SPME Member Prof. Barry Rubin at American University Calls for Help To Defend Arab Liberal Writer Lafif Lakhdar Targeted For Murder for For Calling for Moderate Islam

A leading Islamist cleric, ironically one often portrayed as a moderate, has called for murdering of a prominent writer. But this case is even far worse in many respects than the prominent Salman Rushdie affair.

The intended victim is Lafif Lakhdar, one of the Arab world’s best-known liberal writers, especially in terms of advocating a moderate form of Islam in a secular society. Born in Tunisia and trained as a lawyer, Lakhdar has also worked in Algeria and Lebanon, before settling in Paris. Though in ill health, he has written many books, as well as helping to found Middle East Transparent, perhaps the single most important website for liberal Arab writings.

The man inciting to murder him is Rached Ghannouchi, leader of the Tunisian Islamist group Harakat al-Nahdha who has been given safe haven in London. Ghannouchi likes to portray himself as a moderate, a man who opposes violence and whose battle is with the Tunisian regime and not the West. He is often cited as an example of a moderate Islamist with whom the West can cooperate.

Aside from showing the falseness of his pretensions to moderation, Ghannouchi’s action raises the question of why a man who calls for murdering a liberal dissident should receive protection in Britain as a political refugee.

What makes this case even more shocking, however, is that Lakhdar is being accused of a thought crime that he did not commit.

In May 2005, a Sudanese newspaper began serializing a work entitled “The Hidden Side of the Prophet’s Life” under the name “Dr. Maqrizi.” Demonstrators in Sudan demanded the author’s death. Yet there was absolutely no reason to believe that Lakhdar, who has no strong connections with the Sudan, had anything to do with the author or book, which does not fit with his earlier writings or approach to these issues.

Without a few days, without any proof or even investigation, Ghannouchi’s web site, “Nahdha.net” accused Lakhdar of having written a blasphemous book against the prophet of Islam and issued a decree sentencing him to death. Not only that but it attributed his long-standing physical paralysis to the punishment of God for producing such a heretical work.

Clearly, Ghannouchi, the Tunisian Islamist was using the publication of an obscure work in far-off Sudan to get rid of the leading Tunisian secularist. In the text, Ghannouchi accused Lakhdar of a crime equivalent to murdering a prophet.

But in fact one can tell from the pamphlet’s text that Lakhdar did not write it. Lakhdar believes, in his own words, “In religious matters, religious rationalism can only accept what conforms to spiritual and humanistic logic.” But the pamphlet seems like a deliberate provocation written by someone remote from pragmatic thought. For example, it claims that Islam’s founder was inspired by the devil, called his wife prostitutes, and insulted Arabs.

Both Islamists and Arab dictatorships have been trying to portray Arab liberals as anti-Arab and anti-Muslim in order to discredit the idea of reform. This pamphlet seems to have been produced for this purpose, a caricature assembled to inspire hatred against moderates. In addition, given the ongoing persecution of Christians in southern Sudan, there are references in the text implying the superiority of Christianity clearly designed to inspire hatred against believers in that faith as enemies of Islam.

Lakhdar asks for action by the British justice system against a man who while protected by the United Kingdom advocates the murder of others. The irony here is that Britain formerly had to protect Salman Rushdie, a British citizen, against the death threat of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. Now Ghannouchi uses his privileges of asylum in Britain to call for killing an innocent dissident intellectual.

The wider implications of this case are the uses of the most slanderous and cynical means to demonize reformers and block Muslims and Arabs from receiving their true message.

The wider implications of this case are the uses of the most slanderous and cynical means to demonize reformers and block Muslims and Arabs from receiving their true message.

Those wishing more information or to assist in the defense of Mr. Lakhdar can write Lafif Lakhdar International Défense Committee at LLIDC@hotmail.com.

Why?

Bravo. I am sure it was not an easy decision but Musharaf's move will please the donor community. After all, it is difficult to demand more aid from the international community. Indeed, charge it with racism for not contributing enough and at the same time spend lavishly on new military toys. In fact, he should also cancel the expansive Swedish radar systems he agreed to buy a mere week after the earthquake and significantly cut de fence expenditures.

After all, his relations with India are improving and will continue to do so provided he does not follow in Arafat footsteps and try to use terror to advance his agenda in Kashmir. The Indians cannot be expected to put up with the increase in terrorism infinitely. In fact, I suspect delaying the F-16 purchase has the added benefit of pacifying the Indian anger over the recent bombings in Delhi and Srinigar.

The voice used by CNN anchor is too dramatic. Russians are too supportive of Sarkozy's zero tolerance policy, paid too much attention to the Arab origins of the rioters and had the gall to tell their citizens to avoid visiting the Paris suburbs . That is not surprising as a Russian tourist bus was torched and 40 Russian tourists remain stranded in Paris.

The French reporters also complained that Al Jazeera's coverage not only emphasizes that the rioters are Muslim but gives the impression that Muslims are discriminated against in France and brought on a government spokesperson to assure the viewer that it isn't so.

To counter the bad publicity, for the second night in a row, the TV station followed the riot story with stories about areas in previously troubled areas in which government policies turned things around. Today they showed a high school turned around by tough love and a beautiful new building.

Perspective is not a bad thing. I wish the American media (or the French media for that matter) had followed a similar policy and began to report the good news from Iraq.

When will heads finally roll or get evicted in that agency? It is not only incometent but it leaks worse than a sieve.

The short term benfit is Bruce Laurence's conclusion is that negotiations are NOT the answer:

Some have suggested that the war against Al Qaeda can be won if the United States takes steps to engage in serious dialogue with its enemy. That is the counsel from Mohammad-Mahmoud Ould Mohamedou, a Harvard policy expert on conflict resolution: "Though dismissed widely, the best strategy for the United States may well be to acknowledge and address the collective reasons in which Al Qaeda anchors its acts of force. Al Qaeda has been true to its word in announcing and implementing its strategy for over a decade. It is likely to be true to its word in the future and cease hostilities against the United States, and indeed bring an end to the war it declared in 1996 and in 1998, in return for some degree of satisfaction regarding its grievances. In 2002, bin Laden declared: 'Whether America escalates or de-escalates this conflict, we will reply in kind.'"


There are major problems with this idyllic strategy. Which American official would "acknowledge and address" the U.S. role in the current conflict? Neither President Bush nor Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice seems likely to accept that challenge, but who could represent the United States and speak for its role if not they? And how would they, or any elected official, undertake that task today, three years after bin Laden spoke his "conciliatory" words? The bin Laden declaration cited above came before the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in March 2003. There are now two theaters in the war on terror, Afghanistan and Iraq, and in each, asserts bin Laden, it is the "Zionist-Crusader alliance" that initiates terror and forces Al Qaeda to respond in kind. Alas, there is no "degree of satisfaction," short of complete American withdrawal from the current sites of conflict, that would lead bin Laden to "reply in kind."

More important, neither ignoring bin Laden nor trying to address his concerns will tackle the root causes of the antipathies that pit the United States and its allies against a resilient, localized network of anti-imperialist Muslim warriors. In what might have been his own epitaph, bin Laden wrote the following poem in February 2003:

Let me be a martyr,
dwelling in a high mountain pass
among a band of knights who,
united in devotion to God,
descend to face armies.

The attraction of knights will continue until such time as more-humane heroes can attract the idealism of Muslim youth. Unlike bin Laden and his Al Qaeda cohorts, future Muslim leaders, if they are to succeed, must work within the state system; their task, unlike his, must be to find a better way not only to liberate Muslim homelands but also to forge a brighter future for those liberated. In the meantime, reading the words of Osama bin Laden is a sober reminder of how hard, yet necessary, it is to wage war against Al Qaeda with the pen — through the press, the Internet, and television — and not just with the sword, whether on the plains of Iraq or in the mountains of Afghanistan.

His conclusions are seconded by plenty of others including Cliff May who responds to Allan Zerkin's call to negoriate.