Viewpoints: The world since 9/11

[N.O.R.F]

Ziauddin Sardar is a prominent London-based writer specialising in the future of Islam

 

September 11 really shook the Muslim community. As a result, Muslims have been looking at their faith much more critically and asking which tenets of Islam are axiomatic, and which can be changed or reformed.

 

In particular, issues such as the meaning and significance of the Sharia in the 21st century are now being seriously examined. Also the desirability of a theocratic "Islamic state" - the dominant idea of the late 20th century - is being questioned.

 

Another issue that is being hotly debated concerns the power of the religious scholars: should the authority for reinterpretation of the Koran for contemporary times be limited to a handful of scholars or should it be democratised?

 

In other words, should ordinary Muslims have the agency to rethink and reinterpret their faith?

 

Before 9/11, these kinds of questions were largely avoided. But now we are seeing them openly discussed and debated. This is not just happening in Britain, but all over the Muslim world from Indonesia and Malaysia to Pakistan and Bangladesh to Morocco and Turkey.

 

There has been an increase in radicalisation but radicalisation itself isn't new - it really emerged in Britain in the early 1990s. But before the attacks, few Muslims paid attention to the radicalisation of Islam.

 

Since 9/11, it has definitely become more entrenched and widespread. But the general trend now is to focus on the radicals, to question what they are doing in the name of Islam and to ask what can be done about rescuing Islam from their clutches. The silent majority is silent no more.

 

Another consequence of 9/11 is that Muslims are now very aware of globalisation and the fact that they don't live in isolation. They realise that what happens in Pakistan, for example, impacts on the community in, say, Bradford.

 

 

More opinions here

[N.O.R.F]

The bitter legacy of 9/11

Published: 11 September 2006

 

2,973 Total number of people killed (excluding the 19 hijackers) in the September 11, 2001 attacks

 

72,000 Estimated number of civilians killed worldwide since September 11, 2001 as a result of the war on terror

 

2 Number of years since US intelligence had any credible lead to Osama bin Laden's whereabouts

 

2,932 Total number of US servicemen and women killed in Afghanistan and Iraq since September 2001

 

1,248 Number of published books relating to the September 11 attacks

 

$119m Ticket sales for anti-Bush documentary Fahrenheit 9/11

 

$40bn Airline industry losses since September 2001

 

2009 Date when the official memorial will open at the World Trade Centre site

 

0 Hours of intelligence training provided to new FBI agents before 9/11. Now they get 24.

 

91 per cent Terror cases from FBI and others that US Justice Dept declined to prosecute in first eight months of 2006

 

11 Weeks the 9/11 commission's final report was top of New York Times' non-fiction best-seller list

 

117 Number of UK service personnel killed in Iraq since invasion

 

40 Number of UK personnel killed in Afghanistan since invasion

 

7 per cent People in UK who think US-led war on terror is being won, according to YouGov

 

1 Those charged in US with a crime in connection with 9/11

 

455 Number of detainees at Guantanamo Bay

 

77 per cent Percentage of people in the UK who believe Tony Blair's Middle East policy has made Britain a terrorist target (YouGov)

 

4,000 Number of UK troops left in Iraq after British-controlled provinceshanded back to Baghdad

 

18 The number of times that undercover investigators with fake IDs have breezed through US border checkpoints in a test by the Government Accountability Office

 

$8bn The amount the US will spend this year on hunting Bin Laden and other terrorists

[Che -Guevara]

The war on terror is sham, the biggest ever perpetuated by America's elites along its cronies in Europe and the east. The winners here are the elites who own and operate multinational corporations which profitted from the so called war on terror.

 

The losers here are the American public and the Muslim masses. America is on barrowing binge. Trillions of dollars are owed to Asian creditors so that war could be sustained. Bush's answer to the growing debt was to give tax cuts to the rich, while his goverment went on spending spree. With inflation and the rising energy cost, the average American only saves $1 out of every $100 earned. The trade deficit with China and other Asian gaints contribute the sluggish growth in the US economy.

 

Life is even more difficult for the Muslims. They have paid the highest costs in term of life and property. Just Iraq in alone, between 40,000 to 100,000 civilian lives have been lost. Mind you, this is just conservative estimate. Continous US interference in the Islamic countries will farther destablize the social, political, and economic structures of all Muslim nation paving the way for never ending violence that leads to farther loss of life and property.

 

Anyway I guess this happens when greedy corporations ( especially military-industrial complex), and the goverments get cosy.

 

 

Americans should have listened to Dwight

 

"In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist."

 

"Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies in the final sense a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed."