Fwd: Interview: the second life of Al Qaeda: islamologist Gilles Kepel

[Henk Vreekamp]

REPLY TO: D66 at nic.surfnet.nl

Democs,

Wat leesvoer voor de liefhebbers die zich willen orienteren op multicult 
versus integrationisme. Uit het Vlaamse De Standaard vertaald door een 
Vlaamse GL-er:

>Delivered-To: anthro-l at LISTSERV.BUFFALO.EDU
>Date:         Sun, 5 Mar 2006 17:08:42 +0100
>
>In Iraq hundreds of deads fall at clashes between sunni and shia. In 
>Palestine terrorists win the elections. Iran resumed its nuclear 
>programme. The French islamologist Gilles Kepel sees no way out of the 
>impasse.  "In the war against terror no success has been achieved yet."
>What has the cruel assassination of a French Jew to do with the 
>destructive attack on a shiite Holy Place in Iraq? The answer is to be 
>found in the books of the French islamologist Gilles Kepel. Kepel was one 
>of the first to analyse the new face of islamic jihad.  Former Arab 
>mudjahedin who were moulded and trained in Afghan resistance against the 
>Russian occupier, tried after the war in Aghanistan, in vain to overthrow 
>the regimes 'of disbelievers' in Algeria, Egypt or Chechnya. Afterwards 
>they aimed their bombs at the distant enemy: the United States. Thus they 
>hoped to mobilise  worldwide the Islamic community in a universal jihad to 
>restore the reign of Allah."
>Gilles Kepel described that ideological evolution already in 2000, in his 
>book 'Jihad. Expansion et déclin du jihadisme'. A year later, 
>on  September 11 2001, suicide terrorists with planes attacked the Twin 
>Towers and the Pentagon, symbols of the American military and economic 
>power. Kepel became world-famous overnight.
>Today he travels from Washington to Saudi Arabia and advises Javier 
>Solana, concerning the European attitude with respect to Hamas, and 
>president Chirac, concerning both the head scarf question and French 
>Middle East politics.
>Meanwhile Gilles Kepel teaches at the prestigious college Sciences Po and 
>informs the general public with clear newspaper analyses and books. Thus 
>appeared at the end of the previous year  the translation in Dutch of 
>'Fitna. War in the heart of Islam', of which the French version dates from 
>2004. In this Kepel describes  how the jihad is doomed to fail, because 
>violence reaches exactly the contrary of what it aims at: no general 
>mobilisation, but a tearing conflict within the Moslem community, the 
>so-called fitna.
>For a way out of the impasse, Gilles Kepel puts his hope on Europe. The 
>successful integration of Islam in modern Europe can serve the Islamic 
>world for inspiration. But that's also the way Islamist have understood 
>it. For this reason they have opened in Europe a new front, with, amongst 
>others, the attacks in Madrid.
>Two years after his last book, the picture  looks darker than ever before. 
>In Iraq a civil war threatens, in Palestine the impasse is complete, in 
>London bombs exploded and in France the banlieues were on fire and a gang 
>of youths assassinated a young person because he was Jew.
>Has the French integration model Gilles Kepel always defended as an 
>alternative for the British multi-culturalism, failed after all?
>Gilles Kepel: " Both models are in crisis, but for several reasons. 
>Multicultural countries such as the Netherlands and Great Britain trusted 
>the management of identity and public safety to the leaders within each 
>community. The radical Muslim leaders of Londonistan could recruit for the 
>jihad unpunished, as long as they did not aim their arrows at the United 
>Kingdom. But the system did not appear impermeable, because by means of 
>the Internet the most radical young people discovered the 'great heroic 
>deeds' of Al Qaeda. They ignored the local leaders and proceeded to 
>action. In the Netherlands they assassinated Theo van Gogh and in London 
>they placed bombs in buses and underground railways."
>"In France the radical jihadism has not yet struck, after 9/11. We have, 
>however, known a heavy social crisis in the banlieues, and the atrocious 
>assassination of Ilan Halimi. Halimi has been kidnapped and tortured for 
>ransom, because he was Jewish. His parents got a video with the pictures 
>of Abu Ghraib from the abductors. That assassination was no jihadic action 
>in itself, but we see how a gang, for criminal acts, uses the lexicon and 
>symbols of the jihad. The symbolism of the jihad started to lead a life of 
>its own."
>"Also the troubles in the banlieues were not directly linked with Islam. 
>The burning cars were not claimed by jihadists movements, but were the 
>work of gangs of young people  with a racial or ethnic context - mainly 
>African, as a matter of fact. There were attempts to islamise the revolt, 
>after the teargas grenade at the mosque, but that has not succeeded. Riots 
>have shown that those young people do not identify themselves with the 
>French society and that France was not able to incorporate them. That is 
>the crisis of our model."
>In the cartoon riot Islam was, however, the issue. This showed how deep 
>the gap is between Islam and the European basic values.
>"The cartoons appeared at a bad moment. In the Moslem world frustration 
>about Iraq or Palestina is so large that the smallest incident is enough 
>to inflame the people's rage. The Iranian president Ahmadinejad and the 
>Syrian president Assad have taken advantage of that general anti-western 
>atmosphere  to recuperate the affair for their own interests. Assad aimed 
>the popular rage at the Danish embassies, because Europe accuses Syria to 
>be behind the assassination of Hariri. Iran accused Europe of blasphemy 
>the moment Europe threatened to bring Iran befor the Security Council 
>because of the Iranian nuclear dossier. And in Palestine the offices of 
>the largest money provider, the EU, were attacked the moment Europe 
>started to reflect on whether to continue financial aid to the Palestinian 
>authority after the election victory of Hamas."
>  "A basic principle of Islam is 'faith and break': a true Muslim breaks 
> with the unbelievers. The cartoon riot offered a dream opportunity to 
> place the European Moslems befor that dilemma: Islam or free expression 
> of opinion."
>"The European Muslims is who the Islamists are after. They consider them 
>as a potential horse of Troy to destabilise Europe. Exactly for this 
>reason it is very important to build a consensus around fundamental 
>European values. The question is now to what extent our Islamic 
>fellow-citizens are prepared to accept that European consensus concerning 
>free expression of opinion. That is a fundamental discussion and an 
>important issue in the integration debate. Only, the debate has been 
>conducted badly, because it has been only conducted in the light of the 
>rotten situation in the Middle East."
>"Those cartoons also didn't appear out of the blue sky. Terrorist attacks 
>are committed in the name of Islam. The Europeans would more easily 
>discriminate between Islam and terror if the Islamic opinion makers could 
>show that the one has nothing to do with the other. I understand that the 
>average Mohammed or Ahmed does not feel a daily urge to accuse Osama bin 
>laden. But when terrorists call themselves real Islamists, it is 
>politically very important to emphasise the difference."
>Apparently that is not so easy. The discours of Osama bin Laden and Ayman 
>Al Zawahiri  is surprisingly consistent and rational, and seems based on a 
>theological interpretation of the Islamic sources.
>"They have the advantage of the demagogy. Salafism, whether it is violent 
>or not, is the result of a contemporary second reading of the holy texts, 
>which skips the complete tradition and all large legal schools of Islam. 
>The Internet comes in very handy for them. Muslims from Jakarta to 
>Brussels have the impression that they can immerse themselves in real time 
>in texts from the time of the prophet, thanks to the magical and at the 
>same time scientific medium of the computer. The Digital reinforces the 
>sacred: it is true, because it comes from the computer."
>"Those Who want to answer salafism from the islam have to rely on a 
>discursive (reasoning) reading of the sources. That is a much more 
>complicated message. The reply exists, but it doesn't succeed in 
>expressing itself today."
>Do you  uphold your analysis that the jihad has failed?
>"It is the intention of Al Qaeda to turn an attack in a worldwide 
>mobilisation. That has not yet succeeded. Alarming is, however, that the 
>idea of violent and legitimate jihad has become popular. After 9/11 
>aversion for Al Qaeda in the Islamic world was rather general. Now, by the 
>situation in Iraq and Palestine, the anti-western feelings are rather 
>general. The jihadists scored points in Iraq and in palestine."
>  "Hamas never allowed Al Qaeda in Palestine. But Hamas itself was 
> successful turning suicide attacks in an electoral mobilisation. The 
> context is important here. Militarily the suicide attacks amounted to 
> little: Israel reacted with pointed eliminations and a security wall. 
> Israel has crushed the Palestinian society leaving president Abbas 
> without any reply . Moreover Fatah proved thoroughly corrupt. Eventually 
> only Hamas still gave expression to resistance against Israel. So 
> politically the suicide attacks have paid off. That mainly proves how 
> rotten the situation is."
>  And in Iraq?
>"In Iraq Al Qaeda has feet on the ground again somewhere for the first 
>time since 9/11, in the character of Abu Al Zarqawi. Zarqawi's agenda 
>coincided with a general Sunni mobilisation in the area, to such degree 
>even that Zarqawi  has become the hostage of local Sunni interests. 
>Zawahiri has reproached that to Zarqawi: he has forgotten the global jihad 
>to become a puppet of the sunni, who let him kill shiites for the sole 
>reason of forcing the Americans to incorporate the sunnites in the 
>government so they can share in the petrol dollars.' '
>That was nevertheless from the beginning the intention of Zarqawi: to 
>provoke the shiites to a counter-attack, to mobilise the sunnites?
>"Zarqawi is the Stalin of Al Qaeda and Zawahiri the Trotski. Zawahiri 
>strives for permanent, global jihad. Zarqawi conducts his jihad in one 
>country, Iraq. That is, at least in the eyes of Zawahiri, dangerous, 
>because it leads to compromises which undermine the international logic of 
>Al Qaeda."
>"Hence also that Al Qaeda is angry with Islamists who participated in the 
>elections. In Egypt the muslim brothers have gained an election victory. 
>Zawahiri blames them to bargain with the blood of the martyrs. They reap 
>the benefits of violence which has unchained the jihad and after that 
>allow themselves to be encapsulated by the system."
>Iraq is perhaps no success for the global jihad, but Zarqawi has, however, 
>achieved his aim: Iraq stands at the edge of a civil war.
>"The US thought that by bringing down a dictatorship, automatically a 
>democratic and liberal citizens society would arise. But the frustration 
>in the region is so large that each democratic opening converts itself 
>into a victory of the Islamists."
>"The war against terror has produced absolutely no success. The American 
>neoconservatives hoped that the democratisation of the Iraqi shiites would 
>temper also the regime in Iran. The inverse has happened. The radical 
>Iranian president Ahmadinejad has considerably reinforced his networks in 
>Iraq. The Iraqi ministry of home affairs has been very narrowly linked 
>with Iran. That puts the US in enormous problems: their most important 
>allies in Iraq are the friends of their largest enemy in the region. Iran 
>uses Iraq now to blackmail Europe and the US in the nuclear dossier."
>You can blame the American neoconservatives for a lot, but they had at 
>least a vision. Does Europe know where it wants to go in the Middle East?
>"The European strategy has been shaped by the notion that the 
>Israëli-Palestine conflict  takes place near and even on their own ground. 
>A large group of Muslims lives here together with Jews. The abduction of 
>Ilan Halimi has shown once again how latently present the tensions are 
>here. Hence Europe conducts a somewhat different policy from the US. More 
>so because the Jewish lobby is not so overpowering here. There is a 
>balance between the pressure groups"
>"On the other hand the European taxpayer will never accept that his money 
>goes to a group aiming at the destruction of Israel and appropriating for 
>itself the right to use terror. In other words: the situation in Palestine 
>is completely blocked. Even more so because Hamas threatens to call upon 
>Iran if Europe closes the tap on the supply of government funds."
>Are there then no hopeful evolutions in the Islamic world? Turkey, for 
>example, or the reforms in Morocco?
>"The Turkish evolution is interesting. An originally islamist party, 
>originating from the muslim brothers, adapts legislation to Europe, under 
>pressure of the Turkish business world. But we have to wait and see if 
>those legal adaptations serve to effectively change situation 
>withinTurkey, or if they are purely cosmetic, in order to enable Turkish 
>Islamists to penetrate the European space."
>"The young king of Morocco has carried out  a number of reforms, but the 
>power structure in itself has not changed. On the contrary: by co-opting 
>the left opposition, it  has lost its identity, as a result of which only 
>islamist parties threaten to translate the social  dissatisfaction."
>  Where does democratisation have to come from?
>"From Europe. That remains my conviction. The successful integration of 
>European Muslims can serve the Arab world as an example. Islamists do 
>realise that, as a result of which they put everything in the work to 
>hamper that integration."

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