Why the Taliban wont succeed in Afghanistan now

TAHIR MEHDI

Published 2013-10-08 12:48:47 Share

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History does NOT repeat itself. If ever it looks like its stuck in a rut and moving in circles, do take a closer look. Each circle may be wider than the previous one or it might have tilted along a different axis. The trajectory of events in Afghanistan cannot defy this basic rule of history. The Taliban rose to power in mid-1990s and were ousted when the US and its allies launched military operations in Afghanistan on 7 October 2001, starting what is termed as 'War on Terror'. The Taliban, however, have managed to loom large as a specter for the past 12 years and now threaten to make a comeback or so some want us to believe. Will they be able to do that? I think not. Here are my five reasons why: 1: There is no anarchy in Afghanistan now When the Taliban rose to power in the mid-1990s, Afghanistan was in utter chaos. The decade-long crippling war was succeeded by internecine fights among the greedy, ruthless and brutal mujahedeen warlords it seemed endless. The country had lost even a semblance of a state, rule of law had completely departed and social order rested on simple tribal principles like might is right. The weakest and the poorest suffered the most. The Taliban were seen as a glimmer of hope, a saner force in that rubble of a country, ravaged by savage warriors. Their ranks mostly comprised of teachers and students of madrassahs. They were revered as the selfless seekers of divine knowledge. The Taliban capitalised on this deep local tradition to become a political force. As they demonstrated their willingness and ability to restore order and peace, people flocked around them in droves. When they advanced from Kandahar on their campaign to defeat warlords and mujahedeen, provinces fell like nine pins. To conquer a province, it would take them just as long as it did to drive a four-wheeler from its one corner to the other; and that too mostly without firing a single shot. People greeted them as saviors. The Afghanistan of 2013 is neither as chaotic nor as desperate. It has a working constitutional government and has held two major elections. It has a regular army, government ministries and public offices. It has companies, businesses and shopping malls. The government is weak, the elections have been controversial, the officials are corrupt and the businesses evade taxes there is no doubt about all this. But rest assured, this is still not 1995.

Afghanistan is not a devastated and abandoned territory that it was when the Taliban had triumphed. There definitely are shortcomings but there is no gap anymore that the Taliban could fill. In fact, if the Taliban have to find a place, they will have to reshape themselves to fit the available spaces. In other words, the problems to which the Taliban were a solution, have altered drastically and since they have been out of power and, I would say out of touch with the changing ground realities as well, they have retained their old shape, add to this their characteristic of inflexibility and they become unfit to any available space in Afghanistans present socio-political discourse. The situation bears resemblance with the mythological group of people who go into deep sleep at an isolated location. When they wake up after years and come out of their cave, they find a surprisingly different world around them. The Taliban shall be ready for surprises and their abettors for rude shocks. 2: The world is not going to abandon Afghanistan Soviet troops completed withdrawal from Afghanistan in February 1989. They left behind the government of President Najibullah that most pundits had predicted would fall in weeks, if not days. It stayed on though and in fact successfully defended itself against the mujahedeen onslaught, the most notable event being the battle of Jalalabad. The Najibullah government survived on the continued support of Soviet Union which offered it both the military supplies and the money. In November 1989, the Berlin Wall was torn down and the grand socialist state, the super power, the Soviet Union disintegrated in December 1991. Russia, the successor of the Soviets in Moscow, continued to support Kabul for some time but then had to stop even the fuel supply. Najibullahs government collapsed in April 1992. By that time, the US had already abandoned its active campaign in the region and got busy celebrating the Soviets fall. Unbelievable events were happening at a pace that no one had ever predicted. The worlds focus moved to the former Soviet states, Eastern Europe, Central Asia and the other erstwhile socialist states. Afghanistan became a small fry with negligible value in the new global politics.

The poor country thus ended up being used by the world powers to upstage the last round of the Cold War. They pumped in billions of dollars in the institutions that only specialised in killing people and in justifying their acts on one pretext or the other. And then, they all left; abandoning the country, leaving its poor masses at the mercy of those outfits and institutions. The Mujahedeen and then the Taliban operated in this black hole of world attention. The realities of 2013 are, however, completely different. Each and every power on earth now has a stake in Afghanistan. The world repents abandoning the country in the 1990s. Terrorism has shifted security paradigms and redefined response strategies across the globe. The world wants a stable Afghanistan and is willing to make efforts for that. The US drawdown from Afghanistan is neither a retreat nor a pull out. The US does not want to abandon Afghanistan as this will risk making it a breeding ground and a sanctuary for terrorists again. It is supported in this cause by a number of other important powers, including our all weather friend, China. If Afghanistan drifts back into anarchy, it will have consequences for China and Central Asian states and through them for Russia. All of these countries have Muslim populations and a number of active militant separatist outfits. Anarchy in Afghanistan will provide them a fillip and thats exactly what they dread.

So whether the boots remain on ground or not, the foreign footprint on Afghani soil will remain large. 3. Peace in Afghanistan makes business sense as well Afghanistans new found importance in global politics is not solely owed to its nuisance value. Peace in Afghanistan has economic dividends, not only for Afghans but for everyone in the region, China, India, Pakistan, Central Asia, all included. This is a new post-Cold War development. One of the selfish reasons behind why the world abandoned Afghanistan in 1990s was also that it had no economic worth.

New estimates now put Afghanistans mineral wealth at $100 billion. The country is fencing a side of Central Asian states that are rich in oil and gas and eager to let these flow out as early as possible. All of these pipelines have to pass through Afghanistan, and many through Afghanistan and Pakistan. Read about Afghanistans mineral wealth here. China is desperate for Afghanistans mineral resources. It is investing $3.5 billion in the Mes Aynak copper field, south of Kabul. The project had started in 2008 and it is likely to go into production in the coming months as the biggest ever foreign investment in Afghanistans history. China is also investing in exploring gas and oil in the Amu River Basin area. The country, however, strictly follows the policy of non-interference in matters of other countries and restricts itself to the terms of business deals. But China does not afford to look the other way if the Taliban stage a comeback. It understands that it will complicate work environment besides strengthening the separatist movement of ethnic Uighurs in its Xinjiang province. The Chinese contract might be dwarfed by the one that will be signed by a consortium of Indian public and private companies next year. The consortium has won the bid to develop the Hajigak iron ore mines in the Bamyan province for more than $10 billion. India is believed to have given Afghanistan $2 billion in aid over the past decade. The two countries had signed a India-Afghanistan Strategic Partnership Agreement in October 2011 under which India provides limited level training support and light military equipment to the Afghan forces. Afghanistans hidden wealth is high in demand in the fast growing economies of both, India and China. They actually cannot afford to leave these untapped and this is going to play out as a new determinant in Afghan politics. 4: Now, the Taliban stand for all things wrong The Taliban stood for all that the Afghans were desperate for in mid-1990s. They were strict governors and accessible to all. They were committed to high morals and refused to discriminate on the basis of status. They were hyper active and super efficient. But what do they symbolise today? It is no secret that they are now better known as Pakistans proxies, if not puppets, by all and sundry. Their leadership is believed to be hiding in

Pakistan for the last 12 years. They cannot survive and operate without the active support of Pakistan. Forget the US or other countries, how will these basic facts go with the common Afghans? Wont they consider the Taliban as agents of another country? Pakistans overt support for the Taliban is more likely to play against them in Afghanistans local context. The Taliban did restore order and put in place an efficient administration. But they messed up with the countrys economy and played havoc with its social fabric. Their obsession with expelling women from the public life, gender segregation in all spheres and punishing crimes in the most horrible of ways became their claim to fame. The world remembers their stubbornness, exemplified by their decision to blow up the Buddha statues of Bamyan. They treated non-Muslims and Muslim sects that they considered heretic dreadfully. The Taliban were completely inflexible in their policies and never gave any consideration to the consequences of their decisions be those economic, social or political. Their mindless self-righteousness and pervasive willingness to shed blood could only be matched by some medieval kings. Afghanistan suffered hugely during their reign. No Afghan who has witnessed that period is likely to wish them back. Most in fact dread their return and are likely to resist them tooth and nail. In todays Afghanistan, areas under the influence of the Taliban have a complete overlap with those that are rich in poppy cultivation. The country has a monopoly in the global opium market as its share in supply of this raw material for heroin is over 90 per cent. Half of this comes from the province of Helmand alone, the bastion of Taliban power. They not only abet and protect poppy cultivation in their area; they, in fact promote it by providing farmers with inputs and guarantees of purchasing their produce. The association between the Taliban and the drug mafia is so close that it is difficult to assess who is supporting whom. They both have a stake in keeping the area lawless. Read the Afghanistan Opium Survey 2012 by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime here. The Taliban today, carry heavy historical baggage. They are remembered as tyrants. They are no political sovereigns and are active partners of drug lords. Does this all add up to make them a popular force in Afghanistan in 2014? 5. The Talibans main ally does not have a free hand now

The Taliban were recognised as the official government of Afghanistan by only three countries, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. Pakistan was their biggest direct supporter. The Taliban provided Pakistan the rare relief from its perceived fear of being surrounded by an enemy from both of its long borders, the eastern and the western. It is called the strategic depth syndrome. Something Pakistan suffers from since its birth. It finds its exposure to India, the length of its eastern border, disproportionately larger than its geographic depth. Pakistan has been locating its strategic installations, like its nuclear plants, at points that are at equal distance from its eastern and western edges. The other measure it considers important is to have a friendly government in Afghanistan so that it could focus exclusively on the eastern side without fearing a stab in the back or bearing the strain of defending both of its long borders. But to its utter dismay, the governments in Kabul have almost always been friendlier to India. All of its presidents during the Soviet occupation, and before that, had close ties with India. The last of them, President Najibullah, when ousted by the mujahedeen in 1992 took refuge in a UN office compound. He remained holed up there for years trying to negotiate a safe passage to India. Even from within the warring Afghan factions, most of the non-Pashtuns allied closely with Delhi. The mujahedeen though jockeyed for Pakistan, proved to be futile when it came to delivering a government in Kabul. The Taliban showed promise of a stable and pro-Pakistan government in Kabul and thus became the darlings of Pakistans security strategists. Their dream of achieving strategic depth on the western border came true. Afghanistan was practically left for Pakistan to handle in 1990s. Everyone else had more important and urgent matter to attend to. Pakistan had the moral courage to engage in the battle of Jalalabad. It felt obliged to round up Afghan mujahedeen and fly them to Saudi Arabia to make them sign a pact. It had the guts to let its madrassah graduates, the Taliban, become a militant force in Afghanistan. But Pakistan does not have that latitude in 2013. In fact, the opposite is true as each and every of its move is closely watched and contested by a number of stakeholders. So strategic day-dreaming aside, Afghanistan offers a free ride to none now.

CHINA CRISIS KASHGAR, China Job seekers looking for opportunities in this ancient oasis town in Chinas far western Xinjiang region would seem to have ample options, based on a quick glance at a local help-wanted Web site. The Kashgar Cultural Center has an opening for an experienced dance choreographer, the prefectural Communist Party office is hiring a driver and nearby Shule County needs an archivist.

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At a tailors shop in the old city section of Kashgar, mannequins eyes are covered by paper, in deference to Islamic strictures on representing women. Enlarge This Image

Gilles Sabrie for The New York Times

Uighur women at a Sunday bazaar in Kashgar, China. Amid rapid development, Muslims have held on to their traditions.

But these and dozens of other job openings share one caveat: ethnic Uighurs, the Muslim, Turkic-speaking people who make up nearly 90 percent of Kashgars population, need not apply. Roughly half of the 161 positions advertised on the Civil Servant Examination Information Web site indicate that only ethnic Han Chinese or native Mandarin speakers will be considered. Such discrimination, common across the region, is one of the many indignities Chinas 10 million Uighurs face in a society that increasingly casts them as untrustworthy and prone to religious extremism. Uighurs are largely frozen out of the regions booming gas and oil industry, airport jobs are mostly reserved for Han applicants, and truck drivers whose national identity cards list their ethnicity as Uighur cannot obtain the licenses required to haul fuel, an unwritten rule based on the fear that oil and gas tankers could easily be turned into weapons, according to several trucking companies. Despite its name the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region this strategically pivotal expanse of desert and snow-draped mountains that borders several Central Asian nations is tightly controlled by Beijing. Top government positions as well as critical spots in the sprawling security apparatus are dominated by Han Chinese, many of them recruited from the eastern half of the country. The bottom line is that the Chinese dont trust us, and that is having a corrosive impact on life in Xinjiang, said Ilham Tohti, a prominent Uighur economist in Beijing. And the way things are going, its going to get worse. After a summer of violence that claimed at least 100 lives, analysts, human rights advocates and even a handful of Chinese academics are raising alarms over what they call repressive policies that are fueling increased alienation and radicalization among Uighurs, many of whom subscribe to a moderate brand of Sunni Islam. These policies have been tightened since ethnic rioting four years ago left at least 200 people dead in Urumqi, the regional capital.

The Chinese government blames outside agitators, among them members of a separatist movement it contends has links to global jihadists, for much of the unrest. While there have been a number of unprovoked attacks on Chinese police officers or soldiers in recent years, most experts say the threat from Islamic militants is far less potent and organized than that portrayed by Beijing. In August, paramilitary police officers not far from Kashgar shot at least 32 men, killing a dozen, during a raid on what was described as a secret munitions center; a few days later at least a dozen other Uighurs were killed as they prayed at a farmhouse in Yilkiqi township, according to Radio Free Asia. The authorities said the men were taking part in illegal religious activities and training for a terrorist attack, but did not provide further details. Other episodes include a shooting outside a police station in Aksu Prefecture that wounded 50 and left three dead, and a violent skirmish in Hotan, another Silk Road outpost, during which dozens of men were reportedly shot while protesting the detention of a local imam. The Chinese state news media described these and other episodes as terror attacks; exile groups say they were peaceful demonstrations crushed with brute force. Local residents say these and other clashes have been fueled by the dispiriting realities of daily life here: the institutionalized job discrimination, the restrictions that prohibit those under 18 from entering mosques and the difficulty that many Uighurs face in obtaining passports. Those Uighurs lucky enough to travel abroad say they are often interrogated upon their return by security officials who demand to know whether they have engaged in separatist activities. The government should realize that reckless and inappropriate decisions by local authorities are only causing more instability, said Yang Shu, a professor of Central Asian studies at Lanzhou University, referring to rules that discourage women from wearing head scarves and young men from growing beards. Many Uighurs are also convinced that Beijing is seeking to wipe out their language and culture through assimilation and education policies that favor Mandarin over Uighur in schools and government jobs. Since 2004, a so-called bilingual education initiative has required teachers in much of the region to use Mandarin for nearly every subject. The authorities insist that the policy is aimed at helping Uighurs compete in a country where Mandarin is the lingua franca, but many parents, teachers and Uighur intellectuals are unconvinced.

My 17-year-old daughter speaks decent Chinese, but she cannot get through a piece of Uighur literature, said a government employee in Urumqi, who asked to remain anonymous because such criticism can have serious consequences. A generation from now, I fear our people will be functionally illiterate in Uighur. Fear and mistrust between the two ethnicities has hardened in recent years as a growing number of Han Chinese migrants settle into heavily guarded enclaves, especially in the southern crescent of Xinjiang that remains predominantly Uighur. Even in Urumqi, where ethnic Han Chinese make up 75 percent of the population, knots of heavily armed police officers in fatigues are positioned throughout Uighur neighborhoods; after dark, Uighur men are barred from the front seats of taxis, according to a local ordinance cast as an anticrime measure. Huang Xiaolin, a Han engineer who was recently lured to Hotan from coastal Shandong Province with a generous salary and subsidized housing, said colleagues frequently warned him against entering the citys Uighur quarter. The local people here are uncivilized and prone to violence, he said, standing near a propaganda banner that read, The Han and the Uighur cannot live without one another. Beijing has coupled its strike hard security approach with turbocharged economic development, but even that has stoked resentment among Uighurs, who say the best jobs go to newly arrived Han. The Chinese government is focused on a very outdated understanding of macroeconomic development, thinking that it will bring everyone up to the same level, but its clearly not working, said Sean R. Roberts, a professor at George Washington University who studies development in the region. Part of the backlash, experts and local residents say, has been prompted by increasingly intrusive restrictions on religion. Civil servants can be fired for joining Friday afternoon prayer services, and Uighur college students say they are often required to eat lunch in school cafeterias during the holy month of Ramadan, when observant Muslims fast. In cities across the region, signs warn people against public prayer, and video cameras are pointed at the doorways of local mosques. Residents also say the government maintains an extensive web of paid informers and monitors Internet traffic and cellphone conversations. Such policies are born out of concern that the radical Islam that has destabilized neighboring Afghanistan and Pakistan will take root in Xinjiang, a fear not entirely unfounded given the regions proximity to lawless countries that have provided a haven for a kaleidoscope of jihadists from across the Muslim world, including some Uighurs.

But experts say the raids on unsanctioned religious schools and other restrictions have prompted even greater religiosity. Five years ago, you would have been shocked to see a veiled woman in Urumqi, but not anymore, said a Han academic at Xinjiang University who is critical of Beijings policies in the region. For a lot of Uighurs, growing a beard and asking your wife to cover her head in public has become an act of defiance. Despite the growing death toll, analysts say Chinas new leadership is unlikely to reconsider its hard-line policies any time soon. During a state visit to four Central Asia nations last month that sought to bolster Xinjiangs role as the linchpin of a revitalized Silk Road, President Xi Jinping vowed to continue the battle against what he described as the three forces of separatism, terrorism and religious extremism, according to the official Xinhua news agency. By failing to consider the root causes of Uighur discontent, Beijing could unwittingly radicalize a generation of young people, said Nicholas Bequelin, a researcher for Human Rights Watch who is based in Hong Kong. The entire Uighur ethnicity feels asphyxiated, having become suspect as sympathetic to extremism, he said. Xinjiang is trapped in a vicious circle of increased repression that only leads to more violence. Shi Da contributed research.

China police target online 'jihad' talk amid rumor crackdown

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BEIJING | Tue Oct 8, 2013 6:40pm EDT

(Reuters) - Police in China's Xinjiang region are cracking down on people who promote jihad online, state media reported on Tuesday, amid a nationwide campaign against internet rumors that activists say is a blow to freedom of speech.
Sprawling Xinjiang is home to the mostly Muslim Uighur ethnic minority, many of whom harbor resentment of what they see as Chinese repression of their culture and religion. Some are campaigning for a separate Muslim state and there have been incidents of violence. Xinjiang police were investigating 256 people for spreading "destabilizing rumors" online, the Xinjiang Daily newspaper said. Of those, 139 spread rumors about jihad, or Muslim holy war, or other religious ideas. More than 100 had been detained. "Our local public security bureaus are strongly cracking down on those who engage in illegal activities online," the newspaper said. "Xinijang must not allow the internet to become a platform for crime." Authorities frequently detain and arrest Uighurs for activities that they say extol religious militancy and ethnic separatism. But the latest crackdown is linked to a nationwide campaign against online rumors. The newspaper did not say whether those detained were Uighur or from the majority Han ethnic group.

Rights activists say the action against internet rumors is a new way for authorities to curb criticism. Dilxat Raxit, a spokesman for the exiled World Uyghur Congress, said the government campaign was aimed at stopping Uighurs from getting information on the Internet. "Those Uighurs who were detained were expressing online their dissatisfaction at China's dominance of their localities and systematic repression," Raxit said. Some of those detained had filmed videos or started groups on an instant messaging site that spread militant religious ideas, the newspaper said. A farmer in the prefecture of Hotan was arrested after he uploaded material that authorities said contained separatist content, which violates Chinese law, the newspaper said. (Reporting By Megha Rajagopalan and Ben Blanchard; Editing by Robert Birsel)

Weekend unrest in Kashgar, in China's western Xinjiang region, has left at least 15 people dead, state media say.The violence began on Saturday when two men killed a truck driver, then drove his lorry into pedestrians and attacked them with knives, killing six. One of the attackers also died.On Sunday an explosion killed three people and police shot dead "four suspects", the Xinhua agency said.Xinjiang has a Muslim Uighur minority and has seen serious ethnic tension. The BBC's Martin Patience in Beijing says there are reports of further clashes in the city on Sunday.Migration disputeA local official was quoted as saying that both of Saturday's attackers were Uighurs.According to tianshannet.com, a Xinjiang government-run website, the assailants hijacked a truck waiting at traffic lights, stabbing the driver to death before ploughing the vehicle into bystanders. They then got out of the vehicle and started attacking people at random, the report said.It said the crowd then turned on the men, killing one of them. The second man was captured.State-run news agency Xinhua said the attack had been preceded by two explosions.Twenty-eight people were reported to have been taken to hospital.On Sunday, Xinhua reported another explosion, which it said killed three people, including a police officer, and injured three others.It also said police had shot dead "four suspects" in the city, without giving further details.

This is the second outbreak of violence in Xinjiang in a month.On 18 July, several police officials and a number of civilians were killed in an attack on a police station in the city of Hotan.Chinese officials blamed the attack on "terrorists" from the Uighur minority.Uighur activists said the security forces had provoked clashes by opening fire on a peaceful demonstration. The majority of Xinjiang's population is ethnically Uighur - who are Muslims with strong cultural ties to Central Asia.Our correspondent, Martin Patience, says many Uighurs are unhappy about what they say is the repressive rule of Beijing and are angered by the migration of the majority Han Chinese to the region.In 2009, riots erupted in Xinjiang in which nearly 200 people died after tensions flared between the Uighurs and the Han. Read more at http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=920_1312143422#vzRISG6itwpZgw0C.99

Chinese Culture and the Uniqueness of Islamic Jihad by Fjordman In March 2013, the writer Harold Rhode at the website of Gatestone Institute commented on a recent Chinese report that tried to explain what holds the Muslim world back compared to other countries and cultures. Some Chinese observers, in behind-the-scenes discussions, kept saying they were perplexed about the Muslim worlds and particularly the Arab worlds inability to deal with the challenges of modern society. The Chinese and the Muslims, they thought, had both suffered humiliation by foreigners over the past two centuries, but their reactions to these experiences are very different. We also suffered, the Chinese said, but now we control our destiny, and are doing everything

we can to learn from these foreigners so that we can benefit from the modern world and ensure that we do not suffer this humiliation again. We Chinese look to the future. The Muslims, on the other hand, seem to have a different approach: Instead of looking to the future they are mired in the past, more concerned about taking revenge against foreigners who they believe humiliated them long ago than about dealing rationally with contemporary problems to improve their societies and futures. These educated and insightful Chinese observers, many of whom had spent considerable time in the Islamic world and had gone to the trouble of becoming fluent in languages such as Arabic, Persian, or Turkish, were puzzled as to why so many Muslims are obsessed (their word) with portraying themselves as eternal victims. If you constantly portray yourself as a blameless victim of outside forces, cultivating such a toxic culture of victimhood could for an entire society represent a very serious obstacle to bettering your own situation. If you always blame others for your failures or shortcomings, you will not be the master of your own destiny, but will refuse to do what is necessary to change your mentality or negative pattern of behavior in order to improve your situation. As long as Muslims indulge in self-pity, they will never be able to improve their lot in this world. The Chinese have their flaws, as does every other culture. They are a proud people, but in addition to this pride there is also a widespread pragmatism and practical outlook to their culture, which is one of the reasons why they are currently making better progress in the modern world than most Muslim countries are doing. To quote the former Prime Minister of Singapore Lee Kwan Yew, himself an ethnic Chinese man, despite everything we do for our Muslims, they continue to remain at the bottom of society poor, backward and uneducated. I showed this article to an ethnic Chinese friend of mine who is also a Christian and a wellinformed critic of Islamic culture and teachings. His reaction was that these observers got it partially right. They do not blame the backwardness of Muslim countries on the Jews or the West. They rightly blame it on the Muslims themselves. On the other hand, my friend commented that Muslims do in fact focus on the future, yet the future they want is different from that of the Chinese. The Chinese simply want to get rich and are prepared to learn from the West to achieve wealth. The Muslim faith is a warrior religion designed to assist global Islamic imperialism. The future that they struggle for is not a prosperous co-existence with non-Muslims through trade and commerce.

Moreover, the Chinese can repudiate some of Confucius teachings and still remain Chinese. After all, while his teachings have had an immense influence over Chinese civilization and thought for well over two thousand years, Confucius was in the end just a philosopher like Socrates or Aristotle in Europe, not an infallible human being. The status of Mohammed in Islam as an example for mankind is radically different. He was believed to be a Prophet of God, the single most important one of all of Allahs messengers and the seal of the Prophets. The bottom line is this: You can remain a proud Chinese person and repudiate some things that Confucius said, did or taught. You cannot remain a proud Muslim and repudiate some things that Mohammed said, did or taught. You may at best try to reinterpret it in a new way, but you cannot challenge it or ignore it outright. I share my Asian friends opinion on these matters. There are many good and truthful observations in the Chinese assessment quoted above. Nevertheless, t misses the mark when it comes to pinpointing exactly what makes Islamic culture in general and Arabic culture in particular so special. It is actually a fairly common flaw for many cultures to be excessively backward-looking. However, this often tends to be mainly a problem for them. For instance, the ancient Egyptians after the New Kingdom period became less and less innovative and ultimately lost cultural leadership to the Greeks, partly because they had become too fixated upon copying the perceived glorious past of their ancestors. Yet this did not make ancient Egypt an external threat. On the contrary, it made their nation weak and ripe for being conquered, as they eventually were by the Persians, the Greeks, the Italians (Romans) and other peoples who were by now more dynamic. It is also possible to venture too far in the opposite direction and think that history is bunk, that everything which is old is automatically useless and should be discarded. I

sometimes wonder whether modern Western culture has now gone too far in this direction in its relentless quest for progress, youth and novelty. As a conservative and traditionalist, I believe that some traditions may be worth preserving and that some cultural patterns might be of value, since they have withstood the test of time. This does not mean that we should mindlessly copy our ancestors, but we shouldnt casually dismiss everything they did as stupid or useless, either. A nation that places no value on the past or traditions will eventually be left adrift and cut off from its roots. A nation that places too much emphasis on the past or traditions will eventually stagnate. A successful, long-lived nation is one that manages to retain some sense of attachment to its roots and is proud of its achievements, yet remains flexible enough to embrace and cultivate positive innovation. Striking this balance is tricky, but necessary. An additional quality is that a successful nation should also be open-minded enough to recognize and accept good ideas even when they come from the outside. Both Islamic and Chinese culture at times suffered from a superiority complex that made it hard to borrow from the Europeans even when Europeans had, objectively speaking, made some great scientific and technological breakthroughs which no other culture had achieved. Muslims are particularly handicapped in this regard due to the ingrained notion of their superiority over infidels. Being Scandinavian myself, I like reading about the Viking Age. I respect many of the things my ancestors did at that time, but I acknowledge that they also had some practices that I am happy we left behind. For instance, Scandinavians back then practiced blood feuds, or vendettas, between different groups and clans, in order to punish criminals. We no longer do this, and we are better off for it. I watch with great concern as we are now in the process of mass-importing this archaic way of behavior, an unwelcome relic from the past, with mass immigration from clannish Middle Eastern cultures, where such blood feuds are quite common even today. The crucial difference is that while Scandinavians in pre-state societies practiced blood feuds 1200-1400 years ago, they later managed to evolve and leave such practices behind. Muslims preserved and partly sanctioned such behavior through the development of Islamic sharia law at the same time, which was then fossilized by elevating it to the status of divine law, in principle valid for all times and all places. The concept of blood money for killing people is mentioned in the Koran and is practiced by Arabs in some cases to this day. The status of Islamic law is one of the most clear-cut cases where Islamic culture is strongly backward-looking in a very negative sense of the word, and sometimes suffers from this today. One Arabic word that could be translated as innovation isbidaa, which tends to carry highly negative connotations. Originally, this was probably meant mainly for innovations or novelties in the religious and social sense, but such a mindset can easily spill into the realms of science and technology as well, and stifle progress in these vital fields. The

historian Bernard Lewis has written about this in his books, and his analysis constitutes one of the strongest parts of his work. The Chinese have retained a strong organic sense of connection with the past, which is one of the main reasons why their civilization has endured for several thousand years in recognizable form. This sense of cultural continuity, with a blend of Confucian, Taoist and Buddhist impulses, has been weakened (but not completely destroyed) by generations of Communist rule. The Communists under Mao represented an extreme case of the history is bunk attitude, where the past is not merely a mixed bag but constitutes an unqualified evil that must be literally smashed in order to make way for Progress. Such a total rejection of everything your ancestors did or thought is clearly excessive and patently harmful. The Cultural Revolution did great damage to China. At the other extreme, Chinese culture also has a very long and strong tradition of ancestor worship. Although such practices may conflict with Christian doctrines, even many Chinese Christians adhere to these traditions in the modern world, a fact which caused major headaches for the first European Christian missionaries to China. I am neither Chinese nor Christian. However, I can see the potential that such practices, especially when combined with blind adherence to authority figures, may sometimes constitute an obstacle to freethinking. For instance, I have read of cases in earlier times where a Chinese imperial physician had to literally worship his predecessor. You dont have to be a bigot to understand that such a mindset could potentially stifle innovation. Islamic culture looks back to an allegedly glorious past which it wants to replicate today. The dangerous aspect of this line of thinking is that this past was an age of violent conquest and aggressive military expansionism. Indeed, their religious doctrines stipulate that Muslims are preordained by the Creator of the universe to put all nations under their rule. Those who resist them are forces of evil that deserve to be crushed without mercy. There is thus progress in Islam, but progress is synonymous with Islamic law and Islamic rule. Even if you are a Chinese person who strongly adheres to the teachings of Confucius, you do not believe that all nations in the world should be permanently converted to the teachings of Confucius, by brute force if necessary. A devout Confucian does not believe that he should systematically copy every mundane thing Confucius did millennia ago, even down to the way he had sex or visited the bathroom. You certainly do not believe that every single person on planet Earth who mocks Confucius with a poem or a cartoon deserves to have his throat cut. The concept of Jihad, which is unique to Islam among all major world religions, stipulates that Muslims should relentlessly strive to convert the entire world to the teachings of Mohammed, by force if necessary. A pious Muslim believes that his Prophet is worthy of emulation in all things and for all times, even down to the way he had sex or visited the bathroom. A devout follower of Mohammed is willing to risk his life to silence anybody on planet Earth who mocks Mohammed with a poem or a cartoon, if necessary by cutting their

throats. It is above all this specific component of its teachings that makes Islam unique and, frankly, uniquely dangerous.

Yes, there are aspects of Islamic culture that are backward-looking and can stifle positive progress. However, Muslims also look back to a past of war and violent conquest which they want to replicate in the future. In this sense, Islamic culture is strongly forward-looking as well. The problem is what its looking forward to: A future of global Jihad to establish Islamic rule and supremacy over every nation, culture and creed, by brute force if necessary; a future where all cultures are superseded and supplanted by Arabic-Islamic culture; and a future where the freedom of speech has been abolished worldwide concerning all aspects of Islamic teachings plus the words and deeds of Mohammed. While the backward-looking aspects of Islamic culture are mainly a problem for Muslims themselves by holding them back, the forward-looking desire for global supremacy makes Islamic Jihad a problem for everybody else and a permanent threat to the freedom and security of all of mankind. In the West, the religion of Islam was in the past sometimes referred to as Mohammedanism and its followers called Mohammedans. This is now considered bigotry. The fact that the faith of Mohammed is called Islam while the belief-system of Confucianism is named after its founder Confucius can leave the impression that Islam is less focused on the personality of Mohammed than Confucianism is on the personality of Confucius. Yet the simple truth is that a devout Muslim is vastly more preoccupied with the minute details of Mohammeds supposed life than even the most devout Confucian has ever been

with the life of Confucius. Seen from that perspective, labeling this faith Mohammedanism or its followers Mohammedans is not entirely wrong. The religion of Christianity is named after Jesus of Nazareth, or Jesus Christ to Christian believers. Muslims claim that although Mohammed received a world-changing divine mission he was not actually divine himself or the son of God, as Christians believe that Jesus Christ was. Yet ironically, Islam is far more centered on exalting and emulating the minute details of the supposed life of Mohammed 1400 years ago than Christianity is on emulating every single thing Jesus did 2000 years ago. You might even claim that Islam is far more obsessed with eternally emulating every single aspect of the supposed life and behavior of a particular, allegedly perfect person than virtually any other major creed throughout all of human history. I say supposed life because some recent Western scholars have raised serious questions about whether or not Mohammed as he is presented in Islamic texts ever existed. He could be a partially or entirely invented character. If this is correct, this would ironically imply that more than one in every five human beings on Earth spends his life emulating the supposed behavior of a person who may never have existed at all the way he is presented today. All nations want their people to be strong and at the forefront of human achievement. The Japanese want a strong Japan, the Indians want a strong India, and so on. The Chinese have traditionally viewed their nation as the Middle Kingdom, the natural center of the world. Many Chinese nationalists now probably want to restore what they see as Chinas economic and political strength as well as cultural glory. This is only natural. What they do not seek, though, is to invade, conquer and colonize all other countries on the planet, to wipe out their cultures and replace them with their own. Devout Muslims do want these things, since their religion commands it. As a Scandinavian and European, I want my nation to prosper and my continent to be strong. However, if I reluctantly had to live in a world where my civilization was no longer the strongest, I would choose a world in which Chinese civilization was the leader rather than a world dominated by Islam. The Chinese and other non-Muslim Asians such as the Japanese, Koreans and Vietnamese who visit Europe as tourists are often genuinely interested in our artistic artifacts and relics of Europes dynamic past. They do not have cultural beliefs banning the existence of our paintings or statues and no desire to destroy these. European culture and human civilization as a whole could survive a period of Chinese dominion. However, it may not survive Islamic global dominion, which would not only destroy artistic creativity but probably also globally retard science and technology.