Ignorance and inconsideration are the two great causes of the ruin of mankind
John Adams–A Dissertation of the canon and the feudal law
On October 26th, 1954, a certain Abd al-Latif shot and wounded the Egyptian President Jamal Abd al-Nasser during a political rally. In the ensuing retaliation by the government, members of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood were arrested and brought to trail. Six leaders of the Brotherhood were executed and the rest left to languish in prison cells where they were prosecuted and tortured by the Egyptian secret police. One such causality was Sayid Qutb- author of the controversial book Milestones and inspiration behind Al Qaida. Qutb, whose writings and views grew more fanatical during his years in prison, was notorious for his division of society into two diametrically opposed camps; the camp of Jahiliyah and the pious and upright Muslim camp. Moderate Muslims, secular Muslim regimes and anyone who served under such rulers were classified as an apostate and consequently placed in the Jahiliyah camp along with Christians, Jews, Hindus and other groups seen as the enemies of the faithful and hence must be eliminated for true salvation to be achieved.
From 1979-1989 during the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, Qutb’s followers armed with Saudi money and American weapons partnered with the Afghani clansmen fighting against the Soviet occupation. Qutb’s followers were able annex a piece of Afghani land where they could train and further their narrow and divisive ideology. It was during these years that Osama Bin Laden and Ayman Al Zawahiri teamed up and created Al Qaida. A cause that attracted the fellowship of thousands of young Muslims (mostly Arab) who were deluded with the way their countries were being managed and henceforth, saw in the Afghan mission a convenient means to air their frustrations. Al Qaida radicalized these social rejects and indoctrinated them with its ideology. From the very onset, it aimed to purify the world with the blood of the Jahiliyah and even during the Soviet war, made clear its intention to carry the war to the West and topple the secular regimes in the Muslim World. Al Qaida’s thuggish and brutish agenda wasn’t simply a fanatical assertion by a desperate band of thugs and social rejects. It had very specific plans of achieving its goals.
One such specific plan was the depiction of the America as a predatory imperialist power that aimed to colonize and subjugate the freedom and wishes of the Muslim World. In this narrative, the Palestine issue was utilized as a rallying call for international jihadists and a ploy to lure Muslim youth throughout the world disillusioned with the injustices and human rights violations committed against the Palestinian people by the state of Israel. The fact that most of these youth belonged to regions that not only had a very abysmal human rights record being home to some of the most brutal dictators in the world; but, also more importantly led by thuggish leaders allied to America, helped to reinforce and punctuate this narrative.
The end of the Cold War and the defeat of the Soviet Empire led to the emergence of the United States as the sole economic, political, and military power in the world. The fall of the Soviet empire also led to the dismantling of several regimes throughout the world that were allies or client states of the Soviet Union. One such regime was the Mohamed Siyad Barre’s government in Somalia, which lost the geo-strategic significance it had enjoyed throughout the Cold War. The defeat of the Barre regime at the hands of the clan-rooted rebel groups led to long period of wars, anarchy, instability and injustice in Somalia.
When the British-American poet W H Auden, in his now immortalized poem September 1, 1939, wrote of a “low dishonest decade” where “waves of anger and fear, circulate over the bright and darkened lands of the earth,” he was talking of the very consequences of anarchy and disintegration of the social order (Europe in this case), whereby injustice would led to a bloody period of tragedy and turmoil. Somalia witnessed a scale of injustice and anarchy never seen before in the history of the Somali people, as wars raged in every corner of the country. The decade of 1990s, for the Somali people was one of disaster and profound cataclysmic events that impacted almost every façade of the social fabric. This “low dishonest decade” led to the erosion of the Somali way of life and the systematic collapse of the Somali society.
This prevalence of death and injustice forced the International Community to react. But it wasn’t just the UN that had plans for the Somali people. Charities and individuals linked to Osama Bin Laden’s Al Qaida network flooded the country. This, combined with the returning veterans of Osama’s terror camps in Afghanistan, planted the first seeds of religious extremism in Somalia. Men like the now deceased Hashi Aden Ayro, and Abu Zubeyr teamed up with the Al Qaida agents in recruiting men (but mostly boys) for Al Shabab- Al Qaida’s proxy in Somalia and consequently extending the Global War against Terror to Somalia. Thus Somalia became a significant region for the West in terms of combating terrorism and deterring the spread of religious extremism.
The rise of a highly militant form of Islam that had no “real cognate word” for mercy, compassion and peace was not simply alien to the Somali way of life but also quite revolutionary. As the first waves of fresh recruits graduated from Al Shabab’s camps, Osama insured that Somalia became an active arena in his global war. These new recruits, brainwashed in the credence that there was no such thing as a modern-state, that the very idea of Somalia was un-Islamic and that they would lead the liberation of the entire Muslim world, introduced an entirely new psychology to Somalia. The liberation of Palestine played an important role in this narrative.
Despite all the pretense of painting itself as an Islamic movement, the Al Qaida movement is fundamentally an Arab ideology. If the whole rational of Al Qaida is a cry against injustice as its cohorts claim, then one would be very justified in asking why Osama and his band of anarchists never mention the prosecution of the Kurds by Arab regimes. Saddam Hussein was allegedly responsible for the murder of up-to 300,000 Kurds in what is often termed as the worst massacre since the end of WWII. Countless other Kurds are still prosecuted in countries such as Syria, Turkey and Iran. Nor does Osama and his network talk about the suffering people of Darfur that are being massacred by Arab merchants of death. But these are all logical questions and logic (it should be mentioned) has rarely been the domain of religious extremists.
The American Statesman John Adams whose words begin this essay was talking precisely about the tyranny that can be inflicted on society when religion is used as a weapon of “aggrandizement,” for the benefit of a select few. Tyrants who use religion as their weapon of choice invariably rely upon the ignorance of the people they aim to prey. Al Qaida and its affiliated groups in Somalia rely upon many factors to further their nihilist agenda. Poverty, injustice, and other social dynamics such as anarchy and inequality are all important in the realization of the Al Qaida agenda. But none of these factors is as conducive to the spread of religious radicalism as illiteracy which makes for a lethal weapon when combined with poverty. . The leading victims of poverty are almost always the illiterate and uneducated segments of society and injustice is usually incurred against the more poor and illiterate sections of the community.Paradoxically enough, the extremist elements in Somalia are able to manipulate the plight of these “underdogs of society” and use them as a source for manpower.
So what are the consequences of an Al Qaida victory in Somalia and what does this mean for Somalia? We do know that through such machinations, the Taliban and its Al Qaida allies in Afghanistan were able to burn down girls’ schools and young girls who braved these medieval restrictions had acids thrown in their faces and some endured worse punishments. Boys were encouraged to pick up arms and join the Taliban at a very young age with a promise of 72 virgins and being among the close companions of the Prophet. The Taliban and Al Qaida, to paraphrase John Adams, “persuaded the Afghani people, that God almighty had entrusted them with the keys of heaven, whose gates they might open and close at pleasure; with a power of dispensation over all the rules and obligations of morality; with authority to license all sorts of sins and crimes.” The Al Shabab movement is essentially an imitation of Al Qaida and both outfits aim to impersonate the Khmer Rouge of Cambodia by calling for the transformation of mankind back to Year Zero where all evidence of human advancement and accomplishment will be eradicated. In this, the organized destructions of schools, mosques, the continuous assassinations of the educated and enlightened class, and rejection of all sorts of education/knowledge serve to illustrate the troglodytic mentality of these religious gangs.
The December 3rd 2009 massacre at the Banadir University graduation killed students, faculty, government officials, journalists and other members of the civil society and shows by its brutish nature, the nefarious character of the enemy and its ability to carry out attacks of such heinous proportions. It also shows the destructive reach of Al Shabab and its ability to recruit and raise funds from the Somali Diaspora communities. The Suicide bomber who massacred dozens of innocent people at the Banadir University Medical School Graduation was recruited from Denmark. Other suicide bombers have struck targets in Hargaisa, Bosasso and Mogadishu for Al Shabab. The common thread between all these suicide bombers is the fact that the bombers all left the West to join Al Shabab. Al Shabab is able to attract the drug dealers, petty criminal, gang-members, and other criminal elements of the Somali Diaspora Communities in order to further its destructive ends. These suicide bombings and other violent attacks carried out by Al Shabab are important in the demoralization of the Somali people and are also a valuable tool of intimidation. They also serve another objective. Through these violent attacks, Al Shabab is able to appeal to the emotions of the impressionable Somali youth in search of ideals/heroes and hence becomes an important propaganda tool.
This search for idealism and a purpose in life is what led the Native American drug dealer Troy Kastigar from Minnesota to Somalia. Troy Kastigar provides an instructive understanding about the backgrounds of Al Shabab’s Western recruits. Born and raised in the Twin Cities, Troy Kastigar led a life typical of mainstream American youth and excelled in karate where he earned a Black belt. Nevertheless, Troy Kastigar also had problems with the law and amassed a huge criminal record of petty crimes such as robbery and credit card fraud. Tired of his criminal lifestyle, Troy joined members of the Somali youth who introduced him to Islam. He converted to the religion and changed his name to Abdirehman. Islam, in essence, became his anti-drug/gang. He eventually teamed up with radical elements in the Somali community who convinced him to leave for Somalia and partake in Al Shabab’s wars. He left and was eventually killed in a war against the Transitional Federal Government. Majority of Al Shabab’s recruits from the West came from lifestyles similar to Tory’s.
It needs to be said that equally dangerous is the Al Shabab apologist and defender, who rationalize Al Shabab’s violent attacks as a necessary evil in the stabilization of the Somali nation. The portrayal of Al Shabab as a nationalist movement, that is fighting against important imperialist powers such as Ethiopia and the West, is a central theme in this failed narrative. These arguments need to be addressed not because of their duplicity, but rather how enlightening it is to see the way these apologists insult the very idea of Somalia while wearing a nationalist cloak. Al Shabab doesn’t believe in the idea of Somalia, its war is a cosmic one between the forces of good on one hand and the forces of evil on the other. It frequently burns the Somali flag- an important symbol of the Somali people and an interpreter of both our past and future.
The utilization of Somalia as an important breeding ground for future jihadist is one of Al Shabab’s main stated goals. Its former spokesman Abu Mansur has publicly invited Arab jihadists to come and settle in Somalia with a promise of the “rich farmlands of Somalia” and endless supply of women to be used as concubines. In the regions they govern, reports of forced marriages are already becoming frequent as is the forced settlement of farms. Much like Al Shabab sees Osama Bin Laden and his Al Qaida network as an important guide, Hizb-ul-Islam and its leader Hassan Dahir Aweys sees Eritrea and its despotic leader Isaias Afewerk as an important ally and friend. But Hizb-ul-Islam, in the final analysis, is for all intents and purposes irrelevant in the grand scheme of things, and its leader Hassan Dahir Aweys is simply a bandwagoner. However, it is important to understand that while Al Shabab whines about the United States and the West and Hizb-ul-Islam moans about Ethiopia, both groups rely upon the services of the despotic regime of Eritrea as an important supplier of finance and weapons. The victims of their brutal wars, however, are almost always innocent Somalis who pay with their lives for the senseless ideology and nihilism of these troglodytes.
Sayid Qutb imagined the world as a “large brothel,” and the religious historian Karen Armstrong was right in terming his view of the world as “mythical.” This archaic description of the world and simplification of today’s realities is important in understanding the philosophies that inspire these nihilist groups. The tendency to view the world in apocalyptic terms is what justifies their destructive goals- the eventual transformation of Somalia into anarchic playground filled with international jihadists with visions of ruling Japan and Alaska.
The chilling reality, however is, Al Shabab has succeed in its plan to prolong the Somali tragedy. Unhindered and unchallenged, Al Shabab is able to consolidate its violent grip in the territories it controls and is now poised to strike the regions outside its domain. The Transitional Federal Government is fast losing the little ground it controls and the Somali people are coming to grips with the painful reality that Al Shabab is here to stay. The destructive future that Al Shabab promises is now a matter of when and is certainly a reality. Somalia is now destined to become for Al Qaida what Afghanistan was during the Taliban rule. Under Bill Clinton, the so-called First Black President, a devastating genocide was incurred against an African nation. Barrack Obama will be remembered in history as the first Black President of the United States under whose watch an African country fell to Al Qaida.
I’m very much enjoyed reading the posting though it high lighted the hisotry, goal and the consequence had Al-Shabaab succeeds, there was not suggested solution cited in the posting. Must read to those who cares an urgent relief to Somali people’s suffering of beyond imagination.