"Coexistence with Islamic Fundamentalism?"

George Katsiaficas

To my great fortune, I am not now in the US. I am
fortunate not because I fear anthrax or other terrors
but rather because my mind and soul are not being
inalterably stamped by the patriotic media onslaught
and chauvinism swirling through the country with
greater strength than a tornado. During the last such
nationalistic maelstrom (the Iran hostage crisis in
1979) I was also lucky enough to have been living
abroad. I mention my location because my
perspective -- worlds apart from the vast majority of
Americans -- will probably seem quite un-American.In South Korea, emergent grassroots viewpoints bear
little resemblance to those in the US. The 20th
Century was singularly brutal here, beginning with an
unspeakably harsh Japanese occupation and
colonization, through the bloody suppression of
post-World War 2 anti-US uprisings and the subsequent
annihilation of millions of people and destruction of
nearly the entire peninsula's infrastructure during
the Korea War. The frozen state of war since 1953
continues to abet dictatorial tendencies in both
Koreas. Through decades of tremendous sacrifices and
heroic struggles, the South Korean people won the
beginnings of liberty, a semblance of democracy and
enough wealth to become consumers. Through it all US
corporations have profited enormously. When the
heartland of America was hit on September 11, many
here -- including those normally sympathetic to the
US -- secretly celebrated and privately expressed
satisfaction that a country which has inflicted so
much pain has come to experience that which it has so
painlessly exported. Universally hated and reviled in
the US, Osama Bin Laden is for many Koreans a 21st
Century Che Guevara, admired for his personal
sacrifice, for his dedication to the downtrodden, and
for his ability to cross national boundaries to fight
for his ideals.

As long as Bin Laden evades capture and escapes
death, he makes the world's sole superpower appear
weak. Seoul school children are reported to sing songs
praising him, with elementary, middle and high school
students each having made up their own lyrics and
melodies. As the US prepares to take its next steps in
the war on "terror," Koreans should be quite
concerned. It appears that North Korea might become
one of the next targets. In 11 months, the Bush
administration has yet to have any serious talks with
the North, thereby effectively scuttling Kim
Dae-Jung's sunshine policy. Recently, North Korea was
named by the US as one of the producers of weapons of
mass destruction, and some Congressional Republicans
called on Bush to take a firm hand with Iraq and North

Korea. Opinion polls show 78% of Americans favor war
with Iraq.

The Bush administration has a unique window of
opportunity to have its way with the world. Not one
government outside Iraq (as far as I know) opposed the
war in Afghanistan. While the German government, Kofi
Annan and others are against escalation of the war to
Iraq, I suspect they would fall in line if the US
acted unilaterally. For 11 years, the US and Britain
have steadily bombed Iraq, and if their coming
escalation brings a quick and easy victory, Bush and
Co. would be so headstrong that taking on North Korea
would not be inconceivable. Russia and China might
acquiesce, particularly since they would probably be
left untouched while Japan and South Korea (China's
main regional competitors) would probably be largely
destroyed -- and have to be rebuilt. Since 1929, war has
been the primary solution to stagnation in the world
economy. Currently, the US has over 250,000 troops in
141 countries. With the high tech sector appearing to
have run its course for now and the airlines industry
contracting, what avenue besides war is there for
renewed growth?

The US could have responded to September 11 in a
manner quite different than it has. Why not withdraw
troops from Saudi Arabia and compel the creation of a
Palestinian state? Neither of these measures would
create any great hardship for the US. Could it be
that the US economy, dependent more than ever on war
for its health, demands military action? Or is it a
form of military madness? I am reminded of the Sean
Connery movie, The Rock. Taking over Alcatraz island,
a group of army officers aims weapons of mass
destruction at San Francisco, demanding $100 million
for the destitute families of servicemen who
sacrificed their lives in secret wars. Despite the
real threat that millions of people might be killed,
the authorities never even discuss paying the $100
million (a paltry sum). In the current crisis, it
similarly appears the US government has not
considered fundamentalists' grievances -- despite the
very real dangers faced by people
all over the world.

While the need for constraining the US military has
seldom been so necessary, much of the world peace
movement supported the war against the Taliban. The
Germans Greens, whose founding principle is pacifism,
have served a key role in legitimating the US war
(to say nothing of the first foreign deployment of
German combat troops since Hitler). Historical
parallels can be found in the German Social Democrats
support of the Kaiser in World War I and in the French
Communist Party's support for the war in Algeria. In
the US, many progressives mirror the Bush
administration's comparison of the Taliban and the
Nazis, a mistaken analysis that makes any offensive
action seem proper.

Professor Richard Falk of Princeton University, widely
respected for his condemnation of the Vietnam War
based on principles of international law, called the
war in Afghanistan, "the first truly just war since
World War II." A recent article in the International
Herald Tribune quoted a centrist Democrat as saying it
"astonishing how little anti-war agitation there has
been on the left" in the US. Even those few professors
who publicly advocated peace soon after September 11
were accused of being unpatriotic by Lynne Cheney (the
Vice-President's wife who is herself a powerful
conservative voice since being head of the National
Endowment of the Humanities during the first Bush
administration).

Watching students in Kwangju march against the war, I
lamented the US peace movement's paltry efficacy, its
failure of insight and inabilitto affect peoples'
consciousness. It appears that the US government will
be free to channel America's vast resources into a
long war. Watching the BBC world news (CNN is not part
of my cable package), I marvel at the sophisticated
pageantry of the falsely elected American president.
George Bush is the son of a former president who is
now a business associate of the Bin Laden family and
was then affiliated with Contra cocaine dealers, and
the grandson of industrialists who were highly placed
Nazi collaborators. Yet he portrays himself as the
champion of human rights and individual liberty as he
bombs already devastated Afghanistan further into the
Stone Age.

Although Tony Blair served as point man in the
disinformation campaign about mushrooming Taliban
heroin production in their final days as government,
the UN reported that it plummeted last year by as much
as 90%. Poppy flowers, however, were recently reported
to have proliferated in Uzbekistan, and have been seen
being planted in Afghanistan?after the US-backed
Northern Alliance won battlefield victories.

Surfing the web, I?ve followed with dismay the recent
expansion of Southern Air Transport, Evergreen and
other CIA-owned or related airlines in Tashkent,
Uzbekistan. Not coincidentally, Richard Secord (chief
operative in support of the Indochinese heroin
Mafia during the Vietnam War and cover man for Contra
cocaine dealers in the 1980s) has been reported
recently to have twice visited there.

If US progressives are to have any chance of
intervening in the current constellation of
forces, to change the direction of the world?s great
powers currently lined up for a long-term war on
Islamic fundamentalism and Arab nationalism, we first
need to rethink radically our perspectives and values.
The American movement?s anguished expressions
of sorrow and condemnation of a ?crime against
humanity? after September 11?and silence or muted
criticism of civilian casualties caused by US bombing
in Afghanistan or Israeli F-16s in Gaza City?are
indications of how the entire country marches in
lock-step to the tunes played by a propaganda system
that values some lives above others. Anti-Semitism
continues in the media stereotypes and public hatred,
not of Jewish bankers and communists as with the
Nazis, but of Arab oil sheiks and ?terrorists.? The US
public passively accepts the deaths of 500,000 Iraqi
children from our blockade and cheers its renewal.

Although many progressives express regret, it is
nowhere near the intensity of their emotions after the
killing of less than 1% as many human beings in New
York. Even in death, people remain loyal to
superiority of the American way of life?no matter what
the cost to the rest of humanity. As for the wretched
of the earth, if their anti-imperialist movements do
not accept our values, our notions of feminism and gay
liberation, of ?democratic? elections and individual
?freedom,? then to hell with them?no solidarity, no
sympathy and certainly no legitimacy.

In the case of Islamic fundamentalism,nearly all
Western commentators view it as purely reactionary?as
a misguided response to American cultural imperialism
and military intervention. Such a view denies Islamic
fundamentalism agency in its own right. Once again it
is we who are the creators and they the mud we mold.
Scarcely anyone has even bothered to glance at Islam?s
history or to undertake a cursory glimpse of its
philosophy. If they did, they would immediately see
that unlike the Torah or the Bible, the entire Koran
is thought to be the word of God, not of mere men. I
mention this not to privilege one religion above
another but to indicate an autonomous motivation for
Islamic fundamentalism. For those fundamentalists who
take their holy book literally, god?s commandments
about everyday life are loud and clear. As far back
as the 12thCentury?during the time Averroes was
writing and the West was in a backward state?Islamic
fundamentalism reared its head. How then can it be
reduced to a response to Western modernization?

Nowhere in our universe of discourse is recognition of
the piety and dignity of millions of Moslem
fundamentalists. They are a minority of Moslems, and
their recent destruction of Buddhist statues, like the
Taliban/Saudi treatment of women, are actions that I
detest. Nonetheless, I simply cannot devalue their
lives and disregard their struggles. I value life?all
life?a value trampled upon by nearly all the world?s
organized religions with respect to non-believers. For
that reason (and others) religious states for me are
inherently problematic. No doubt many people will find
it difficult to regard Islamic fundamentalism as
having any positive attributes. That is all the more
reason why peaceful coexistence is vitally needed.
Thanks to the internet, I?ve been able to tune in to
many American Leftists? thinking
since September 11.

In almost all cases, intolerance and black/white
categories animate discussion of the ?enemy.? Writing
in The Nation on November 5, Katha Pollitt observed
that unlike the Vietnam War, ?This time, our own
country has been attacked, and the enemies are
deranged fanatics.? On October 14, Nation editor and
LA Weekly columnist Marc Cooper called them
?atavistic, religious fascists whose world view is
diametrically opposed to all humanitarian and
progressive morality.? Another respected commentator
(whom I shall not name because her comments were
circulated on a private listserve) maintained that
fundamentalism?s ?doctrine of intolerance simply
cannot stand in contemporary society if we are to
evolve towards peace and cooperation.? Intolerance of
intolerance?

These examples flow from an inability to respect
difference and a notion that there is only one just
way of life. If the Left continues to impose a
monocentric notion of justice, a concept most
articulately expressed in the work of Jurgen Habermas
and noted feminist theorist Seyla Benhabib, peace will
never be realized. Alternative views can be found
coming from Nelson Mandela, who endorsed limited
autonomy for white homelands, and Fred Hampton (leader
of the Black Panthers murdered by the FBI and
Chicago police in 1969) who insisted that white power
should belong to white people.

To appreciate the Eurocentric content of many
Leftists? perspective on Islamic fundamentalism,
consider for a moment the case of Poland?s Solidarity
movement. Despite Solidarity?s patriarchy and
religious conservatism, much of the Left fawningly
celebrated it because it fit the working-class
definition of a revolutionary subject. Daniel
Singer carefully documented these backward dimensions
of Solidarity in his book on that subject, and he
warned us not to judge social movements from our own
values but within the context of their concrete
existence.

Before the collapse of the French empire, two
disastrous defeats in colonial wars, one in
Vietnam and the other in Algeria, ended French dreams
of global glory (and inflicted millions of deaths upon
indigenous peoples). US imperial ambitions have
already cost the lives of over 2 million Indochinese.
As in Vietnam, the US may win nearly every battle in
its war with Islamic fundamentalism and Arab
nationalism (the 1991 Gulf War, deposing the Taliban
and current attempts to kill Osama Bin Laden) but
there is little doubt in my mind that the US will
never win this war. Moslems fought for centuries to
liberate Crusader-held lands, especially Jerusalem
(third holiest site for Islam where few
Moslems are now permitted).

Does anyone realistically expect them to persevere any

less in the face of contemporary Western penetration
of Islamic holy sites? With the bottomless pit of its
war against Islamic fundamentalism and Arab
nationalism, the American empire?s aura of military
invincibility will be shattered. Assuming the
accuracy of the above observation, two large questions
emerge: As pax Americana declines, what will be the
nature of the subsequent global order? What will
become of Israel? Within the context of current power
relations?i.e. concentration of military might in
nation-states?optimists posit a United Nations
controlled global military to insure justice and
protect the powerless as an alternative to (or in
spite of) US military hegemony.

While a single world military would unquestionably
represent a giant step from militarized nation-states,
saving humanity untold trillions of dollars in
war-related expenditures and sparing incalculable
suffering inflicted daily by militaries the world
over, the idea of a UN-controlled world military
raises several dilemmas. The most pressing is: Who
would control it? If we ourselves a brief moment of
utopian speculation (today more difficult than ever in

the aftermath of the carnage of September 11 and the
new war) few people would disagree with the
desirability of the complete abolition of weapons of
mass destruction?not just nuclear, chemical and
biological weapons but also so-called
conventional ones like fighter jets, bombers,
landmines and artillery.

If it is to be strategic, the peace movement that is
now only beginning should be directed toward the
abolition of militaries, not their reform. In a world
where even peaceful means of transportation are turned
into weapons of mass destruction, nearly everyone
would consider such a proposition foolish, but with
major weapons systems in the hands of governments, how
else can the powerless fight back? Only through the
universalization of non-military conflict resolution
will humanity?s future fate improve beyond our
abysmal reality. Of course, the destruction of the
world?s militaries would undoubtedly send the global
economic system into a disastrous depression?all the
more reason for us to discuss it as part of the need
for a completely different world system (or anti-
system).

Since the Holocaust, the safety of Jews remains of
great concern to any consideration of global justice.
As the US empire declines, Israel?s security is
certain to suffer, possibly to the point where a
Jewish state ceases to be a realistic option?even with
the use of Israel?s nuclear arsenal. As history?s
ironic dialectic turns victors into vanquished, every
Palestinian death, each missile fired at defenseless
Arabs and Afghanis only further diminishes the
security of a Jewish state in the Holy Land. With the
growing weakness of the Zionist project, what fate
will befall Israel?s millions of Jews?

Islam?s historic toleration of the Jewish religion
contrasts quite favorably with centuries of the West?s
pogroms and bigotry that culminated in the Nazi
Holocaust. Witness the fate of the Jews of Cordoba,
respected and celebrated by Moslems for their
libraries and learning, but tortured and expelled
after the Spanish conquest in 1492. If history teaches

us anything, Jews would enjoy far more rights and
privileges within an Islamic framework than anything
ever known in European history before World War 2. Far
from resonating with Islam?s history, contemporary
hatred of Jews in the Islamic world should be
understood as its very Westernization?not as a
reaction to the West?s ?superior? values.

Those who doubt the accuracy of this understanding of
the past or question its validity for the future would
especially agree that measures should now be
undertaken to protect Jews living in Israel. What
better proposal than the free emigration of Jews to
lands of their choice--most importantly to the USA?
(Lest we forget, with the collapse of the Soviet
Union, Zionist and US officials arranged for treaties
compelling Russian Jews to go to Israel, no matter how
many family members they had elsewhere and regardless
of refugees? free choice.) Israelis who choose to
remain in the Holy Land could, in the best of times,
help create a multi-religious society within the
framework of a federation of communities or secular
state in which all people could enjoy lives freed from

militarized enforcement of superior rights by any one
group.

The preceding discussion, while to me to be a sober
and realistic assessment of the long wave of
historical developments, will no doubt seem
unrealistic to many people. Few people would disagree,
however, that US foreign policy needs reevaluation.
In this context, activists in Korea can play a vital
role. A non-Islamic country with a citizenry that is
deeply concerned about war, Korea can have a voice
that speaks to governments and activists all over the
world. If people here were to mount significant
protests against the real possibility of the US war
against terror being expanded, governments would take
note and activists in the US and Europe would be
affected?maybe even inspired to act. Asian activists
would be even more impacted.

Two examples from the 1980s will help clarify my
thinking.

1. In building the movement for democracy here in the
1980s, leaders sought to find ways to unite people in
the struggle?and the answer was to call for direct
presidential elections. In June 1987, after hundreds
of thousands of people took to the streets for 19
consecutive days, that demand was realized. Movements
for democracy soon blossomed in many Asian countries:
Burma 1988, China 1989, Nepal 1990, Thailand 1992.
These revolts were related to each other and today are
all treated as forms of ?people power,? a term coined
in the Filipino revolution of 1986, itself inspired by
the Kwangju Uprising
of 1980.

2. In the early 1980s, when the US and USSR stationed
intermediate range Pershing and SS-20 nuclear missiles
in Europe, a massive peace movement suddenly appeared.

Millions of people took to the streets in London,
Rome, Paris and Bonn. The new missile deployment meant
that the US and USSR could fight a ?limited? nuclear
war in Europe without Russia or the US being directly
attacked. The European peace movement helped end the
Cold War. The emergence of the Green Party in Germany
and the presence of so many demonstrators helped
Gorbachev convince Russian generals that Western
Europe would not attack them?giving the USSR the space
to change peacefully, let go of its East European
buffer states and end the arms race.

Today, a similar situation exists in Northeast Asia,
where it is possible a regional war could be waged
without directly affecting the US. Without a visible
peace movement here, US political leaders will feel
free to expand their war on ?terror? to North Korea.
They have launched trial balloons in the form of the
above mentioned New York Times article and other
pronouncements by American leaders. If there is no
protest from Koreans, the US will take it as a sign of
approval. As in Afghanistan, they may choose to have a
?limited? war in which Koreans fight Koreans. Minimal
US casualties would surely make such a war more
palatable to the American public. Here is one
pragmatic reason why keeping US troops in Korea may
actually serve as a deterrent to war.

So long as the US exercises operational command over
the South Korean armed forces, however, the outbreak
of war is made more likely. I know of no other country
that permits its military to be governed by a foreign
power. Demanding Korean control of its military is not
only reasonable, it could also unite nearly all
Koreans?including military leaders. Such a demand
would encourage North Korean leaders to reengage the
South in dialogue as well as sending a signal to the
US that war in Korea is unacceptable. East Asia?s
importance as a market for military goods has been
increasing dramatically. After the end of the Cold
War, when demand for such products decreased in North
America, Western Europe, the former Soviet Union and
former Soviet-bloc countries, arms suppliers looked to
other markets. According to the International
Institute for Strategic Studies: ?Between 1990 and
1997, East Asia?s share of global defence imports
by value almost tripled, from 11.4% to 31.7%. In 1988,
only 10% of US arms exports went to the region. By
1997, this had increased to 25%.?

Within East Asia, South Korea?s share of military
spending in 1997 ($14.8 billion) was nearly as large
as the combined total spending of Indonesia, Malaysia,
Singapore and Thailand. Even if the US does not attack
North Korea, the need for a peace movement is strongly
indicated by these numbers. As in the 1980s, the more
recent Filipino example of expelling the US from its
huge base at Subic Bay may be an important trendsetter
for Asian anti-militarism movements today. Strategic
social movements need to inject long-term ideas into
moments of crisis. Necessary for the health of the
existing world system, militarism is a scourge that
squanders humanity?s vast resources and threatens to
destroy our hard-won accomplishments. That is one
reason why, along with a call for an end to US command

of the South Korean military, the movement here should
demand a ban on weapons of mass destruction. Koreans
have a vital interest in peace, and they need to act
resolutely now if they are to continue to maintain it
in the future.