Daily Times

Turkey, Dhaka and Iraq — it doesn’t get any deadlier than that. Then came Saudi Arabia — three explosions in the heartland of Islam on the eve of Eid. It doesn’t get any more demoralising than that.

All of a sudden, being a Muslim is not cool anymore. More horridly, it’s not even safe to be a Muslim anymore. Every blast, every shooting, every act of terror taking place anywhere on this wretched planet involves a Muslim in one way or another — usually both as a victim as well as the perpetrator. True, Muslims were living in the same world pre-9/11. They have had their fair share of skirmishes before, but nothing to the scale of blowing stuff up — schools, churches, airports, and even mosques. How does one make sense of all this madness? What explains our turbulent world post-9/11?

First off, let us agree that religious terrorism has a universal history. Not one recognised religion — and this can be said with great certitude — has forever remained immune to bigotry and intolerance. Secondly, let us also be mindful of the fact that religion, without diluting its significance, is an identity prone to manipulation just like any other social, economic or political identity. Mathematically, even in a world totally free of religion, man will still have n-1 reasons to instigate violence.

Despite the prevalence of other sources of violence such as racism and class conflict, religion, however, accounts for bulk of the terrorism over the past two millennia. A closer examination of the history of religious violence reveals two key dimensions: either it is explicitly state-sponsored to subdue rebellious factions of society, as characterised by the bloody period of Christian Reformation and Renascence, or it is a reaction against a powerful and oppressive authority or world order, such as the Jewish revolt against the Romans. Many scholars ascribe “Islamic” terrorism to this second category of religious violence. They perceive it as a post-colonial reaction of the Muslim world that was ruthlessly exploited and robbed of its culture and global eminence by the West. Although plausible, this explanation is not entirely convincing, and only fits a part of the jigsaw puzzle of contemporary terrorism. If we can shift our attention away from mainstream news channels such as CNN and FOX news, and search for alternative sources of information, the dots seem to connect in a way totally different to the official storyline that shapes our imagination of the world. It offers another framework of analysis for understanding terrorism: the imperialist framework.

The role of the US and its military industrial complex in implanting and sponsoring terrorism is well documented but little debated. Many political analysts such as Noam Chomsky view American “War on Terror” as a narrative manufactured by American establishment to expand their military commerce. Currently, US arms export makes up more than 50 percent of global arms trade. In 2014, after IS shot to prominence, US arms exports saw a staggering hike of 40 percent in that year alone. What we do not seem to grasp or care to understand is the fact that Taliban, ISIS and all their ghastly mutations are a direct consequence of the death game being played out by the West in the Middle East, Africa and Asia for so many years.

The Osamas, Saddams, Gaddafis, Mobutus, Pinochets and Suhartos were all once respected allies and business partners of the Western elite. Those who dared conducting business on their own terms were annihilated along with millions of innocent citizens by invoking fabricated lies and relentless propaganda about weapons of mass destruction. The saddest part of that gruesome episode of US-sanctioned slaughter and plunder was the helplessness, rather complicity, of the United Nations and the world in general. According to a study by Centre for Public Integrity, after the demolition of Iraq, and earlier Afghanistan, more than 70 American companies and associated individuals won up to $27 billion in contracts over the last five years or so. According to the study, nearly 75 percent of these private companies had employees or board members who either served in or had close ties to the executive branch of the Republican and Democratic administrations, members of Congress, or the highest levels of the military.

America’s Syrian policy hasn’t been any less catastrophic for the stability in the region. The rebels in Syria, pampered by the US to topple Bashar al Assad, turned out to be a bunch of ISIS thugs who are openly brandishing American-made M16 Assault rifles. Indeed, during the cold-war Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, Reagan administration, together with its “well-known” allies in the region brainwashed a whole generation of Pashtoons on both sides of the Durand Line by distributing tens of thousands of textbooks containing violent jihadi material. The content, as we know now, was carefully designed and published by the University of Nebraska in the US. Three decades later, in a “much-celebrated” video clip, Hilary Clinton appears bold enough to admit the creation of the al Qaeda by America, but surprisingly, such confessions go conveniently unnoticed. Only last year, former CIA director David Petraeus called for recruiting the al Qaeda to fight ISIS, and he got away with it.

This is the story of American imperialism: creating Frankenstein’s monsters and remote controlling them to achieve their twisted policy objectives. What Pakistan learned and Americans probably don’t seem to realise is the fact that the Frankenstein’s monsters they created can bite the hand that feeds them. The idea of playing proxy wars and forcing regime changes may have its utility in the short run, but eventually the law of diminishing returns sets in to inflict losses. Vladimir Putin may be behind on Twitter popularity compared with Barack Obama, but he is for once right in urging the UN and global community to neutralise the uni-polarity created by US hegemony on international stage.

Only after honestly acknowledging the core causes of the problem, we can address its consequences. Surely, we must not be blind to the escalating intolerance in our societies, but let us also firmly fix the blame on those who rattled the beehive. The growing resurgence of the right in world politics coupled with economic uncertainty and religious extremism are ominous signs of the things to come. The kind of rhetoric used by Donald Trump and his peeps is only going to exacerbate what is already an explosive situation.

The writer is a postgrad student of Economics at University of Bonn. He is also a monitoring and evaluation specialist in development sector, with progressive experience in project management and emergency response coordination with UN-WFP