A few years ago, the respected Cambridge scholar T J Winter, also known by his Muslim name of Abdal Hakim Murad, gave a fascinating lecture to Humanities staff and students at the University of Leicester. The title was "Islam and the threat of the West", turning on its head the more usual – then and now – "Islam and the threat to the West".

It was a novel approach which, in a nutshell, illustrated that, historically, aggression has been directed more from Europe to the Muslim world than the other way round. His evidence for such a view was impeccably sourced.

I thought about Abdal Hakim's talk this morning as I read the reports coming in of the dreadful bombing and shooting in Norway wherein, of course, there was speculation that these two events were "Islamic-terror related". No doubt we will learn more over the coming days, but the early signs are, in fact, that the perpetrator was a "blond, blue-eyed Norwegian" with "political traits towards the right, and anti-Muslim views". Not surprisingly, the man's intentions were neither linked to these "traits", nor to his postings on "websites with Christian fundamentalist tendencies". Any influence "remains to be seen"; echoes of Oklahoma 1995.

Interestingly, this criminal is described by one unnamed Norwegian official as a "madman". He may well be, but this is one way that the motivations for heinous crimes can be airbrushed out of the story before they have the chance to take hold in the popular imagination.

Closing the book

In 1969, for example, an Australian Jew who set fire to Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem was dismissed as a "madman" and sent for psychiatric treatment; end of story. The right-wing Jewish fundamentalists plotting to destroy the mosque, and the nearby Dome of the Rock, lived to fight another day. I suspect that that is what will happen with the Norwegian bomber/shooter; his right-wing links and Christian fundamentalist contacts will be dismissed as irrelevant. This, we will be told, was the work of a "deranged" person "acting independently". Ergo, the only organised "terror threats" to civilisation are still "Islamic-related" and the focus of anti-terror legislation and efforts must remain in the Muslim world and on Muslim communities in Europe and the USA.

If we allow this to happen, we will be doing the world a great disservice, not least because the new right is on the rise across the West – and Oklahoma was proof that its followers are capable of immense destruction.

Neo-Nazi immigrants from Eastern Europe have even been active in Israel where the government, while deploring such far-right activity in its midst is actually edging ever more to the far-right on a daily basis. Ministers advocate the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in order to purify Israel as a "Jewish state"; precious human rights for which the world has struggled are overridden in the name of "state security"; criminals in uniform are allowed to get away, quite literally, with murder.

All of this takes place with the collusion of Western governments which are themselves showing right-wing tendencies towards double-speak on matters of respect and tolerance for minorities. If you are even remotely "different" in Europe today, especially if you are a Muslim, you are eyed with suspicion and must go out of your way to "prove" your loyalty to a state which, if the truth was made known, would get rid of you if only it had the guts to pass the necessary legislation to do so. In some cases, such legislation is virtually in place in the guise of "anti-terror" measures.

All of this is backed by a vociferous and influential right-wing media which supports Israel right or wrong – and a pro-Israel lobby which acts as if it is untouchable. Given the political context across the West, it probably is.

Attacks against the left

It is significant that the target of the Norwegian "madman" appears to have been the left-leaning Labour Party, both in Oslo and on the island where the shootings took place. Across Europe, the left has been forming alliances with Muslim groups to fight fascism and racism of all kinds, and it cannot be a coincidence that The politics of multiculturalism in the new Europe, a collection of essays from across the continent, published in 1997, concluded almost without exception that "the challenge" facing Europe was the presence of large Muslim communities in "our" midst. Anyone who claims therefore, that the perpetrator's "right-wing traits" and "anti-Muslim views", or even links with "Christian fundamentalist" websites are irrelevant is trying to draw a veil over the unacceptable truths of such "traits" and expecting us to believe that right-wing ideology is incapable of prompting someone towards such criminality.

Of course, that idea is nonsensical. Right-wing ideology was behind the Holocaust; it has been behind most anti-Semitism and other racism around the world; the notion of Europe's and Europeans' racial superiority - giving cultural credibility to the far-right - gave rise to the slave trade and the scramble for Africa leading to untold atrocities against "the Other"; ditto in the Middle and Far East. Ironically, it is also far-right Zionism - far from the socialist myths of Zionist pioneers in the 1930s and before - which has been behind the ethnic cleansing of Palestine throughout the 20th century, right up to today, as a specific policy to be pursued – by military means if necessary.

This is well-documented and yet ignored by our political masters. In the context of the latest apparently far-right atrocities in Norway, it is equally ironic that the word in English for a traitor who collaborates with an enemy power stems from Major Vidkun Quisling who ruled Norway on behalf of Nazi Germany during the Second World War.

We dismiss this "madman" as a one-off "not linked to any international terrorist organisations" at our peril. If nothing else, history has shown us that such ideologies are trans-national across and beyond the West, with catastrophic effects on the rest of the world. We have been warned.

Education and media consultant Ibrahim Hewitt is the chair of trustees of the Palestinian Relief and Development fund and is Senior Editor of the Middle East Monitor. He is also a trustee of Creative Arts Schools Trust.

Tony Blair’s sister-in-law announced her conversion to Islam last weekend. Journalist Lauren Booth embraced the faith after what she describes as a ‘holy experience’ in Iran. 

She is just one of a growing number of modern British career women to do so. Here, writer EVE AHMED, who was raised as a Muslim before rejecting the faith, explores the reasons why.

Much of my childhood was spent trying to escape ­Islam. 

Born in London to an English mother and a ­Pakistani Muslim father, I was brought up to follow my father’s faith without question. 

But, privately, I hated it. The minute I left home for university at the age of 18, I abandoned it altogether. 

As far as I was concerned, being a Muslim meant hearing the word ‘No’ over and over again. 

Girls from my background were barred from so many of the things my English friends took for granted. Indeed, it seemed to me that almost anything fun was haram, or forbidden, to girls like me. 

There were so many random, petty rules. No whistling. No chewing of gum. No riding bikes. No watching Top Of The Pops. No wearing make-up or clothes which revealed the shape of the body. 

No eating in the street or putting my hands in my pockets. No cutting my hair or painting my nails. No asking questions or answering back. No keeping dogs as pets, (they were unclean). 

And, of course, no sitting next to men, shaking their hands or even making eye contact with them.

These ground rules were imposed by my father and I, therefore, assumed they must be an integral part of being a good Muslim. 

Small wonder, then, that as soon as I was old enough to exert my independence, I rejected the whole package and turned my back on Islam. After all, what modern, liberated British woman would choose to live such a life? 

Well, quite a lot, it turns out, including Islam’s latest surprise convert, Tony Blair’s sister-in-law Lauren Booth. And after my own break with my past, I’ve followed with fascination the growing trend of Western women choosing to convert to Islam. 

Broadcaster and journalist Booth, 43, says she now wears a hijab head covering whenever she leaves home, prays five times a day and visits her local mosque ‘when I can’.

She decided to become a Muslim six weeks ago after visiting the shrine of Fatima al-Masumeh in the city of Qom, and says: ‘It was a Tuesday evening, and I sat down and felt this shot of spiritual morphine, just absolute bliss and joy.’ 

Before her awakening in Iran, she had been ‘sympathetic’ to Islam and has spent considerable time working in Palestine. ‘I was always impressed with the strength and comfort it gave,’ she says. 

How, I wondered, could women be drawn to a religion which I felt had kept me in such a lowly, submissive place? How could their experiences of Islam be so very different to mine?

Convert: Lauren Booth, who is Cherie Blair's half sister, decided to convert to Islam after what she described as a holy experience in Iran

According to Kevin Brice from ­Swansea University, who has specialised in studying white conversion to Islam, these women are part of an intriguing trend. 

He explains: ‘They seek spirituality, a higher meaning, and tend to be deep thinkers. The other type of women who turn to Islam are what I call “converts of convenience”. They’ll assume the trappings of the religion to please their Muslim husband and his family, but won’t necessarily attend mosque, pray or fast.’

I spoke to a diverse selection of white Western converts in a bid to re-examine the faith I had rejected.

Women like Kristiane Backer, 43, a London-based former MTV presenter who had led the kind of liberal Western-style life that I yearned for as a teenager, yet who turned her back on it and embraced Islam instead. Her reason? The ‘anything goes’ permissive society that I coveted had proved to be a superficial void.

Changing values: Camilla Leyland, 32, pictured in Western and Muslim dress, converted to Islam in her mid-20s for 'intellectual and feminist reasons'

The turning point for Kristiane came when she met and briefly dated the former Pakistani cricketer and Muslim Imran Khan in 1992 during the height of her career. He took her to Pakistan where she says she was immediately touched by spirituality and the warmth of the people.

Kristiane says: ‘Though our relationship didn’t last, I began to study the Muslim faith and eventually converted. Because of the nature of my job, I’d been out interviewing rock stars, travelling all over the world and following every trend, yet I’d felt empty inside. Now, at last, I had contentment because Islam had given me a purpose in life.’

‘In the West, we are stressed for super­ficial reasons, like what clothes to wear. In Islam, everyone looks to a higher goal. Everything is done to please God. It was a completely different value system.

'In the West, we are stressed for super­ficial reasons, like what clothes to wear. In Islam, everyone looks to a higher goal. Everything is done to please God'

'Despite my lifestyle, I felt empty inside and realised how liberating it was to be a Muslim. To follow only one god makes life purer. You are not chasing every fad.

‘I grew up in Germany in a not very religious Protestant family. I drank and I partied, but I realised that we need to behave well now so we have a good after-life. We are responsible for our own actions.’ 

For a significant amount of women, their first contact with Islam comes from ­dating a Muslim boyfriend. Lynne Ali, 31, from Dagenham in Essex, freely admits to having been ‘a typical white hard-partying teenager’. 

She says: ‘I would go out and get drunk with friends, wear tight and revealing clothing and date boys.

‘I also worked part-time as a DJ, so I was really into the club scene. I used to pray a bit as a Christian, but I used God as a sort of doctor, to fix things in my life. If anyone asked, I would’ve said that, generally, I was happy living life in the fast lane.’ 

But when she met her boyfriend, Zahid, at university, something dramatic happened. 

She says: ‘His sister started talking to me about Islam, and it was as if ­everything in my life fitted into place. I think, underneath it all, I must have been searching for something, and I wasn’t feeling fulfilled by my hard-drinking party lifestyle.’

Lynne converted aged 19. ‘From that day, I started wearing the hijab,’ she explains, ‘and I now never show my hair in public. At home, I’ll dress in normal Western clothes in front of my husband, but never out of the house.’

With a recent YouGov survey ­concluding that more than half the ­British public believe Islam to be a negative influence that encourages extremism, the repression of women and inequality, one might ask why any of them would choose such a direction for themselves. 

Yet statistics suggest Islamic conversion is not a mere flash in the pan but a significant development. Islam is, after all, the world’s fastest growing religion, and white adopters are an important part of that story. 

‘Evidence suggests that the ratio of Western women converts to male could be as high as 2:1,’ says Kevin Brice. 

Moreover, he says, often these female ­converts are eager to display the ­visible signs of their faith — in particular the hijab — whereas many Muslim girls brought up in the faith choose not to. 

Liberating: Kristiane Backer says being a Muslim makes her life purer

‘Perhaps as a result of these actions, which tend to draw attention, white Muslims often report greater amounts of discrimination against them than do born Muslims,’ adds Brice, which is what happened to Kristiane Backer.

She says: ‘In Germany, there is Islamophobia. I lost my job when I converted. There was a Press campaign against me with insinuations about all Muslims supporting ­terrorists — I was vilified. Now, I am a ­presenter on NBC Europe. 

‘I call myself a European Muslim, which is different to the ‘born’ Muslim. I was ­married to one, a Moroccan, but it didn’t work because he placed restrictions on me because of how he’d been brought up. As a European Muslim, I question ­everything — I don’t accept blindly.

‘But what I love is the hospitality and the warmth of the Muslim community. London is the best place in Europe for Muslims, there is wonderful Islamic ­culture here and I am very happy.’ 

For some converts, Islam represents a celebration of old-fashioned family values.

Ex-MTV Presenter Kristiane Backer with Mick Jagger in the late Eighties

‘Some are drawn to the sense of belonging and of community — values which have eroded in the West,’ says Haifaa Jawad, a senior lecturer at the University of Birmingham, who has studied the white conversion phenomenon.

‘Many people, from all walks of life, mourn the loss in today’s society of traditional respect for the elderly and for women, for example. These are values which are enshrined in the Koran, which Muslims have to live by,’ adds Brice.

It is values like these which drew Camilla Leyland, 32, a yoga teacher who lives in Cornwall, to Islam. A single mother to daughter, Inaya, two, she converted in her mid-20s for ‘intellectual and feminist reasons’.

She explains: ‘I know people will be surprised to hear the words ­“feminism” and “Islam” in the same breath, but in fact, the teachings of the Koran give equality to women, and at the time the religion was born, the teachings went against the grain of a misogynistic society.

‘The big mistake people make is by confusing culture with religion. Yes, there are Muslim cultures which do not allow women individual freedom, yet when I was growing up, I felt more oppressed by Western society.’

She talks of the pressure on women to act like men by drinking and ­having casual sex. ‘There was no real meaning to it all. In Islam, if you begin a relationship, that is a ­commitment of intent.’

Growing up in Southampton — her father was the director of Southampton Institute of Education and her mother a home economics teacher — Camilla’s interest in Islam began at school.

She went to university and later took a Masters degree in Middle East Studies. But it was while living and working in Syria that she had a spiritual epiphany. Reflecting on what she’d read in the Koran, she realised she wanted to convert.

Her decision was met with bemusement by friends and family. 

‘People found it so hard to believe that an educated, middle-class white woman would choose to become Muslim,’ she says. 

While Camilla’s faith remains strong, she no longer wears the hijab in public. But several of the women I spoke to said strict Islamic dress was something they found empowering and liberating.  

Escape route: Former DJ Lynne Ali is happy to pray five times a day

Lynne Ali remembers the night this hit home for her. ‘I went to an old friend’s 21st birthday party in a bar,’ she reveals. ‘I walked in, wearing my hijab and modest clothing, and saw how ­everyone else had so much flesh on display. They were drunk, slurring their words and dancing provocatively.

‘For the first time, I could see my former life with an outsider’s eyes, and I knew I could never go back to that.

I am so grateful I found my escape route. This is the real me — I am happy to pray five times a day and take classes at the mosque. I am no longer a slave to a broken society and its expectations.’ 

Kristiane Backer, who has written a book on her own spiritual journey, called From MTV To Mecca, believes the new breed of modern, independent Muslims can band together to show the world that Islam is not the faith I grew up in — one that stamps on the rights of women. 

She says: ‘I know women born Muslims who became disillusioned an d rebelled against it. When you dig deeper, it’s not the faith they turned against, but the culture. 

'Rules like marrying within the same sect or caste and education being less important for girls, as they should get married anyway —– where does it say that in the Koran? It doesn’t. 

‘Many young Muslims have abandoned the “fire and brimstone” version they were born into have re-discovered a more spiritual and intellectual approach, that’s free from the cultural dogmas of the older generation. That’s how I intend to spend my life, showing the world the beauty of the true Islam.’ 

While I don’t agree with their sentiments, I admire and respect the women I interviewed for this piece. 

They were all bright and educated, and have thought long and hard before choosing to convert to Islam — and now feel passionately about their adopted religion. Good luck to them. And good luck to Lauren Booth. But it’s that word that sums up the difference between their experience and mine — choice.

Perhaps if I’d felt in control rather than controlled, if I’d felt empowered rather than stifled, I would still be practising the religion I was born into, and would not carry the burden of guilt that I do about rejecting my father’s faith.

Muslim intellectuals and thinkers have had to contend with the power of the West and the power of Western ideas while interpreting and understanding the condition of the Muslim Ummah, or community. Many of them openly admired the West for its achievements in the arena of civil society as well as in science and technology, and have even remarked that the West was “Islam without Muslims.” For them the West was indeed worthy of emulation in many areas, such as democracy, human rights, respect for the rule of law and dedication to science.

Other Muslim thinkers have found the West responsible for the moral and material decline of the Muslim world. They blame Western imperialism and the era of colonial domination for the present backwardness and lack of self-government in the Ummah. They imagine it as the embodiment of Satan and have postulated Islamization as complete rejection of all that they see as Western, including democracy and freedom of speech. These thinkers are widely represented as Islamic fundamentalists in the West and often contrasted with Islamic liberals.

Needless to say, both discourses have an element of truth in them, but both suffer from a lack of balance. While the former suffers from a lack of self-esteem and exaggerates the virtues of the West, the latter confuses polemics and diatribe against the West for Islam. Both elements are to some extent valid, and even necessary, but only as supplements to a dominant discourse which is both balanced and constructive.

The West is essentially like a Centaur—half-human and half-beast. The human face of the beast allows the West to appreciate the virtues of democracy, equality and freedoms of speech and religion. It provides the moral basis for protecting and treating its own citizens with utmost respect and dignity while also striving hard to advance their interests, understood in terms of political and material development.

The bestial dimension of the West has led it to commit huge crimes against humanity. The world wars, the holocaust, colonialism, imperialism, slavery and racism are just a few of the crimes that the West has and/or to a much lesser extent continues to commit outside its borders.

We must not reject democracy, human rights and the rule of law.

These elements of the West are puzzling. How can a society that has so much respect for human life at home be so determined to allow the steady elimination of innocent Iraqis? How can a society that stands for equality and democracy allow so little freedom to other societies to disagree with it?

Today in an era of globalization all civilizations are forced to live in intimacy. Moreover, millions of Muslims now live in the West and many others live in a close embrace of Western ways of life. Understanding the puzzle that is the modern West is essential because its enormous power, both material as well as cultural has attained hegemonic proportions. There is very little resistance, except from some Islamists and some Asianists, to the growing influence of the West on the cultural and moral fabric of this planet.

We not only have to understand the modern West in a more balanced way, but we must also develop a discourse for the reconstruction of an Islamic identity neither weakened nor distracted by the enormous shadow of the West. Until we as Muslims can go beyond blind imitation of the West or outright rejection of its values, we will not be able to construct an Islamic self independent of Western influence. It is essential that we develop a positive and constructive understanding of the “other.” Only through such a positive and creative act will we be able to reconstruct a vibrant and meaningful self.

It is therefore doubly important that Muslims in the West develop a “first hand” understanding of what the West really is. It is rather ridiculous that Muslims who have been living in the U.S. for decades put aside their own experiences and, in order to understand the West, turn to the polemics of Muslim intellectuals of the 1960s who have not experienced the contemporary West.

Only those who have had a sustained experience of the West and have witnessed both its human and its bestial dimensions can develop a meaningful understanding of it. Others will continue to rely on caricatures, one way or the other.

A Balanced View

What does it mean to have a balanced view of the West? It means that we do not throw the baby out with the bathwater. Because Muslims are upset that the U.S. has chosen to be friends with Israel and not with the Arabs, or because the U.S. has committed crimes against Iraqi children, we must not reject democracy, human rights, respect for freedom and the rule of law.

A balanced view of the West should recognize the material impulses that shape many Western foreign policy choices and resist as well as condemn them. But in an endeavor to resist the Western domination we must not foolishly reject the laudable results of their moral impulses manifest so elegantly in their self-governing, rights-respecting societies.

A balanced view of the West will rise far above simple associations. Because democracy is found in the West does not mean it should be labeled Western. Since we now can find Islam in the West as well, does that mean Islam, too, is Western? A unbiased analysis of the West will seek to understand the sources of Western values and also their implications for social welfare before passing judgment upon them. A balanced view of the West, then, is essentially a considered and enlightened opinion of Western institutions and practices that does not allow negative emotions to cloud one’s rational faculties.

Only when such an attempt to understand the West is made by Muslim intellectuals as well as the general public will the basis of a healthy Islamic identity emerge. Until then reactions to the West will continue to subvert the construction of Islamic identity. And the responsibility of advancing such an understanding is the communal obligation of the Muslims of America.

Dr. Muqtedar Khan is assistant professor of international relations at Adrian College in Michigan.

Sri Lanka’s political foolhardiness in its inability to solve peacefully its domestic ethnic minority issue over the last fifty or so years, as an independent sovereign nation state has, as a consequence of a bitterly fought civil war, pulled her into the vortex of a new geo-political game played amongst India, the United States and China in which the island nation’s sovereignty is in danger of being compromised.

WikiLeaks, the website that allows whistleblowers to post documents that expose corruption in governments, non-governmental organisations and transnational companies, made headlines once again this week when it announced that it had posted 92,000 reports that gave the real picture of the Afghan war.

It was only months ago that the website hit international headlines when it posted a video that showed US helicopter gunships killing unarmed civilians in Baghdad.

The latest reports which are war logs written by US soldiers and officers in Afghanistan have caused severe embarrassment to the United States. They revealed several war crimes, assassination attempts by US special forces (or death squads?), dealings with drug lords, corruption and other sordid happenings, which the embedded western journalists in Afghanistan have failed to report or have been prevented from reporting.

The Barack Obama administration has dismissed the logs as insignificant. Yet it has come down hard on WikiLeaks, accusing it of putting US soldiers in harms way and jeopardizing war plans and national security.

Despite the embarrassment and the anger, the Obama administration may find some solace in the fact that the reports covered the period from 2001 to 2009 — the two terms of the George W. Bush administration. This may make one to believe that the whistleblowers are probably anti-Bush and anti-war, and do not want Obama to go the Bush way.

But there is another theory which says the whistleblowers are hardcore hawks. They leaked the documents to show how messy the Afghan situation has become and whip up support for fresh military measures that would require a longer stay in Afghanistan, a strategic country overlooking China and Russia's backyard. These military measures may even take the war to Pakistan because the reports claim that Pakistan's intelligence agency, the Inter-Services Intelligence, is sharing information with the Taliban and protecting them.

Whatever the reasons for the leaks and whoever the sources are, the war logs show that war crimes have been and are being committed in Afghanistan. Even as the war logs were being posted on WikiLeaks' website, news agencies over the weekend reported that 52 Afghan civilians were killed in a US missile attack. The deaths would probably be categorized as collateral damage.

How many more civilian lives will it take for the Obama administration to realize the demonic nature of the imperial war it wages for global dominance and global resources? There is little the rest of the world can do with regard to prosecuting those responsible for the war crimes in Afghanistan. The United States did not sign the Rome Statute that established the International Criminal Court, which is also known as the war crimes tribunal, because it argued that the US judicial system was strong and credible enough to try war crimes suspects who are US citizens. But days after the Afghan war logs were made public, there is little indication that the United States is even thinking of such prosecution. There is also no indication that the UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon will set up an experts panel to advise him on the war crimes mentioned in the war logs.

Surely, the US prosecutors and the UN Chief must have by now read at least some of those logs where evidence of war crimes is found. Surely, they must have by now heard or read the comments made by WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. The global anti-corruption activist told a news conference in London on Monday that thousands of incidents revealed in the documents constituted war crimes that should be investigated and prosecuted.

Here is one such war crime extracted from the reports and carried in the British Guardian, which WikiLeaks trusted to share the Afghan war logs.

Headlined "How the US marines sanitized bloodbath', the article describes an incident in these words:

"It started with a suicide bomb. On 4 March 2007, a convoy of US marines, who had arrived in Afghanistan three weeks earlier, was hit by an explosives-rigged minivan outside the southeastern city of Jalalabad.

"The marines made a frenzied escape, opening fire with automatic weapons as they tore down a six-mile stretch of highway, hitting almost anyone in their way — teenage girls in the fields, motorists in their cars, old men as they walked along the road. Nineteen unarmed civilians were killed and 50 wounded."

The Guardian article notes that no soldier gave the account of the rampage in their military reports. The details of the carnage, however, transpired in a subsequent 17-day inquiry. At the end of the inquiry, no one was punished, despite strong evidence from Afghan officials who witnessed the bloody trail left behind by the US soldiers during their trigger-happy ride back to the Jalalabad base.

The article also gives details of how US military investigators who went to the scene of carnage threatened the journalists there and got them to delete the photographs they had taken.

Talking of journalists, the Afghan war logs on WikiLeaks also record how the US occupation force bought the loyalty of the Afghan media so that they would not report civilian killings and other wrong deeds committed by the international troops.

It is understandable that the poorly-paid Afghan journalists are selling their souls for a few extra dollars. But it is unfathomable why the Western mainstream media did not dare to report the war crimes. When enemy fire brought down a US helicopter, the embedded journalists dutifully reported that the crash was due to mechanical failure, though they knew that the insurgents were using shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missiles — a fact now confirmed by WikiLeaks's Afghan war logs.

Even after WikiLeaks revelation, the rightwing Western media groups did not want to see the wood for the trees.

Instead of calling on the United States and other NATO members to withdraw from Afghanistan or launch war crimes probes, they lambasted WikiLeaks and accused it of helping the Taliban.

Britain's Sun newspaper, owned by media mogul Rupert Murdoch, who also owns the pro-war Fox television, denounced the whistleblowers as "traitors". In an editorial, Sun asked:

"Who benefits from the massive leak of military papers: the evil Taliban or British squaddies? Who will be cheering loudest that the allies have a traitor in their midst: the mad mullahs of Iran who supply weapons to the terrorists? Or the world leaders who want to make Afghanistan a country free from fear?"

The New York Times, another newspaper with which WikiLeaks shared the war logs, went to the White House and discussed the reports prior to their selective publication.

The lame reaction of the Western media gives credence to the claim that the war is fought with the help of the media.

The media certainly play a major role in modern warfare where truth is the first casualty. The embedded journalists of the mainstream media twist and turn the truth and produce bastardized news. As a result, the collective Western mindset is estranged from morality. This explains why the WikiLeaks revelations have not generated much public outcry against the Afghan and Iraq wars, the way the 1971 Pentagon Papers that exposed the US sham in Vietnam had done.

The Americans are silent even in the face of the war becoming a huge robbery. A US audit this week said more than 95 percent of the 9.1 billion US dollars Iraq had paid the Pentagon for reconstruction work was unaccounted for. It is Iraq's hard earned money from its oil revenue. The Iraqis are furious, but the Americans are not.

It is time that Obama pulled out US troops from Afghanistan before the illegal, immoral and unjust war could further damage the American public conscience. He must realize that Afghanistan is a graveyard for invaders. He must realize that by continuing the war, he is only breeding more terrorists.

The world's most powerful military force, supported by armies of other Western big powers, has been struggling to win the war for ten years. What more indictment than this is needed to show that the Americans are fighting a losing war?

The Afghan war logs posted on WikiLeaks offer a face-saving exit. Grab it and get out. But the US won't. It was only on Wednesday that the US House of Representative passed a bill to fund the Afghan war with bipartisan support. 

It seems that many of us have stopped seeking to differentiate between the teachings of a religion and the actions of a few extremists or certain governmental/political regimes.

I have often written on these pages that if I have a religion, then it is compassion. My father is a Christian minister and taught us from our birth that true love is boundless and all embracing, that it can never be captured by the cloistered walls of fearful minds and prejudiced thinking.

Throughout my life my Muslim brothers and sisters have taught and continue to teach me so much about loving deeply, living graciously and walking with humility.

So it is absolutely heart breaking to watch these socially conscious, intelligent and gentle people being vilified again and again by those who do not even count a single Muslim person within their circle of acquaintance.

A scholar named Edward Said conceptualized 'the Other'. The other is a construct of the mind, created to divide the world into us and them, east and west, backward and modern, irrational and rational, weak and strong. The 'other' is the person that we are not and so we project onto them all that we loathe about our own selves.

In Said’s paradigm for many 'westerners' (And that term in itself is fraught with prejudice…which would constitute another blog entirely) the 'Other' is Islamic people.

In Australia at the moment and in many parts of the world there is a movement to ban certain types of Muslim dress, such as the burqa. The proponents of these kinds of legislations argue that they are rescuing 'poor oppressed Muslim women' from themselves and their oppressive and backward culture.

I consider myself a gentle person and I try not to waste my time or energy in argument. But I feel strongly that this kind of unmitigated colonialism and searing condescension cannot go unanswered.

The strongest women I know are Muslim, they have their own reasons for wearing hijab, niqab or burqa but in countries like Australia and America it is most definitely not forced upon them. It is a choice. Their choice. Similar to the choice a nun might make to wear a habit, or another woman might make to wear something completely different. Legislating what women can and cannot wear is not only patriarchal, it is in violation of their basic human rights.

It concerns me that in this entire discourse there is one key voice to whom we are not listening, and that is the Muslim voice, moreover when it comes to the debate on dress it is the female Muslim voice which we are ignoring.

As a society which prides itself on how literate and educated we are compared to the rest of the world, I would contend that there are giant gaping holes in our knowledge when it comes to subjects relating to Islam and the role of women in Islamic culture.

We would rather believe the propaganda that we are fed by a fear mongering media than use our own rational minds to sift fact from fiction, demonization from truth.

So friends the purpose of this post is simple, I would like to share with you some wonderful articles, books and videos about the subjects to which we so often only hear one side….

May we all seek to understand before we judge,

It is the only road to peace.
Maithri Goonetilleke is a Sri Lankan-Australian doctor currently working with AIDS patients in Swaziland.

The first occurred in 1999.

In a meeting with a senior Pakistani official, the topic came around, as it usually did, to US pressure on Pakistan to crack down on militants crossing the Line of Control to engage in "terrorist acts" in Indian administered Kashmir.

Such infiltration, of course, was widely believed to be facilitated by Pakistan's infamous intelligence service, the ISI.

Dropping for a moment the usual protests of innocence, the official challenged me to distinguish between a "terrorist" and a "freedom fighter".

That was easy, I said: "The terrorist targets civilians."

The unspoken assumption in my response was that the US would look differently upon militants engaged in legitimate resistance to oppression, provided those militants restricted themselves to "legitimate" military or security related targets.

I knew, however, that this was not a distinction my government would willingly concede; and the Pakistani, not wishing to acknowledge the legitimacy of my distinction, did not press me on it.

Fast-forward then to another conversation, this time with a senior official in the US department of defence.

It was early 2002, just months after the attacks of 9/11.

The US had just launched its "war on terrorism," and this official, perfectly innocent of any South Asian background, was trying to get a full grasp of all the terrorism we had set out to eliminate.

"What about what's going in Kashmir?" he asked. "Isn't that terrorism?"

Nearly falling out of my chair, I strongly cautioned him against setting his sights on Kashmir in the way we were already focusing on al-Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

There was a long history behind the Kashmir dispute, I pointed out earnestly, and it would be a big mistake to focus myopically on the terrorism without trying to solve the dispute itself.

Focus on terrorism

Nonetheless, that is precisely what the US has done since 9/11: Focusing on the illegitimate means of redress – the terrorism – without considering either the grievances which produce it or promoting more legitimate means of redressing those grievances.

The US failure in this regard has been compounded by its encouragement of similar attitudes on the part of other nations, including India, which are seen as fellow victims of terrorism, and therefore natural allies in the "war on terror".

When Shah Mehmood Qureshi, the Pakistani foreign minister, meets with his Indian counterpart, S.M. Krishna, the threat of terrorism will hover over the proceedings in at least two respects.

The prospect of Indo-Pakistani rapprochement, finally gaining slight momentum after the debacle of Mumbai, will pose a highly attractive target for extremists who see peace between the two leading secular South Asian democracies as a threat.

Senior officials from both India and Pakistan have stressed the menace posed by extremist spoilers, and the corresponding need to make the peace process impervious to such threats.

Perhaps even more importantly, though, preoccupation with terrorism emanating from Pakistan has encouraged the Indian side to focus on the eradication of the terrorist threat as an effective precondition to serious talks.

Indeed, the concern with terrorism dominates Indian rhetoric about the upcoming talks, with Krishna having recently reiterated that "Mumbai is a deep scar; [Pakistan] must pursue those who were responsible for, conspired and perpetrated Mumbai".

While such concerns are certainly understandable, they nonetheless constitute an overwhelming distraction from the matter at hand.

Indeed, it is clear that the upcoming talks will essentially be "talks about talks".

Such concrete steps as might be taken will clearly fall into the category of "confidence-building measures," designed to create an environment of greater "trust".

The Pakistanis, too, are falling into the same trap, with Salman Bashir, the Pakistani foreign secretary, having recently said "I think what we're trying to do here is create the right environment".

We have seen all this before.

Such a process driven approach, if sustained, will doom the current effort to the fate suffered by all previous ones: Abject failure.

The status quo

The fundamental problem is that the status quo, with India in effective control of most of Jammu and Kashmir, favours India.

Thus, a sustained series of so-called confidence building measures which reduces the threat of hostilities has the effect of making the status quo more tolerable for India over time, thus creating a strong disincentive for India to engage in a real negotiation.

Correspondingly, in Pakistan, confidence building measures in the absence of progress on the core issues in dispute only make the prospect of Indian concessions on Kashmir all the more unlikely and, thus, a policy focused initially on creating trust all the less sustainable.

This is especially true where terrorism and militant groups are concerned.

In South Asia, as elsewhere, terrorism is the tool of the weak.

Without any other effective means of redressing Indian repression of Muslims in Indian administered Kashmir, a Pakistani focus on cracking down on so called "Kashmiri" militant groups based in Pakistan itself is unlikely to be accepted by the army, and only risks further undermining a Pakistani government already beset with domestic militant threats on all sides.

It is patently clear to everyone concerned, including the Pakistani army, that for Pakistan, Kashmir is lost, and will never be regained.

Thus, the challenge of an effective peace process in South Asia will be to cut through the chimera of "confidence building measures" which lead nowhere, and to frame an agreement which goes far enough in addressing the legitimate grievances of Kashmiris to make the loss of Kashmir acceptable to the majority of Pakistanis.

Once such an agreement in principle is reached, it will then be necessary for the Indian and Pakistani governments to collaborate closely in an effort to make the agreement, including some significant Indian concessions to Kashmiris' desire for greater autonomy, politically saleable on both sides.

In the same vein, it would also be necessary for India and Pakistan to collaborate in empowering the moderates in Kashmir itself who are capable of bringing about a political solution.

US sabotage

It is also patently clear that the Indians and Pakistanis are not capable of putting such a far-sighted political programme together on their own.

Rather than using the Indians' desire for great-power status as an effective diplomatic tool to encourage steps leading to a settlement of Kashmir, however, US policy is working assiduously to sabotage the process.

Firstly, by effectively encouraging India to follow the US lead in dealing with terrorism solely as an illegitimate political tool, which in fact it is, without simultaneously addressing the grievances which motivate it, the US is undermining its own interest in a Kashmir settlement.

Further, by dealing with the Kashmir dispute solely as a matter between India and Pakistan, and ignoring the plight of Kashmiris themselves, the US is delegitimising the only approach which would make Pakistani territorial concessions domestically acceptable.

The current unrest in Kashmir, which has led to the deaths of another 15 civilians in the past month, only serves as a reminder of the centrality of Kashmir and Kashmiris in the dispute – despite the state department's craven labelling of current Kashmiri violence and repression as "an internal Indian matter".

Make no mistake: Settlement of Kashmir is critical to broader regional stability.

Without a settlement of Kashmir, the Indo-Pakistani proxy battle which greatly complicates prospects for a negotiated settlement in Afghanistan is unlikely to abate.

Without a settlement of Kashmir, it will only be harder to socially isolate the extremists who pose an existential threat to Pakistan itself, and who could effectively undermine a nuclear armed state to say nothing of touching off a potentially nuclear armed confrontation between India and Pakistan.

Let us hope that the upcoming "talks about talks" serve to remind all interested parties of what is at stake, and seriously attempt to reach beyond the current, deeply flawed and unsustainable "Composite Dialogue".

Robert Grenier was the CIA's chief of station in Islamabad, Pakistan, from 1999 to 2002. He was also the director of the CIA's counter-terrorism centre.

In fact the UN collapsed and lost its soulon May 14, 1948 when Palestine was partitioned and theState of Israel was established for migrant Jews in the lands robbed from Palestinians.  With the admission of Israel as a UN member while the Palestinians languish in refugee camps in appalling conditions justice and all cherished human values collapsed .The UN is now being manipulated by US and Europe to serve their war agenda which is fast turning planet earth into a killing field

We’ve all had intense moments. For me, one such moment happened while standing on the rooftop of Masjid al-Haram. Above me was only sky, below me, the most beautiful view of the Kaba’a and an acute sign of Allah, this life, and the life to come. I was surrounded by an overwhelming crowd – that exists nowhere else on this earth – but, for me, it could have been that I was standing completely alone. With Allah.

I brought with me to that rooftop so much heartache, confusion, and doubt. I came with so much weakness, human frailty, and pain. Standing at a crossroads in my life, I brought with me fear of what was to come, and hope in what could be. So, as I stood on that roof, I remembered the story of Musa (`alayhi wassalam – may Allah be pleased with him) standing at the Red Sea. His physical eyes saw nothing but a wall of water, entrapping him as an army approached; but his spiritual eyes saw only Allah, and a way out so certain it was as if he had already taken it. While the voices of his people – bereft of trust or hope—spoke only of being overtaken, Musa (as) did not waiver.

As I stood there, I heard the distant voices warning me of what was to come – but my heart heard only, “Inna ma’iya rabee sa yahdeen…Truly my Lord is with me, He will guide me through.” (Qur’an, 26:62)

But seeing through the illusions of hardship, confusion and pain that surround us can only happen when we allow our heart to focus. The foundation of Islam is tawheed (Oneness). But tawheed is not just about saying that God is One. It is so much deeper. It is about the Oneness of purpose, of fear, of worship, of ultimate love for God. It is the oneness of vision and focus. It is to direct one’s sight on one singular point, allowing everything else to fall into place.

One of the most beautiful traditions of the Prophet ﷺ captures this concept perfectly. He ﷺ said: “Whoever makes the Hereafter his preoccupation, then Allah places freedom from want in his heart, gathers his affairs, and Dunya (worldly life) comes to him despite being reluctant to do so. And whoever makes Dunya his preoccupation, then Allah places his poverty in front of his eyes, make his affairs scattered, and nothing of the Dunya comes to him except that which has been decreed for him.” [At-Tirmidhi].

If you’ve ever seen a “magic eye” picture, you can see a wonderful metaphor of this truth. At first glance, the picture looks like nothing but a collection of shapes, with no order or purpose. But if you start by bringing the picture right up to your face, focusing your eye on one singular point, as you move the picture slowly away from your face, the picture suddenly becomes clear. But, as soon as you take your eyes off that singular point of focus, the picture disappears and again becomes nothing but a sea of shapes.

In the same way, the more we focus on the dunya, the more our matters become scattered. The more we run after the dunya, the more it runs away from us. The more we chase wealth, ironically, the more poverty we feel. If money is the focus, you will find that no matter how much money you have, you will always fear losing it. This preoccupation is poverty itself. That is why the Prophet ﷺ says about such people that poverty is always in front of their eyes. That is all they see. No matter how much they have, there is no contentment, only greed for more and fear of loss. But, for the ones who focus on Allah, thedunya comes to them, and Allah puts contentment in their hearts. Even if they have less, they feel rich, and are more willing to give from that wealth.

And when such people feel trapped by life, by financial hardship, by pain, by loneliness, by fear, by heartbreak, or sadness, all they have to do is turn to Allah, and He always makes a way out for them. Know that this is not some feel-good theory. It is a promise. A promise made by Allah Himself, who says in the Qur’an:

“…And for those who fear Allah, He (ever) prepares a way out, And He provides for him from (sources) he never could imagine. And if any one puts his trust in Allah, sufficient is (Allah) for him…” (65:2-3)

Allah is sufficient for them. Allah is enough. For those who make Allah their primary concern, there is only peace, because whatever happens to them in this life it is good and accepted as the will of Allah. Imagine having only good in your life. That is the state of this type of believer, as the Prophet ﷺ says: “Wondrous are the believer’s affairs. For him there is good in all his affairs, and this is so only for the believer. When something pleasing happens to him, he is grateful, and that is good for him; and when something displeasing happens to him, he is enduring (has sabr), and that is good for him.” [Muslim].

And so in the heart of such a believer is a sort of paradise. That is the paradise that Ibn Taymiyyah, may Allah have mercy on his soul, spoke of when he said: ‘Truly, there is a Heaven in this world, [and] whoever does not enter it, will not enter the Heaven of the next world.’

And in that heaven, complete peace is not something of a moment. It is a state, eternal.