by Prefessor Shahid Alam (Norteatern University) in Islam Now; China Then: Any Parallels?
Expert commentators in Western media want us to believe that the Muslims have lost their minds. They tell us that Muslims are inherently, innately, perverse; that never before has violence been used in this way, against innocent civilians. It is always innocent civilians.
Other peoples too have endured colonization, slavery, expulsions, extermination at the hands of Western powers: but none have responded with violence on this scale against the West. Certainly not with violence against civilians. Never have Aborigines, Africans, indigenous Americans, Hindus, Jews, or the Chinese targeted civilians. They never attacked Westerners indiscriminately. They never targeted innocent Western civilians.
Is this insanity slowly raising its head across the Islamic world really unique? Is this insanity a uniquely Islamic phenomenon? Is this a uniquely contemporary phenomenon? Is this insanity unprovoked?
We cannot of course expect any history from the corporate US media on this Islamic insanity. In order to take the moral high ground, to claim innocence, the rich and powerful the oppressor classes prefer not to talk about history, or invent the history that serves their interest.
What is surprising, however, is that few writers even on the left bring much history to their analysis of unfolding events. Not being a historian of Islam, China or Britain I can only thank serendipity for the little bit of history that I will invoke to provide some background to the malaise unfolding in the Islamic world. A little history to connect Islam today to China in the middle of the nineteenth century.
Implausibly perhaps for some the history I invoke comes from Friedrich Engels yes, he of the Communist Manifesto, friend of Karl Marx, revolutionary writing in May 1857 when the British were waging war against China, known to history as the Second Opium War.
More implausibly, this history comes from an article published in a leading US newspaper: The New York Daily Tribune (available in Marx and Engels Internet Archiv). Yes, in some remote past, a leading US newspaper routinely published commentaries by the likes of Marx and Engels. Today, the publishers of NYT, the Washington Post or LA Times would become apoplectic just thinking about it.
During the First Opium War of 1840-42, when the British waged war to defend their right to smuggle opium into China Friedrich Engels writes the people were quiet; they left the Emperors soldiers to fight the invaders, and submitted after defeat with Eastern fatalism to the power of the enemy. Yes, in those times, even enlightened Westerners spoke habitually of Oriental fatalism, fanaticism, sloth, backwardness, and not to forget their favorite despotism.
However, something strange had overtaken the Chinese some fifteen years later. For, during the Second Opium War, writes Friedrich Engels, the mass of people take an active, nay fanatical part in the struggle against the foreigners. They poison the bread of the European community at Hongkong by wholesale, and with the coolest premeditation They go with hidden arms on board trading steamers, and, when on the journey, massacre the crew and European passengers and seize the boat. They kill and kidnap every foreigner within their reach.
Had the Chinese decided to trade one Oriental disease for another: fatalism for fanaticism? Ah, these Orientals! Why cant they just stick to their fatalism? If only the Orientals could stick to their fatalism, all our conquests would have been such cakewalks!
It was no ordinary fanaticism either. Outside the borders of their country, the Chinese were mounting suicide attacks against Westerners. The very coolies, writes Friedrich Engels, emigrating to foreign countries rise in mutiny, and as if by concert, on board every emigrant ship, and fight for its possession, and, rather than surrender, go down to the bottom with it, or perish in its flames. Even out of China, the Chinese colonists conspire and suddenly rise in nightly insurrection
The United States and Israel now hold Palestine, Iraq and Afghanistan. How strong, how firm is their hold? On the one hand, they appear to be in a much stronger position than the British in China. They have the rulers the Mubaraks, Musharrafs and Malikis in their back pockets. But how long can these rulers stand against their people?
What if the insurgency that now appears like a distant cloud on the horizon no larger than a mans fist is really the precursor of a popular war? What if the extremists, militants, terrorists, are the advance guard of a popular war to restore sovereignty to Islamic peoples? Can the US and Israel win this war against close to a quarter of the worlds population? Will this be a war worth fighting: worth winning?
Shouldnt these great powers heed the words of Friedrich Engels? Shouldnt they heed history itself. After nearly a century of hard struggle, the Chinese gained their sovereignty in 1948, driving out every imperialist power from its shores? Today, China is the worlds most powerful engine of capitalist development. It threatens no neighbor. Its secret service is not busy destabilizing any country in the world. At least not yet.
Imagine a world today and over the past sixty years if the West and Japan had succeeded in fragmenting China, splintering the unity of this great and ancient civilization, and persisted in rubbing Chinas face in the dirt? How many millions of troops would the West have to deploy to defends its client states in what is now China the Chinese equivalents of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Jordan, Egypt, Pakistan and Iraq? If Vietnam bled the United States, imagine the consequences of a quagmire in China?
Would the United States prefer this turbulent but splintered China held down at massive costs in blood and treasure, with bases, client states, wars, and unending terrorist attacks on American interests everywhere in the world to the China that it has today, united, prosperous, at peace; a competitor but also one of its largest trading partners?
At what cost, and for how long, will the United States, Europe and Israel continue to support the splintering, occupation and exploitation of the Islamic heartland they had imposed during World War I? At what cost to themselves and the peoples of the Islamic world? There are times when it is smarter to retrench than to hold on to past gains.
That time is now: and that time may be running out.
Another turn of the screw another attack by the United States or Israel and this window may close irrevocably. If wars, civil conflicts or revolutions sweep across the Islamic world unlike the Chinese revolution, most likely this turbulence will not be confined to one segment of Asia. In one way or another, this violence will draw the whole world into its vortex. One cannot even begin to imagine all the ramifications, all the human costs of such a conflagration.
Expert commentators in Western media want us to believe that the Muslims have lost their minds. They tell us that Muslims are inherently, innately, perverse; that never before has violence been used in this way, against innocent civilians. It is always innocent civilians.
Other peoples too have endured colonization, slavery, expulsions, extermination at the hands of Western powers: but none have responded with violence on this scale against the West. Certainly not with violence against civilians. Never have Aborigines, Africans, indigenous Americans, Hindus, Jews, or the Chinese targeted civilians. They never attacked Westerners indiscriminately. They never targeted innocent Western civilians.
Is this insanity slowly raising its head across the Islamic world really unique? Is this insanity a uniquely Islamic phenomenon? Is this a uniquely contemporary phenomenon? Is this insanity unprovoked?
We cannot of course expect any history from the corporate US media on this Islamic insanity. In order to take the moral high ground, to claim innocence, the rich and powerful the oppressor classes prefer not to talk about history, or invent the history that serves their interest.
What is surprising, however, is that few writers even on the left bring much history to their analysis of unfolding events. Not being a historian of Islam, China or Britain I can only thank serendipity for the little bit of history that I will invoke to provide some background to the malaise unfolding in the Islamic world. A little history to connect Islam today to China in the middle of the nineteenth century.
Implausibly perhaps for some the history I invoke comes from Friedrich Engels yes, he of the Communist Manifesto, friend of Karl Marx, revolutionary writing in May 1857 when the British were waging war against China, known to history as the Second Opium War.
More implausibly, this history comes from an article published in a leading US newspaper: The New York Daily Tribune (available in Marx and Engels Internet Archiv). Yes, in some remote past, a leading US newspaper routinely published commentaries by the likes of Marx and Engels. Today, the publishers of NYT, the Washington Post or LA Times would become apoplectic just thinking about it.
During the First Opium War of 1840-42, when the British waged war to defend their right to smuggle opium into China Friedrich Engels writes the people were quiet; they left the Emperors soldiers to fight the invaders, and submitted after defeat with Eastern fatalism to the power of the enemy. Yes, in those times, even enlightened Westerners spoke habitually of Oriental fatalism, fanaticism, sloth, backwardness, and not to forget their favorite despotism.
However, something strange had overtaken the Chinese some fifteen years later. For, during the Second Opium War, writes Friedrich Engels, the mass of people take an active, nay fanatical part in the struggle against the foreigners. They poison the bread of the European community at Hongkong by wholesale, and with the coolest premeditation They go with hidden arms on board trading steamers, and, when on the journey, massacre the crew and European passengers and seize the boat. They kill and kidnap every foreigner within their reach.
Had the Chinese decided to trade one Oriental disease for another: fatalism for fanaticism? Ah, these Orientals! Why cant they just stick to their fatalism? If only the Orientals could stick to their fatalism, all our conquests would have been such cakewalks!
It was no ordinary fanaticism either. Outside the borders of their country, the Chinese were mounting suicide attacks against Westerners. The very coolies, writes Friedrich Engels, emigrating to foreign countries rise in mutiny, and as if by concert, on board every emigrant ship, and fight for its possession, and, rather than surrender, go down to the bottom with it, or perish in its flames. Even out of China, the Chinese colonists conspire and suddenly rise in nightly insurrection
The United States and Israel now hold Palestine, Iraq and Afghanistan. How strong, how firm is their hold? On the one hand, they appear to be in a much stronger position than the British in China. They have the rulers the Mubaraks, Musharrafs and Malikis in their back pockets. But how long can these rulers stand against their people?
What if the insurgency that now appears like a distant cloud on the horizon no larger than a mans fist is really the precursor of a popular war? What if the extremists, militants, terrorists, are the advance guard of a popular war to restore sovereignty to Islamic peoples? Can the US and Israel win this war against close to a quarter of the worlds population? Will this be a war worth fighting: worth winning?
Shouldnt these great powers heed the words of Friedrich Engels? Shouldnt they heed history itself. After nearly a century of hard struggle, the Chinese gained their sovereignty in 1948, driving out every imperialist power from its shores? Today, China is the worlds most powerful engine of capitalist development. It threatens no neighbor. Its secret service is not busy destabilizing any country in the world. At least not yet.
Imagine a world today and over the past sixty years if the West and Japan had succeeded in fragmenting China, splintering the unity of this great and ancient civilization, and persisted in rubbing Chinas face in the dirt? How many millions of troops would the West have to deploy to defends its client states in what is now China the Chinese equivalents of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Jordan, Egypt, Pakistan and Iraq? If Vietnam bled the United States, imagine the consequences of a quagmire in China?
Would the United States prefer this turbulent but splintered China held down at massive costs in blood and treasure, with bases, client states, wars, and unending terrorist attacks on American interests everywhere in the world to the China that it has today, united, prosperous, at peace; a competitor but also one of its largest trading partners?
At what cost, and for how long, will the United States, Europe and Israel continue to support the splintering, occupation and exploitation of the Islamic heartland they had imposed during World War I? At what cost to themselves and the peoples of the Islamic world? There are times when it is smarter to retrench than to hold on to past gains.
That time is now: and that time may be running out.
Another turn of the screw another attack by the United States or Israel and this window may close irrevocably. If wars, civil conflicts or revolutions sweep across the Islamic world unlike the Chinese revolution, most likely this turbulence will not be confined to one segment of Asia. In one way or another, this violence will draw the whole world into its vortex. One cannot even begin to imagine all the ramifications, all the human costs of such a conflagration.
