Christians are not our enemies

September 11 is a symbolic as well as significant date, marking the 4th anniversary of the destruction of the World Trade Center in New York.

The terrorists who flew the jets straight into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon were devout muslims, making this unique crime all the more threatening to me as a Muslim.

Indeed, it should worry all Muslims and their leaders, particularly the ulama (scholars of Islam). How was it possible that such a noble and peaceful religion, and indeed civilisation, could have become associated with such a heinous crime?

Professor Michael Ignattieff, Carr Professor of Human Rights at Harvard University, succinctly described the phenomenon in his recent book The Lesser Evil as a nihilistic perversion of religious doctrine. Professor Ignatieff asked:

How is it possible that the concept of “jihad” which primarily refers to the obligation of the Muslim believer to struggle against the inner weakness and corruption has been distorted into an obligation to wage an aggressive war against Jews and Americans?

Muslims will not be able to find those answers unless we are ready to admit that this terrorist attack occurred in the first place, and was committed by Muslims asserting their Muslim identity. We also need to be careful to see the world in all its complexity, and not to deal in sterotypes, particularly in the role of the United States of America.

I have had direct experience of religious terrorism, in my case Christian against Muslim. I migrated to Australia from Bosnia-Herzegovina, part of the former Yugoslavia, which was subjected to terrorism for more than 4 years (1992-1995). This was state-sponsored terrorism, strategically planned and implemented by the state of Serbia using its army, reputedly the fourth largest military machine in Europe at  the time.

These terrorists kept the Bosnian capital Sarajevo under siege for four years and ethnically cleansed two-thirds of Bosnia, expelling Muslims and Catholics from their homes. They used indiscriminate rape as an instrument of terror and  they slaughtered old men and women as well as children.

Channel 9 recently aired a program detailing the atrocities in Bosnia-Herzegovina.  In one segment armed forces were blessed by their church leaders in a special religious ritual only hours before they shot Muslim civilians. 

This terrorism was directed against the indigenous European Muslim nation. Terrorists, particularly Karadzic and Mladic, claimed that they were forced to kill Muslims in order to pre-empt genocide against Serbs and in order to protect Christian Europe from the advent of Islam that threatened its very existence.

Some Europeans actually believed Karadzic and Mladic and for 4 years European nations did nothing while more than 200,000 innocent people were killed.

In fact, some of the major European powers blamed the victims and proposed a solution, which would have rewarded the Serbian aggressor.

So here we had a terrorist action which was justified on religious grounds and supported by Europe, but the US did not follow the European policies. It decided to act, belatedly, but nevertheless it did act, to prevent the total destruction of Bosnia as a pluralistic and multi-ethnic state and to halt the further killing of Bosnian Muslims. The US punished the Serbian aggressor for the crimes it committed against Muslims in both Bosnia and Kosovo. To some extent it also managed to reverse the results of the Serbian aggression and impose peace.

What many Muslims around the world tend to forget is the fact American power in this particular case was used in order to save a predominantly Muslim country from the savagery of its Christian Orthodox neighbor, ruled by a communist dictator. A dictator, who in order to stay in power supplanted his extremist communist ideology with that of  Serbian orthodox ethno-nationalism, and who used terrorism and aggression to destroy Bosnia and Kosovo and their predominantly Muslim population.

I am disappointed when I read the false arguments of self styled anti-imperialist and anti-war ideologues, journalists, activists and even scholars, such as Noam Chomsky, Tariq Ali, John Pilger and Edward Herman who assert the American humanitarian intervention in Bosnia and Kosovo was in fact just the beginning of the so called "neo-imperial domination of the globe".

These intellectuals would want us to believe the war in Iraq  is the continuation of that "neo-imperial" strategy.

These "anti-war" scholars ignore inconvenient and salient facts. Saddam Hussein was one of the closest allies and collaborators of Slobodan Milosevic of Serbia who was responsible for the genocide of more than 200,000 European Muslims and the rape of 50,000 Muslim women.

While this might appear to be of no relevance to  anti-war scholars it is of relevance to me  personally and I think it should also be relevant to all Muslims including Australian Muslims.

The behaviour of great powers and their global imperatives are imposed on them by their very preponderance of power. In Bosnia and Kosovo the US clearly acted in the interests of Muslims. It certainly wasn't to ensure supplies of oil as Bosnia and Kosovo are relatively poor countries in terms of their natural resources.

Having said all this I do not mean to say that it is justifiable to kill tens of thousands of civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan in an attempt to kill several hundred terrorists or in an attempt to rid Iraq of its dictator. The loss of innocent lives is tragic and can never be sufficiently justified. But neither can the brutal oppression of the majority of the Muslim Shia population in Iraq who for decades were denied their legitimate rights to look after their own affairs. The jury is still out as far as Iraq is concerned and we don't know whether they will be able to fulfill their aspirations or not. But we hope they will, as the recent elections and the constitutional processes have confirmed.

What is sure is that it will be more difficult for Muslims to realise our aspirations for our place in the world if we do not clearly analyse the roles played by all parties in recent terror events. That includes the role of those who claim to be our religious brothers, such as al-Qaida, and those countries who are characterised as being Christian and "neo-imperialist".