Talking about 9/11… as a Muslim

I remember that 9/11 was a Tuesday. I remember coming back home after spending the morning studying at the library. I remember my two parents on the couch, watching TV, my father turning his head to me and telling me “Look, look! Planes crashed into the two big buildings, you know the ones in New York, and they collapsed!“. I laughed; I was thinking it was one of those jokes of my dad, that he was trying to convince me that this Hollywood movie he was watching was real news. But common’, you can’t destroy iron and concrete buildings just like this, can you? “No, Look, look! Wallah it’s true news!“. I sat with them. It was true; the Twin Towers had collapsed.

Thinking back of this moment, I don’t think I realized then the event would become a turning point in the world History. Not that I was not ‘impressed’ by the death toll, the horror of the images or the amount of testimonies of the apocalyptical hours, but to be honest when you’re a 80′s kid, when you grew up watching on TV thousands of Bosniacs, Rwandese, Iraqis, Somalians, Palestinians, etc dying, you just end up believing blood is the new world currency countries give and take from each other. New deaths, old business.

Maybe it is horrible to say so, but if I was completely surprised and horrified by the method of the attacks, I was not shocked by the target (the United States). Yes, that particular event was unexpected, but all in all, we knew some attack will happen, sooner or later.We knew it; as well as alas we knew too the reponse of the United States: a blood bath that would make tens of thousands more victims than the 9/11.

This is not relativism. I feel really sorry for the human lives lost, for the 3000 victims, for the tragedy of the families. I admire the firemen that saved lives by losing theirs. I hope they rest in peace. But when among all the testimonies I heard hundreds of ‘We will never forget‘ and ‘Never again‘, I was thinking ‘Of course… but this does not apply only to you, it applies to us too. Don’t you understand we couldn’t forget?‘. Yes, 9/11 was barbary, but in a word ruled by a barbaric imperialism, violent responses sometimes hit back. In particular, the Arab and Muslim World, in the post-WWII and post-cold war period, paid the highest price for American appetite for conquest. Muslims, Arabs and non-Arabs, tried peace, tried indifference, tried diplomacy, tried cooperation, tried NGO’s, tried UN, tried it all. It was only a matter of time until some of them will try violence, whether they were right or wrong in taking that option in consideration.

Who are really Al-Qaeda and what do they really fight for? I don’t know, all I know is that what comes before and after Al-Qaeda did not start nor end with it; however, undoubtlessely, the only scar in the face of the American hegemonic Empire, at that time of History, only Al-Qaeda could do it, and for the world to evolve into a multipolar, fairest world, this first scar was a terrible mandatory step. A fairest world is probably not the ultimate goal of Al-Qaeda, sure, but here we are, one decade later, on our way into a multipolar fairest world.

9/11 impacted on the life of every Muslim, directly or indirectly. For us for example, Muslims in Europe, we had to face one decade of growing racism and islamophobia, partly due to 9/11. All of us, all, we had endlessly to justify ourselves for being Muslims, we had to ‘explain’ that violence was not implicit part of the religion, that extremism was not representative of all we are, that 9/11 and other attacks were not a religious phenomenon but merely a geopolitical phenomenon. As if we were all put on trial after 9/11. And even one decade later, we still have every couple of days a new person popping out of nowhere that knew nothing on Islam, on Muslims or on Muslim World, but confident enough to lecture us about what we are and what we should be.

In the words of those we had to confront, there was more than a naive fear of the unknown, there was too often a belief of being superior, civilized and in charge of civilizing. At the end we all got tired of explaining again and again and again; tired answering the same questions from the same people who knew our answers for having already heard them, but who chose to be deaf to them. Always the same topics, more or less in the same order: djihad, shariaa, burqa/niqab, excision. But for some reason, if we ended up hating the questions we didn’t hate the questioners, nor the very reason of them to question us: were they aware of the fact that it is because the Ummah is more than a vague theoretical concept they instinctively felt that world Muslims were an informal global community sharing the outcome of the good and bad experiences of its members?

One decade later, the world has changed: the bloody wars against terrorism, the global economical crisis, the Arab revolutions, the Oslo blast, Wikileaks. In all these, there is enough evidence for who is not blind to aknowledge the threat does not come from Islam and Muslims but from imperialism, materialism, greed, fierce capitalism and nihilistic hate. My own cure against the dark sides of my soul, I found it in the Quran. And  I don’t care if you find it in the Bible, in the Torah, in art or in the eyes of your child or if you are still looking for it, as long as you understood that life is about bringing light into the night, you are my brother (or sister!) in Humanity.

Ben Laden’s death has fed America’s appetite for blood, not for justice

President Obama’s “Justice has been done” is trending: on TV, in papers, on the web, even in casual conversations. Ossama Ben Laden’s arrest/death was wished by most of the Americans for now a decade. The outburst of joy depicted us an indecent at ease with itself thirst of blood within Americans.The American President was not the only one to see his approval rating jumping: following results of a poll held after Ben Laden’s death, 1/3 of the Americans are now in favor of detention of innocents in Guantanamo, more than half of Americans believe their mission in Afghanistan is not complete and about 44% think is winning its “War on Terror”.

The conclusion we can draw here is horrific in itself: we wrongly interpreted these last years’ growing opposition of Americans to the murderous wars in Iraq and in Afghanistan as ideological humanist positions of people becoming progressively aware of the fact that these wars are slaughtering civilians and unhappy they were fooled on the reality on the battlefield; now we see that they were disapproving them not because the wars were ethically wrong but only because they were losing them. In short: a dominating opportunistic point of view, not an ethical one.Those who wanted their “boys” back, were not asking for it in purpose of stopping this continuous rape of countries sovereignty and peoples lives: it was merely a “hunger strike” to protest against the fact that their thirst of blood was not adequately satisfied; consumers were unhappy to have been promised the finest beef tournedos and are brought only cheap industrial poultry. And now that they tasted Ben Laden’s blood, the appetite for destruction is just increasing. The lowest part of the being needs to be fed with revenge, humiliation inflicted to others.

America learnt nothing on why in the first place the rest of the World is so keen to be fed with anti-American feelings: their attitude consisting of making prevail their interests and profits over anything else, including any form of ethics, careless of the protests and opposition their acts might encounter, as long as they have enough weapons to crush them. After all, did Barack Obama mean anything else when he says during his announcement on Ben Laden’s death: “ tonight, we are once again reminded that America can do whatever we set our mind to. “.

And what comes next? I mean after Muslims paid with 900’000 lives the price of “justice”, will people of Afghanistan, Iraq or Pakistan be given the right to live a normal life, without US troops on their territories? Families of the World Trade Center had their “justice” when Al-Qaeda leader passed away, will the Muslims have right to relief (yes, just relief, since “justice” is affordable only for those who own drones), in seeing the end of the “War on Terror” that was imposed on them? The US have given their answer: no.

First because US officials notified it extremely clearly: Ben Laden’s death is not the end of the war. It is understood that it was much of a high psychological impact, but as this assassination does not disrupt the organizational scheme of Al-Qaeda, a lot has still to be done to fulfill the goals of the “War on Terror”.

Second, this “victory”, by justifying the massive investment of Bush and Obama into the wars, opens the door to a more aggressive global military policy. A first clear sign was given in this direction, when on May 7th a drone attack was launched in Yemen targetting the leader of Al-Qaeda in the Arabic Peninsula, the American-Yemeni Anwar Al-Awqali, failing in killing him but causing the death of two men. For now like for the last 10years, US is nor bothered nor concerned about this kind “collateral damages”. If it is to kill 5 or 10 millions Muslims around the world in addition just to reach their targets and pursue their agenda, so be it. People of Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan (and soon Iran?) are, for the US foreign policy, no more than insects they can crush without any apology, without any shame. Americans will slowly reconciliate with torture as now it was proven that “it works“, Obama promise to close Guantanamo Bay camp became secondary. Fundings will continue to be granted. Muslims will continue to be killed.

When looking back to the last decade, one has the bitter feeling that US did not understand anything during this war on terror: if efforts were engaged to suppress the roots of the hatred they inspire to Al-Qaeda as well as to the rest of Muslims, even the moderates (even the modern educated revolutionnary egyptian and tunisian youth praised by all worldwide medias have shown their rejection of US strategy in the Arab World in boycotting Hillary Clinton’s visit in Egypt and Tunisia), they would have won the war. If they had fought the aggressive imperialism they submit the world with, they would have gained the sympathy of all. We wanted to believe in a change. All throughout Africa and the Muslim world, we have seen people celebrating Barack Obama’s election in 2008 and Cairo speech in 2009, simply because somewhere, we all thought that a half-African man could be the perfect person to understand what it is to stand on the other side of the barrier, to understand the expressions of despair from populations starving, not accessing education or medication, living in unstable or tyrannic state… for the unique reason that most of the policies that rule our countries are not decided in our parliaments, but in the White House, following interests far from the local population wishes and needs. It didn’t take long for the optimists we all were  to be disappointed.

The truth is that since the end of the second World War, the United States won every battle but lost every war (Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan). Operations were always fulfilled, targets were always reached. But because their outrageous imperialism/neo-colonialism  inspired each day more new opponents than it could kill, making the distance to go to the finishing line of their quest increasing after each step instead of decreasing. Now in killing Ossama Ben Laden, they just added one more item on their list of shameful records during their lost War on Terror. Terror was not eliminated, it only changed its location: the crowds celebrating the death of one man are showing how much terrorized they are from the inside, to the point to “need” that blood to reassure themselves, to simulate their lost sense of justice, while the Muslim and Arab World experiencing the first days of the “Arab Spring” ousting the Oriental puppets of an Almighty West that lost track on the too numerous files they try to handle, the first and only targets in number of victims of the War on Terror, only increase in courage to claim their opposition to an unfair world, building nations where “justice has been done” won’t be just an empty statement.

By dying, Ossama Ben Laden won his last battle

There is nearly nobody on the 7 billion people on our planet talking about anything else than Ben Laden’s death at the moment. When the American President Obama spoke late night, bringing the news that was already largely spread on all social networks and TV broadcasts of the killing of the most feared man on Earth after a hunt of nearly 10 years, he sounded victorious. “Justice has been done“, he argued. Really?

When one sticks to the facts, one is forced to conclude that:

1. Apparently Ossama Ben Laden was not hidden in mountains, under the ocean or on Planet Mars, but in a small cozy town of Pakistan, an ally nation of US. The trillions of dollars put in the wars against terrorism and the extravagant sums spent to supply the Intelligence failed to bring practical and efficient solutions to catch the most wanted man on the planet in a reasonable timing.
2. He was caught only after he clearly retired from his duties in Al-Qaeda. US totally failed at catching him while he was active, challenging the whole planet with his tapes recorded in Afghan mountains. Al-Qaeda legendary figure is dead, but Al-Qaeda works for now at least 3-4 years without Ossama Ben Laden. In a sense, he was more like a “Godfather”: highly valued and respected by his men for the “glorious” record, feared by his ennemies, but not being anymore the field guy.
3. The logistics and organization of the number 1 terrorist nebula won’t be affected by Ben Laden’s death. Ex-Number 2 who is now Number 1, Ayman Al-Zawahiri, is not a youngster anymore either and very unlikely to be technically leading Al-Qaeda; he’s just the other ‘Godfather’. The technical leadership, planning of operations, recruitment, are to find somewhere else. So to say, US have totally failed to disrupt Al-Qaeda as a criminal organization able to schedule operations and put them into practice.
4. Al-Qaeda’s emulators, such as Al-Qaeda Organization in the Islamic Maghreb or Jamaat Ansar As-Sunna, are  deeply rooted everywhere and do not depend on Al-Qaeda itself to pursue their own goals: Al-Qaeda created a template and it was successfully used to spread terrorism.
5. The release of the Wikileaks Guantanamo Files (779 detainees files, with extensive individual description, charges, medical statements) a couple of days before the “arrest” of Ossama Ben Laden are nothing but a testimony of how far had Americans to go to get very few information, with an extremely weak “return on investment”. In other words, the enigma is still unsolved. Al-Qaeda succeeded to create the most opaque organization ever (the Wikipedia pages about Al-Qaeda are among the most poorly documented), almost impossible to stop but from the inside.
6. By killing Ossama Ben Laden, any hope of a trial/instruction/interrogation is automatically suppressed, depriving anti-terrorism strategists from a number one source to key information on Al-Qaeda and depriving victims from a real justice process.
7. The war on terrorism done in Afghanistan and Iraq ruined financially America, ruined its reputation worldwide, made about a thousands times more victims than the terrorist attacks themselves, planted the seeds of the dramatic collapse of the global influence the “American Empire”: US were weakened by this decade of “shock and awe” campaign. Al-Qaeda and Ossama Ben Laden made in less than 10 years what the USSR did not achieve in 30 years of Cold War.

When in 2008 Bush administration spokesman pronounced the simple sentence “Ladies and Gentlemen – We got him.” to announce the arrest of Saddam Hussein, it did not prevent G.W. Bush from the complete failure of his policy in Iraq. Today, Ossama Ben Laden death is certainly not a victory on the battlefield, where Amrican troops can surely already prepare for an intensification of terrorist acts against Amrican interests.

Indirect consequences of a decade of Al-Qaeda threat over the world would be interesting to study. A few can be already be named: Al-Jazeera was “made” by Ben Laden tapes the same way CNN was “made” by the Gulf wars, empowering the Arab region with its first subversive towards Arab regimes and the West TV channel; virtual activism and on-line recruitment, “headless” or “structure-less” political entities constitute the jist of the method mostly developped by Al-Qaeda (some used it for terrorism, others to ask for democracy); war on terrorism weakened enough US and allies for them to lose hand and perfect control on global geostrategy (they have hard time evaluating the dangers and the appropriate answers).

At the end, they offered Ossama Ben Laden what he always wanted: to die as a “martyr”. By his political criminal acts, as incredible as it appears, he created the “post-September 11th” world he wanted, where Western nations are terrorized and violently challenged for their imperialism and let a large “heritage”: a method to aggressive resistance.

Yes, definetly, by dying, Ossama Ben Laden won his last battle.

The irrational Fear of Islamism in Europe

One of the most common fears in Europe and US towards Islam is islamism and particularely violent islamic terrorism. This fear is used by the right-winged parties to increase their popularity and their results. The descibed senario could have been written by Hollywood storytellers: angry red-eyed bearded men, women forced to wear a burqa, human bombs, non-muslims reduced to slavery, global war… the worst of it is that it works. When a majority of people actually fear islamism and terrorism, they are not faking it: they are really scared to be one day sweeped away by a Djihadist bombing or plane hijack. When in Septerber the 11th the Twin Towers collapsed, it was the beginning of a “War on Terror”. For both sides. Here you had people from Afghanistan, Pakistan or Iraq terrorized to be one of the “collateral” victims. There you had American too terrorized to take a plane if a brown skinned guy was in the same flight. “War on Terror” became a “Reign of Terror”. Nothing was better spread in the world than this feeling of terror, this panic growing from all sides. In Europe, seeing over streets veiled women became too scary, young suburbs offenders were not to help out of unemployment or boredom, they were to be recognized for what they were, fondamentalists sons of the muslim migrants, too angry to be grateful for what they were given in this civilized continent. Terror won. So from all sides people let the worst of them rule them to feel “protected”.

What is hard to understand is how this terror became so overwhelming in Europe or US. How to be that scared of terrorism, to the point of letting something 100 times worse take control of their lives . One has to go back to numbers. How many people died in September 11th? 2996 victims. In London? 56 victims. In Madrid? 200 victims. So in total 3252 victims. On the other hand the 2003 Gulf war has so far caused the death of 4759 US+Allies soldiers in Iraq and 2376 in Afghanistan. Without mentionning the number of deaths in the Iraqi and Afghan people, totalizing following estimations more than 300.000 victims (at the very least). So in order to prevent islamist terrorism we make at least 100 times more civil victims and at least twice military victims. Something here is terrifically wrong. Americans at least understood something was going wrong, so they turned their back to Bush and elected Barack Obama. President Obama is NOT a solution, and the 2 first years of his mandate show it clearly, but I have to say I really pay a tribute to American people to have been able to elect a man carrying for a second name the last name of the iraki dictator that has been their worst nightmare for years (due to Bush propaganda) and whose father is from the same religion than the one claimed by the terrorist organization that has attacked them. Half of this is not even thinkable today in Europe.

If we try to go a little more deeper into it: 10 years after September 11th, who is still scared of Islam? Europe. And, to break misconceptions, not only poor workers, uneducated, uninformed Europeans. Everyday a greater part of European citizens are more and more afraid of islamism, Islam, terrorism, migration, all in one. They fear it although they don’t see in their everyday life any consequece of this “threat” they were waiting for for now 10years. They don’t see Muslims taking power on Christians or Jews. They don’t see an increasing number of bearded men and veiled women angrily looking at them in streets. They don’t see mosques teaching djihad techniques. They don’t see all this but everytime they see something as neutral as a brown-skinned man crossing a border or an arab speaking family with 3-4kids at the street corner, they assume they are seeing all this. And at the end they really see all this in simple and normal human beings, who differ from them only in being muslim.

What is puzzling is that they are able to see great threat in tiny details but are unable to see what is really threatening them in their everyday life or even more, what is already killing them. Indeed it is totally irrational when you think of it that people are afraid of islamism that cannot reach their lives whatsoever, when so many things are making their lives terrible everyday. How aren’t they that much terrified by faithless capitalism, savage work conditions causing hundreds of people to commit suicide month after month all over Europe, so cruel society that third of the people will get depressed one day or the other and almost half of the women to scared to lose their job to have kids, so weak defense of consumers that they eat everyday food full of chemicals, pollution.

It seems to me sometimes that life in an European big city consists of waking up to a glass of milk full of artificial hormones, walking or driving to office filling their lungs with dirty particulates, sitting at office and taking orders and psychological harassement, eating a full plate of garbage reconstituted as fish nuggets at the cafeteria, coming back home to their children they see so little time a day that they already know that when they’ll get old they’ll just throw them over in a retirement house, watching news and GET SCARED about those islamists/terrorists and feel so damn secure in their own routine that they have to make everything for it to continue, to have those islamists as far from them as possible. “To make everything” includes voting for the people that will reinforce all makes their life miserable: slavery at work, poisonous chemichals in food for more cancers, nuclear energy policy that kills biodiversity and pollutes the planet with nuclear waste, less money for education, unemployment or social housing, more money and less tax for banksters, more delocalization for making more jobless. How can it be so irrational?

And by having this irrational fear of islamism, people tend to elect people that work in implementing such an unfair world, where South chokes to death and North prefer to waste away half of the planet to tranform it into transient goods, strategic weapons and public debts… what a wonderful world.