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NEWS & LETTERS, November 2002

Our Life and Times

Fundamentalist bombing scars Bali

by Kevin A. Barry

From the horrific Oct. 12 bombing of a disco in Bali, Indonesia that claimed over 180 lives, to the elections in Pakistan, Islamic fundamentalist groups that support Al Qaeda and the installation of Taliban-style regimes have succeeded in asserting themselves again this fall.

As is typical after an Al Qaeda attack, no political message was forthcoming after Bali. However, the dehumanized logic of fundamentalist terrorism found its voice in Abu Hamza al-Masri, imam of the Finsbury Park mosque in London, which recently held a ghoulish "celebration" of September 11.

On Bali, al-Masri declared: "Their target is a symbol of infamy in Indonesia. The way people act in Bali is nothing other than prostitution. Dancing and consuming alcohol is an insult in a Muslim country" (LE MONDE, Oct. 14). Al-Masri neglected to mention that the island of Bali is populated mainly by Hindus, or that one-third of the population earns a living in the tourist industry and will now suffer unemployment, or worse.

The imperial arrogance with which the U.S. has conducted the "war on terrorism," plus its ever-closer ties to the murderous Sharon government in Israel, have in many countries increased rather than decreased support for fundamentalism.

This has certainly been the case in military-ruled Pakistan, where the United Action Front (MMA), a loose alliance of six Islamist parties, won an unprecedented 20% of the seats in the National Assembly elections. The MMA also took control of the Provincial Assembly in Northwest Frontier Province, which borders the part of Afghanistan most sympathetic to the Taliban. MMA Secretary General Munnawar Hasan declared their goals openly: "We will stop the ongoing pursuit of Taliban and Al Qaeda [who] are our brothers" (NEW YORK TIMES, Oct. 12).

Recent events in the Arabian peninsula, where particularly intolerant and misogynist versions of Islam thrive, have also shown that Al Qaeda is far from dead. In Kuwait, forces connected to Al Qaeda succeeded in killing a U.S. Marine during an exercise related to Bush's imperialist designs on Iraq. Meanwhile, the U.S. establishment's own Council on Foreign Relations reported that "for years, individuals and charities based in Saudi Arabia have been the most important sources of funds for Al Qaeda" and that government promises to shut off the flow of funds "have not been implemented" (NEW YORK TIMES, Oct. 17).

The governments of Pakistan and Saudi Arabia are both close allies of the U.S. This underlines starkly how the Bush administration's projected war on Iraq has nothing to do with combating terrorism and everything to do with imperialist politics. However, such U.S. hypocrisy does not in any way lessen the danger of fundamentalism. It in fact increases it.

Where Islamic fundamentalist movements have collapsed, as in Egypt, Algeria, Afghanistan and, most recently, Uzbekistan, mass revulsion against their dogmatism and extreme brutality has been the decisive factor. For what both U.S. hawks and most of the anti-imperialist Left forget is that these fundamentalist movements have killed far more fellow Muslims than Western non-Muslims

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