Al Jazeerah.info Opinion: Beware of Neo-Muslims and Rand Robots By Tahir Ali

Beware of Neo-Muslims and Rand Robots By Tahir Ali
Beware of Neo-Muslims and Rand Robots

By Tahir Ali

Al-Jazeerah, January 4, 2005

For the last three years, the New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman has been telling Muslims all over the world: You either have to have a war within or a war with us. A call for Muslim �civil war� has become the battle cry of the neo-cons. Using these �civil wars�, Muslims killing Muslims in large numbers, the neo-cons expect to accomplish three goals: 1) recreation of Muslim societies in Western image, with or without democratic institutions, 2) long-term control over oil and policies toward Israel, and 3) reconstruction of Islam on Biblical mo! del, reformation included.

A while back, the Rand Corporation, a semi-autonomous think tank, had issued a report titled Civil Democratic Islam: Partners, Resources, and Strategies authored by Cheryl Benard. The American Muslims must take note of because it is already being implemented in �letter and spirit� by various agencies and even �private� groups.

Though the author of this report claims: �The United States has three goals in regard to politicized Islam. First, it wants to prevent the spread of extremism and violence. Second, in doing so, it needs to avoid the impression that the United States is �opposed to Islam.� And third, in the longer run, it must find ways to help address the deeper economic, social, and political causes feeding Islamic radicalism and to encourage a move toward development and democratization�, its actual aims are discernable from its policy recommendations detailed below.

Cheryl Bernard, the author of this report, claims: �This approach seeks to strengthen and foster the development of civil, democratic Islam and of modernization and development. It provides the necessary flexibility to deal with different settings appropriately, and it reduces the danger of unintended negative effects. The following outline describes what such a strategy might look like:

1) �Support the modernists first, enhancing their vision of Islam over that of the traditionalists by providing them with a broad platform to articulate and disseminate their views. They, not the traditionalists, should be cultivated and publicly presented as the face of contemporary Islam.

2) �Support the secularists on a case-by-case basis.

3) �Encourage secular civic and cultural institutions and programs.

4) �Back the traditionalists enough to keep them viable against the fundamentalists (if and wherever those are our choices) and to prevent a closer alliance between these two groups.

5) �Within the traditionalists, we should selectively encourage those who are the relatively better match for modern civil society. For example, some Islamic law schools are far more amenable to our view of justice and human rights than are others.

6) �Finally, oppose the fundamentalists energetically by striking at vulnerabilities in their Islamic and ideological postures, exposing things that neither the youthful idealists in their target audience nor the pious traditionalists can approve of: their corruption, their brutality, their ignorance, the bias and manifest errors in their application of Islam, and their inability to lead and govern.� (P. 47-48)

After making these recommendations the author goes on the say: �Some additional, more-direct activities will be necessary to support this overall approach, such as the following:

1) �Help break the fundamentalist and traditionalist monopoly on defining, explaining, and interpreting Islam.

2) �Identify appropriate modernist scholars to manage a Web site that answers questions related to daily conduct and offers modernist Islamic legal opinions.

3) �Encourage modernist scholars to write textbooks and develop curricula.

4) �Publish introductory books at subsidized rates to make them as available as the tractates of fundamentalist authors.

5) �Use popular regional media, such as radio, to introduce the thoughts and practices of modernist Muslims to broaden the international view of what Islam means and can mean.� (p. 48)

Three key factors are crystal clear about this report: 1) The author of this report seeks to redefine Islam, 2) find and promote Muslim leaders and intellectuals of their choice and 3) involve Western governments in reorganizing and transforming Islam; by persuasion when possible and by force when necessary.

The First Amendment reads: �Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.�

Notwithstanding the fact that this report clearly violates the First Amendment, since its publication in 2003, various groups and organizations have put Cheryl Benard�s recommendations into action. A number of Muslims have been co-opted by neo-cons and by various Rand Report implementation teams.

Though it is true that people under assault can always tell the difference between a Nelson Mandela and a Chief Buthalazi, even if the powers-that-be may label Mandela as a �terrorists� and Zulu Chief Buthalazi as the �moderate�, it is still useful even necessary to remain vigilant about these planted agents who are now being programmed like robots to say and to whatever these think tanks want them to say and do.

How can one recognize these Muslims Neo-Cons and these Rand Robots? Well here are a few hints:

Their assignment is to trigger multiple civil wars. You will find them promoting conflict among Muslims, by clever means of course. You will find them attacking any effort or entity promoting unity, clarity of purpose, or Muslim self-empowerment. One of their main assignments is to prevent emergence of a unified American Muslim agenda. You will find them inventing clever methods to undermine and dilute Muslim identity. Their job is to prod to Muslims to participate as individuals, not as a community. You will find them using shrewd slogans to get American Muslims to shed any all support and affinity for issues and causes of freedom justice in Palestine, Kashmir, and elsewhere. Their assignment is to leave the field wide open for the other side. You will find them exploiting every fault line within the American Muslim community. For example, deploying every conceivable stratagem to create misunderstanding and lack of amity among indigenous and immigrant Muslims. You will find them undermining American Muslim struggle for civil right and human liberties. You will find them not only refuting the neo-cons but actually working with and for the neo-cons. You will find them creating confusion, hopeless, helplessness, and purposeless in the community. You will find them attacking everyone else but never taking responsibility for any cause or crisis. Their ultimate assignment is to undermine the American Muslim community by undermining its primary values, its main ideas, its representative institutions and its primary modes of self-empowerment and self-representation.

What these Muslim neo-cons and Rand Robots are seeking is not reform but intellectual and moral surrender. However, there is one important difference between Muslim neo-cons and Rand Robot: the Muslim neo-cons do not attack Islam or Prophet of Islam, the Rand Robot do.

Remember, in the war of wits, mind is the ultimate target but mind is also the ultimate weapon.

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* Tahir Ali is the author of the book, �The Muslim Vote: Counts and Recounts� It has been published by Wyndham Hall in 2004 and is available at Amazon.com.

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Earth, a planet hungry for peace

Apartheid Wall

The Israeli Land-Grab Apartheid Wall built inside the Palestinian territories, here separating Abu Dis from occupied East Jerusalem. (IPC, 7/4/04).

The Israeli apartheid (security) wall around Palestinian population centers in the West Bank, like a Python. (Alquds,10/25/03).

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