What about the other 98.5%?
I’m ending my long absence from the blog with a short post today. I’ve been kept busy in the past few months with a job search (which thankfully ended in early March), a home purchase and the birth of my wife and I’s first child.
I’ve still been reading and following, and came across this piece from Arab Insight’s Editorial Letter for their latest issue.
Although the U.S. developed an elaborate strategy to confront violent Islamists, Egyptian scholar Moataz A. Fattah notes that America has not created a cohesive strategy towards non-violent Islamists, who make up the majority of Islamists in the world. In the long term, Fattah argues, American security will benefit from identifying and engaging with nonviolent Islamist actors. Khaled Hroub, a Jordanian author, analyzes the frustration within the Muslim world regarding Obama’s presidency, particularly his treatment of Islamists and his efforts at democracy promotion.
So true. Violent Muslims only consitute 1.5-2% of all Muslims and yet I would suggest that 100% of our focus is on engaging that portion of the Muslim world population. True, there are in-direct engagements with non-violent Islamists in Afghanistan and Iraq, but that engagement is almost entirely a facet in our war on terrorism, a means to an end.
What is our policy toward these non-violent Islamists when Islamic terrorism fades from the forefront? Will it take the old Afghanistan approach and simply cease to be discussed? Will we continue to engage with communities most at-risk for lapsing into terrorism as a continued defense strategy? Or will we foster a new era of interaction with the Islamist population that seeks integration and a sense of community?
Until we can begin to engage Muslims as people and members of the same humanity that we belong to, rather than as potential (or active) enemies, we will be agents in the creation of those very enemies. A strategy fully based on national security is better than none, but we should be prepared for our overtures of peace and close association to be seen as hollow and as products of need rather than desire, which it is.
