On Obama’s Insistence that “We Are Not at War with Islam”

[Against the views propagated in the mass media by various “authorities” and “experts” and “politicians” that the turn to violence by “islamists” is yet another case of “senseless” and “mindless” acts that “normal” poeople cannot understand, Gary Leupp argues that the appeal and practices of Al Qaeda and ISIS/ISIL can and must be understood.  —  Frontlines ed.]

Does ISIL Have Significant Support from People Who Consider Themselves Muslims?

by Gary Leupp, Counterpunch, February 25, 2015

One would like to say that the cruelty of ISIL (ISIS) shocks the entire world. In fact, however, it doesn’t shock everyone. Sad though it may seem to you or me, some people actually observe events in the emergent “Islamic State” with approval and admiration. Thousands of young men and even young women from many countries—even some from Europe and North America—are flocking to ISIL’s black banner. There are various estimates of ISIL strength available, ranging from 30,000 to 100,000. European intelligence agencies estimate that 3,000 young people have joined from the continent.

One should not assume these are all uncivilized thugs, just because they inflict horrible suffering on fellow human beings. They are far from alone in doing that, or in viewing their actions as the administration of some god’s punishment.

We should not presuppose, as Barack Obama suggested in his February 17 speech, that its members join ISIL simply due to such factors as unemployment, alienation and the nebulous phenomenon of “radicalization” to which some minds are strangely vulnerable.

To me they appear as people with a set of serious religious beliefs, including the belief in the existence of a Supreme Being; belief in a holy book of divine authorship; and belief in a set of laws authored by this one-and-only God that—for society to function properly, and the problems posed by modernity fixed—must be rigorously implemented.

Interview with Kashmiri leader Syed Ali Shah Geelani

Frontlines has received the following comment on this interview from the MLM Revolutionary Study Group in the US, http://www.mlmrg.com

“In contemporary times, revolutionary Marxists, Leninists and Maoists have insisted on the necessity of building revolutionary political forces among the basic masses, and uniting all who can be united in struggle against imperialism and reactionary regimes. The relationship between these two tasks has never been more complex than in recent years, with the rise of new Islamic and nationalist forces which have been playing a more prominent and contentious role among the masses, especially in the Middle East and Asia. Communists in India, the Philippines and Turkey have built united fronts with nationalist and Islamic movements while maintaining the political independence and integrity of the proletarian and peasant revolutionary forces.'”

28 October, 2010, New Age Islam Foundation

Syed Ali Shah Geelani of the Jamaat-e Islami of Jammu and Kashmir is a veteran Kashmiri politician. Presently, he heads the Tehrik-e Hurriyat-e Jammu Kashmir. He talks about the Kashmir conflict and its possible solution in this exclusive interview with Yoginder Sikand.

Q: In your writings, and in those of other similar Islamist ideologues, the Kashmir conflict is often described as a war between Islam and ‘disbelief’. Do you really think it is so? Is it not a political struggle or a nationalist struggle, actually?

A: The Kashmir dispute is a fall-out of the Partition of India. The Muslim-majority parts of British India became Pakistan, and the Hindu-majority regions became the Dominion of India. There were, at that time, some 575 princely states in India under indirect British rule. Lord Mountbatten gave them the choice of joining either India or Pakistan, and instructed that their choice must be guided by the religious composition of their populace as well as by the borders they might share with either India or Pakistan, as the case might be.

On this basis, almost all the princely states opted for either India or Pakistan. There were, however, three exceptions to this. Hyderabad, a Hindu-majority state with a Muslim ruler, opted for independence, but India argued against this on the grounds that the state had a Hindu majority, and so ordered the Police Action to incorporate the state into the Indian Dominion. Junagadh, another Hindu-majority state with a Muslim ruler, opted for Pakistan, but India over-ruled this decision, again on account of the state’s Hindu majority, and annexed it.