Intra Civilization Clash

By Mustafa Khan

11 February, 2010
Countercurrents.org

Bernard Lewis was the most remarkable critic of Islam for he never saw any good either in the faith or the people who live by it. It was he who had counselled George W Bush to attack Iraq because he thought that the Muslims were primitive people of barbaric practices incapable of any refinement of civilization. His hatred for the Muslim fuelled his epithet, The Clash of Civilization. Much after him Samuel Huntington developed it into an elaborate theory which the likes of Tony Blair and AB Vajpayee very eagerly bought outright.

However, as it turned out the clash of civilizations is rather intra than inter civilizations. As Attorney General Eric Holder of US said about Abdulmuttallab case : "There’s a desire to ignore the facts to try to score political points. It’s a little shocking.” This present trend in US of neo cons opposing the upholders of the civil laws and liberties is intra civilization clash. Much of the violations of human rights and collateral damages inflicted on civilians in Iraq, Afghanistan as well as the extraordinary renditions, manoeuring intelligence reports to prepare for war and water boarding are the works of Dick Cheny, George W Bush, Paul Wolfwitz, Elizabeth Cheny and British Prime Minister Tony Blair, etc. Eric Holder and Samantha Power among many others would like to turn against use of drones killing innocents or what transpired in the case of Dr Aafia Siddiqui and her two missing children.

Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab boarded a plane on Christmas day 2009. He was cleared by ICTS International security agency (founded by Shin Bet, Israel's civil security agency) at Schipho airport at Amsterdam. There was no passport with him. Strangely enough he bought first class ticket. He had a bomb sewn in the underwear. The security agency could see his crotch very well in the x-ray and yet it cleared him. He tried to blow up the plane but it failed because there was no blasting cap attached to it. The initial report did not mention about the Israeli company clearing him. Nor was it revealed that the amount of explosive could hardly destroy the arm rest. By the time it came out the harm was done. His name and alleged link to al Qaeda had been the headline news around the world. The purpose behind this is clear: stereotyping him as a fanatic Muslim terrorist. This happened notwithstanding the fact that his own father had alerted CIA station chief in Nigeria about it. What was not disclosed at first was that his father was a banker who oversaw defence deal with Israeli Defence Forces personnel to train Nigerians in security. FBI said that the radical Yemeni cleric Anwar al-Awlaki had told Abdulmutallab to blow the bomb. But there is no proof that he ever went to the cleric or had any contact with him. Thus he was made to fit in the pattern of 9/11 hijackers who were trained in San Diego, New Mexico (where Awlaki was born) and Mjor Nidal Hasan who were inspired by the cleric.

In India we have the cross fertilized breed. Far too long the IB and RAW and local investigation agencies in tandem with the police had been creating false impression. Their objective was more or less communal. When the truth dawned upon some it was stunningly shocking. It is pertinent to remember what the Union home secretary Gopal Krishna Pillai said on December 9 2009 about Hindu fringe groups' involvement when bombs went off in mosques in Hyderabad, Malegaon, Delhi and elsewhere. "It took us a few years to convince the system that we need to look out, and we were able to finally lay our hands on the Colonel Purohit (of the Malegaon blasts) network," Similarly, there have been several inputs that showed that terror against India has tentacles outside Pakistan. He said some of the emails and communication linked to Indian Mujahideen had originated from the US.

Inaddition to the truth that home secretary asserted there are other dark forces represented by RSS, Shiv Sena Shri Ram Sena in India who simply refuse to accept the truth. They vehemently opposed ATS chief Hemant Karkare and hinted darkly that unless he stopped in his track he would be in grave trouble. What happened thereafter is now history. These people are like Jack and his bloody hunters in "Lord of the Flies." In contrast Karkare was like Ralph the epitome of brilliance of mind and social harmony and commitment to civil laws. Both these groups are the product of the same civilization.

Bal Thackeray, Narendra Modi and VHP were breathing down the neck of Karkare when he caught sadhvi Pragyasingh Thakur and Purohit, etc. But when Karkare was killed they totally changed their stance and started calling him a martyr. Shiv Sena and Uma Bharti even offered Purohit tickets in the election. Shiv Sena wanted to pay for the lawyer who would defend Purohit and Sadhvi. On the other hand they openly threatened lawyers of any Muslim accused of the similar crimes. In most other cases like Samjhauta express incident the police and the investigating agencies fabricated all kinds of lies to blame Muslims when it was becoming clear that Purohit and Abhinav Bharat were behind them.

The recent report of arrest of Shahzad Ahmad has again refocused attention on the pattern of lies. Now we are told that he had fired a single bullet at inspector Mohan Chand Sharma. Till his capture we were told that Atif Ameen and Sajjad had fired from their guns and that caused the death of Sharma. Even the NCHR had bought this claim and accepted it. The neighbours in Batla house have maintained that there is one exit with two doors opening on the samd place and if Shahzas and Junaid had escaped the peple should have seen them. They did not see anyone escape. The cops who rushed up at hearing the shooting would have surely met and apprehended Junaid and Shahzad. They did not apprehend them. Then reports of Shahzad attending a flying course in Banglore to mount a 9/11 in India was leaked to media by the police obviously. The phodia rose in a crescendo. The route of escape Shahzad and Junaid took is another cocktail of lies. According to Indian Express the duo went to the bust station on foot and boarded a bus to Badarpur. Then they took train to Mumbai without knowing twhere it was bound. The Times of India carries two versions. One, the two went to Aligarh by train or bus, then to Lucknow and finally to Azamgarh. Two, they went to Aligarh, then to Blundhaer, Lucknow, Khalispure, Jaipur, Jodhpur and finally to Mumbai.

The police did not make an inventory of bullets and cartridges,etc. The scene was also without any residual evidence there much like the incident of Aafia Siddiqui. In her case she was accused of assaulting eight American military officers at Bagram prison in Afghanistan. She was too feeble to lift a gun let alone snatching it from the burly soldiers and belabouring them and then shooting them. Neither the soldiers nor the site gave any trace of the shoot out on July 18 2008. The American ambassador to Pakistan Anne Patterson had been denying till then that Aafia was even held by the Americans. In fact she, a US citizen as well as her two children, was kidnapped from Pakistan on March 30 2003 and put through the ignominious extraordinary renditions and taken to Bagram. She was raped and tortured for five years. She wailed so loudly in the lonely nights that her cries were heard ringing in the air far and wide. The US soldiers started calling her Lady Gray of Bagram. The ambassador would arrange luxurious parties and brief the journalists the version that the army gave out. In this way falsehoold was deliberately spread.

Her wailing and agonized shrieks would remind people here how Khawaja Yunus was tortured and given water boarding punishment in Mumbai. His mother also wept and cried in the stillness of the night in Parbhani. Police Inspector Vaze disposed off the body of Yunus much the same way Vanzara had done the body of Kauserbi, wife of Sohrabuddin in Gujarat. In all such cases the forces of evil were at work, forces which would like to use the extreme extent of terrorizing their hapless victims.

To oppose such evils there are people like Karkare and of late Chidambrum who would be upright and more responsive to human rights. This kind of clash is within the homeland culture of a country.

Currently Mumbai is a witness to this. The police and intelligence agencies have never bothered about the fiefdom over which Bal Thackeray ruled like a feudal lord. On the eve of the serial bomb blasts in locals on 7/11, the Shiv Sainiks had burnt vehicles and vandalized shops and commercial establishments protesting over the alleged mud slung at the statue of Thackeray's wife. When Annad Dighe, Shiv Sena pramukh of Thane, died, the sainiks had vandalized the Singhania hospital where Mr Singhania's aeroplane was also kept. In the emergency wards of the hospital there were very serious cases in ICUs. They had a hell of a time. There was also the murder case of Ramesh Kini in which a finger of suspicion pointed at the Thackerays. To show solidarity with the victims of medieval revenge even the prime minister, VP Singh, had visited the widow of Kini. This last captures the clash between the people who let loose the law of the jungle and those who abide by the rule of law. In the countdown to the release of My Name is Khan we wait with baited breath what might the hordes shouting My Name is Thackeray would do. Would they again set upon the hapless North Indians commuting long distances for jobs, interviews, examinations, driving their taxis, etc.