Disavowing Violence

In the strange aftermath of the Danish cartoon scandal, the most insightful and incisive critique of the affair and the subsequent reaction came from within the Muslim world itself. Jordanian journalist Jihad Momani, in a piece for the Jordanian tabloid al-Shihan—for which Momani has been subsequently vilified—posed the following question: “What brings more prejudice against Islam, these caricatures or pictures of a hostage taker slashing the throat of his victim in front of the cameras, or a suicide bomber who blows himself up during a wedding ceremony?”

Momani’s query foregrounds the critical issue facing Muslims across the globe: at what point will Muslim anger and unrest shift its target from the traditional Western enemies to the violent sects internal to Islam. The answer may be now.

Yesterday, after Sunni terrorists—or, in the current lingo, insurgents—destroyed the golden dome of the Golden Mosque in Samara, one of Iraq’s four sacred Shiite shrines, Iraqi Shiites released their fury across the country with an unprecedented illustration of the delicate fault-line running through present day Iraq in the ongoing struggle between Shiites and Sunnis. In the two days since the Golden Mosque bombing, sectarian violence has claimed the lives of at least 138 Iraqis, most of them Sunni Muslims. Additionally, the Interior Ministry has confirmed attacks by sectarian militias and armed rioters on 90 Sunni mosques in Baghdad alone. It is worth noting, however, that the response has not been entirely violent: The New York Times described yesterday’s Shiite demonstrations as “mostly peaceful.” Nevertheless, the decidedly chaotic atmosphere has rendered Iraq’s grasp on political stability ever more tenuous. A full-blown civil war looks to be imminent, with President George W. Bush and numerous Iraqi leaders asking for restraint.

But there is one respect in which the Shiite response to the bombing of the Golden Mosque should not be restrained at all, and that is in the verbal condemnation of the Sunni minority in Iraq by the Shiite majority. Shiites in Iraq, as well as world-wide, have a rare opportunity to disassociate themselves in the eyes of the international community from the ceaseless violence of their Sunni counterparts. One of the key revelations of the Muslim world’s reaction to the cartoon scandal was that many in the Muslim community are deeply frustrated by the West’s perception of the religion and its followers as a source of violent behavior. The recent Sunni bombings in Iraq, then, provide a crucial opportunity for peaceful Muslim’s to promote sympathy with their cause through a vocal, harsh censure of the violent minority that exists within Sunni Islam.

As I’ve heard countless American Muslim’s attest, Islam is a peaceful religion, and the majority of its followers are peaceful people. But it is not until this peaceful majority authoritatively separates itself from the violent zealots that Islam will shed its reputation for bloodshed. Moreover, the best hope to check fundamentalist Islamic terrorism, as well as more politically-oriented Iraqi insurgents, is through vigorous reproach from other Muslims. Censure from America, the UN, and others has been ineffectual, but an internal denunciation from one’s religious compatriots surely makes a more meaningful impression.

Iraq doesn’t need a civil war—there is plenty of unrest as it is. Instead, in the wake of yet another act of terrorism by Sunni insurgents, Iraqi Shiites, and the global Islamic community, need to wage a new type of war, one in which suicide bombs and death threats are conspicuously absent: a civil war of words. Wordplay aside, such a campaign would be targeted not at the usual suspects of America and the West, but at the internal evil that has given Islam such a bad name. Once again, Jihad Momani, addressing his Muslim brothers, articulates this sentiment in the clearest fashion: “Who harms Islam more? This European guy who paints Muhammad or the real Muslim guy who cuts a hostage’s head off and says, ‘Allah u akbar?’ Who insults our religion, this guy or the European guy?”

Alec N. Halaby ’09, a Crimson editorial editor, lives in Canaday Hall.