|
|||||||||
| :: Issues > Islamic Issues | |||||||||
|
Alternatives to Violence in Muslim History: Parallels to American Cases
We examine four examples of alternatives to violence in Muslim history: the unauthorized pilgrimage to Makkah that led to the treaty of Hudaibiyya, Abdul Ghaffar Khan’s role in the Indian resistance against the British occupation, the Iranian Revolution, and the first Palestinian Intifadah.
|
|||||||||
| Monday, February 4,2008 08:22 | |||||||||
|
|||||||||
|
Alternatives to Violence in Muslim History: Parallels to American Cases and Prospects for Future Applications Paper for the AMSS conference in Istanbul on Citizenship, Security and Democracy Friday 1st September - Sunday 3rd September 2006 Abstract We examine four examples of alternatives to violence in Muslim history: the unauthorized pilgrimage to Makkah that led to the treaty of Hudaibiyya, Abdul Ghaffar Khan’s role in the Indian resistance against the British occupation, the Iranian Revolution, and the first Palestinian Intifadah. We consider the parallels between the Muslim examples to the best-known Western cases: Thoreau’s resistance to the taxes supporting slavery and the Mexican War, the We conclude by considering policy applications in the near future on issues such as responses to insults to Islam in the European press and final status negotiations between Introduction Although Islam is not a religion of pacifism, by which I mean that warfare is not entirely prohibited, nonetheless it is a peaceful religion, in the sense that its objective is to achieve a state of peace and security for both the Muslims and for those non-Muslims under its protection. Further, warfare is governed by strict rules of what today would be Before beginning it is important to emphasize that nonviolence is an active tactic and strategy of resistance and is not a manifestation of pacifism. Practitioners of nonviolence The modes of nonviolent action are many. They include flight, boycotts, strikes, and disobedience to civil authority. The practice of flight goes back at least to the time of Moses, and the story of Moses is as much part of Muslim tradition as it is of the Jewish tradition. But flight is so central to Boycotts are an ancient practice in the Arab tradition, even among the non-Muslims. Indeed, the polytheistic Quraish boycotted the Muslim community in Mecca for years Strikes are a modern phenomenon as the modern modes of production have enormously magnified their effectiveness while the asymmetry of power between the owners and Noncooperation is an ancient tactic, not always driven by socially conscious motives. It comes easily to the Arab people as an individual act given the decentralized, even “By the Soul and the proportion and order Given to it; And its enlightenment as to its wrong and its right; Truly he succeeds that purifies it And he fails that corrupts it!”2 An inordinate respect for the laws of man he says leads to warfare and slavery: I do not hesitate to say, that those who call themselves Abolitionists should at once effectually withdraw their support, both in person and property, from the government of Massachusetts, and not wait till they constitute a majority of one, before they suffer the right to prevail through them. I think that it is enough if they have God on their side, without waiting for that other one. Moreover, any man more right than his neighbors constitutes a majority of one already.3 The idea that the individual is directly responsible to the Almighty is inherent in the Shahâda, or declaration of the faith, “There is no god but God.” The demands of leaders to do evil are of no weight in the Qur’an and the hadith. And they would say: “Our Lord! we obeyed our chiefs and our great ones and they misled us as to the (right) path. Our Lord! give them Double Penalty and curse them with a very great Curse!"4 “…Saith the last about the first: ‘Our Lord! it is these that misled us: so give them a double penalty in the fire.’ He will say: ‘doubled for all’: but this Ye do not Individual disobedience to commands to do evil is a natural consequence of the Muslim teaching of direct responsibility to God. Abu Bakr, in his inaugural address, told the Organized civil disobedience is a tactic normally associated with the modern era, and most of its modern practitioners trace their influence back to Mahatma Gandhi. Yet the “It is He who sent down Tranquility into the hearts of the Believers that they may add Faith to their Faith; for to God belong the Forces of the heavens and the earth; and Indian Independence The modern world knows this style of mass resistance through the work of Mohandas Gandhi. While Gandhi’s familiarity with Islam and his admiration for Muhammad are no secret,8 a direct influence of Muslim tradition on his techniques has yet to be demonstrated. Nonetheless, it is known that the Muslim Indian activist Abdul Ghaffar Khan began his own work at about the same time that Gandhi returned to India (1914). He had been arrested by the British in 1919 for his role in a political rally and in 1929 he founded the Khudai Khidmatgar (Servants of God) whose members “pledged to refrain In March of 1930 the mass disobedience campaign had begun with Gandhi’s famous March to the sea. In April, when Khan’s group followed up with an educational campaign in nonviolent resistance, the British arrested Khan and the other leaders. On April 23 a nonviolent protest of the arrests was about to disperse when the British cracked down on Khan’s group with “a barbarity that they did not often inflict on other adherents of nonviolence in India.”10 Gene Sharp, the prominent student of nonviolent resistance, When those in front fell down wounded by the shots, those behind came forward with their breasts bared and exposed themselves to the fire, so much so that some people got as many as twenty-one bullet wounds in their bodies, and all the people stood their ground without getting into a panic. . . . The Anglo-Indian paper of Lahore, which represents the official view, itself wrote to the effect that the people came forward one after another to face the firing and when they fell wounded they were dragged back and others came forward to be shot at. This state of things continued from 11 till 5 o’clock in the evening. When the number of corpses became too many, the ambulance cars of the government took them away. The carnage stopped only because a regiment of Indian soldiers finally refused to continue firing on the unarmed protesters, an impertinence for which they were severely punished.11 Nonviolence scholar Joan V. Bondurant writes that the religious basis of the Khudai Khidmatgar was more obvious than that of the All-India Congress because the former “pledged themselves to nonviolence not only as a policy, but as a creed, a way of life.”12 Khan insisted that his techniques were taken directly from Islam and the sunnah of the Prophet and claimed he had “left speechless” a Pashtun who had disputed his claim of a The Iranian Revolution On June 5, 1963 Iranian authorities repressed nonviolent demonstrations opposing an American military loan and the Shah’s reform program by arresting the Ayatullah Khomeini and throwing some students to their death from a roof of Madrasa Faydiyya.13 Thousands died in the ensuing mass demonstrations.14 On the twelfth anniversary of the Employing the symbolism of Shi`a theology, the Iranian Revolution transformed the “Kabala paradigm, shifting from a passive witnessing of weeping for Husayn and waiting The wave of resistance began with illegal poetry readings at Arymehr University.19 Later, when women who chose to wear the chador attempting to register for class at the Organized demonstrations began to proliferate in December.26 In January 1978 a “peaceful demonstration organized by religious students came under attack by the police, Both the moderate and radical leaders of the revolution called for peaceful demonstrations, but they did not always remain nonviolent. An initially peaceful demonstration on February 18 “turned violent after an irate police officer shot a teenage student protester.” In May Khomeini backed off from his March call for the assassination of the shah to urge caution. In June Shariatmadari counseled strikers to stay home to avoid death at the hands of the authorities. A burning of a movie theatre in August was blamed on religious fanatics by the shah, obtaining confessions from five of the ten people arrested, but popular sentiment blame the SAVAK, noting that the film was an Iranian film with social commentary, not one the foreign films with sexual content that had been targeted by the religious extremists. At the end of Ramadan demonstrators returned to the streets peacefully handing out flowers to the soldiers,29 but on Sept. 6 demonstrations were banned. On Sept. 7 hundreds …our Imam Hossein …showed us how the clenched fists of freedom fighters can crush the tanks and the guns of the oppressors, ultimately giving victory to Truth…. If Islam is endangered we should be willing to sacrifice ourselves and save Islam by our blood…. The military government of Iran is illegal, and is condemned by the principles of Islam. It is the duty of all to protest it and to refuse to be a part of it in any way. People should refuse to pay taxes to the government, and all employees of the Iranian oil company should endeavor to stop the flow of oil abroad…. The clergy fulfill their duties to God by disclosing the crimes of the regime more than ever…. I call on the clergy, the students, The strikes became more sweeping and more effective and the demands more ideological. “5,000 bank clerks, 30,000 oil workers, and 100,000 government employees—coupled their economic demands … with such sweeping political demands as the abolition of SAVAK, the lifting of martial law, the release of all political prisoners, the return of Khomeini, and the end of tyrannical rule.”33 In Muharram (December) men went into the streets in white sheets symbolizing their willingness to be martyred or chanted slogans from the rooftops. Despite BBC reports of 700 deaths, the protests mounted.34 The state’s attempts to pacify the opposition came too late. Certain bizarre concessions, such as the release of imprisoned guerilla leaders,35 could have been aimed at increasing the violence. That the shah’s fate was sealed was made clear by the comment of a striking refinery worker that they would only export more oil after they had “exported the shah and his generals,” a threat that undercut Washington’s support for the monarch.36 Later, when the new Islamic state began to degenerate into authoritarianism, some of the nonviolent tactics employed against the shah were turned against the new regime. Most The First Intifadah Despite a history of nonviolence in the modern Arab world, including the Palestinian general strike of 1936, the first 39 years of the Palestinian resistance to their occupation by Israel focused on armed resistance, diplomacy, and economic sanctions. The first of these is clearly violent and the second carries the threat of violence behind it. Even the When the Arab leaders snubbed the PLO at the Nov. 1987 summit in Amman, it left the residents of the occupied territories embittered. Young people, no longer content to Initially the movement lacked centralized national leadership and was directed by local “popular committees.” In January 1988 Hanna Siniora, editor of Al-Fajr issued a call for Among the tactics recommended in the leaflets was one seemingly inspired by Thoreau’s dictum that “under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just Various forms of noncooperation were embraced, including strikes by the merchants.47 One unique element was the way that Israeli attempt to break the sporadic strikes of Israel treated any resistance, violent or nonviolent, as “incitement and hostile propaganda.”52 Its response was the policy called the “Iron Fist.”53 The consequences were disastrous for Israel for a number of reasons. Israeli officers were concerned about its effects on the Israeli troops.54 The Israeli public became disillusioned about the nature of the occupation.55 New Israeli peace groups proliferated56 and the well established but hitherto cautious Peace Now became emboldened.57 The Israeli government fell,58 but the new government only intensified the Iron Fist policies.59 The impact on Palestinian society was dramatic and long lasting. On March 6, 1988 all but two of the “Palestinian employees of the Gaza Income and Property Tax division resigned.”60 By March 13 almost half of the Palestinian police in the occupied territories had quit.61 Not withstanding Israeli claims to the contrary, the mass resignations could With the closure of the government, traditional civil society institutions returned to fill the void, among them awni (mutual help and charity), atwi (mediation of disputes by clan Most significant was the impact on the American people’s perception of the nature of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.71 The enormous American aid that sustains the apartheid state has only been politically palatable because Americans have a skewed perspective on the Israeli occupation, as the American media systematically under-reports Israeli violence and human rights violations while emphasizing Palestinian violence.72 In this case, however, the balance of violence was so badly skewed that the usual propaganda Christian shrines were closed.”74 President Bush had to uncharacteristically express regret over the deaths of 33 Palestinians by Israeli soldiers and settlers in May.75 Just as the tide had turned against support for the Vietnam War when television brought the realities of that war into the living rooms of Americans, now, for the first time the mainstream American media were showing video footage that demonstrated that the Israeli occupation resembled the suppression of the civil rights movement in the Desperate to put an end to the adverse publicity the Israeli government secretly met with the PLO and agreed to the Oslo accords. Although the Oslo accords themselves were not successful in ending the occupation, they manifested a radical departure from Israel’s traditional position. The difference in the response of the American press, public, and “… He has put affection between their hearts: not if you had spent all that is in the earth could you have produced that affection but God has done it: for He is Exalted in might Conclusions and Future Possibilities Both just war and nonviolent actions are Islamicly valid methods of social actions. Both also have a significant history in the Muslim tradition. In the modern world, given the The utter failure of the violent protests of the European cartoons meant to insult Islam should be a lesson to the Muslim people. They changed the focus of the discussion from the malice, bigotry and bad taste of the publishers to the Muslims’ intolerance for freedom of speech. There are many more acceptable and more effective alternative responses. Muslims could have organized mass demonstrations in which they hold signs professing their respect and love for Jesus, and condemning bigotry and hatred. They could have boycotted advertisers in the offending newspapers. The Iranian government tried to engage in a bit of nonviolent retaliation by staging a contest for cartoons mocking the holocaust. While this was nonviolent, it was not effective because it played into the hands of the bigots’ premise that modern political struggles are nothing more that ancient At a seminar on “Nonviolent Sanctions and Cultural Survival” at Harvard in 1994, “Souad R. Dajani analyzed the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip from a Palestinian perspective, proposing nonviolent civilian resistance as the most practical and strategically sound method for creating an independent Palestinian state in these areas.”80 The Palestinian resistance is, in fact, mainly a nonviolent resistance. Noah Merrill, coordinator for the American Friends Service Committee’s program in Southeastern New England has nonetheless described it as “invisible” in the mainstream Western media. That invisibility is its weak spot. In Israel it has had some effect. Manifested in the rise of the refusenik movement among Israelis who refuse to be a part of the occupation either because of moral considerations or because they pragmatically understand that the Palestinians particularly are painted as irrational, violent by nature, prone to corruption, and unwilling to compromise.”81 Since it is the American financing of the occupation and the apartheid policies that allows them to continue, the challenge to the nonviolent resistance is to pierce the veil dividing the American public opinion from the harsh realities of what they are buying. There are problems of convincing the political leadership of the efficacy of nonviolent resistance, exemplified by the fight against the building of the Israeli’s “security wall.” There were martyrs in the struggle against the Wall in Budrus. Nonviolent activists were wounded and killed. But as the struggle concluded, the Israeli Wall had been re-routed, forced back by the strength of the popular committees to the path of the Green Line, leaving the villages’ olive groves intact. A politician who had earlier mocked Morrar was convinced: he paid for the mass printing of signs to be used in the expansion of the campaigns, which are ongoing throughout the communities being devastated by the Wall’s advance. The signs read: “We Can Do It!"82 Merrill argues that Israelis target international activists precisely because these strategies are so successful. The strategies need to be expanded both in the solidity of their employment within the occupied territories, but also to the United States where the key support for the occupation and persecution resides, but where the nonviolent resistance The practitioners of violence need to understand that their tactics have failed miserably. Not one square inch of Palestinian soil has been liberated by armed resistance. The only Notes: 1 Henry David Thoreau, “Civil Disobedience,” (1849) http://thoreau.eserver.org/civil.html (accessed 8/29/06). s94dajan.htm. Please visit Dr. Ahmad’s site, The Minaret of Freedom Institute at http://www.minaret.org/ See also: A Pacifist Uncovered: Abdul Ghaffar Khan, By Amitabh Pal http://theamericanmuslim.org/tam.php/features/articles/ a_pacifist_uncovered_abdul_ghaffar_khan/ articles/mohandas_gandhi_abdul_ghaffar_khan_and_the_middle_ east_today/ peace_through_justice_in_the_holy_land_the_spiritual_jihad_of_ satyagraha/ structure_chance_and_choice_abdul_ghaffar_khan_and_the_khudai_ khidmitgars/ Rigzinhttp://theamericanmuslim.org/tam.php/features/articles/ khan_abdul_ghaffar_peace_maker_from_the_heart_of_islam/ khan_abdal_ghaffar_nonviolence_in_islam/ Michel S.J. http://theamericanmuslim.org/tam.php/features/articles/ khan_abdul_ghaffar_cant_we_be_like_abdul_ghaffar_khan/ khan_abdul_ghaffar_remembering_a_non_violent_soldier |
|||||||||
|
Posted in Islamic Issues |
|||||||||
|
|||||||||
|
|
|||||||||
| Related Articles | |||||||||
|
|
Back to Homepage 
Facebook 
Digg 
Yahoo 
Del.icio.us 
reddit 
StumbleUpon 
Mixx 
Google 
Twitter
Facebook
Most Viewed
Join Our Maillist
Video
|
© The Muslim Brotherhood All copyright and re-transport from the site of any material are allowed as long as the source mentioned |
