Dangers of the "Damage Control" Mentality

If there are Muslim historians in the remote future, God willing, they are likely to remember our current era as a dark age for the Ummah. Our land is occupied the world over, and misruled by tyrant regimes that serve the interests of the new barbarians from the north. Our technological progress is at a standstill, even though we send many thousands of wage slave scientists to toil for the governments and giant corporations of Europe, America, and India. Progress for us means buying a lot of useless stuff from abroad, rather than growing and making more of what we really need. Our lands and peoples are divided into 55-and counting-weak or failing states; and overall, we are in a mess.

The fault does not actually lie with Washington, or the Freemasons, or even that ol' Zionist conspiracy we blame for everything. Instead, we should first fix the concepts and ideas we carry around in our heads. In particular, we Muslims need to remove the reactive, defensive "damage control" mentality demonstrated by rulers in the Islamic world, as well as the activists who sometimes oppose them.

This reactive mentality demonstrates itself all too clearly in the Palestine-Israel question. In fact, the Israelis have been extremely successful so far because they haven't been reactive or defensive. Close study of their policymaking reveals that they have kept consistently on the offensive. Based on their projections how conditions might be for them 50 or 100 years from now, they continuously create new realities on the ground, building, for example, dozens of new settlements in a given area. At the next round of negotiations, the Israelis then offer to dismantle two or three, and get applause from the world for the offer! The wall being created in the West Bank is just the latest example: now that the Israelis have created this barrier, it becomes a new poker chip for the next talks, perhaps set back a little in return for important concessions from Arafat's successors or even Uncle Sam.

As for the Muslim activists and rulers, they react to the Zionists' belligerent stance by giving up more and more "in the interest of peace." Today, Arab and Muslim leaders already reconcile themselves to losing the lands taken before 1967, and even issues like Old Jerusalem, the right of return, and the Golan Heights are likely to require "compromises."

This is, of course, the end result of many years of reacting to realities constantly created by others for us, combined with a defeatist mentality. We Muslims now have a very hard time visualizing how-or even why-the whole of Palestine should be freed. Worse, we can't even see that our political revival partly depends on having no outside power, whether Zionist or Martian, occupy or control any of the direct land and sea routes between Africa, Asia, and Europe. Without such vision, Muslim rulers and activists quickly assimilate the political correctness defined by their enemies. Upon asking an activist if they support the legitimacy of Israel, the sad answer given is, "What else can we do?" or, "We must accept it since it's a reality." Whatever happened to creating a political culture amongst us that creates our own realities?

This has been an era of disaster after disaster for the Ummah of Muhammad (saws). We have Bosnia, Palestine, Sudan, Iraq, Albania, Chechnya, and the list grows. Each time a new crisis is dumped on us, we forget earlier ones and react to the immediate issue. There is no effort or movement among us these days that can isolate the underlying causes for all of these problems and tackle them at the root.

Instead, the West is setting our agenda for us! They spotlight, or even spark a crisis for their own interests and we immediately react and make that our new "issue of the month": time to get out the donation boxes and start sending the money and old clothing!

In order for us Muslims to resume our responsibilities in the world, we must rebuild our own political platform in our independent, united Islamic State and start dictating our own agendas. As long as we remain defensive, blown about like feathers in the wind, or scum on the waters, we can expect the misery to keep coming. Brothers and sisters, there is a struggle for wealth and power going on between the capitalist nations of the world, and we Muslims have to stop being their cannon fodder. We must regain the initiative, think far ahead and look at all of our problems within the stability of one political platform based on Islam. Only then can we provide an alternative to the colonizers' program, and in so doing, get the upper hand over them. (Submitted 8/24/2004)