Islam & Terrorism

Abdel Rahman al-Rashed, general manager of the Al-Arabiya news on the current wave of terrorism:

a profile of Al Arabiya can be found here

So what? What's _your_ point?

I have expressed my feelings on this before. I know many Muslims, and they are as repulsed as the rest of us by the heinous events in Russia. Ordinary Muslims are just like you and I and a totally different kettle of fish to the Islamists and extremists.

Terrorists depend on the support and protection of the communities in which they survive. Middle East and Third World newspapers, TV, radio, religious and political leaders have a great influence and in the past they have always "condemned" attrocities with a caveat criticising the US or Israel.

Abdel Rahman runs Al Arabiya - a station previously criticised for seeming to take the side of violence. If this interview is an indication of the shape of things to come, it is extremely encouraging. Whilst I think Rahman might be IMHO a little harsh and self-critical it is great to see a Middle East TV station looking beyond the usual excuses for "Terror in the name of Allah".

Hopefully revulsion will spread and the terrorists will suffer a backlash from people who have previously supported them....

I'm not holding my breath...I'm just clutching at straws.....

Okay, cool. Just wanted to know.

While I'm here, I'll mention something that's been bugging me for a while.

If a bunch of terrorists 'do something' (take a school and kill everyone in it for example) we can kind of guess that everyone thinks it's terrible.

When you want to talk about 'something', you can either have 8 pages of people saying "OMG that suck those poor kids thats rilly bad I pray they get out ok and lets nuke the terrorists", or you can have some discussion of what causes terrorism, effective and ineffective ways (hint: blowing a hole in a supporting wall, thus causing a roof to collapse on the hostages is 'sub optimal'. Gassing the hostages thus killing many of them is also 'sub obtimal'. Destroying an entire city is 'not proportionate'.) of dealing with it.

Thank you, that is all.

i dont think it's necesarily the fact that they're muslims but that a lot of the predominantly muslim cultures have a very uhm historic? culture.
i don't mean retarded or backwards but they hold on to a lot of old ways like the way women dress and how society works.
freedom fighting is also very deeply ingrained into that culture from afghanistans freedomfighters to the arabian people calling for jihad.

it doesn't mean that muslims are terrorists but there does seem to be a certain inclination for a certain kind of traditionalists to remember the tradition of going to war over anything that affronts their culture.

i'll shut up now, not really my kind of discussion.

Maybe they have a history of freedomfighting because they keep getting invaded and oppressed by christians.

From what I heard the roof collapsed because a suicide bomber detonated herself.

Destroying a city? - are you talking about Hama?

What causes terrorism? The rejection of decent means of protest.
What causes terrorism against kids - a total lack of humanity.

Even if I disagreed with a cuase I would respect it's fighters if they limited their action to attacks the opposing military and authorities. There's no excuse for the deliberate targetting of civilians.

Sure we brought it on.

We have screwed over a load of countries in the past - and we've been screwed over by a load of countries in the past. The actions people depend on their own moral values. There is no excuse for this shit.

Some people support and encourage it.

Omar Bakri is a Syrian refugee living in London. From here he is afforded the freedom to run an extremist group.

Yesterday he spoke about the attack in Beslan:

Bakri's group is curently planning a celebration on the anniversary of 911.

I hope to see less tolerance of that sort of stupidity because, as I say, there is no excuse.

Everything has a cause, every act has an effect.

A lone terrorist is an anomaly, a violent resistance is born of the conditions they resist against.

If you take away a persons humanity then they are capable of unspeakable acts.
In Vietnam there are reports of U.S. GIs slaughtering children. This is because the GIs had been taught to hate their enemy. 1/4 of the chechnian population has been murdered by the Russian occupiers. This is enough to cause enough hatred to enable unspeakable acts.

After Abu Gharib americans were quick to say "it's only a few bad apples" (despite the evidence of systematic torture within the Military), but when there are terrorist attacks, suddenly it's all because of their culture and their backward ways.

explain it to Ghandi

As degrading and disgusting as Abu Ghraib was, posing a few prisoners in the nude hardly compares to the events in Beslan, 911 or any of the other terrorist outrages around the world.

George Bush is a terrorist

systematic torture of prisoners is not 'a few nude photos'

Wow, you've mentioned one peaceful revolutionary. that's that arguement won.

[Edited on Sep 06, 2004 by UpTight]

and neither is it the murder of 300 schoolkids

And that is your response? I guess it must have demonstrated the point.

You are aware that Ghandi's non violent resistance in India doesn't nullify the fact that treating people without dignity causes violent response. Not all the time, but a significant proportion of the time.
In Palestine there are pacifist resistors as there are in East Timor and Chechnia. There are also violent resistors. Different people are affected differently by different circumstances. Ghandi's strategy worked for him at that time and in that place. The same strategy is not working in many other occupied and oppressed countries. Pacifism requires an overwhelming force of non violent resistors. If this is impossible due to the actions of an oppressor then violent resistance is sometimes necessary. These people view their actions as acts of defence. When situations get out of control hatred can be a very powerful thing.

What i am saying is you can't corner a dog and then complain when it attacks you, not all dogs will attack you, but some will.

also, the point can be made that peaceful revolutionaries like Gandhi and Martin Luther King succeeded because of the threat of revolutionary violence their more radical, violent contemporaries (e.g. Malcolm X in King's case) posed, enabling the more peaceful leaders to be accepted more quickly.

whatever FABIO

admit it - you're turned on

I am not against armed struggle if it targetted at the millitary. I just hate people targetting civilians.

Not all Revolutions have been achieved through non-violence.

Certainly the Jewish Palestinians won back their homeland after armed struggle against the Hitler-aligned Arab Legion and certainly the awful regimes in Afghanistan and Iraq were overturned with the help of the allied military - as was Hitler of course. The Viet Cong can claim to have won their way without pacifist means.

1. I'm not certain that we can state that ML King Jr. succeeded. In fact, I will posit that he did not. He was on the way, absolutely, but his personal goals were not met. Blacks in American do not have the equality that he so stridently sought. Were he alive to do, I have no doubt that he would be rallying every bit as hard as he ever did.

2. It might be nice to discuss the root cause of the terror in Chechnya. As someone stated above, these acts of terror do not happen in a vacuum. Does anyone have decent knowledge on the subject? I confess that my knowledge is limited. Here's a timeline, but I will not vouch for its accuracy.

1830s

Czar Nicholas I invades Caucasus, meets fierce resistance.
Top

1859

Russia conquers, incorporates Caucasus.

1917

Russian Revolution, Dagestan (including Chechnya) declares its independence.

1923

Bolshevik troops occupy Dagestan, divide region, creating Chechen-Ingush Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic.
Top

1944

Stalin deports thousands of Chechens to Siberia and Kazakhstan, on suspicion of collaborating with Germany.

1957

Chechen-Ingush republic reestablished. Chechens return home.

1991

Soviet Union collapses, 14 regions become independent nations. Dzhokhar Dudayev elected president of Chechnya. Dudayev declares Chechnya independent. Russian President Boris Yeltsin refuses to recognize Chechen independence, sends troops. Confronted by armed Chechens, troops withdraw.
Top

1994

Chechnya continues to assert its independence. Paramilitary bands accused of widespread kidnapping for ransom. Russia invades Chechnya; bloody war ensues.

1995

10,000 Russian troops occupy Grozny. Dudayev killed by Russian rocket. Total Russian force numbers 45,000. Chechens takes hostages.

1996

Chechens launch major counteroffensive, 5,000 troops invade Grozny. Unwilling to use maximum force and destroy Grozny to defeat rebels, Russians agree to ceasefire. Yeltsin orders troops withdrawn from Chechnya. Russian military humiliated. 70,000 casualties on all sides.
Top

1997

Chechnya won't accept Moscow's authority. Aslan Maskhadov elected Chechen president. Name of capital changed from the Russian Grozny, to the Chechen Djohar. Lawlessness in Chechnya continues.

1999

Terrorist bombs explode in Moscow and other Russian cities. Russian authorities blame Chechen paramilitary commanders. Chechen insurgents enter neighboring Russian territory of Dagestan to help Islamic fundamentalists seeking to create separate nation.

Russian troops recapture breakaway areas of Dagestan. Yeltsin sends nearly 100,000 Russian troops into Chechnya. Russians occupy much of Chechnya, pulverize Grozny, driving rebels into hills. 250,000 refugees.

2000

Despite Russian claims of imminent victory, war continues. Russians are unable to defeat rebels in mountainous areas. United Nations officials call for investigations of alleged human rights abuses by Russian troops and by Chechen rebels. New Russian President Vladimir Putin agrees to human rights investigation, continues war.
Top

2001

Russian president Putin appoints Stanislav Ilyasov as Chechen prime minister.

2002

On Oct. 23, Chechen rebels seized a crowded Moscow theater and detained 763 people, including 3 Americans. Armed and wired with explosives, the rebels demanded that Russian government end the war in Chechnya. Government forces stormed the theater the next day, after releasing a gas into the theater, which killed not only all the rebels but more than 100 hostages.

2003

In March Chechens voted in a referendum that approved a new regional constitution making Chechnya a separatist republic within Russia. Agreeing to the constitution meant abandoning claims for complete independence. While Moscow has presented the referendum as a way of bringing peace to the war-ravaged region, it is unclear how much power Russia would actually grant the separatist republic. A spate of Chechen suicide bombings followed throughout the year.

In September elections, Akhmad Kadyrov, the de facto Chechen president installed three years earlier by Russia, officially becomes president. Human rights groups as well as several nations questioned the fairness of the elections.

During 2003, there were 11 bomb attacks against Russia believed to have been orchestrated by Chechen rebels.
Top

2004

On May 9, Chechnya's Moscow-backed leader, Akhmad Kadyrov, is killed in a bombing. Six others are killed and another 60 wounded. The assassination undermines Russian claims that Chechnya has been growing more secure. A warlord, Shamil Basayev, claimed responsibility for the bombing.

On Aug. 24, days before the Chechen presidential election, two nearly simultaneous plane crashes in Russia kill 90 passengers; Chechen terrorists are suspected.

On Aug.29, another Russian-supported leader, Alu Alkhanov, is elected president of Chechnya with 73.5% of the vote.

On Aug 31, Chechen terrorist attack at a Moscow subway stop kills ten.

On Sept. 1, dozens of heavily armed guerrillas seize a school in Beslan, near Chechnya, and take hundreds of young schoolchildren, teachers, and parents hostage. The guerrillas, still unidentified, have not yet expressed a clear set of demands for the release of the hostages.

That timeline seems pretty accurate, but it doesn't (cannot) reflect the amount of killing on both sides.
70% of married chechnian women are widows (according to the U.N.) 1/4 of the population has been killed.

The fighting could have ended in one of two ways. 1. Chechnians stop opposing russian occupation
2. Russia allows chechnia it's independence.

The figthing could have ended in one of two ways. 1. Palestinians stop opposing Israelis occupation.
2. Israel allows Palestine it's independence.

The fighting could have ended in one of two ways. 1. Iraqis stop opposing U.S. occupation.
2. The U.S. allows Iraq it's independence.

The fighting could have ended in one of two ways. 1. The Northern Irish stop opposing U.K. occupation.
2. The U.K. allows Northern Ireland it's independence.

The fighting could have ended. . ..