A Debate in the House of Lords on
Jihadism/ Islamism and the problem
in the Middle East
Dr. Mozammel Haque
On 20
June, 2014, Lord Dykes introduced a question what is the Government’s
assessment of the threats from the spreads of
militant aggressive jihadism in the Middle East. So there was a debate in the
House of Lords on 20 June 2014 on Jihadism and
Middle East in the context of recent problems
in Iraq after the ISIS attack on Iraq. I am
going to look into the debate vis-à-vis the rising of
ISIS. In this context, I would like to see the followings through the debate,
such as definition of
Jihadism; problem of Iraq through its
background; Iraq war and its justifiability, rise of
ISIS and its strength, sectarianism; remedy and final
words from senior Foreign
Minister, Baroness Sayeeda Warsi .
LORD
DYKES
Illegal
US-UK invasion of Iraq
Lord
Dykes introduced the debate by saying: “Just over a week ago, the West as a whole realised yet again just how futile and
tragic had been the originally illegal US-UK invasion of Iraq 11 years ago.
Although it had to be later certificated ex post by a hog-tied and embarrassed
United Nations, the invasion had left a broken country with many thousands of
innocent civilians killed. The Daily Mirror yesterday,
referring to Tony Blair, estimated the total now to be 650,000 since the
invasion. It left a judicially murdered dictator, a demolished professional
army and a deliberately wrecked civil service infrastructure. Never before,
even including the humiliating defeat of the US in Vietnam, had the United
States looked so incompetent in its government and military structures.”
Expansion of Jihadism
Referring to what are happening in Syria, Egypt, Libya
and then Iraq, Lord Dykes mentioned, “More recently,
we were able to witness common sense at last in resisting the strident calls
for western military intervention in Syria—less wisdom, of course, in handling
Libya, where another dictator ended up murdered without even a show trial, and
the usual complete paralysis now over what is happening in Egypt. Meanwhile,
the sinister expansion of militant jihadism has been fuelled not least by the
geopolitical blunders of the western powers, who have all too often found it
impossible not to interfere in the wrong way in other people’s countries,
relentlessly telling them what to do as if our democracies were both perfect
and powerful.
About Afghanistan
Speaking about Afghanistan, Lord Dykes mentioned, “it remains
to be seen how this will play out in Afghanistan, where western intervention
was at its most supine and foolish. I am glad that British forces are now
leaving at long last. The USA was obsessed with the equally unwise invasion by
the Soviet Union of that complex country and worked with the previous
generation of Taliban to drive the Russians out—ironically ending, at the same
time, the best civil society that women with jobs and children in schools had
ever enjoyed in that sad country. In the infamous film “Charlie Wilson’s War”,
those in Hollywood conveniently failed to mention the Taliban at all, yet their
country is now fighting the Taliban.”
“We must for ever remember the startlingly sagacious
warning of President Eisenhower in his valedictory: “Beware the inexorable rise
of the military-industrial complex”. His advice was totally ignored for reasons
of oil, money, imperialism and the helping of the rise of the aggressive form
of Zionism which is letting down the marvellous country of Israel itself,” said
Lord Dykes.
He said, “We urgently need to secure further guidance and
information from Turkey in this multifaceted contextual struggle. I take no
pleasure in echoing the conclusion of many western observers that somehow the
errors and blunders of the West have spurred on the spread of the jihadi
impetus. That conclusion seems unfair to a well intentioned western society,
but we need to probe its depths.”
Palestine and The Quartet
Mentioning
about Palestine and their sufferings, Lord
Dykes said, “The Palestinians must have their place
in the sun and we should respect, not denounce, their common Government of
technocrats and Hamas. The quartet has been hopeless in this sense for many
years; it has simply betrayed the Palestinians, whose elections have been
postponed for far too long by President Abbas. After all, Palestine cannot be
the only country in the world literally without its own Government and
elections. The UN has to respond if this tragic situation continues.”
Eventual outcome in Syria
“We also need to accept that the eventual outcome in Syria
will be the Syrians’ decision, not ours, and that President Assad is as
legitimate, unfortunately, as most leaders in Arabia,” said Lord Dykes and added,
“ I hoped fervently that the UN will act to halt the mass executions now
threatened by the courts in Egypt. Has the US said anything about this?”
THE LORD BISHOP OF DERBY
Future of European
Islam
The
Lord Bishop of Derby also raised a
question: “I
also have a question that is significant to the work in which I am involved:
what is the future of European Islam in the mix, across the world? We hear a
lot of voices speaking for all kinds of Islamic approaches to faith. There is
in Europe a sophisticated, engaged and rich tradition of Islamic thinking and
practice. Are we able to engage that voice more creatively in the debate?
LORD PAREKH (Lab)
Turmoil in Egypt
Referring to Egypt, Lord Parekh (Lab) said, “With the turmoil in Egypt, I expect that something worse
will happen. The army has declared war—not a virtual war, but a real one—on the
Muslim Brotherhood. That simply will not work. The Muslim Brotherhood has
global appeal among Muslims and, being highly ideologically motivated, it will
not be crushed or put aside as easily as others might. Therefore, as far as I
can gaze into my crystal ball, in two or three years’ time, we will see a
situation in Egypt that will be no different from what we now see in Syria and
Iraq. That will pose some very acute problems, because Egypt is one of the
largest countries in the Middle East and faces some very acute problems.”
World will not be stable
Lord Parekh said, “Even if all these conflicts – including
the one that I foresee in Egypt—were to end tomorrow, the world in which we
live would not be stable. Historical memories of the wars that were initiated
by the West, historical memories of the shady business deals in which we
engaged in Iraq and elsewhere and memories of the humiliation we inflicted on a
lot of people, not only in Abu Ghraib but in lots of other places, will linger,
and rightly so. How can one expect people to forget what they have seen and
what they have heard? As long as these memories last, we cannot afford to
assume our world is entirely safe simply because that world over there is safe.
It is safe now; it was not safe for 40 years, as the noble Lord, Lord Desai,
said. During those 40 years we did lots of things we should not have done.”
Lord Parekh prescribes remedy
Lord Parekh prescribes remedy, “I want to prescribe my
remedy. New wars, limited or unlimited, will not help. The kind of thing that
Mr Blair has been trying to press upon our attention will only exacerbate the
situation. We should provide help when that is asked for—that is right—but at
the same time we should remember that we should not get caught up in domestic
rivalry and domestic conflict. If the Government make a complete mess of the
situation and alienate people and there is a civil war, as in Syria, and then
ask us to help against ISIS, we need to be careful that we are not being
manipulated.”
“Secondly, we must keep a keen eye on the terrorist
activities in Britain but should not presume that everybody who has been to
Syria, Iraq or elsewhere is necessarily a potential terrorist. That can lead to
heavy-handed activities and could alienate the Muslims,” said Lord Parekh and
added, “Thirdly, we should do nothing to demonise the entire Muslim community
or to alienate it in a variety of ways, as we have tended to do, as in the case
of schools in Birmingham. Ofsted produced one report and two or three months
later there was a completely opposite kind of report. There is also the
constant mistake of equating conservative views with extremism. This is also
done in relation to Muslim schools. What about other faith schools where similar
things might be going on? Those of us with some experience would know that it
does. To single out a particular community and its schools can create an
estranged, deeply alienated, deeply bitter community, and that is to store up
trouble for the future.”
Lord Parekh continued, “Finally, unless the problems in the
Middle East are brought under control—not solved; they will not be solved—we
will not be able to find much peace there or here. If they are going to be
solved, that cannot be done bilaterally by the Americans linking up with the
Iranians in order to counter the Iraqis. That game has been going on for the
past 40 years and it has not taken us anywhere. We should be thinking in terms
of some kind of regional conference where all the parties involved are
represented, where we can work out some kind of mechanism for conflict
resolution and where we can lay down certain principles which no side would
violate, whatever its grievances. Then we can think of an Arab peacekeeping
force or an Arab reconciliation commission of the kind we have seen in other
parts of the world. In other words, we need to decentralise the way these
things function, try to organise a regional conference within a global context
and aim for a long-term strategy based on good sense and wisdom, which I am
afraid has been so rare in the past few years.”
LORD AHMED (Non-Aft)
Defination of Jihadism/Islamism
Lord Ahmed (Non-Afl) said, “I am neither an Arab nor
indigenous English, and jihadism for me is difficult to understand, as “jihad”
is in Arabic and “Islamism” is in English. What does it really mean? As I read
it in the Koran, jihad means “struggle for justice”, and it has two main
categories. First, there is the inner struggle against evil, bad habits and
temptations, and to strive for good deeds. The struggle for justice means a
jihad against poverty, illiteracy, sexual violence—and, yes, there is a concept
of a just war, where people are suffering from brutal regimes. Some scholars
say that it is a duty to rescue people from that situation. I am sure that this
does not mean individuals from Croydon or Luton who could go and declare jihad.”
“Sadly, words like jihadism and Islamism are used to
describe despicable violent extremists and terrorists who proclaim to be
Muslims. Let us have a look at two examples. ISIS, of which we know little,
although it is much talked about, is led by Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi but is made up
of members of the Baathist party, former Saddam Hussein soldiers, militant
Sunni fighters and Sunni youth, who have suffered from poverty and alienation,
and terrorists. None of them has the same causes or beliefs, but they have two
main enemies—the Maliki regime and the Assad regime,” argued Lord Ahmed.
Lord Ahmed continued, “Then we have Boko Haram, a terrorist
organisation that commits the most heinous crimes. The word Boko means western
culture and Haram means forbidden—so it means rejection of western culture.
Then there are the terrorists in Pakistan, Tehreek-e-Taliban, which attacked
the Karachi airport; all those fighters were from Uzbekistan. They are no
representatives of Islam or Muslims, just as the Lords Resistance Army is not
representative of Christians, nor are the RSS or VHP representatives of the
great Hindu religion, nor is the Buddhist 969 movement in Burma or the
activities of Buddhist monk Gnanasara in Sri Lanka, whose organisation Bodu
Bala Sena, or BBS, has allegedly killed seven Muslims, including a child with a
sword, in the past two days.”
Imposition of Democracy
Then Lord Ahmed spoke about the imposition of democracy. He
said, “I hope that we have learnt that we cannot impose our form of democracy
and expect other cultures and tribes to follow it, as was experienced by Mr
Bush and Mr Blair in Iraq and Afghanistan. We are just experiencing the fallout
in Libya after Colonel Gaddafi’s downfall.”
“The French rejected the legitimate elections won by the
Islamic FIS Party in Algeria in 1991, the Americans refused to accept Hamas in
Palestine and a large part of the world rejected the Muslim Brotherhood in
Egypt. My point is that the international community withheld recognition of
legitimate elections even while it accepted Sisi in Egypt, as well as
sheikhdoms and kingdoms in the Middle East, as legitimate Governments. These
are political struggles that require political solutions and invasions or
bombings do not result in long-term solutions,” argued Lord Ahmed.
Lord Ahmed also recollected and said, “I was in Iraq last
year and met many leaders. I also met the Speaker of the Iraqi Assembly, who
told me about the isolation of the Sunni community, how Maliki had ignored the
Sunnis in the north, and how he thought it was the Shias who were siphoning off
all the wealth and had all the power. In most Arab countries, including Iraq,
there is rough justice. If you look at some of their judicial systems, you find
that confession-based evidence, forced through torture, is a norm.”
Finally, Lord Ahmed said, “I fear that unless we engage
Saudi Arabia and Iran in all these states from Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Bahrain
and Yemen to Lebanon, we may, unfortunately, see an even longer period of
sectarian violence than Europe experienced during the 30-year war in the 17th
century.”
“We should not feel threatened by any economic or trade
organisation between Muslim states because in my view, if Europe can be at
peace due to the creation of a common market, there is a huge potential for the
Muslim world to create peace. There is potential for $4 trillion a year
business between it and the rest of the world, and peace among 1.5 billion
people, as well as the rest of the world,” argued Lord Ahmed.
The Senior Minister of State, Department for Communities
and Local Government & Foreign and Commonwealth Office
BARONESS SAYEEDA WARSI (Con)
Baroness Warsi said, “As the
Minister at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, as the Minister responsible
for communities and faith domestically, as a British Muslim with Sunni and Shia
roots, and as someone who was fiercely against the Iraq invasion in 2003, many
of the issues raised come to the fore in answering this debate.”
Regional responsibility should be taken for
Speaking about sectarian dispute, Baroness Warsi replied, “The
noble Lord, Lord Desai, referred to the challenges as a sectarian dispute—the
oft-quoted Sunni-Shia dimension. I disagree with that simplistic analysis. The
vast majority of Sunnis are as appalled as everyone else at the conduct of
ISIL—a group that even al-Qaeda distanced itself from last year. Where I do
agree with him is that not everything can be distilled to a very simplistic
view that everything is either the fault of western intervention or the fault
of western non-intervention. It is right that regional responsibility should be
taken for what we are seeing.”
“Overspill from the conflicts in Syria and Iraq risks
destabilising the wider Middle East. However, the prime responsibility lies
with regional states, which need to work together, because they are all at risk
in various ways if this matter is not resolved. We must use our diplomacy to
encourage regional co-operation. The strongest way to do that is to encourage,
support and challenge Governments in the Middle East to be truly reflective of
the people who make up their nations. We have seen this in Iraq, where the
Government have to be representative of all sects, all religions and both men
and women to make people feel that they are part of a nation state,” said
Baroness Warsi..
Problems posed a threat to the
UK
Speaking about the problems, Baroness Warsi said, “The
noble Lord, Lord Parekh, gave his detailed analysis of the extent of the
problem and how it poses a threat to the United Kingdom. … As the Secretary of
State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs stated earlier this week, we
estimate that the number of UK-linked individuals who have travelled to Syria
to fight is approximately 400. Not all of them are fighting alongside extremist
groups, but inevitably some are fighting with ISIL. We are working with
community and faith leaders and charities to better understand and tackle the
issues of UK-linked individuals travelling overseas to fight.”
How to deal with them
Answering to The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Derby
who raised an important point: how do we deal with these individuals, either
before they go out or when they come back? Baroness Warsi said, “How do we
ensure the broader Muslim community is kept on board during this time? Noble
Lords may be aware of Pew research and Gallup polls that show the British
Muslim community’s trust in institutions, including the judiciary and
Parliament, is higher than that of other groups. It is important that we
preserve that element of trust, belief in the rule of law and sense of fairness
that are fundamental British values. The research shows British Muslims are
already signed up to those British values.”
Birmingham Schools
Speaking about the Birmingham Schools, Baroness Warsi
mentioned, “The noble Lord, Lord Parekh, referred to the situation in
Birmingham schools. We must make sure that in this process we do not lose the
governors, those who have become involved in parent teachers associations
and those who have become teachers. These are the very people whom many,
including me, have been encouraging over the past decade to get involved in the
process. We must not do anything to disengage people from the process; we must
keep encouraging them to engage.
What is the future of European Islam
Speaking about European Islam, Baroness Warsi argued,” The
right reverend Prelate asked: what is the future of European Islam? The only
way that I can reference that is by using an analogy that I have used many
times. Islam is like a river and it takes the colour of the bed over which it
flows. It is not culturally or geographically specific. Therefore, Chinese
Muslims will look very different from North African Muslims, Pakistani Muslims
and European Muslims. The bed over which European Islam will flow is Europe.”
Iraq is a serious issue
Speaking about the seriousness of Iraq, Baroness Warsi
said, “Our wish is for the people of Iraq to live in a peaceful, stable and
secure environment, and the actions of ISIL are in direct contradiction to
this. Our objective is to see a prosperous and stable Iraq. As well as a strong
security response by the Iraqi forces, there needs to be a strong, inclusive
political solution.”
£5millions Humanitarian Support
Baroness Warsi also disclosed, “We have also responded by
providing humanitarian support. Noble Lords may be aware that my right
honourable friend the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs
informed the House of Commons on Monday that the United Kingdom is providing £2
million to NGOs for emergency relief following ISIL’s advances, and £1 million
to the UNHCR for mobile protection teams and to establish camps. On 18 June, my
right honourable friend the Prime Minister announced an additional £2 million
to bring the UK’s contribution up to £5 million in humanitarian assistance.”
Definition of Jihad
Speaking about Jihad, Baroness Warsi said, “The noble Lord,
Lord Ahmed, spoke about the definition of “jihad”. He raised an important point
about using accurate and measured language in trying to find a solution to
these matters. It is a subject that I spoke about earlier this year in a speech
at the Sultan Qaboos Grand Mosque in Muscat. To fight for freedom of religion
or belief wherever it may be and whichever religion an individual chooses to
follow or, indeed, not to follow is a government priority. Dare I say that
making freedom of religion and belief my own human rights priority is my jihad?”
Sectarianism and religious
intolerance
Baroness Warsi said, “In relation to sectarianism and
religious intolerance fuelling the Middle East, we and our allies are committed
to continuing to work with regional partners to counter this. We will not allow
the violence of a minority to threaten the safety and security of those living
within the region and further afield, including in the United Kingdom. We will
use the full range of UK counterterrorism powers to tackle the supporters of
terrorist activity linked to the region.”
“We will also continue to tackle the political and
humanitarian issues that are fundamental to conflict prevention in many parts
of the world. We will of course continue to make sure that we stem the flow of funds
to terrorists—to which, again, the right reverend Prelate referred—and keep
looking for effective ways to stop individuals from bypassing current laws on
terrorist finance..”
Incredibly challenging problems
There is no easy solution to these incredibly challenging
problems, said Baroness Warsi and added, “They have to be dealt with in so many
ways: for example, through political dialogue, support for regimes; encouraging
regimes to be representative of all people in their states; making sure that
British Muslim communities are kept on board during this process; and ensuring
that we use measured language. Ultimately, we need to ensure that what we are
looking for is a solution. It is those basic premises that will help us find a
solution to an incredibly complex problem.”
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