The roots of terror

Tariq Ali

Verso, 15

ARRIVING in the famous north London district which is home to the radical author and activist Tariq Ali, it is hard to resist the thought that there is something appropriate about the writer living so close to the final resting place of Karl Marx in Highgate Cemetery. Like Marx, Ali is an emigre who has settled in London, establishing himself as a prominent figure on the left, both in Britain and internationally.

He would flinch at the suggestion that his latest book, The Clash of Fundamentalisms, might have the impact of Marx’s writings, but there can be little question that it packs a significant punch where George W Bush’s proclaimed "war on terrorism" is concerned. Extraordinary in its historical and political breadth, it makes the provocative case that the Western powers played a major role in creating modern political Islam.

The 59-year-old author, who was born in what is now Pakistan, is well-placed to write such a book. Born to religiously sceptical, middle-class parents, he is a committed atheist whose long-standing opposition to Western military operations around the world is rooted not in Islam but in a fervently-held socialism.

Ali came to prominence during the Vietnam War, playing a leading role in the anti-war movement in Britain. Today, as the US and Britain are engaged in a conflict in Afghanistan and appear to be on the brink of another in Iraq, he is very much in demand as a public speaker, newspaper columnist and television commentator. How does he account for the renewed interest in his political views at a time when political ideology is supposed to be dead?

"People are beginning to get worried that New Labour is about to fight its fourth war," he says. "They’re worried about what the United States is up to, and they are worried at the lack of opposition in this country. People need some dissenting voices."

As he tours Britain and travels overseas - speaking out against what he continues, in defiance of the prevailing post-modern cynicism, to call "US imperialism" - Ali finds there are "some other straws in the wind" in terms of a new culture of dissent. "It’s not just from groups on the left," he insists. "There is, amongst a wide layer of people, a real worry that things are going badly. They don’t know what to do about it, but they are now reaching a stage where they are prepared to listen. That’s where it becomes important to try to present an alternative."

Nowhere, he believes, is there greater need for an alternative to official politics than in Britain. Tony Blair, says Ali, "is not a social democrat, he never has been. He’s essentially a Christian democrat. He hasn’t an ounce of socialism in his body. His natural allies in Europe are Aznar [the Spanish Prime Minister]and Berlusconi [the Italian Prime Minister], both of whom belong to political parties which include or are in alliance with former fascists."

With The Clash of Fundamentalisms, he asserts a very different world view to that presented by Bush and Blair. The so-called ‘war on terrorism’ is not, as the US and British leaders have maintained, a simple conflict of ‘good against evil’, but rather a complex global crisis in which the US faces an enemy of its own making.

A key point in the book concerns the infamous interview given four years ago to a French newspaper by former US National Security Advisor in the Carter administration, Zbigniew Brzezinski. Asked if he regretted the US giving huge financial and military aid to Islamic fundamentalists in Afghanistan, sowing the seeds for the growth of the Taliban, Brzezinski replied: "What is more important to the history of the world? The Taliban or the collapse of the Soviet empire? A few crazed Muslims or the liberation of Central Europe and the end of the Cold War?"

Many believe that Brzezinski received an emphatic and terrible answer to that provocative question on September 11, 2001. For Ali, the former White House insider’s response is a statement of naked political fundamentalism.

"If you look at it dispassionately," he argues, "United States imperialism is the mother of all fundamentalisms. They have pursued their own social, economic, political interests in the world with a dedication which is the envy of many a religious fundamentalist. They have let nothing stand in their way. When they wanted to, they used nuclear weapons and destroyed two whole cities in Japan. They used chemical warfare throughout the war in Vietnam. Then they have the nerve to say that Iraq has got dangerous weapons."

More than an unequivocal accusation of appalling double-standards on the part of the US, however, Ali’s book conducts a thorough polemic against Western rule, be it direct or by proxy regimes, in the Middle East. "What we’re seeing today [in terms of radical Islamic movements] is largely a response to the failure of the West to do anything positive in these countries," he says. "Basically, the West went into the Middle East, destroyed nationalism, communism and radical politics... and channelled people in the direction of religion. So, if you say: ‘Who created political Islam?’ I answer: ‘The United States of America’. They created it, and it’s gone totally out of control. They can’t deal with it."

If his assertions about the modern world will prompt much gnashing of conservative teeth, one can’t help but think that it is his reflections on the centuries-old history of the Muslim faith which will lead to the greatest controversy. Ali says that the book is designed, in part, to "provide a secular version of Islamic history". That it does so with a convincing conciseness and clarity, will not endear the book to the Christian religious right or to supporters of the state of Israel.

Chief among Ali’s assertions about Islamic history is that the great Kurdish Muslim leader Saladin, who liberated Jerusalem in the late 12th century, created a system of religious tolerance towards the Jews which stands in stark contrast to the deep and violent Judaeophobia of the Christian Crusaders. "The Christian fundamentalists certainly won’t like the book," says the author, "but it’s got to be explained. The level of ignorance of Islamic history is very profound."

The facts of Saladin’s governance in Jerusalem are long-established, although they have been largely ignored in the West. Rarely, however, have they been so clearly expressed in a context which has such profound implications for the modern conflict between Israel and the Palestinians.

"The point," says Ali, "is to explain to well-meaning Jews in the West who support Israel, that the history of the relations between Muslims and Jews, by and large, has been a very good one: both in Islamic Spain and in the Middle East. What corrupted those relations was the creation of Israel in 1948."

The key point, says the writer, is that, "the Arabs were not responsible for the Holocaust, but they are being punished for it. Even as we speak, young Palestinians are being rounded up, numbers are being written on their hands, and they are being humiliated in front of their families. That sort of behaviour is very reminiscent of what happened in Europe during the Second World War."

From Washington to Baghdad, from the 12th century to the present day, The Clash of Fundamentalisms is an impressive combination of radical scholarship and combative polemic. It was written primarily, says Ali, to engage with "the people who don’t believe there is such a thing as an American empire", and with young politicised Muslims, to whom he wants to explain that "religion is not going to be the route to liberation". For many, whether or not they belong to one of those groups, it will read like a literary grenade hurtling towards the simple certainties of Bush’s talk of "evildoers" and "an axis of evil".