of faith and extremism. Let some Fundamentalists in this country have their way and we'd be no better than they.
 

Dolemite

Star
Registered
How can one mention history religion and mass murder and not discuss European Christianity and its imperialist genocide throughout all of the world?

Cough *bullshit*

and I made a thread about the armenian genocide before so


On the News hour with Jim Lehrer they were discussing Islam and Muslims in regard to militancy and terrorism. One man mentioned that the Bible is full of violence as well but most Christians aren't killing people over it either. America and Europe as well as other nation states on the go* love to rally behind a common enemy.
 
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