Muslim Separatism in the Philippines

“A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.” – Martin Luther King, Jr.

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Conflict between the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) and several Muslim secessionist movements has been ongoing on Mindanao, the second largest island in the Philippines, since the 1970s. Home to 24% of the nation’s Muslim population, island residents have long alleged cultural and economic repression by the ruling Catholic majority.

Since September 11, 2001, however, the Muslim struggle for autonomy has been recast as part of the War on Terror, politicizing international interest and overshadowing humanitarian concerns. As a result, the needs of at least 100,000 refugees and displaced persons from the region have been largely ignored.

Dubbed an opportunity to “discuss anti-terrorist efforts,” President Bush’s recent visit to Manila on October 18th, 2003 highlighted the Administration’s perspective that the Mindanao conflict is related to operations in Afghanistan and Iraq. President Bush pledged his unfailing support to President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo and promised the country additional military aid to strengthen both the AFP and the Philippine police.

In support of his position, President Bush pointed to the recent arrests of senior members of Jemaah Islamiyah, a militant group operating in the Philippines that has been linked to Al-Qaeda.While there is no question that Muslim extremists have found a haven in the southern Philippines, the conflict in Mindanao reflects long-standing tensions between local movements advocating for political autonomy and the central government, which represents the outlook of the Catholic majority of the country.

The current situation in the southern Philippines is a classic case of humanitarian concerns and consequences being ignored in the context of violent political conflict exacerbated by external forces.

- Refugees International


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Introduction: Muslims in the Philippines

There are an estimated 3.5 million Muslims in the Philippines. While they represent less than 5 percent of the population of the Philippines (the only predominately Christian country in Southeast Asia), Philippine Muslims are geographically concentrated in the south of the country in Mindanao and Sulu and are distinguished from Christian Filipinos not only by their profession of Islam but also by their evasion of 300 years of Spanish colonial domination.

At the same time, Philippine Muslims have always been separated from one another in this archipelagic nation by significant linguistic and geographic distance. They are divided into three major and ten minor ethnolinguistic groups and dispersed across the southern islands. The three largest ethnolinguistic groups are the Magindanaons of the Pulangi River Basin of central Mindanao, the Maranaos of the Lanao Lake region of central Mindanao, and the Tausugs of Jolo Island in the Sulu archipelago. Smaller groups include the Yakans of Basilan Island, the Samals of the Tawi-Tawi island group in Sulu, and the Iranuns of the Cotabato coast of Mindanao.

In some parts of their traditional territory, Philippine Muslim populations retain their majority; about 98 per cent of the population of the Sulu archipelago, for example, are Muslims (Costello 1992:41). In Mindanao-Sulu as a whole, however, Philippine Muslims now comprise less than 17 per cent of the population (Costello 1992:40), due primarily to large scale Christian in-migration from the North over the past 50 years.

Philippine Muslims share their religious culture with the neighboring majority Muslim nations of Indonesia and Malaysia. They also retain certain elements of an indigenous pre-Islamic and precolonial lowland Philippine culture--expressed in dress, music, political traditions and a rich array of folk beliefs and practices-- that are similar to those found elsewhere in island Southeast Asia, but are today mostly absent among Christian Filipinos. 

Thus, while Philippine Christians and Muslims inhabit the same state and are linked together by various attachments, a profound cultural gulf created by historical circumstance separates them. That gulf is the outcome of two interlinked events; the conversion of some regions of the Philippines to Islam and the Spanish colonial occupation of other regions shortly afterward. 

Islamization was still underway in the archipelago when the Spaniards gained their foothold in the northern Philippines in 1571. After consolidating control of the northern tier of the Philippine islands, they failed, despite repeated attempts, to subdue the well-organized Muslim sultanates of the South. The Spaniards assigned to the unsubjugated Muslim peoples of the southern sultanates the label previously bestowed on their familiar Muslim enemies from Mauritania and Morocco, "Moros" (Moors).

The term "Moro" was applied categorically and pejoratively with scant attention paid to linguistic or political distinctions among various "Moro" societies. The American colonizers who succeeded the Spaniards and eventually subdued Philippine Muslims in the early twentieth century by means of overwhelming force, continued the usage of "Moro" even though it had become an epithet among Christian Filipinos, denoting savages and pirates. 

In a bold semantic shift, Philippine Muslim separatists during the late 1960s appropriated the term "Moro" and transformed it into a positive symbol of collective identity-- one that denominated the citizens of their newly imagined nation.

For more than 30 years, Moro activists have sought self-determination for Philippine Muslims, sometimes through armed struggle. Their efforts have caused the Philippine state to experiment with regional autonomy for the Muslim South and have conditioned state responses to the claims of other unhispanicized minorities. 

While the Muslim peoples of the Philippines have often been referred to in the modern era as "Muslim Filipinos," they tend today to identify themselves in English as Philippine Muslims (the closest English equivalent to "Moro") and that is the term employed here.


The American Colonial Administration of "Moros"

The remote causes of the Muslim separatist rebellion that engulfed much of the southern Philippines in the 1970s and continues in parts of the South today may be found in the policies and practices of the Philippine colonial and national states. Early American rule in the Muslim Philippines followed a pattern quite similar to American governance of the rest of the colony--pious paternalism punctuated by brutal pacification operations. In the Muslim South, however, pacification took longer to achieve, requiring even harsher methods, while paternalism was also more pronounced.

By 1914, "Moroland," as it was most commonly termed by the Americans, was considered fully pacified and civilian colonial rule was finally inaugurated 13 years after its establishment in the rest of the colony. Moroland soon came under the primary administrative supervision of the Bureau of Non-Christian Tribes. Philippine Muslims were grouped together with tribal Filipinos for administration because both were thought to need special attention to advance to the level of civilization of Christian Filipinos.

There were at least two ways, however, in which Philippine Muslims were viewed as distinct from tribal groups by American colonial administrators: 

For one, although regarded as barbaric, Muslims were not considered savages as were tribal groups. This was due principally to their possession of both a world religion and an aristocracy. In line with the popular oriental-ism of the time and drawing on the experiences of earlier European colonizers in Muslim Southeast Asia, American colonizers often exhibited a certain respect for the "Mohammedanism" they found in the Philippines and did not encourage Christian proselytization among Philippine Muslims. Tribal groups on the other hand became a principal target for American Protestant missionaries. As one consequence of this attitude, American colonial administrators tended to conglomerate various Muslim ethnolinguistic groups under the single label "Moro" rather than focusing on the "tribal" divisions among them.

Secondly, unlike tribal Filipinos, Philippine Muslims were overwhelmingly lowlanders and were not exempted from the land registration and individual land ownership policies of the American colonial government. The Bureau of Lands conducted land surveys throughout Muslim areas and processed homestead applications. While there is some evidence to suggest that American colonial administrators believed that land registration would improve economic security for Muslim commoners, the actual application of American land policy led to the loss of traditional land rights for a great many Muslims (Thomas 1971).

With the establishment of the Philippine Commonwealth in 1935, government policy toward Philippine Muslims shifted significantly. The Bureau of Non-Christian Tribes was abolished in 1936 and with it the presumption that Muslims should be governed any differently, or afforded more protections, than any other citizens of the Commonwealth. 

This change in attitude was accompanied by a new policy priority: the economic development of Mindanao for the benefit of the nation, especially by means of Christian migration into traditionally Muslim regions.


Philippine Muslims and the new Philippine Republic

In 1946, a severely war-damaged Philippines received its formal indepen­dence and the new Philippine Republic continued to pursue the primary policy goal of its predecessor in Mindanao with far greater vigor. Independence brought a tremendous expansion of government-sponsored Christian Filipino immigration from northern provinces to the Muslim South. 

Demographic data from a single municipality--Kapatagan-- in the province of Lanao del Norte in central Mindanao illustrate the scale of the post-war influx of Christian migrants. There were about 24 Christian settlers in the Kapatagan area in 1918. By 1941 their number had risen to 8,000 and by 1960 there were a total of 93,000 immigrants. By 1960, Christian immigrants vastly outnumbered the 7,000 indigenous Muslims still living in the area (Hausherr 1968/69 quoted in Thomas 1971:317).

The demographic shift throughout Muslim Mindanao in the post-war years, while not as dramatic as in Kapatagan, was equally momentous. The population of Central Mindanao, the area which saw the highest overall Christian immigration, soared from 0.7 million persons in 1948 to an estimated 2.3 million persons in 1970; representing a growth rate of 229 per cent as compared with the national figure of just under 100 per cent (Burley 1973).

While the scale of Christian immigration to Muslim Mindanao caused inevitable dislocations, the manner of its occurrence also produced glaring disparities between Christian settlers and Muslim farmers. From 1935 onward, the successive administrations of the Philippine Commonwealth and Republic provided steadily more opportunities and assistance to settlers from the North. 

By contrast, the government services available to Muslims were not only meager compared to those obtained by immigrant Christians but were also fewer than they had received under the colonial regime. The land laws of the postcolonial government defined all unregistered lands in Mindanao to be public land or military reservations (Gowing 1979).

Unfamiliar with the procedures or deterred by the years of uncertainty  the steep processing fees, and the requirement to pay taxes during the interim, many Muslims neither applied for the new lands opened up by government-funded road construction nor filed for legal title to the land they currently occupied (Thomas 1971). 

For their part, officials and employees of the Bureau of Lands (virtually all of them Christians) were at best inattentive to Muslims. By contrast, Christian settlers regularly obtained legal ownership of the best newly opened lands as well as crop loans and other forms of government assistance. The new Christian communities became linked to trade centers and to one another by networks of roads while Muslim communities remained relatively isolated.

Most rural Muslims found themselves peripheralized in place as a result of the maneuverings of Christian settlers and speculators. Others, however, were physically dispossessed of their lands. The Bureau of Lands recognized land rights on the basis of priority of claim filed, not priority of occupation. It was not unusual for individuals to obtain legal titles, either intentionally or unintentionally, to already occupied lands.

In such cases, the legal owners were mostly (but not always) Christians and the previous occupants ordinary Muslims. Poor Muslim "squatters" would usually be offered small amounts of money to vacate the land and would often accept it and leave. If the occupants refused to move and the titled owner was sufficiently wealthy or influential, he would gain possession of the land by use of armed might, most often supplied by local units of the Philippine Constabulary.

A 1963 survey commissioned by the Philippine Senate Committee on National Minorities concluded that the principal problem in Mindanao was land (Gowing 1979). By 1970, differential access to both land and government resources had produced a profound economic gap between Muslim and Christian communities throughout Mindanao. In 1971 the same Philippine Senate Committee reported that until that year there were no irrigation projects in any municipality in Mindanao where Muslims were a majority (Gowing 1979).


The Muslim Separatist Rebellion

From 1972 through 1976 a ferocious war between Muslim separatist rebels and the Philippine military raged throughout the southern Philippines . An estimated 120,000 people died in the fighting, which also created one million internal refugees and caused more than 100,000 Philippine Muslims to flee to Malaysia. The war was also extremely costly to the Marcos government. It was reported that, by 1975, as much as three-fourths of the Philippine Army was deployed in Muslim areas of Mindanao.(Ahmad 1982:2; Noble 1976:418). 

By 1976 the fighting was stalemated, with neither side able to inflict a critical defeat on the other. The war was also contested on diplomatic and ideological fronts. Ferdinand Marcos realized early on that an exclusively repressive response to the rebellion in the South was far too costly financially and politically. The MNLF had international support from various Muslim states and also from an influential international body, the Islamic Conference of Foreign Ministers. The Islamic Conference threatened to suspend oil deliveries to the Philippines from Arab oil producers should Philippine policy towards its Muslims not take a visibly more benevolent turn.

Marcos responded with a campaign to convince Muslims in the Philippines and, more importantly, heads of Muslim states abroad, of his sincere desire to solve the "Moro problem". A large mosque was built in the center of Manila, important Muslim holy days were officially recognized by the government, an Islamic Studies Institute was established at the University of the Philippines and a code of Muslim personal laws was drafted and approved by the President, though never effectuated while he held power. At the same time he stepped up diplomatic efforts to end the separatist war.


The Tripoli Agreement: A Charter for Philippine Muslim Autonomy

Those efforts led eventually to a diplomatic agreement that seemed, at least initially, to be an enormous victory for the MNLF. In the last weeks of 1976, representatives of the Philippine Government and the MNLF met in Tripoli, Libya to negotiate an end to the war in the South. Those meetings culminated with an agreement on a cease-fire and tentative terms for a peace settlement (Noble 1983). That peace settlement, known as the Tripoli Agreement, "provided the general principles for Muslim autonomy in the Philippine South" (Majul 1985:73). It provided for "the establishment of autonomy in the southern Philippines within the realm of sovereignty and territorial integrity of the Republic of the Philippines" (Ministry of Muslim Affairs 1983).

The Tripoli Agreement was hailed as a breakthrough in the Mindanao war by all sides--the government, the MNLF, the Islamic Conference of Foreign Ministers and Libya, the latter two having jointly sponsored the Tripoli conference. The agreement implicitly recognized the MNLF as the official representative of Philippine Muslims and accorded it belligerent state status. The terms of the agreement were also quite favorable to MNLF demands. The cease-fire went into effect in late January, 1977 and was generally successful for about nine months. Talks were begun in February on the implementation of the peace settlement, and very soon broke down over widely divergent interpretations of the key terms of the agreement.

Marcos then proceeded to "implement" the Tripoli Agreement on his own terms, principally by creating two special "autonomous" regions, one for Central Mindanao and the other for Sulu. The Marcos administration gained substantial benefits from signing the Tripoli Agreement; it obtained a much needed breathing spell from the economic drain of the war and from the considerable diplomatic pressure for settlement coming from the Middle East. In retrospect it seems clear that President Marcos never sincerely intended to implement the agreement as signed.

Although the cease-fire collapsed in much of the South before the year was out, the fighting never again approached the level of intensity experienced before 1976. After the signing of the agreement, the rate of defections from the MNLF accelerated, its support from foreign sources was reduced, and dissension intensified in its top ranks, eventually leading to a schism and the creation of a second separatist organization, the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF).

The armed Muslim separatist threat to the martial law state remained significant but was no longer an immediate one. The "autonomous" regional governments devised by the Marcos administration in the South have been aptly described as "essentially hollow, and productive of cynicism, frustration, and resentment" (Noble 1983:49). The governing bodies of the nominally autonomous regions were cosmetic creations with no real legislative authority and no independent operating budget. They were headed by martial law collaborators and rebel defectors. 

By 1983, the regional governments had developed a layer of bureaucracy that employed a number of college-educated Muslims, but the great majority of Muslims were completely unaffected by the new regional administrations. For the first nine years of its formal existence, Muslim autonomy in the Philippine state had virtually no political reality.


Constitutional Reform and the Autonomous Region for Muslim Mindanao

It was only with the removal of Ferdinand Marcos from office in 1986 and his replacement by Corazon Aquino that Philippine Muslims saw any possibility for a genuine implementation of the Tripoli agreement and the establishment of a single Muslim autonomous region covering all the traditionally Muslim areas of the South. 

Their hopes were raised by the resumption of peace talks between the Philippine government and the MNLF and the drafting of a new Philippine Constitution in 1987 that provided for the creation of an autonomous region in Muslim Mindanao. They were dashed again in 1989, however, with the passage of the enabling legislation that actually established the single Muslim autonomous region.

The formal autonomy that had been won in a hard-fought war was recast by the Philippine Congress as something granted to the Muslim minority by the Christian majority and implemented by means of majority rule. The enabling legislation required ratification by a plebiscite in each of the 13 provinces and nine cities included in original autonomous areas described in the Tripoli agreement. Only those areas voting in favor would be included in the new autonomous region. 

Because of the massive Christian in-migration of the previous 40 years, most of the affected provinces and cities now had Christian majorities. The MNLF broke off peace negotiations with the government over the majority-rule requirements of the organic act and called for a boycott of the plebiscite. 

When the plebiscite was held only four of the 13 provinces and no cities voted for inclusion in the Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao (ARMM). That small number was not only the result of Christians opting out of ARMM. Basilan and Marawi City, both majority Muslim areas, voted against inclusion in ARMM primarily as a result of MNLF opposition to the plebiscite. 

The new Muslim autonomous region was established in 1990. Despite the announced goal of the new administration to create something more substantial than the meaningless autonomy implemented by Ferdinand Marcos, the new autonomous region looked very similar in size and structure to the former ones and still very far away from the autonomy envisioned by the Muslim signatories to the Tripoli Agreement.


The 1996 Peace Agreement

The 1992 national election brought a new president to power. As a former military man, President Fidel Ramos was well aware of the potential costs of a continued state of war with the MNLF, which was still receiving substantial diplomatic support from the Islamic Conference of Foreign Ministers. He also had much firmer control over the Philippine military than did his predecessor and thus was better able to offer incentives to the MNLF even against the wishes of some military officers. Ramos convinced the MNLF to reopen peace talks by offering to move closer to the Tripoli agreement through exploring means to enlarge both the boundaries and the authority of the autonomous region (Ramos 1996).

Peace negotiations were held between 1993 and 1996 and resulted in a comprehensive peace agreement that managed both to hew closely to the Tripoli Agreement signed 20 years earlier and to stay within the formal bounds of the 1987 Constitution and the congressional bill establishing the Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao. The 1996 agreement arranged for the implementation of the Tripoli agreement in two phases. 

First, it created a transitional administrative structure known as the Southern Philippines Council for Peace and Development (SPCPD). This body substituted for the provisional government that was called for in the Tripoli agreement but was not allowed under the 1987 Constitution (Ferrer 1997). The role of the SPCPD was to supervise the implementation of the agreement during a three-year trial period.

Most significantly, the SPCPD covered all 14 provinces and nine cities envisioned in the Tripoli agreement. Nur Misuari, the founder and chairman of the MNLF, was made chairman of the SPCPD and won election as governor of the ARMM. The agreement also provided for thousands of MNLF fighters to be integrated into the Philippine armed forces and national police. 

The "development" component of the Southern Philippines Council for Peace and Development was viewed as key to the agreement. During the three-year trial period, the SPCPD was to demonstrate both to Muslims supporters and suspicious Christian residents the economic benefits of peace under an autonomous region by channeling national and international development funds into the region as well as by attracting foreign investment.

The second phase of the 1996 Peace Agreement, which was originally scheduled to begin in September 1999, called for the establishment of a new Regional Autonomous Government with its own executive council, a legislative assembly, and representation in the national government. It would also have tax raising powers, a regional security force, an educational system that would incorporate the madaris (Islamic schools), and a system of Shariah (Islamic) courts (Muslim 1999). 

The boundaries of this new Regional Autonomous Government were to be determined by a plebiscite. However, the agreement allowed for the redrawing of provincial boundaries "to cluster predominately Muslim municipalities," thus making it likely that the new Regional Autonomous Government would be significantly larger than the current ARMM and would include most Muslim communities in Mindanao (Gutierrez 1999).

Despite the initial promise of the 1996 Peace Agreement, it too has stalled badly in its implementation and is in imminent danger of unraveling altogether. The September 1999 deadline for initiating the second phase of the agreement has come and gone. The autonomy agreement is stuck in its initial transition phase and has made very little progress in achieving either peace or development in the Muslim South.

While the reasons for the failure of the most recent attempt to achieve meaningful autonomy for Philippine Muslims are complex, two particular (and indirectly related) problems stand out. 

First, as with the previous failed attempts at crafting an autonomous government for Muslim Mindanao, this latest version was also provided entirely inadequate levels of power and resources. Not only was the SPCPD deprived of any internal taxation authority, its overall authority was severely restricted. It could neither initiate development planning in the region nor direct national government agencies to address the development priorities it had established. 

It could only make recommendations to the Philippines president (Gutierrez 1999). Furthermore, the extremely weak financial support provided by the national government has meant that the budget of the SPCPD, like that of its predecessors, has been mostly expended on salaries and operating costs for its officials and personnel, with very little left for development purposes. 

Specifically, there has been only the most minimal progress made in poverty alleviation, employment and the provision of basic services to poor Muslim communities. As one writer has remarked, "SPCPD is functioning much like the ARMM and the defunct Regional Commissions [under Marcos]: as a mechanism for co-option and conflict regulation, not conflict resolution" (Muslim 1999).

The second particular problem is that the 1996 Peace Agreement has not brought peace to Muslim Mindanao. As with the 1989 negotiations, the Philippine government decided to negotiate only with the main Muslim separatist faction--the MNLF led by Nur Misuari, a signatory to the original Tripoli Agreement. 

In the years since the 1996 agreement, two other armed separatist factions--the Muslim Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) and the Abu Sayyaf (Sword of the Father)--have clashed militarily with the Philippine army and those clashes have recently escalated tremendously. Although the Philippine government tends to promote the view that these two factions are interchangeable, they are in fact quite distinct geographically and politically.

The Abu Sayyaf faction is of relatively recent origin, appearing only in 1993, and is centered on the island of Basilan. They are a small, loosely organized, and rather mysterious group that has had limited popular support (although recent events may have increased that support somewhat).  The MILF dates from 1984 as a separate organization but can trace its roots to the beginnings of modern Muslim separatism (McKenna 1998). It is centered on the large island of Mindanao, is well-organized and has thousands of fighters and broad popular support in rural villages.

While the Abu Sayyaf faction has garnered more headlines with its killings and kidnappings, the MILF (which has condemned the activities of the Abu Sayyaf) is the only rebel group with sufficient military might and civilian support to wage a protracted war once again against the government. After some initial armed encounters with government troops shortly after the 1996 agreement was signed, the MILF signed a cease-fire agreement with the government in 1997 and entered into peace talks. Negotiations proceeded slowly and were punctuated by occasional skirmishes. 

Since late 1999, however, fighting has intensified and in early 2000 the MILF withdrew from peace talks. At this writing (September 2000), fighting between the MILF and government troops is more intense and widespread than at any time since the signing of the Tripoli Agreement.

Two factors seem to be at work in the escalating failure of the 1996 Peace Agreement to bring about peace in the Muslim Philippines: 

For one, the largest Muslim population concentrations in the Philippines are in Central Mindanao, the stronghold of the MILF. The political strength gained by the MNLF in Central Mindanao since the late 1980s seems to be dissipating somewhat with the failure of the 1996 agreement to produce any tangible economic benefits for the large majority of Muslims there. Growing disillusionment with the peace agreement made by the MNLF has led to increased support for the MILF, especially among young men of fighting age. 

At least as significant, however, is the increasingly antagonistic stance of the current Philippine president, Joseph Estrada, toward Muslim separatists. Since taking office in 1998, Estrada has been lukewarm at best toward the 1996 Peace Agreement, and his lack of consistent support for its implementation has certainly contributed to the failure of the SPCPD. He has also taken an unusually intransigent stance in negotiations by demanding that the MILF "lay down its arms," threatening massive retaliation, and imposing absolute deadlines for the conclusion of peace talks.

This tough talk from the Estrada administration prompts the impression that it has not yet learned the lesson so well understood by the three previous administrations; there is no genuine military solution to the Philippines' "Moro problem." Almost 25 years have passed since the signing of the original peace agreement between the MNLF and the Philippine Government, an agreement that provided for Muslim autonomy. Yet, despite its enshrinement in the Philippine constitution and the guarantees of consecutive national governments, genuine Muslim autonomy has yet to be realized and, consequently, a stable peace in Muslim Mindanao has yet to be obtained.


Impediments to Peace and the Current Crisis

Turning to the impediments to improvement in the circumstances of Philippine Muslims, the two most prominent appear from opposite directions:

• First is the extreme reluctance on the part of the Philippine government to transfer any real power to the autonomous region it has authorized. 
• Second is the armed resistance on the part of certain Muslim separatists to the autonomous region as currently constituted.

These two problems are clearly related in that continued armed separatist resistance is a response in part to the ineffectiveness of the present autonomy arrangement. It would be a mistake, however, to view continued armed separatist resistance as simply an impediment to a stable peace. The demonstrated capacity of Muslim separatists to mobilize armed force is better seen as the key symptom of the Philippine government's predicament in respect to its Muslim minority 

Armed separatist mobilization is the price the Philippine government continues to pay for its past mistakes (and those of its colonial predecessors) in Muslim Mindanao. By marginalizing Philippine Muslims in their own homeland through massive government-sponsored in-migration, the government created a relatively impoverished regional minority resentful of the benefits provided to Christian migrants and highly suspicious of government motives. 

Even so, the Muslim separatist rebellion begun in 1972 was by no means inevitable. It was the highly aggressive actions of the martial law regime that transformed Muslim suspicion into organized armed antagonism toward the central state. Armed separatist resistance, and the international support it attracted, led to the signing of the Tripoli Agreement and it is continued armed resistance (actual or threatened) that has brought about all subsequent autonomy agreements, including the most recent. It is difficult or impossible to imagine any government offer of Muslim autonomy without the armed challenge.

The Philippine government has thus found itself caught between its desire to end a costly armed separatist challenge that has proved impervious to military suppression and the significant pressures placed upon it by various interest groups, especially Mindanao Christians, not to make any substantive concessions to Muslim separatists. 

This has resulted in the creation of a succession of formally autonomous entities that are extremely limited in both their power and scope. It has also caused the Philippine government to ignore to the greatest extent possible the MILF--the Muslim separatist front based in Central Mindanao and operating most closely to concentrations of Christian population. 

Since 1987, the MILF has engaged in offensive action only to force the government to the negotiating table with a show of its armed capacity. In 1987 it turned to offensive armed action after a peaceful mass demonstration in Cotabato City drew absolutely no government response (McKenna 1998). It is likely also that the MILF changed its announced goals from its original demand from autonomy to a call for a separate state primarily to gain the government's attention.

If the experience of the past 28 years of armed conflict in Muslim Mindanao teaches anything, it is that the current administration's "get tough" policy will have the opposite of its intended effect. It will energize the MILF and increase its popular support while undermining what is left of the 1996 Peace Agreement. 

There is an untried alternative to an attempted military solution to the continued armed separatist challenge in Muslim Mindanao--genuine regional development. After more than 25 years of Philippine government claims to be "developing" Muslim Mindanao, recent national statistics illustrate the sad reality.

In virtually all measures of physical and economic well-being, the Autonomous Region for Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) is found at or near the bottom of the national rankings (National Statistics Office 2000). In government-supplied services ranging from access to prenatal care to availability of college scholarships for low-income students, ARMM ranks last (National Statistics Office 1998). 

As found with separatist movements elsewhere, ordinary Philippine Muslims are most likely to fight for or support an armed separatist front when they perceive no alternative means to overcome discrimination and better their living conditions. 

Rather than empty autonomy arrangements or further military offensives, the Philippine government might substitute a genuine commitment to both protect the cultural heritage of Philippine Muslims and provide them with tangible means to improve their livelihood. Those provisions are, after all, what Philippine Muslims most require from the Philippine government.

References Cited

1. Ahmad, Aijaz1982 Class and Colony in Mindanao. Southeast Asia Chronicle No. 82:4-11.
2. Burley, T.M.1973 The Philippines: An Economic and Social Geography. London: G. Bell and Sons Ltd.
3. Costello, Michael A. 1992 "The demography of Mindanao." In Mark Turner, R.J. May, and Lulu Respall Turner, eds., Mindanao: Land of Unfulfilled Promise. Quezon City, Philippines: New Day Publishers.
4. Ferrer, Miriam Coronel, ed.1997 The SPCPD (Southern Philippines Council for Peace and Development): A Response to the Controversy. Quezon City: University of the Philippines Center for Integrative and Development Studies
5. Glang, Alunan C.1969 Muslim Secession or Integration? Quezon City: Alunan Glang.
6. Gowing, Peter Gordon1979 Muslim Filipinos - Heritage and Horizon. Quezon City: New Day Publishers.1983 Mandate in Moroland: The American Government of Muslim Filipinos -- 1899-1920. Quezon City: New Day Publishers.
7. Gutierrez, Eric1999 "The politics of transition." Accord: An International Review of Peace Initiatives. Posted on the internet at: http://www.c-r.org/acc_min/gutier.htm. 
8. Majul, Cesar Adib1985 The Contemporary Muslim Movement in the Philippines. Berkeley: Mizan Press.
9. McKenna, Thomas M.1998 Muslim Rulers and Rebels: Everyday Politics and Armed Separatism in the Southern Philippines. Berkeley: University of California Press.
10. Muslim, Madapado A.1999 "Sustaining the constituency for Moro autonomy." Accord: An International Review of Peace Initiatives. Posted on the internet at: http://www.c-r.org/acc_min/muslim2.htm 
11. National Statistics Office, Republic of the Philippines1998 The 1998 Annual Poverty Indicators Survey Results. Posted on the internet at: http://www.census.gov.ph/data/sectordata/dataapis.html 
12. 2000 Quickstat on Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, June 2000. Posted on the internet at: http://www.census.gov.ph/data/quickstat/qs150006.html. 
13. Noble, Lela Garner1976 The Moro National Liberation Front in the Philippines. Pacific Affairs 49(3):405-424. 1983 Roots of the Bangsa Moro Revolution. Solidarity 97:41-50.
14. Ramos, Fidel V.1996 Break Not the Peace: The Story of the GRP--MNLF Peace Negotiations 1992-1996. Quezon City: Fidel Ramos.
15. Thomas, Ralph Benjamin1971 Muslim but Filipino: The Integration of Philippine Muslims, 1917-1946. Unpublished PhD. Dissertation. University of Pennsylvania

Source: http://www.asiasource.org/asip/mckenna.cfm#intro

Hi All,

The below link will show a short list of my past posts (out of 540 posts so far) which I consider as basic topics about us native (indio)/ Malay Filipinos. This link/listing, which may later expand, will always be presented at the bottom of each future post.  Just point-and-click at each listed item to open and read. 

Thank you for reading and sharing with others, especially those in our homeland.

- Bert

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http://www.thefilipinomind.com/2013/08/primary-postsreadings-for-my-fellow.html

Muslim Rulers and Rebels: Everyday Politics and Armed Separatism

WHAT WE FILIPINOS SHOULD KNOW: (Note: Bold and/or underlined words are HTML links. Click on them to see the linked posting/article. Forwarding the postings to relatives and friends, especially in the homeland, is greatly appreciated).

In light of recent events in the Philippines, AsiaSource spoke with Professor Thomas McKenna, author of Muslim Rulers and Rebels: Everyday Politics and Armed Separatism in the Southern Philippines (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998). Professor McKenna discusses the historical roots of Muslim separatism in the Philippines, the impact of both Spanish and American colonialism on Muslim identity, the implications of the peace agreement in 1996 which resulted in the creation of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM), and the distinction between the three principal groups representing Muslim grievances in the Philippines today.


Professor McKenna's book is also available for sale through Barnes and Noble.

The South of the Philippines, where the minority Muslim population is concentrated, managed to evade Spanish colonialism for 300 years. Could you please explain the significance of this, if any, for Muslim-Christian relations in the post-colonial context?

Because of their evasion of Spanish colonialism, Philippine Muslims comprise the largest category of unhispanicized inhabitants of the Philippines. Although they live in the only predominately Christian country in Southeast Asia, they share their religious culture with the neighboring majority Muslim nations of Indonesia and Malaysia. They also retain aspects of an indigenous pre-Islamic and precolonial Philippine culture--expressed in dress, music, political traditions and a variety of folk beliefs and practices-- that are similar to those found elsewhere in island Southeast Asia, but are today almost entirely absent among Christian Filipinos. Thus, while Philippine Christians and Muslims inhabit the same state and are linked together by various attachments, they are separated by a significant cultural gulf as the result of historical circumstances. I argue in my book that cultural differences do not by themselves create ethnic conflict. However, Christian Filipinos, including representatives of the Philippine state, have often tended to view Philippine Muslims as socially backward and untrustworthy precisely because of their history of resistance to hispanicization. For their part, Philippine Muslims have tended to be highly suspicious of the intentions of the Philippine government and generally wary of Christian Filipinos. These prejudices and suspicions notwithstanding, Muslims and Christians have been able to coexist peacefully in the Southern Philippines for most of the time they have lived together.

You suggest in your book, Muslim Rulers and Rebels, that the Muslim nationalist movement emerged out of the period of American colonialism (1899-1946), and not Spanish colonialism, and in fact, that the American colonial authorities actively encouraged its development. Could you please elaborate on this?

I state in my book that American colonial authorities encouraged the development of a transcendent ethnoreligious identity among Philippine Muslims. That unified identity then formed the basis of the nationalist "Bangsamoro" identity of the Muslim separatist movement begun in the late 1960s. Philippine Muslim armed resistance to Spanish aggression was very real and obviously effective, but it was not a unified Islamic resistance in the sense sometimes imagined. As elsewhere in Southeast Asia, sultanates just as often fought with one another, sometimes forging temporary alliances with the Spaniards to do so. Nevertheless, the ability of southern sultanates individually to withstand Spanish hegemony for more than 300 years is a testament to their military and diplomatic prowess. As stated in my book, certain perceptive American colonial agents realized that the "Moros" were not unified and thought it would be a good thing to unite them under leaders the Americans regarded as "enlightened" (i.e., Westernized).

American colonial intentions were complex, but a primary intention seems to have been to prepare Philippine Muslims for the eventual end of American colonialism and their inclusion in an independent Philippine republic as a consolidated and relatively progressive ethnic minority. It was a naive intention, and events, of course, didn't work out that way. But colonial practices did have the effect of encouraging the development of a unified Philippine Muslim (or Bangsamoro) identity. Not incidentally, American colonialism also provided a lingua franca--English-- for contemporary Muslim separatists. Philippine Muslims are linguistically diverse and, as is the case with Christian Filipinos, English has provided a neutral political language.

You also mention that the Muslim nationalist movement in the Philippines describes itself as both Islamic and anti-colonial. Could you explain how this self-conception emerged and whether it is shared by the different factions of the separatist movement today?

The Muslim nationalist movement is anticolonial in the same sense as any other nationalist movement in Southeast Asia, including Philippine nationalism. The difference is that Muslim separatists see Spanish and American colonialism in the Muslim Philippines as having been supplanted by colonial rule from Manila under the Philippine republic. The "Islamic" aspect is far more complicated, primarily because there are differing interpretations of what it means to be Islamic. The Muslim separatist movement is a self-consciously Islamic movement in the sense that its political fronts, to various degrees, envision that a Philippine Muslim nation (or autonomous region) will be influenced by an Islamic model of governance.

To my knowledge neither the MNLF nor the MILF has articulated a detailed plan for governing an autonomous region or independent nation based on an Islamic model. There is no clear model from the history of the Muslim Philippines. None of the Philippine sultanates complied at all closely to Quranic (shariah) law in their legal codes. I have suggested in my book that statements by the leadership of the MNLF and the MILF about the "Islamic" nature of their movement should be interpreted quite generally to refer to the defense of Philippine Muslim territory and traditions, as a response to Philippine Christian chauvinism, and as a desire to strengthen social and political connections between Philippine Muslims and the Islamic world. What Abu Sayyaf means by "Islamic" is difficult for observers (or at least this observer) to ascertain.

In your book you argue that the remote causes of Muslim separatism in the Philippines may be traced to Western colonizers but the more proximate cause can be found in the policies of the post-1946, Christian-dominated Philippine state. Can you outline some of the policies and practices that may have either exacerbated or created antagonisms between the Muslim minority and the Christian majority?

Until the 1950s, Muslims formed the majority population of almost every region of the southern Philippines. Soon after the founding of the republic in 1946, the Philippine government began to sponsor large scale migration from the poor and politically troublesome regions of the north and central parts of the country to the agricultural frontiers of the lightly populated southern islands. The large, fertile, and underpopulated island of Mindanao became the primary destination for Christian migration to the southern Philippines and by the late 1960s Mindanao Muslims found themselves a relatively impoverished minority in their own homeland. While the scale of Christian immigration to Mindanao itself caused inevitable dislocations, the manner of its occurrence also produced glaring disparities between Christian settlers and Muslim farmers.

From 1946 onward, the government provided steadily more opportunities and assistance to settlers from the North. By contrast, government services available to Muslims were not only meager compared to those obtained by immigrant Christians but were also fewer than they had received under the colonial regime. The new Christian communities became linked to trade centers and to one another by networks of roads while Muslim communities remained relatively isolated. The late 1960s also saw an unusually antagonistic stance toward Muslims on the part of the new national administration of Ferdinand Marcos.

Could you briefly explain the distinctions between the three principal groups representing Muslim grievances in the present-day Philippines: the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF), the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, and Abu Sayyaf?

The MNLF, founded and led by Nur Misuari, is the original underground political front of the Muslim separatist rebellion. Misuari is a signatory to the Tripoli Agreement of 1976, the first peace agreement signed between Muslim separatists and the Philippine government. Until fairly recently, the MNLF was the only separatist armed organization with which the government was willing to negotiate in any substantive way. The MILF dates from 1984 as a separate organization but can trace its roots back to the beginnings of modern Muslim separatism. Its leader, Hashim Salamat, was second in command of the MNLF until 1979. The MILF is headquartered in central Mindanao, is well organized and has thousands of fighters and broad popular support in rural villages.

Although the MILF has stressed the Islamic aspect of the separatist movement, and has somewhat more Islamic clerics in leadership positions (Salamat himself is a cleric), the stated goals and policies of the two groups do not differ significantly. The Abu Sayyaf faction is of relatively recent origin, appearing only in 1995, and is centered on the island of Basilan. They are a small, radical and somewhat mysterious group with limited popular support. While the Abu Sayyaf faction has garnered more headlines in the past five years with its killings and kidnappings of Christians, it is by far the smallest of the three groups. Both the MNLF and the MILF have condemned the activities of the Abu Sayyaf.

It has been suggested that Abu Sayyaf, the most militant of these organisations, was initially supported by the Philippine military to discredit the separatist movement and create divisions between Muslims. Do you think there is any truth to these claims?

I have heard these sorts of claims myself from Philippine Muslims since 1995, although I haven't seen any credible evidence to support them. It is not surprising that such suggestions have been made. Abu Sayyaf is a very mysterious and perplexing group and some of the activities credited to or claimed by them seem highly irrational and counterproductive.

In 1996, the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) reached an agreement with the government and the group laid down its arms. Could you explain what became of this agreement and why it is that the Philippine Congress never ratified it? Analysts have suggested that the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM), which was established following the agreement is not working at all. Do you agree with this claim and if so, why do you think this has been the case?

The 1996 Peace Agreement between the Republic of the Philippines and the MNLF did not require ratification by the Philippine Congress. However, many Philippine legislators did not support the agreement and were able to take a number of steps to limit or eliminate funding for implementation and to pressure the administration to water down the provisions of the final agreement.. Opposition in Congress to the peace agreement seems to have been led by Christian senators and representatives from Mindanao. The 1996 Agreement arranged for the implementation of the original Tripoli agreement in two phases. First, it created a transitional administrative structure known as the Southern Philippines Council for Peace and Development (SPCPD). Nur Misuari, the founder and chairman of the MNLF, was made chairman of the SPCPD and won election as governor of the ARMM. The second phase of the 1996 Peace Agreement, which was originally scheduled to begin in September 1999, called for the establishment of a new Regional Autonomous Government.Despite the initial promise of the 1996 Peace Agreement, it has stalled badly in its implementation and is in serious danger of unraveling altogether. The September 1999 deadline for initiating the second phase of the agreement has come and gone.

The autonomy agreement is stuck in its initial transition phase and has made very little progress in achieving either peace or development in the Muslim South. While the reasons for the failure of the most recent attempt to achieve meaningful autonomy for Philippine Muslims are complex, two particular (and indirectly related) problems stand out. First, due in part to congressional opposition, the SPCPD was provided entirely inadequate levels of power and resources. Not only was the SPCPD deprived of any internal taxation authority, its overall authority was severely restricted. The second particular problem is that the 1996 Peace Agreement has not brought peace to Muslim Mindanao. The Philippine government decided to negotiate only with the main Muslim separatist faction--the MNLF led by Nur Misuari, a signatory to the original Tripoli Agreement. The MILF had sufficient military might and civilian support to wage war against the government but was ignored. After some initial armed encounters with government troops shortly after the 1996 Agreement was signed, the MILF signed a ceasefire agreement with the government in 1997 and entered into peace talks. Negotiations proceeded slowly and were interrupted by occasional skirmishes. Since late 1999, however, fighting has intensified and in early 2000 the MILF withdrew from peace talks. At this moment, (June 2000) fighting between the MILF and government troops is more intense and widespread than at any time since the signing of the Tripoli Agreement and threatens to erupt into a resumption of war.

What international factors have contributed to the conflict between Muslim separatists and the Philippine State?

Muammar Kadaffi has been involved in various ways, some of them quite positive in terms of seeking a settlement. The original 1976 peace agreement was signed in Libya. Libya has also sheltered and supported MNLF fighters at various times. So have Pakistan and Saudi Arabia. I think, however that the most substantive and positive contribution has come from the Organization of the Islamic Conference of Foreign Ministers (OIC for short), a very influential international body made up of foreign ministers of Muslim states. The OIC publicized the grievances of the separatists very early on. It pressured the Philippine government to negotiate with the MNLF and threatened a reduction of oil supplies to Manila. It arranged the first peace agreement and has been very active in facilitating negotiations and arranging agreements, including the most recent, ever since.

Interview conducted by Nermeen Shaikh of AsiaSource

Source: http://www.asiasource.org/news/special_reports/philippine.cfm

Danish Cartoons - Opinions of a Muslim

Danish Cartoons: Expression of Freedom or Abuse of Speech?
By Habib Siddiqui
Al-Jazeerah, February 17, 2006

In recent days, since the publication of the racist, Islamophobic, utterly despicable and offensive cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad sallal-lahu alayhi wa-sallam (S) in a Danish newspaper, many other newspapers across Europe and America have joined the fray as what they disingenuously claim as ‘demonstrations of freedom of expression.’[1] Naturally, when protests across the Muslim world became louder and some Muslim governments decided to pull off Danish products from their market, Europe appeared to be stunned by such reactions.

In her latest column, Trudy Rubin of the Philadelphia Inquirer writes on February 12, 2006: “Global protests over the Danish cartoons of the prophet Muhammad have sparked debate over the limits to press freedom in the West.” In a separate column, Jonathan Last, finds the western attitude in denouncing the cartoons as ‘smacks of paternalism.’ He opines that those cartoons, much like the tortures in Abu Ghraib prison, do not represent western attitude towards Muslims and the latter are capable of making the distinction between reprehensible acts of the few and the government. Evidently he does not like western apologies for such crimes.

Shortly after the recent controversy surfaced, in al-Jazeerah website, a Dane wrote, "No authority in the Danish State is responsible for written and spoken ideas from any free citizen not working for the State – nor either a stupid cartoon drawing. The cartoon drawer and the newspaper should be the ones to blame – there is a long tradition in Denmark of not making censorship before news is being published and that the government has nothing to do with such anti-Islamic cartoons."

An underlying assumption, often repeated by many westerners, is that it was all about freedom of press. I beg to differ with such an assertion. The cartoon controversy has little to do with freedom. Even the most diehard fanatic of freedom would agree that there is a limit to everything, including freedom. With freedom comes responsibility. So when my fist hits someone, it becomes violence and not freedom. In a civil society, Government essentially enacts laws to stop such violence.

Government is a voice of the people, albeit the majority, in a democratic society. So, when a democratic government commits crime, it is often a reflection of its people’s attitude to condone such crimes. [This statement may sound strange, but examples are plenty to prove the case.] It is, therefore, not surprising to find how certain war-criminals get reelected even when their horrendous crimes are widely known.

Background on Cartoon Controversy:
The offensive cartoons in the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten (JP), and reproduced later in other parts of the world, are a demonstrations of those countries’ attitude towards Muslims. It has been quite sometime that Danish and Scandinavian newspaper editors are on record stating that they published the cartoons as an act of defiance against ‘radical Islam.’[2] In April of last year, the queen of Denmark was quoted by the Telegraph newspaper of UK as saying that Danes should show their ‘opposition to Islam.’[3] She said, “We are being challenged by Islam these years – globally as well as locally. It is a challenge we have to take seriously… We have to show our opposition to Islam and we have to, at times, run the risk of having unflattering labels placed on us because there are some things for which we should display no tolerance.”

With such a xenophobic and bigoted statement, it was left to the media to display their ‘opposition’ to Islam. And what could be more hurtful to Muslims than offensive cartoons of their Prophet? After all, there is no figure more venerated by Muslims than that of their Prophet Muhammad (S)! His is the most popular name on earth. Each time a Muslim takes his name, he supplicates (du’a) “sallal-lahu alayhi wa-sallam,” meaning -- May Allah’s blessings and peace be upon him. No Muslim prayer is complete without such supplications. No wonder that his grave is the most visited grave on earth!

One should not, therefore, be surprised at the Muslim reaction to those insulting cartoons. In their protests and anger, they simply have exhibited their freedom of expression and human feelings, of which they have every right. In the post-9/11 era of global crusade against Muslims and malicious campaigns against Islam, it does not take a rocket scientist to understand that offensive caricatures of the Prophet of Islam were bound to enrage Muslims.

There is no denying that there are some active and dangerous groups, mostly led by the western neoconservative ideologues, which want to exploit the post-9/11 condition to bring about their desired ‘clash of civilizations.’ But how can you fight when your opponent does not want to fight and tries to get away from your marauding path? So, the strategy has been to enrage the opponent. And in this, sadly, these warmongers are succeeding. They have found a natural ally among the ill-equipped, disgruntled and nihilist Zarqawis among Muslims.

It is worth noting that in the global arena, Muslims have not been setting their agenda for many decades. Following Newton’s third law, they only react to the criminal manipulations of the western powers and their ideologues. The cartoon controversy is the latest of that criminal ploy. It further demonizes Muslims and, in turn, sets them on a collision course with a much superior force that is savage and immoral. It also hinders them from their much needed house-cleaning (C.O.P.S.) task in their own nation-states.

Here are some more facts about the cartoon controversy: Last autumn JP assigned 40 prominent Danish caricaturists to draw the Prophet Muhammad (S). Twelve responded and the results were published on September 30. The project was deliberately designed to provoke Muslims. According to Flemming Rose, JP’s cultural editor, the project was aimed at “testing the limits of self-censorship in Danish public opinion.” My question is: why then the paper previously rejected cartoons about Jesus? Was it for anything other than the realization that such cartoons would provoke an outcry within its Christian readers?[4]

Recently, it again refrained from (and rightly so) offensive cartoons against Jews. So, why this charade about testing the limits of self-censorship in public opinion! Through its very bigoted action, this right-wing paper has demonstrated that such nonsensical tests are only reserved for Muslims. It is no fluke that the paper is infamous for its declarations of support for the Nazis in the 1930s. In recent years, it has played a key role in Denmark’s current shift to the reactionary Right.

We are, therefore, not surprised to learn that when Rose visited Philadelphia, he had met neocon ideologue Pipes (known for anti-immigrant paranoia and Islamophobia), and wrote very favorably. Rose says: “In a secular society, Muslims have to live with the fact of being ridiculed, scoffed at and made to look ridiculous.” In a crude, racist stereotype, one cartoon, in particular, depicted Muhammad (S) as a terrorist. The obvious implication is that every Muslim is a potential terrorist, thereby seeding Islamophobia in the minds of everyone.

Soon after publication of these cartoons, the right-wing Danish prime minister was approached by concerned Danish Muslims. But Andres Fogh Rasmussen ignored them. He also turned down appeals by concerned Arab ambassadors for talks to clarify the issue. When 22 former Danish ambassadors appealed to the prime minister to hold discussion with representatives of Islamic states, he rejected their appeal and bullied that “freedom of the press” could not be a topic for diplomatic discussion.

Rasmussen has been deceitful. He is a racist and a bigot. His coalition government includes right-wing neo-liberals and neocons, together with the Nazi-like xenophobic Danish People’s Party. The latter rose to notoriety in the 1990s when all the bourgeois parties of Denmark (including the ruling Social Democrats) resorted to racist campaigns. The People's Party declared at the time that Islam was a "cancerous ulcer" and "terrorist movement." Its leader Pia Kjaersgaard, notorious for her racist rants and slurs, declared that the Islamic world could not be regarded as civilized. "There is only one civilization,” she declared, “and that is ours." Rasmussen, as the leader of the right-wing Venstre party, adopted much of the racist demagogy of the People's Party.[5]

In the election campaign of 2001, Rasmussen demanded that "criminal foreigners" be expelled from the country within 48 hours. His campaign utilized posters featuring pictures of Muslim criminals to suggest that all Muslims were violent. It was because of such anti-Muslim and anti-immigrant xenophobic campaign that Venstre won the election and was able to form a minority coalition government. Since coming to power, Denmark’s immigration laws have been drastically tightened.[6] The country has troops in Iraq.

So it is not difficult to understand why Rasmussen’s Denmark and JP are taking the lead in this latest savage attack on Islam. What is true about Denmark vis-à-vis the cartoon controversy is reflected in other parts of Europe! Time and again Europe has demonstrated that she is not ready for a genuine debate or dialogue of civilizations on a mature level. She craves for foul and mean things. She is not ready for pluralism or multi-culture. She remains true to her innate savage root.

Phony Talks of Tolerance and Freedom:
Europe talks about tolerance. But it has never been tolerant of others. It has presented us the Inquisition, Pogroms, Genocide and Holocaust, and continues to disgust us with newer gadgets and displays of mass murder, intolerance, bigotry and racism every now and then. Yes, the victims may now look different, but the art of dehumanization has not changed a bit. It is probably a little bit more sophisticated to mystify others. But just as they needed Der Stürmer before the Jewish Holocaust, they now need those offensive Danish cartoons to prepare the ground ready for the third Muslim Holocaust in Europe (after Bosnia and Kosovo). If they are a tolerant bunch, why in recent days did they raze scores of Muslim shops, mosques and schools, even vandalize Muslim graves? What is more despicable than that?

Europe talks about freedom of speech, but she wastes no time to gang up on others’ right to such expressions. If she really means freedom, why were her leaders irate about Iranian president’s remarks about Israel, threatening to dismember Iran from the UN? Why do they arrest Muslims when they react verbally to criminal onslaught against them? Why is radical Muslim cleric Abu Hamza tried and jailed in Tony Blair’s England for expressing his views? Why is it a crime in France, Germany and some other European states to express views that question the Holocaust? Why such selective use of law limiting the so-called freedom of speech when it comes to Holocaust but nonchalant about materials that are offensive to nearly one quarter of humanity? [Lest you forget, I am against any forms of hate speech, publication, etc. that dehumanizes anyone.]

If hate speech is undesirable, criminal and punishable (for its gross impact on the society), why were not the European leaders upset about scores of offensive remarks against Arabs made by Israeli leaders - from the past to the present? How about the xenophobic speeches by the European leaders, including those of the current Danish prime minister? How about publication of offensive materials that incites violent reactions, which almost always lead to death? [Scores of Muslims, including an 8-year old child, were killed by police. Why that Pakistani child had to die when he did not even participate in demonstration? Could he have lived if those Danish cartoons were not published? Should not the Danish government and the JP management be held responsible for aiding in the unlawful deaths of those civilians in Pakistan and Afghanistan?]

Where was the application of the article of the Danish constitution that says - “The law prohibits publicly disseminated statements, which threaten, insult, or degrade persons based on their religion” – when it came to the obvious racist and bigoted message disseminated by the Danish cartoons? How about prosecuting the management of the JP according to the Danish Penal Code: Section 266b that states: "Any person who publicly or with the intention of dissemination to a wide circle of people makes a statement or imparts other information threatening, insulting, or degrading a group of persons on account of their race, color, or national or ethnic origin, belief or sexual orientation shall be liable to a fine or imprisonment for a term not exceeding two years"?
Why a different standard when it comes to Islam? If the messengers of hatred, racism and bigotry are bad guys, why do Europeans continue to elect such monsters to head their governments? Why such an incongruity between what they say and what they do?

Am I surprised? No, I am not. I simply get amused with European creativity on how they reinvent themselves to mislead others! Their behavior can be summed by a single word: hypocrisy.
In case our European friends find the term foreign, here is an English definition from Mr. Webster. He defines hypocrisy as a feigning to be what one is not or to believe what one does not. Hypocrite is one who affects virtues or qualities he does not have. In plain English, hypocrite is a person who says something and does something contrary. The Prophet Muhammad (S) had a better definition when he said, “A hypocrite has three distinguishing signs: first when he talks, he lies; second when he makes a promise, he breaks it; and third when something is entrusted to him, he misappropriates it.” [Bukhari and Muslim: Abu Hurayrah (RA)] How so appositely said from the fountainhead of Islamic wisdom!

Some Recommendations:
Muslim nation states should stop trading with all those European nations that encouraged the publication of those offensive, slanderous and racist cartoons. Obviously, Denmark should be on the top of that list.

The OIC should demand that the Danes responsible for the publication of those cartoons, which have resulted in deaths of many Muslims, be extradited and tried for causing sedition, death and violence in a Muslim court, appointed by the OIC. The trial would reciprocate already invoked western laws that demand extradition and trial of material witnesses and suspected terrorists.

The OIC should also demand that western countries enact laws that ban any form of bigotry and racism, failing which the OIC member states should not trade with them.

Here are my recommendations for Europe: Europeans need to shred their image as a hypocritical people. If they are genuinely offended by Holocaust-denials, they should equally be offended by any public exhibit of elements that are offensive to Muslims (and for that matter any religion or race). If they are irate about hate speeches, they should not allow the merchants of hate -- the publishers and writers – who are doing Julius Streicher’s demonic job today -- to spread hatred. They simply cannot pick and choose that epitomizes their unnerving hypocrisy. Nor can they hide behind laws that are hypocritical and racist to the core, and still claim to be civilized and rational.

They also have to change their attitude on whole bunch of things in a world that is changing fast. They have to learn tolerance of ‘other’ people. They have to learn that with freedom comes responsibility. They have to debate what does those terms mean to them individually and collectively? In my humble opinion, they have mistakenly equated their promiscuity and sexual freedom/preference/perversion as symbols of their freedom and tolerance. They should know that liberalism does not necessarily translate into tolerance.

Lastly, let me state clearly that something that is offensive to someone cannot be good. Only a vulgar, mean-spirited, evil man takes delight at other’s pain and suffering. True humanity is about compassion and respect for fellow beings, and providing protection against their sense of being violated. Such demands a feeling of shame and outrage with anything that is insulting to a fellow human being.

So, the civilized people of Europe should demand an apology from their press and government to the Muslim people (for the right reason and not political expediency). They should demand enacting laws, much like what they did for the Holocaust-denial, banning and prosecuting merchants of hatred and bigotry. Anything short of these would only seal their identity as a hypocrite people.

Let them reflect upon what the 13th century sage Shaykh Sa’di had said:
O thou whose interior is denuded of piety
But wearest outwardly the garb of hypocrisy
Do not display a curtain of seven colours.
Thou hast reed mats inside thy house.
- [Gulistan]

NOTES
[1] See, e.g., Trudy Rubin’s column on February 5, 2006 in the Philadelphia Inquirer.
[2] See, e.g., Richard Itani’s essay: “Cartoons and Hypocrisy” in the www.counterpunch.org.
[3] See Tarek Mishkhas’s essay: “Something is rotten in the State of Denmark,” Arab News, 5 February, 2006.
[4] See the Guardian reporter filed by Gladys Fouche on the cartoon controversy. See also Siraj Wahab’s piece: Danish paper rejected Jesus cartoons, Arab News, February 9, 2006.
[5] See Peter Schwarz’s “Denmark and Jyllands-Posten: the background to a provocation,” World Socialist Website, February 10, 2006.
[6] ibid.
Dr. Habib Siddiqui (saeva@aol.com)


[aljazeerah]
[cartoon]
[muhammad]

Source:
http://www.aljazeerah.info/Opinion%20editorials/2006%20Opinion%20Editorials/February/17%20o/Danish%20Cartoons%20Expression%20of%20Freedom%20or%20Abuse%20of%20Speech%20By%20Habib%20Siddiqui.htm