Independent Media Center

http://www.indymedia.org:8081

TERRORISM, THEIRS AND OURS (english)

Monday 17 Sep 2001

author: Eqbal Ahmad, transcribed from a talk he gave

summary by Gus diZerega

In this talk, Eqbal delves deeply and eloquently into the roots of terrorism to provide some historical context for the current situation.

[I am including only Eqbal’s remarks on bin Laden. His talk is quite interesting and worth pondering. It is, however, rather too long for the purposes of this file. It may be obtained in its entirety by going to http://www.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=64732

- Gus diZerega]

Querstion & Answer

The question here is that I mentioned that I would go somewhat into the story of bin Laden, the Saudi in Afghanistan and didn’t do so, could I go into some detail? The point about bin Laden would be roughly the same as the point between Sheikh Abdul Rahman, who was accused and convicted of encouraging the blowing up of the World Trade Center in New York City. The New Yorker did a long story on him. It’s the same as that of Aimal Kansi, the Pakistani Baluch who was also convicted of the murder of two CIA agents. Let me see if I can be very short on this. Jihad, which has been translated a thousand times as “holy war,” is not quite just that. Jihad is an Arabic word that means “to struggle.” It could be struggle by violence or struggle by non-violent means. There are two forms, the small jihad and the big jihad. The small jihad involves violence. The big jihad involves the struggles with self. Those are the concepts. The reason I mention it is that in Islamic history, jihad as an international violent phenomenon had for all practical purposes disappeared in the last four hundred years. It was revived suddenly with American help in the 1980s. When the Soviet Union intervened in Afghanistan, Zia ul-Haq, the military dictator of Pakistan, which borders on Afghanistan, saw an opportunity and launched a jihad there against godless communism. The U.S. saw a God-sent opportunity to mobilize one billion Muslims against what Reagan called the Evil Empire. Money started pouring in. CIA agents starting going all over the Muslim world recruiting people to fight in the great jihad. Bin Laden was one of the early prize recruits. He was not only an Arab. He was also a Saudi. He was not only a Saudi. He was also a multimillionaire, willing to put his own money into the matter. Bin Laden went around recruiting people for the jihad against communism.

I first met him in 1986. He was recommended to me by an American official of whom I do not know whether he was or was not an agent. I was talking to him and said, Who are the Arabs here who would be very interesting? By here I meant in Afghanistan and Pakistan. He said, You must meet Osama. I went to see Osama. There he was, rich, bringing in recruits from Algeria, from Sudan, from Egypt, just like Sheikh Abdul Rahman. This fellow was an ally. He remained an ally. He turns at a particular moment. In 1990 the U.S. goes into Saudi Arabia with forces. Saudi Arabia is the holy place of Muslims, Mecca and Medina. There had never been foreign troops there. In 1990, during the Gulf War, they went in in the name of helping Saudi Arabia defeat Saddam Hussein. Osama bin Laden remained quiet. Saddam was defeated, but the American troops stayed on in the land of the kaba (the sacred site of Islam in Mecca), foreign troops. He wrote letter after letter saying, Why are you here? Get out! You came to help but you have stayed on. Finally he started a jihad against the other occupiers. His mission is to get American troops out of Saudi Arabia. His earlier mission was to get Russian troops out of Afghanistan. See what I was saying earlier about covert operations?

A second point to be made about him is these are tribal people, people who are really tribal. Being a millionaire doesn’t matter. Their code of ethics is tribal. The tribal code of ethics consists of two words: loyalty and revenge. You are my friend. You keep your word. I am loyal to you. You break your word, I go on my path of revenge. For him, America has broken its word. The loyal friend has betrayed. The one to whom you swore blood loyalty has betrayed you. They’re going to go for you. They’re going to do a lot more. These are the chickens of the Afghanistan war coming home to roost. This is why I said to stop covert operations. There is a price attached to those that the American people cannot calculate and Kissinger type of people do not know, don’t have the history to know.

___________

Eqbal Ahmad died in Islamabad, Pakistan on May 11, 1999. His close friend Edward Said wrote, “He was perhaps the shrewdest and most original anti-imperialist analyst of the postwar world, particularly of the dynamics between the West and post-colonial Asia and Africa; a man of enormous charisma, dazzling eloquence, incorruptible ideals, unfailing generosity and sympathy. ... Whether on the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians or India and Pakistan, he was a force for a just struggle but also for a just reconciliation. ... Humanity and genuine secularism ... had no finer champion.”

Eqbal Ahmad was Professor Emeritus of International Relations and Middle Eastern Studies at Hampshire College in Amherst, Massachusetts. For many years he was managing editor of the quarterly Race and Class. His articles and essays appear in The Nation and other journals throughout the world. He writes a weekly column for Dawn, Pakistan’s oldest English newspaper. Confronting Empire, the book of Eqbal Ahmad interviews by David Barsamian, is published by South End Press.