Understanding Islamic Fundamentalism and its Offshoot of Terrorism

By James Thembo

December 31, 2012

 

Many years ago when I was young in the village, I witnessed in public occasional fights between men. The reasons for these affrays as they are called in criminal law terms were numerous: Land ownership disagreements, non payment of debts, infidelity issues, drunken vulgarities or simply waste of time arguments on what was likely to be the day’s weather.

The fighting duo would land brutal blows on each other, neither side often not easily accepting to be flattened like they were weaklings. But other times, there was a clear loser. He would extricate himself from a rain of punches and resort to issuance of threats ranging from rushing home to pick his panga or spear to finish off the rival.

The current global threat of Islamic fundamentalism reminds me of the above scenarios, but we will make the connection later. While not all Muslims are fundamentalists and not all fundamentalists terrorists (there was Christian fundamentalism once in history), it is true that terrorism as we know it today is a derivative of Islamic extremism which has most times bred violence.

History reveals that during Europe’s Dark Ages, Islam flourished. Towards the beginning of the Middle Ages, Islam had made impressive achievements in culture, philosophy, literature, art, education medicine, technology and politics. It was a civilization that spanned a period of over 800 years.

Then, Islam started declining. Islamic popularization crusades died away. The western world made their presence in the Middle East which was Islam’s strong-hold, felt. By the 19^th and 20^th centuries, the west had planted seeds that sprouted into colonialism which with it was the spread of their culture. Arab Muslims attempted to create Pan-Arabism whose purpose was to reject imperialism. It failed.

Even through the cold war days, the west led by America entrenched its presence in the Middle East. They supported rogue regimes if they helped the West’s interests especially acquisition of oil. They supported the formation of the state of Israel in 1948, a thing that the Arab Muslim world in semi-official lingua still calls ‘The Catastrophe.’ The stage for hostility had been set.

It has thus been a competitive bid for dominance, like our village tussle, lost on part of the Muslim world. They have ever since suffered in anguish over lost leadership of a civilization they had taken bliss in.  Presently, many Muslim countries are impoverished and war-torn. Afghanistan is the nearest example. It has the highest child and maternal mortality rates and also the lowest literacy and life expectancy in the world. Their per capita income is bout $200 while that for the US is about $24,000.

Again, like the loosing side in the village fight might do, a chunk of the Muslim world resorted to fundamentalism and with it, terrorism. To them, America is a ‘Great Satan.’ America’s allies, wherever they are in the eyes of the same fundamentalist terrorists, are smaller satans which, like their master, must be dealt with. They have issued many threats and delivered on numerous. America alone has suffered more than five full-size terrorist attacks since 1993, the worst being the bombing of the twin towers in 2001 which housed the World Trade Center in New York.

Uganda, more than ever before, is in this tough mix. We are a terrorist target (especially after we sent our soldiers to Somalia in an African Union arrangement.) Reason? We are a friend of America. We are also a buffer against the spread of Islamic fundamentalism and terrorism in the Great Lakes Region. Al-Shabaab, a Somalia-based terror group in terms of possible revenge knows no African Union or Amison, the umbrella AU force in Somalia. They know Uganda and Burundi, countries that answered a deployment call to Mogadishu at the earliest.

They, and a few other voices argue we are fighting America’s war there especially with the background that America tried in 1993 to get to Somalia directly but failed. Three of their helicopters were downed. Uganda was to be a joint target with Kenya and Tanzania when American embassies were hit in 1998. We survived because our security services were proactively alert.

The fates were against us on Sunday July 11, 2010  when Kampala was hit by twin bomb blasts that left 76 people dead and many other injured. It is essential that other African countries beef up Uganda and Burundi in Somalia. To withdraw would be cowardly. It would swell Al-shabaab’s pride and operations.

We hope that the African Union summit presently sitting in Kampala acts aptly. In the meantime, we have to do the proactive basics: Hurriedly fix CCTV cameras around town, be stringent on immigrants, pace up the national identity card project and be heedful and suspicious.

James Thembo is a Journalist

thembojms@yahoo.com

By James Thembo

Might the easy access to ARVs be fanning the HIV prevalence rate flame?

The Uganda government, actors in the health sector and indeed many Ugandans are mystified by the recent Aids Indicator Survey that shows that the HIV prevalence rate in the country has increased from 6.4 to 7.3 in only a period of six years. This news found me still thinking about what a friend who works with the Uganda Aids Information Centre had told me two months ago that with about 360 people getting infected with HIV every day, the infection rate in Uganda was hitting an all-time high. 

The minister of health’s revelation at the end of June 2012 about the increasing HIV rate did not therefore shock me. While the figures sited are high to live with, the country has lately taken drifts which would encourage the increase of HIV leading to the acceleration of the pandemic.

I think that background here is crucial for a better understanding of the changing fortunes into the negative. The Uganda HIV/Aids fight started as an earnest battle that made Uganda shine as an international case study for all world populations which were grappling with the problem with varying degrees of success or failure. For nearly two decades, president Museveni combined efforts with local and international organizations towards minimizing the problem which had already claimed the lives of many Ugandans.

Then in 2002, a major question mark about Uganda’s success was raised by the Lancet Medical Journal. It was argued that the country’s success of a dramatic decline might have been tinged with distorted and manipulated figures. At that time, government did well at the PR front, dismissing the journal’s claims as imperialist propaganda meant to

Push into oblivion everything positive from Africa.

Then in 2011, the BBC published a report that clearly indicated how Uganda was losing the fight against HIV/Aids.  A few non-solution-providing discussions followed that report and since then, the infection rate has been on an upward arc; which begs the question: What, in the strategies that are said to have worked for Uganda in the earlier days should be revisited?   What of if the plans were revisited and nothing changes for the better?

Very likely, the main problem is the ‘death’ of fear of HIV/Aids, a fear that in the earlier years had made fear for pregnancy, say, in school something more bearable in comparative terms.  With availability of ARVs, Aids is now a manageable and treatable disease where persons with the virus remain healthy and are therefore not ‘sentenced to death’ or ‘walking corpses’ as was the perception in the earlier years.

And indeed, at many accredited health centres, according to the Uganda Aids Information Centre, ARVs are provided free of charge, though private facilities charge a small fee for consultation and treatment of opportunistic infections. 

Since the publication of the recent report in Uganda, accusations and propositions are flying around, most of them in the media. While some commentators are putting the blame of the negative trend on what they call the ill-advised focus on morality traits, others are saying promiscuity is on the increase as estimated by the number of people especially in Sub-Saharan Africa who appear to have multiple partners almost as a hobby. Yet others are counseling that condoms should have been made as on-hand as free supermarket discount coupons, etc, etc.

When I shared with colleagues some aspects in the report, three of them lightheartedly told me life was too short to be spent worrying about Aids and besides, they added, there is currently means to live a healthy and productive life for even two or more decades. This is when the availability of ARVs to many who need them vividly struck me as a paradox because in that advantage also lies the danger that is likely causing spread of the pandemic!

I therefore opine that there should be vigorous media campaigns and drafters of those messages should re-introduce an element of fear for the prowling disease. Widely publicize figures like the recent ones from the Uganda Aids Commission (2011) which show that new infections rose from 120,000 in 2011 to 180,000 in 2012 with the possibility that in the next five years, the number of the infected will be around 700,000 if no effective methods to condense the trend are not put.

James Thembo is a journalist.