From the Deccan Herald - a South Indian newspaper.
Deccan Herald, Sunday, November 07, 2004
ON THE SPOT
Bush begins with a disadvantage – lack of credibility
BY TAVLEEN SINGH
Like millions of people in our part of the world I woke at an ungodly hour last Wednesday to see who would become the next President of the United States.
When I woke, bleary-eyed, and glanced at the messages on my phone, I noticed that friends in Europe had stayed up very late for the same reason I was up early.
The last message came from a journalist friend in England at 6 a.m. his time and gloomily conceded that ‘It all depends on Ohio and that probably means Bush will win’. He had stayed up all night because of a passionate conviction that John Kerry must win if America’s ‘disastrous’ foreign policy was to change.
It is a conviction I share, if not as passionately, so it is with some disappointment that I write this piece. Since this column appears in some newspapers on Thursday I have to write by Wednesday afternoon to meet my deadline and as of the moment of my writing it looks as if George W. Bush will become President of the world’s sole surviving super power for another four years.
The world changed when the Cold War ended and changed totally after September 11, 2001 and it is because of this second change that the choice of the next American President is so important to us.
Under George W. Bush the war against terrorism has become a war between two faiths: Christianity and Islam.
It did not start out that way but since the American invasion of Iraq it is being increasingly seen that way by Muslims all over the world.
If you keep in mind that the Indian sub-continent is home to nearly 500 million Muslims you begin to understand why it is important for America’s war on terrorism to be directed more specifically against terrorists like Osama bin Laden and less generally against Muslims and Islam.
Mood in India
In recent months, partly on account of the Lok Sabha election and partly on account of my television programme, I have spent much time analysing the mood in the Muslim street in India and the degree of anti-Americanism I have picked up is frightening. This mood is evident not just among angry young men and militant moulvis but among the community’s wiser, older men and seems more to do with the war on Iraq than Palestine or any other cause.
People I talked to included poets, writers and thinkers and there appeared to be a consensus among them that Bush’s war on terrorism was really a war on Islam. ‘Anyone can see that it was not terrorists they were looking for but oil. They want to destroy the Muslim world, they want to destroy Islam’ said a well-known Bollywood figure ‘can you blame Muslims for hating America?’
This gentleman is not a devout Muslim and nor were some of the other Muslim ‘intellectuals’ I talked to.
Zionist lobby
Many would probably never visit a mosque, fast during Ramzan or pray five times a day but they saw Bush’s war on terrorism as a war on the identity of Islam.
What was disturbing was that even among these educated members of the community there were doubts about who was really responsible for 9/11. Like ordinary Muslims in the street they believed that a Zionist lobby was responsible for the attacks on the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon and that it was this same lobby that controlled decisions taken by the Bush administration.
Among less educated Muslims I found that this idea of an American assault on the foundations of the Islamic faith was a conviction that did not allow for any discussion. As far as they were concerned it was a fact that Jews were responsible for what they saw as a war in which Muslims were being increasingly isolated so that their faith could be destroyed. They pointed out that Bush often talked in a language that reminded them of the crusades and that there were people around him who had gone to the extent of saying that Islam was a religion that believed in idolatry and Satan. In the many interviews I conducted I met nobody who saw the wars on Afghanistan and Iraq as justified and almost nobody who believed Muslims were responsible for 9/11.
From what I have read about the mood in what the Western media calls the Arab street I see that the Indian Muslims I talked to accurately reflected the mood of the Islamic world in general.
The worldwide goodwill that America had after 9/11 has dissipated and been replaced by anger and suspicion not just among Muslims but among liberal thinkers across the world. Even in Europe it is hard to find supporters of Bush’s foreign policy.
Major strike
A war in which next time there is a major terrorist strike we could see weapons of mass destruction being used.
This war has to be led by America so the credibility of the next American President is crucial. If Bush becomes President again, which as I finish this article seems certain, he begins with a disadvantage because whatever his credibility in his own country he does not have it elsewhere.
John Kerry as President could have begun with a clean slate and that is the weapon most needed in this war that since the attack on Iraq has gone so awry.