Daily Times

Veritably, by accompanying the Indian premier Modi in the Houston rally(September 22), US President Donald Trump has not only disappointed the whole Muslim community but also the global civil society at large because of his callous indifference to human rights and secular norms. Trump embraces the ideology of Hindu radicalism at a time when he announces American-Indian alliance against the so-called radical Islamic terrorism- a term used by the west to achieve its political ends. While addressing the UNGA on Sept 27 PM Imran Khan said the use of “radical Islam” by Western leaders has created an association between a whole religion and terrorism and put people in the position of suspecting all Muslims. “How is a person in New York, in a European country, or in the Midwest of the US going to distinguish between who’s a moderate Muslim and who’s a radical Muslim?”

A political ideology is the embodiment of ideas, beliefs, values, and opinions– exhibiting a recurring pattern, that competes intentionally as well as unintentionally over providing plans of action for public policymaking in an attempt to warrant, explain, contest, or change the social and political arrangements and processes of a political community. In a relative span of 18 years, the terms terrorism has emerged as the epitome of the western security establishment and foreign policy while being elevated to the list of priorities readily and cleverly engendered in an impressive array of anti-terrorism laws, agencies, doctrines, programmes, projects, initiatives and measures. Consequently, the notion that terrorist groups recruit followers by promoting reductionist and attractive ideological worldviews in the form of ‘extremist narratives’ has captured significant attention in the western think tanks. In turn, the need to ‘counter’ or provide ‘alternative narratives’ to those advanced by extremists has become a cornerstone of governmental, think-thank and civil society efforts to prevent terrorism. Problematically, however, this position has largely been accepted uncritically, without reference to relevant academic literature or another evidence base-analysis.

And agreeably, radicalization is a process by which an individual becomes increasingly extremist in their political, religious, or social ideologies. But radicalization is not only a Muslim syndrome. Notably, religious Ideology has had a deep relation with Transnational Terrorism… The precarious phase of radicalization/ ‘cognitive radicalization’ which splits the world into two extremes of good and evil can be best understood by looking at certain local, sectarian and global political positions held by respective ideologies and actors of violence in the world. The latest attacks on Mosques in New Zeeland and the attacks triggered by the RSS activists on Muslims/Mosques in India are the latest examples that validates the thesis that today world faces terrorism from other fronts other than Muslim terrorism.

While the Middle East is singled out through the essentials view of Islam as a violent religion, religious extremists and violent practices of Christians, Jews, and Hindus rarely receive a similar critique

Classical Muslim jurists were uncompromisingly harsh toward rebels who used what the jurists described as stealth attacks and, as a result, spread terror. In view of some Muslim scholars, modern Muslim terrorist groups are more rooted in national liberation ideologies of the 19th and 20th centuries than they are in the Islamic tradition. As for Muslim terrorism, some groups adopt various theological justifications for their behaviour, their ideologies, symbolism, language and organizational structure reflect the influence of the anti-colonial struggle of the developing world. Thus, the groups often use expressions . . . imported from national liberation struggles against colonialism [which] did not emerge from the Islamic heritage. In short, modern Muslim terrorism is part of the historical legacy of colonialism which must be seen within the frame of cause and effect relationship and not in the legacy of Islamic law.

As we progressively see, a number of treaties, UN resolutions, and the legislative and judicial practice of States is replete with the formation of a general opinion juris in the international community, accompanying with a practice consistent with such opinion, to the effect that a customary rule of international law regarding the international crime of terrorism, at least in time of peace, has profoundly emerged. Yet this approach distinguishes between what is regarded as constituting unlawful, criminal acts of terrorists, and the perpetration of violence committed as part of what must be regarded to be a legitimate struggle against any occupation, aggression, or domination by foreign forces—thereby making the latter exempt from criminal proceedings. And hence, The Arab Convention for the Suppression of Terrorism (adopted 22 April 1998, entered into force 7 May 1999), article 2(a) provides that:

“All cases of struggle by whatever means, including armed struggle, against foreign occupation and aggression for liberation and self-determination, in accordance with the principles of international law, shall not be regarded as an offence. This provision shall not apply to any act prejudicing the territorial integrity of any Arab State.”

Yet conversely, in contemporary politics, much of the Western media and right-wing populist narratives continue labelling rather simplistic views of Islam as a violent and backward religion, and the western media is honeycombed with stereotypical images of Muslims as irrational and warmongering beings. These narratives ungrudgingly contribute towards the self-fulfilling prophecy of Islamist terrorism on two grounds: On the one hand, they create a false perception of non-Muslims as rational, non-violent, and peaceful beings. Such binary oppositions contribute towards right-wing populist narratives and exclusionary politics of ordinary Muslims. While on the other hand, these views prevent much-needed efforts to open space for the inclusion of marginalized and dissident voices–voices that are explicitly critical of a historical, apolitical and reductionist understandings of violence and Muslim terrorism.

And most unfortunately, Western ethnocentric biases frame Islam inevitably as the primary referent for the cause of violence. While the Middle East is singled out through the essentials view of Islam as a violent religion, religious extremists and violent practices of Christians, Jews, and Hindus rarely receive a similar critique. One wonders why the increasing literature on religious terrorism contains virtually nothing on ‘Christian terrorism’, ‘Jewish terrorism’, or ‘Hindu terrorism’. By singling out Islam as a violent religion, uncritical studies of terrorism do more harm than good in understanding the causes of international terrorism. Unpacking the historical, political, and socio-economic specificity of each terrorist attack in question, as well as cultural and religious motives, is necessary to understand the complexity of international terrorism without reducing it to a simple cause.

And yet there can be no denying that with Modi and the BJP’s rise in power since 2014, they instead emphasize Hindu nationalism, the party’s traditional ideology that sees India as an inherently Hindu country rather than as a secular one–largely vindicated by the incorporation of the draconian cow protection laws, the renaming of cities with Muslim names, and the appointment of extremist Hindu nationalists to powerful positions. Thus, instead of using the controversial term– radical Islamic terrorism mostly borrowed and engineered from Huntington’s theory of the clash of civilization, the time has come that — the west should justifiably try to demystify its myth about the so-called narrative of radical Islamic terrorism.

The writer is an independent ‘IR’ researcher and international law analyst based in Pakistan