The 'War on Extremism' Must Begin on Home Turf

Author: Shahan Mufti

On Sept. 11 the world was offered a new lens through which to view the world. While Osama bin Laden's violent call to the Arab and Muslim world went unheeded and failed to gather much support, on this side of the Atlantic our local mad man George Bush managed to convince state after state to adopt this new lens. It was the lens of extremism that many embraced. In an ironic twist of events it is those of the civilized West that have become the real extremists in this new world order.

In this new lens of the world a Nobel Peace Prize winner is branded nothing short of a "terrorist." It makes a man wanted for war crimes in a European country an obvious and instant choice for George Bush's "man of peace." It is through this lens that a country previously sanctioned for being undemocratic has become our closest ally in the South Asian region. Through this lens Abdul Rashid Dostum of the Northern Alliance, the great inventor of the punishment of throwing acid in women's faces for not covering up 'properly,' becomes our greatest friend in arms. "You are either with us or against us" it was decreed. The world was given a day or so to analyze, polarize and terrorize.

Indeed in this new lens of the world there is no debate, there is no analysis and there is no room for interpretation. Ask Jose Bustani who lost his job as head of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons this week for daring to propose that Saddam Hussein sign the Chemical Weapons Convention as a way of controlling his weapon development. Mr. Bustani seems to have had forgotten that through this new lens of extremism, we solve world problems through bombs, not brainless treaties.

In this new lens of ours we do not allow for oppressed minorities under severe persecution to resist a tyrannical oppressor. Why? Because in this new world there is no such thing as oppression or history or injustice or persecution or resistance. These very same things that are an integral part of the history and independence of this very country cannot exist any longer for in this new vision of the world there is only 'terrorism.' George Washington was surely once a 'terrorist' in London and I thank god there was no 'war on terrorism' then, for surely it would have sanctioned a legal 'targeted assassination' on him along with all those terrorist who supported him on this North-American continent. I thank god there was no 'war on terrorism' after World War II for surely every single anti-colonial freedom movement in South America, Africa and Asia would have been obliterated in a bloody mess by bombs from overhead. I thank god that the blacks in South Africa achieved freedom before the start of the bogus 'war on terror,' for surely it would have swallowed them up just as well and the great Nelson Mandela would have been publicly hung for his terrorist designs.

Yet, through this new lens, cold-blooded murder in a uniform can go unchecked for the fight against 'terrorism' is far more important than mere humanitarian law. If threatened with what it decides to call 'terrorism,' a state is allowed to pillage with no limit. Sharon's army left Jenin flattened and a Red Cross worker commented that 12 years of covering conventional war did not prepare her for what she saw and smelt there afterwards. If she had only viewed this through this new lens she would have clearly seen that all those buried under the rubble were obviously terrorists. Maybe except the women and children; they were just collateral damage. Even in the now long forgotten Afghanistan, the civilian death toll is at least double of what the total death toll was in the World Trade Center and Pentagon. But bridges, sheep, cattle, dogs, farmers, villagers and shantytown dwellings — they all look the same through this lens and it is so very comforting to our minds.

In our new extremist vision, terrorism has become the "most important and dangerous problem facing mankind today." It is in fact so dangerous that a near $400 billion United States defense budget is being passed while nearly 40 million Americans today are without any sort of health coverage. Through this new lens petty issues like the health of the dying and elderly is trivial in the pursuit to kill 'evil.' Crises like the AIDS epidemic can surely wait while we wipe out evil from the world — how long can it take after all? And we collectively march blindly.

The success with which George Bush has made an extremist world has surely turned Osama bin Laden green with envy. I suppose he can take comfort in the fact that he doesn't have CNN on his side. Yet this new lens continues to be offered by the great thinkers of our time on both sides of the battlefield. No matter what side one belongs you march behind the vision of extremism promoted by the likes of George Bush, Osama bin Laden, Saddam Hussein and Ariel Sharon. Once we wear this lens, we can follow in the race towards extinction by seeing who can kill more, faster.

We are all being asked to put on this lens. While Arab nations have had the wits to not follow a mad man from Saudi Arabia, Western nations have not yet had the brains to say no to the 'Mad-man from Texas.' I for one am not willing to put on this lens that blinds. Where god has replaced reason and compassion on side of the battlefield and the state has replaced it on the other, I for one am not ready to blindly follow either.