By: Tashbih Sayyed, Ph. D.
Democracy is a positive phenomenon. It is premised on the concept that all human beings are equal. And as such no individual or group has a right to undermine or override the rights of any other individual or group. Democracy cannot be introduced into a society that is inherently intolerant wherein people of one faith consider the peoples of other faiths as either inferior or lesser human beings. The people who believe in any kind of racial, ethnic or religious superiority are intrinsically unfit to foster a democratic climate. And such people have historically caused humanity a great deal of pain and misery.
Today's global conflict between Radical Islam and open societies is similar to the global conflict of 1914-18 in which the U.S. involvement had transformed the old-fashioned territorial dispute into an ideological war between autocracies/monarchies represented by Austria and the American democratic principals. And just as the US victory in the World War I had paved the way for the establishment of republics in Europe, American triumph in the present conflict may also compel the Muslim regimes to democratize their polities. But the big question is whether embracing of democracy only in ritualistic terms can bring peace and stability in this divided world.
Democratic republics formed in Europe as a consequence of U.S. triumph over monarchies could not prevent Europe from plunging into another bloody conflict – the World War II - underlining the fact that just the performance of democratic rituals is not enough to free humanity from social and cultural oppression. What happened during the World War II, established that in a culture of hatred and bigotry ritualistic democracy only empowers the wrong kind.
Adolph Hitler happened because the establishment of republics in Europe as a result of American victory did not result in cleansing the social and cultural environment of hate and religious. More than six million Jews were forced into gas chambers and pushed down the infernal Ovens because the democracy in Europe could not truly free the popular mind and soul of anti-Semitism – the masses remained chained to the age old religious indoctrination of religious intolerance.
Churches in post World War I Europe continued to spread the message of hatred and the European society continued to writhe with the disease of bigotry. The doctrine of Transubstantiation remained prevalent and was allowed to transform into blood libel. Accusations of host desecration by Jews continued to circulate with the result that no body felt any pain when 70,000 to 250, 000 Jews were murdered in Russia during 1918-1920. A society that was fed on a regular dose of passion plays found itself simply incapable of preventing Adolph Hitler from perpetuating holocaust.
Present day Muslim societies, dominated and controlled by radical Islamist ideologies, are not different than the pre-World War II Europe that facilitated in the evolution of Nazism and brought down holocaust on Jews. From Indonesia to Indiana and from Pakistan to Panama wherever there is a Wahhabi controlled mosque, a culture of hatred prevails wherein the Muslim mind is being brainwashed to kill the infidels.
Preachers like Sheikh Al-Qaradhawi have helped in the perpetuation of this culture and the production of leaders like Mahmud Ahmadinejad of Iran. Such religious and political Muslim leaders are free to poison the minds of the faithful. "We are a Nation of Jihad and Martyrdom," Al-Qaradhawi said recently.
A dispatch of The Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI), has quoted Al-Qaradhawi as saying, "There is no choice but to wage jihad and resistance. Yet there are different kinds of resistance and jihad. There is armed resistance and armed jihad - military jihad - and there is no choice but that this should continue. There is no choice but to continue the resistance in Palestine, in Iraq, in Lebanon, and in every country that has been conquered by foreigners."
Preachers like Al-Qaradhawi have tremendous influence on innocent and uneducated Muslims. Their word is often taken as divinely sanctioned. When Al-Qaradhawi praises Palestinian suicide operations, encourages terrorist movements such as Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, and calls on the Arab countries to aid the Palestinian terrorists with funds and weapons, hundreds consider it their religious duty to enlist in the cause of religious terrorism.
When radical Islamists like Al-Qaradhawi say, "If the Jews who are known for their parsimony, cowardice, and love of life - after all, they are the people who are the most zealous for their own lives - have begun to invest millions in serving their cause, and to sacrifice their souls in service of this Zionist idea, then we, the Muslims, must be the first to sacrifice our blood and our money. We are a nation of jihad and a nation of martyrdom," he transforms hundreds of innocent Muslims into homicide bombers.
Such bigotry in the Islamic centers, in the name of Islam has contributed in the evolution of a mindset that is determined to take over the civilized world and transform it into a totalitarian Islamist theocracy. And this is why democracy in Iraq, Afghanistan or Pakistan without shutting up these preachers of hate will only empower the radical Islamists.
Without shutting up Al-Qaradhawi who has been persistently preaching in favor of homicide bombers, we cannot establish democracy anywhere in the Muslim world. He said recently, "We have seen these martyrdom operations, in which these young people took their lives in their hands and cared not whether they took death or whether death took them. [We also have seen] mothers receiving their martyred sons with cries of joy and celebration.
Similarly, the man [the martyr's father] refuses to accept condolences on the death of his son, saying 'Congratulate me, do not comfort me.'" There is no doubt in my mind that the daily bombings in Iraq and other places are the direct result of such teaching.
The hate-filled culture that is the hallmark of the Muslim culture can only give birth to leaders like Mahmud Ahmadinejad. And for the world that is still recovering from its bout with Nazism, it is homicidal to ignore Ahmadinejad. He as a President of Iran, if not stopped, will soon have control over nuclear weapons and then the world will again find itself face to face with an impending disaster.
Iran, according to some estimates, is only some months away from achieving technological independence in its quest to develop a nuclear bomb. And the experts who have been watching Ahmadinejad's rise are unanimous in their conclusion that nuclear Iran under radical Islam will use its nuclear weapon without thinking twice.
Iran's President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has openly called for the state of Israel to be "wiped off the map". Addressing students during a Tehran conference called "The World without Zionism," he said, "There is no doubt that the new wave (of attacks) in Palestine will wipe off this stigma (Israel) from the face of the Islamic world." Ahmadinejad denounced attempts to recognize Israel or normalize relations with it and said, "Anybody who recognizes Israel will burn in the fire of the Islamic nation's fury (while) any (Islamic leader) who recognizes the Zionist regime means he is acknowledging the surrender and defeat of the Islamic world."
Diatribes like Ahmadinejad's and exhortations of Al-Qaradhawi's make it plain that the present conflict is much more serious than any other that humanity has experienced in the past. The conflict between two ideologies – Islamist Absolutism and American pluralism cannot be resolved just by going through the democratic motions; the whole environment that makes it so easy for hatred to prosper has to be disinfected.
This culture is the product of centuries of indoctrination that is obsessed with establishing an Islamist Caliphate, in which human beings will be no better than puppets with their strings in the hands of clerical puppeteers. Radical Islam cannot willingly allow itself to be displaced by democracy that believes in human prowess and in which all human beings are equal.
The information that Iran has already produced 40 tones of UF6, a compound used in the uranium enrichment process that produces fuel for nuclear reactors and nuclear weapons has made the situation much more precarious. That amount of UF6 could produce 40 kilograms of fissile material.
Iran is also continuing to "build and enhance" centrifuges, which are part of its nuclear program. There is no time for procrastination. The world will have to act soon. Iran must be asked to abandon its nuclear program or face a regimen of sanctions.
(To be continued)
(The writer is editor-in-chief of Pakistan Today and Muslim World Today, California-based weekly newspapers, president of Council for Democracy and Tolerance and adjunct fellow of Hudson Institute.)
