US embassy cable - 05DHAKA3681

UNCLAS DHAKA 003681 
 
SIPDIS 
 
FOR I/FW, B/G, IIP/G/NEA-SA, B/VOA/N (BANGLA SERVICE) STATE 
FOR SA/PAB, SA/PPD (LSCENSNY, SSTRYKER), SA/RA, INR/R/MR, 
AND PASS TO USAID FOR ANE/ASIA/SA/B (WJOHNSON) 
 
CINCPAC FOR PUBLIC DIPLOMACY ADVISOR, J51 (MAJ TURNER), J45 
(MAJ NICHOLLS) 
 
USARPAC FOR APOP-IM (MAJ HEDRICK) 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: KMDR, OIIP, OPRC, KPAO, PREL, ETRD, PTER, ASEC, BG, OCII, BG Terrorism 
SUBJECT: Media Reaction: Terrorism and Islamic Apologists; 
Dhaka 
 
 
Summary: An editorial page article in "Daily Star" 
criticizes Islamic apologists who try to rationalize recent 
terrorist activities instead of critical inquiry and self 
examination. 
 
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Terrorism and Islamic Apologists 
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"The Islamist terrorist and the Islamic apologist" 
An editorial page article by Mahfuzur Rahman in independent 
English "Daily Star" opines (7/31): 
 
The terror of September 11, 2001 has produced a great deal 
of anger against Islam in the western world; it has also 
produced a crop of apologists, both among Muslims everywhere 
and in the west. The latter group includes political leaders 
keen to be seen as friends of Muslims, especially the Muslim 
electorate. It is easy to understand western politicians 
standing up for mainstream Islam. It is difficult to 
understand Muslim apologists at a time when the primary need 
in Muslim societies is for critical inquiry and self 
examination. 
In the popular writings that have emerged since September 
eleven, those of Asghar Ali Engineer stand out, not least in 
the frequency at which they appear. Their author is also a 
good example of a Muslim apologist. The following paragraphs 
are aimed primarily at his latest article, written after the 
London bombings of July 7, 2005 and printed in The Daily 
Star, July 21, 2005, and which is fairly representative of 
the apologist genre of thinking. 
Mr.Engineer considers the London bombers not fanatics but 
"angry young men boiling with anger at these western 
countries destroying their countries and killing and raining 
death and destruction." The use of "their countries" is 
rather puzzling. The bombers were all British. Could he be 
implying that even though Britain was their adopted home, 
their real allegiance lay abroad, perhaps based on some 
concept of Islamic ummah? If that is the case, the "Islamic" 
nature of their violence becomes all the more evident. 
Talk of violence and Islam, the theme of Mr. Engineer's 
apologia, and one has to talk of present-day Iraq. Mr. 
Engineer is in no doubt that the violence there is simply a 
product of rage against occupation of the country by 
infidels. Such rage, in must be granted, is very much 
present in the country. It must also be conceded that much 
of the terrorist rage is directed against the infidels and 
not at home-bred autocratic regimes, or for that matter 
against an occupier when it happens to be another Arab 
country. After all, there was no such rage when Iraq 
occupied Kuwait one and a half decades ago. But the point 
about the rage being anti-infidel, and not anti-autocracy, 
only reinforces the argument that much of the terrorist acts 
in Iraq today is "Islamic" in nature, at least by the 
terrorists' definition of Islam. 
Chammas