GlocalNet

Last week a leader in Oman ran across some articles that I’d written and articles written about me and our church and what we do.  He was very kind and gracious in his response to me as an evangelical.  He knew David Belt who works for the U.S. government and sent him links to the article.  David who specializes in foreign affairs and Islam sent me this paper he wrote in which this leader was a part of.  You may not agree with everything - and you may - but it is their perspectives from some of the elites of Oman and how they see the world.  I enjoyed reading it - thought some of you might as well.

Frank Frankincense

Strategic Insight and Counsel for America from Oman’s Sages

David Douglas Belt
7 May 2008
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The Sultanate of Oman is at the crossroads of East and West, East and East, Arabia and Persia; and the worldview of its sages is a product of this geographical web.  It stands juxtaposed to the Islamic Republic of Iran across the narrow Straits of Hormuz, standing watch over the world’s most strategic energy routes.  Oman everywhere is marked by its contrasts: from its thousands of miles of uninhabited beach where hard jagged mountains fall steeply into the sea, to its beautiful sandy-soft dunes blanketing an equally uninhabitable inland desert, to its 3,000 meter high mountain range adjacent to the flat coastal regions dotted with both the cool oasis and hot spring. Even the treasured frankincense is contrasted by the scraggly desert tree that bears it.

Oman’s greatest and rarest of treasures are the Omanis themselves—cosmopolitan, globally engaged citizens, living distinctly quiet local Omani lives. The host of my trip to Oman was an Omani Sheikh who I had met in a broader Middle East North Africa track II diplomacy event in Athens Greece nearly a year earlier; he was the former head of a prominent institution until two years ago; a member of the upper house ; and a member of the Gulf Cooperation Council’s (GCC) consultative council. I refer to him here as “the former senator.”  He insisted that I stay the entire week at his home near the beach, where I enjoyed his family and the family routines, including some of the best cooking I’ve experienced anywhere.  In his home office he displays a photograph of the award ceremony where the Sultan of Oman presented him with the Omani Medal of Honor (as did two of the other wise men). His library is a treasure trove for those of us fascinated by the nexus of politics and religion, East and West, and the waltz of civilizations. His wife is a beautiful blend of pious Muslim and cosmopolitan lady, working professional, a former deputy dean of a college, and mother of four beautiful, loving and hospitable children.

The other Omani graybeards whose frank thoughts and sage counsel are included herein include several senior government leaders and senior academics, all close friends of the former senator. One is a sheikh and General Secretary of a major government institution, herein known as “the General Secretary”. Another is also a sheikh, former Deputy President of Shura Council and former Deputy President of the State Council, herein known as “the former Deputy President”. Another is a Member of State Council, former ambassador to a superpower, former minister, Deputy Secretary General of GCC, poet, and author of several books, herein referred to as “the Member of State Council”. And the remaining others are four senior professors from Sultan Qaboos University, two of which were either a dean or former dean, herein referred to as “the first [second, third or fourth] professor.”

Oman’s wise men were educated in America, Britain and France, and are masters of world affairs. The former senator, for example, scheduled his meetings after the 9-10 AM extended international version of al-Jazeera. But before that he reads the Quran, then watches the BBC and CNN, and then reads the New York Times and Washington Post, the Guardian and Independent, the Israeli YNet, Haaretz and several blogs.

Together, Oman’s wise men—to use Tom Friedman’s metaphor—are the perfect picture of the Lexus lying down with the Olive Tree. Theirs was not a clash of Arab and Islamic tradition with modernity and globalization, but an alloying of each with the other; a kind of synergistic blend, where the resulting whole is greater than the sum of the individual parts. On my first night in Muscat, I joined my host at a key meeting of the GCC’s Consultative Council, which was meeting in Muscat this month. In addition to the traditional dishdasha and cumma—the non-turban round hat—my host wore the bisht—a black tunic—and ceremonial silver Arab dagger. The sight of all this in the warm evening breeze could have conjured up a tale from One Thousand and One Nights were it not for the top flight silver Japanese Lexus that my host was driving at 120 kph down wide and brightly lit highways to a remote coastal hill resort. It seemed the perfect metaphor for this kind of synergy as they hold onto the Gulf’s best traditions in their speedy, headlong thrust into a distinctly local modernity.

And in this fashion, the former senator whisked the two of us all over Muscat to meet Oman’s wise men in their air conditioned offices, coffee shops, Gulf-front five-star resorts, and their homes, where, like those in the husbandry of Omani frankincense trees, I merely collected the untapped treasure. What follows is the frank and heartfelt counsel from these sages, deconstructed and arranged in order of the strategic subject we discussed—America, Israel-Palestine, Islam, violent extremism, and strategy to contain it.

America

Oman’s wise men were as eager to talk about America as they were Palestine and the ubiquitous Islam. Nearly all of the Omanis suffered from a kind of political dissonance—holding long-standing positive views of America being the moral agent in an otherwise Hobbesian world, trumpeting freedom and democratic equality; but as also having a split personality, tolerating and even promoting clear injustices antithetical to those values. Most of this dissonance stemmed from America’s blind support for the Israeli government’s increasing occupation and control of the Palestinians—but not all of it.

Theirs was not the kind of angry America-bashing that I experienced at the 2007 U.S.-Islamic World Forum in Doha, and it was entirely contrary to the personal reports of widespread anti-Americanism from friends like American University’s Akbar Ahmed, after his Muslim world swing in 2007. In fact, the very notion of anti-Americanism was an offense to Oman’s wise men. Their dissonance was different; it was a kind of genuine heartfelt sorrow, perhaps best expressed by the first professor and dean at Sultan Qaboos University: “So many people feel sorry that America finds itself in this position,” he said; “very sad.”  It wasn’t an anger at something Other; it was instead a loss of something held dear.

Oman’s wise men loved America and its people, and were frustrated over the government’s actions, which they saw as complete dissonance with America’s spirit that had been forged into their own identities over decades. “There is no anti-Americanism as Americans perceive it,” the former Senator added, “there is frustration with American polices of late, but the people of the region see much good in America.”  To more clearly express their view of our view, the former Senator gave me a copy of Arundhati Roy’s, “Not Again” from The Guardian on 27 September 2002.  Though from India, Roy spoke the mind of the entire region it seemed. Roy’s point was that, politically speaking, America’s fiercest critics are its own people, and that “the term [anti-Americanism] is usually used by the American establishment to discredit and…inaccurately…define its critics.” Roy’s point that the former senator wanted me to understand is this one: “Once someone is branded anti-American, the chances are that he or she will be judged before they’re heard…” and that if someone opposes the means by which America is conducting its so-called global war on terror, then they are branded as supporting terrorism.

“You need to realize David that people think Americans are the greatest people on earth,” the former senator continued. “It is the government that is the problem.” He described how when his youngest brother had been in America last month, he asked, “So how do you find America now?” His brother replied, “These people are wonderful; it’s just the government.”  Agreeing, the first professor said “You have no idea how much America is loved in the world; ask the Peace Corps student.” He then told the story of his American friend traveling in Jordan and Syria who couldn’t believe how friendly people were to the Americans. He said, “We’re not angry with Americans but with American policies, which betrays the American identity that has been the pillar of moral authority.” He lamented that “The golden period of American diplomacy was under Kennedy; but it was short lived.” 

Though the center of gravity in this kind of dissonance was blind support and blank-check for Israel’s apartheid-like policies in the Palestinian territory, the remaining mass was attributed to perceived injustices in Abu Ghraib, in Guantanamo, in the Patriot Act, in other clampdowns on civil liberties, and in blind support for authoritarian Arab leaders who feigned support to the “global war on terror,” using it as a pretext to suppress legitimate political competition at home. These departures from the American identity in the name of security were setbacks for many Muslim communities around the world in their struggle against the much worse injustices of their own corrupt, authoritarian, police-state regimes. Before 9/11, America’s example was serious moral competition and a powerful global standard that, like a flooding tide, lifted even the most despicable regimes onto a higher moral plane. Paradoxically, the very actions that the Bush administration believed would make America safer produced the opposite affect.  With the America’s moral tide ebbing, the character of these regimes has ebbed even more. And the more America’s injustices took center stage in the popular opinion and official and viral media, the more the local regime’s injustices escaped the attention that held them accountable.

In what he referred to as a “hijacking,” His Excellency, the Member of the State Council, elaborated on this dissonance of America being one thing, and becoming another:  “I looked to the U.S. as a civilized nation,” he said. “I want America to go back to its civilized ways, and look to the Other in a civilized way.”  He continued, “As Omanis, we established relations with the U.S. during the era of Thomas Jefferson. That’s how we look to America, and we expect America to do likewise. They should look to the Other as human beings, with needs, fears, aspirations and mutual interests.”  One of the members of the GCC Consultative Council from Saudi Arabia agreed; he said, “We never expected America to behave the way it behaved; we expected this of Russia and China. We looked for America to behave the way it did in the Suez crisis; you played the moral broker, siding with no one except justice…not with just your friends. So we never expected Americans to behave this way.”  He paused and said, “After 9/11, America became totally crazy, like a small boy wielding around a sword threatening to hit whoever got close.”
 
The first professor used this analogy: “If you had a brother that stabbed you in the back, or an enemy that did this, which one would you be the most angry with?” I replied, “My brother, of course.” “Why?” he asked. “Because he’s my brother,” I said. “I expect my enemy to stab me.” “That’s right,” he said; “The anger of the world toward the U.S. is because the world sees the U.S. as its brother. If Russia or China acts in a foul manner, no one bats an eye. We’re angry at America because we love America.”

Another factor in this dissonance stemmed from what the wise men saw as the new American ethos of short-term, materialistic thinking that plagues so many corporate board rooms. It is an ethos that willfully neglects to make short-term sacrifices for the greater long-term gain and viability, and instead focuses on maximizing next quarter’s returns to shareholders. In the lead-in to a discussion of the emergence of al-Qaeda in Afghanistan, the second professor told the story of the Tuskegee Airmen. He concluded: “America has an abandonment problem; it abandons those who fight for it.” He described how when the Soviet’s retreated from Afghanistan, America in a fit of this short-term ethos of isolationist self-absorption, ran back to the reflection pool of Narcissus and ignored the horrific conditions for the partners most affected in this proxy war against the Soviet Union.  The professor said, “Bin Laden turned on America when America abandoned them; America would not be facing an al-Qaeda today if America at the time had said, ‘Let’s rehabilitate these people before they turn into something else.’”  He said, “If America takes care of its long-term interests, then it will have the world eating out of its hand. It’s like having a partner in business.” The Secretary General agreed: “Why didn’t you build universities and find employment for the thousands of youthful mercenaries who helped you defeat the Soviets in Afghanistan?” The second professor digressed and asked, “Why do you think Kenya has been stable so long until recently? It’s because Uncle Sam stepped in with the airlift, and then brought all those tribes to study in America. And to make it even sweeter, America sent the Peace Corps the other way.” “You see,” he said, “With a little intelligence, you don’t have to fire bullets; especially in America’s enviable situation.

Still another part of the dissonance among Oman’s leadership stemmed from the growing perception of a new American schizophrenia or double standard when it comes to Muslims. They described how we imaginatively construct ourselves as the world’s champion of human rights everywhere in the world…and are incredulously blind to the fact that we are the chief underwriter of and silent partner to Israel’s apartheid in Palestine.  This self-identity is so strong that we’re surprised and even offended when Muslims see a different America than the one we’ve imagined.  The former Senator described how that during the Columbine school shooting massacre, the well-meaning Scotsman principal in Oman ordered the kids in the school attended by his daughter to observe a minute of silence. To the principal’s surprise, the Omani kids refused. On inquiring, a spokesperson explained to him that “last week a dozen Palestinian kids were killed and you didn’t have a moment of silence for them”.  Muslims, and particularly Arabs, are crushed when America so routinely and blindly views them as the unequal other. To make a point, the former senator pulled up a YouTube clip of a much younger-looking Madeline Albright being interviewed over sanctions in Iraq. The interviewer pointed out that it was estimated that as many as 500,000 Iraqi children died as a result of the sanctions, and asked if such a high cost to so many innocent and young lives was worth it. Albright, incredulously, said that the deaths of a half million Iraqi children were worth it.  “You don’t have any idea,” the former senator said, “how damaging a statement and underlying attitude like this is to America. Here you are preaching anti-terrorism—the eradication of those who can only kill a few—and yet here is an elite American woman—a mother figure—a stateswoman—condoning the deaths of hundreds of thousands of children.” He said that her own personal experience should make her more compassionate. 

America’s leaders unwittingly foster a condescending view of “the unequal Other” in speeches that are viewed by the Other as incredibly narcissistic. This theme surfaced again on my last day in Muscat, when the third professor recalled how when interviewer asked Vice President Dick Cheney how many Americans had died, and he gave the exact figure; but when she asked him how many Iraqis had died, he gave her a curt and abrupt, “I don’t know.” His expression was the most damaging; it said, “Why should I care?!”  The lines on the professor’s face were those of incredulity; she asked: “Don’t you think that’s a bit arrogant?”

Oman’s wise men pointed out that we Americans are so Self-absorbed in our own worries that we view the other merely in terms of our own security needs, and fail to imagine that we’re all connected and that the Other also worries and has security needs that depend on us. The former senator said, “Do you not think—while you’re worrying about terrorists—that the people over here also worry?  Chief among these worries is not Iran across the narrow Straits of Hormuz, or a rising Shi’ite Iraq, or an increasingly grim economic outlook despite the record prices for oil and gas; the chief worry is the new America. You need to know that people over here know that America is a wounded lion, and you don’t mess with a wounded lion unless you’re an idiot. They knew about wounded lions; his uncle’s home had a stuffed lion from a safari in Tanzania, where they grew up and still hunted each year. “We see campaigns against the prophet; campaigns against Islam—we read all the books—and this is worrying. Ban the hijab, ban the building of mosques, control donations to charities intended for the poor. We are the targets. And what makes people even more worrisome is that you have power, and we don’t…and you’ve used that power many times.”

America’s subtle message of the Arabs as the unequal other surfaced several times during my week in Muscat. The fourth professor, for example, was offended when President Bush said “They hate our values.” This seemingly innocuous statement had significant collateral damage, hitting the Muslim community harder than its intended al-Qaeda target. Though the wise men despised the actions and ideology of al-Qaeda, there was both an Orientalism-induced sensitivity of the West’s criticism that their sons and former heroes of America’s proxy war against the Soviets in Afghanistan were not equal humans at war to protect one’s way of life, but somehow less civilized, and even barbaric. Like the story of the prodigal son in the Bible, there was this sense that no matter how misguided one of their wayward sons might become, they were still sons—part of a piece, a single woven fabric—a community of the faithful, or umma. And any insinuation that they are less than human reaches back to the societies that produced them and by association brands them as inhuman. Barbarism begets barbarism is not the message intended by the president’s remarks; it is merely the message received.

That Muslim communities don’t hate our values was explicitly driven home time and again. Their values were American values; our culture was is much theirs as it is ours. “Americans and the spirit of America is loved by everyone,” the second professor said. “Your greatest ambassadors were music and movies. Listen to Oman radio; why is 90 percent of it American music? If you think these don’t leave an everlasting affection for the U.S….” In the old Westerns against the Indians, he said, “We cheered for the white man” but only after growing up and learning of the atrocities committed against the native Indians did we recognize that we were wrong in cheering the suffering of victims”.  He then described, how the Muslim loved American values, but hate the hypocrisy of late. “Muslims in the world expect Christians and Jews to behave in a good way; we don’t expect anything good from Russia and China.”  He spoke of the respect that Muslims give to the people of the book. “And it seems to be one-way traffic. If it is reciprocated, America could have its cake and eat it too.” He used several such American clichés and colloquialisms.

Oman’s statesmen are keenly fixed upon the statesmen in America, particularly the president. The former senator said, “the U.S. president is viewed all around the world as the president of the world”.  Others echoed this sentiment. The third professor said something that I’ve heard several times from citizens of other countries: “We should be allowed to go to the polls and elect your president as well.” 

And of all of America’s statesmen, all of Oman’s wise men had by far the most to say about President Bush. All of it was powerfully insightful, revealing a deep grievance—the kind that comes from someone who has caused a deep and lasting hurt. For example, one day while driving towards Dubai, we stopped for gas. At 39 degrees Celsius; the sun seemed unbearable. The former senator laughed and said, “39’s not bad since it goes to 54 here. That’s why we say that this is men’s land…and that if nature couldn’t perish us, then Bush can’t even touch us.”  The former senator held Bush the father, James Baker, and such actions as Madrid, in high esteem; a high-water mark for U.S. statesmanship. “Bush the son killed it,” he said. To him, as with all of the wise men, President Bush came out on the more barbaric end of the bushman-statesman continuum. The former senator said, “You need a statesman, really; you don’t need a cowboy.” He cited Clinton as “somebody who carried himself very well, as a statesman. He didn’t talk in short sentences, showing his machoism”, and he talked of Nixon as someone who was “Presidential”.

On this keen sensitivity regarding statesmanship, I asked him to rate Senators Obama, Clinton and McCain. “Obama,” he said, “though youthful, he carries himself very well on stage.” Hillary, he dismissed: “She has tantrums on stage. If she wanted someone to emulate, she should have emulated Margaret Thatcher—determined, uncompromising…not one day this and another day that. That speech was horrible when she said she’d obliterate Iran; these words are not said by statesmen; it’s like someone standing before children with a hammer saying, ‘If you do such and such I’ll break your head with this hammer.’”  On Senator McCain, he said, “I think because of his age, he is someone who does command authority; he does have the appearance of a wise statesman but sometimes his statements on our part of the world are scary.”

Every Omani I met was talking about America’s upcoming election as if it was their own. The second professor said that even the students at the university are transfixed over who America’s next president will be. At the former senator’s house, his wife (affectionately called “the minister of interior”) had a gathering of a large group of ladies for dinner and conversation. While sneaking in to take some of the food and desserts from the table in the other room, we clearly heard an excited “Obama” emerge from the otherwise Arabic chatter. The first professor was also preoccupied with the presidential campaign, he offered this counsel: “Don’t take Hillary or McCain”. Of Obama, the graybeard professor was most hopeful: “His face is your dream and your opportunity to regain Africa and the Third World back to you.” 

Oman’s leaders saw a great paradox: they saw an America the global actor, but it was an actor so arrogant and naively cocksure that it couldn’t first sit and listen to wise counsel.  The second professor said: “You are the most educated people in the world; you have all of the best advisors; but you don’t listen to yourselves.” He said, “The Americans are good at listening to thinktankers and sending people around the world to listen to people; but they are not good at translating this wise council into the policies or actions.” Before the Iraq invasion he said to a group of US officials, “you don’t correct a wrong with a wrong; we don’t like Saddam, but you need to learn from experience and history. If, today, you need to know how your actions will be, you need to learn about Iraq history; you need to ask the British people”.  Another one of the sheikhs said that “I am surprised that the U.S. did not study the history of Iraq.” The former senator chimed in, “Iraq cannot be ruled by normal means; and this is what you didn’t understand about Saddam Hussein; it took a ruthless man who was willing to intimidate the factions just so it didn’t descend into total chaos”.

On the new America’s troubling naivety, the third professor, a Georgetown-educated linguist, said, “I don’t watch CNN nowadays. The more I listen to CNN it is propaganda; and I’m a linguist—I specialize in the use of metaphors and propaganda. She said that Wolf Blitzer was a problem, and challenged us to watch English al-Jazeera and with an open mind and compare it to CNN. “Balance for us is at least give the Middle East a chance”.  The former Deputy President agreed; he said that “Your media manipulates people. You only read or look at one side; you should know the people on the other side.” The former Senator’s own morning routine of gathering the world’s news from so many diverse sources was testimony to the Omani wise men’s refusal to fall prey to such naivety.

America’s naivety, the wise men saw, extended to its [un]diplomatic relations with Saudi Arabia. At the GCC Consultative Council meeting, a senior minister from Saudi Arabia—in traditional Saudi dress, but with a lighter complexion and non-Arab features—described how after 9/11 America retreated from Arabia, “all because of what 15 boys were enticed to do by some extremist minority.” Every other country in the world, he said, was there making investments, but the US investment banks were conspicuously absent. “The Chinese, on the other hand,” he said, “when approached about a deal, first say ‘yes, yes’ and then say, ‘now tell us the specifics of the deal’”. “Any deal—any relationship with the Saudis to the Chinese,” he said, “is a good one, even if it’s on the Saudi terms.” Combined with the anti-Saudi rhetoric that fails to discriminate between the complex set of powerful and diverse factions in the Kingdom, it is no wonder that the Saudis have stopped looking West and are looking East.

Part of the sense of sorrow over the new America among Oman’s wise men stems from their perception of America’s naivety or blindness concerning its own internal, moral decay, and its blindness to its ravenous, unstoppable geopolitical appetite that was leading to imperial overstretch. The former senator’s wife asked me, “When you overextend, don’t you think it’s dangerous for yourself.” Her point was not paying for the operations, but inordinate attention it consumes at the expense of growing problems at home. “When you focus on the outside,” she said, “the threat won’t come from outside, but within, because people’s frustration will grow.” She equated government legitimacy and security with its internal service to its own people, not with its external appetite for power.  She said, “What happened in Nazi Germany is happening in America, slowly. I think America should fear what is happening within. I’m telling you, if anything happens to America, it will be from the inside; I talk to so many American students who are so angry with their government.”  The fourth professor sitting with us agreed, and warned “All in Europe are watching for the U.S. to fall down from your glory. The U.S. is like Michael Jordan; even his team mates didn’t like him.” He was speaking with an eye towards Oman’s own experience, “We used to be an empire, and we collapsed because we opened our appetite to consume the world.”

Israel-Palestine

Briefly mentioned at the start, perhaps the main source of dissonance is America’s position and silence with respect to Palestinians. Oman’s wise men made it clear that Arabs are deeply frustrated and bewildered that the America that has brought so much good to the world has a split personality when it comes to the apartheid-like situation in Palestine. For this reason, America’s self-aggrandizing narrative of the champion of equality and inalienable human rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness falls on deaf ears across Muslim communities.

The Secretary General said, “America lost its place in the world; it’s hypocritical; freedom is meaningless when Palestinians are oppressed. You talk about invading Iran, but no one speaks about the plight of the Palestinians and the sins of Israel. It’s pathetic. Are we talking about America? The freedom of America?”  He blasted the “blank-check” policy with respect to Israel:  “America has vetoed more UN resolutions than the rest of the Security Council members combined, and all for the sake of condoning Israel’s sins against the Palestinians. America allows Israel to behave in a manner that America itself is not allowed to behave—not by its own citizens and not by the world either! America will not allow itself to behave this way.”

The Omanis pointed out that Americans are blind to this great identity-threatening incoherence. They all expressed an incredulity and sense of deep personal, altruistic injustice over America’s aiding and abetting Israel’s egregious activity during the so-called peace process. They note that all during Oslo and since the Camp David Summit, the settlements have been expanding at an increasing rate—the very opposite of what one would expect, and what they expected that America—the moral broker—would allow. On the canton-ization of Palestine—chopping it up into hundreds of noncontiguous ghettos, they note how the Israelis publicize that they have eliminated ten checkpoints, but they don’t tell you that they just created fifteen new ones.

The former senator asked, “How could any sensible, let alone moral, human being accept the displacement of an indigenous people by an alien people who are purported to have come from there 2000 years ago? Isn’t this a kind of religious terrorism that some Muslim fanatics are being accused of doing?” He asked, “Where is justice? How can you preach justice when you are not just yourself?” He urged me, “Please read Benny Morris’ book ‘1948: A History of the First Arab-Israeli War’ which focuses on what happened during that important year, and how the Arabs were forced from their homes.” In spite of the sense of injustice, all of the Omanis were resigned to a two state solution, with Israel existing within its pre-1967 borders, but they couldn’t understand why America didn’t also demand and expect this—why 300 million people allowed themselves to be “hijacked by the Zionist lobby” and taint America’s identity by allowing the expansion of settlements and control to continue. 

Beyond the moral injustice, Oman’s wise men were frustrated that America could not see the practical, economic and security aspect of its state-supported apartheid. The former senator asked, “Is there any reason why, today, America would go against 220 million people—the Arab world—for the sake of 4 million people-Israel?” I tried to explain this mystery based on my conversations with fellow Christians who viewed Palestine solely through the Biblical prophetic lens, and didn’t consider a balancing Biblical moral lens. 

But Oman’s leaders were not merely frustrated over with the acts of the global actor; they were just as frustrated in the naivety; they knew that the acts were not the result of any deliberate meanness on the part of the average American, but blindness resulting from the American media’s distortion of some information concerning Israel, and their embargo the rest. “Your country has been hijacked by lobbies,” said one professor. He explained that he also meant that the media had been hijacked. Indeed, many educated Christians that I talk to have no clue about Israel’s egregious violation of the human rights and their settlement expanding occupation and control of Palestinian land beyond their 1967 borders. The former senator maintained that those who break free from the media’s embargo on the truth and learn of the injustice—like former President Jimmy Carter—are morally outraged.  To prove this point, the former senator went to his computer and sent several pieces from Americans at the grassroots level that were forming into a coalition-like movement to make fellow Americans aware.  And he gave me several books and website recommendations—all by Jews, Christians and other non-Muslims—for Americans who wanted to help balance the highly propagandized view that American media constructs of the situation in Palestine.  And he suggested the five minute clip titled, “If you only knew….”

Oman’s sages were most concerned about the occupation’s deleterious impact on Israel’s moral fabric, and that this would only deepen the vicious cycle of violence and human rights abuses.
The former senator declared that “Ironically, Israel is the greatest loser in the sixty year Israeli occupation of the West Bank.” He was referring to the social-psychological damage and moral desensitivity of the Israeli Defense Forces and Shin Bet and Hilltop youth among the settler movement creates apartheid identity and national history. “It is destroying Israel from within,” he declared; “They have turned themselves from a people who were outgoing—who went out through the world, and had influence and wealth—produced great scientists—into ; they’ve degraded themselves into a highly discriminative, closed society—a pure society—that contains no body else.”  The former senator’s view has merit; still unread in my e-mail inbox was a 19 April piece in the Independent, “Our reign of terror, by the Israeli army,” by Donald Macintyre, describing what happens to an Army engaged in a prolonged occupation.  The subheading summarized it this way: “In shocking testimonies that reveal abductions, beatings and torture, Israeli soldiers confess the horror they have visited on Hebron.”

The undemocratic nature of Israel was perhaps the greatest hypocrisy for the wise men, and it was perceived to be the one that would lead to further internal decay and change of identity for both nations. The former senator said, “They now want to turn it into a Jewish state. Unlike Saudi Arabia which has been Islamic since 1400 years, Israel was a mixed society with Jews, Christians and Muslims together; Jews and Arabs together. But, today, the Arabs cannot participate in government. A democracy means that all citizens are equal—they have equal rights regardless of the belief they have, or their race. By making Israel a Jewish state—by denying the participation of 25 percent of the population—their full rights as citizens—disqualifies the state of Israel from the status of a democratic entity.”  He was certain that “If Christians in America knew how Christian in Israel were discriminated against in Israel, they would raise hell.” He added, “When America speaks of democracy in this part of the world—and they always give the example of Israel as a democracy in this part of the world—it defies reality, and dilutes the potential power of America’s democratic identity and moral credibility.”

Understanding Islam

All of Oman’s wise men (and women) who agreed to provide their counsel took their faith seriously.  The respectfulness and warm embrace of each toward me and their affectionate words and memories for America’s culture and people provided the clearest proof that their interpretation of Islam was a bulwark against the creeping tide of salafism among the youth. 

Many making authoritative statements about Islam today in mainly the popular viral media and FOX news construct an Islam that is inherently antagonistic towards what it perceives as a Judeo-Christian West. As much as I was surprised to find a deep and abiding love for America’s one face, I was just as surprised to find not a shred of anti-Jewism among Oman’s wise men or their families. Throughout my stay, they distinguished between Jews and Israel, and religious Jews and the secular Zionist movement, and the religious extremist settler movement. I confronted the former Senator over this and he said, “No, not anti-Jewism, but anti-injustice-ism.” One of the wise men told the story how one Christian asked him why he shook the hand of a woman who said up front that she is a Jew from Israel. He said, because this is what my religion and my prophet tells me; that I must treat people in the best possible way.  And the first professor was even more profound: “Why are you provoking our cousins against us; we should live in one state.”

And among the Omanis there was no hint of an eternal enemy of Islam, the common theme in extremist discourse, indicating that they were two vastly different interpretations of Islam. The Almighty says in the Qur’an “…If God had so willed, He would have made you one community, but He wanted to test you through that which He has given you; so race to do good: you will all return to God and He will make clear to you the matters you differed about (5:48). He also says “Had your Lord willed, all the people on earth would have believed. So can you [Prophet] compel people to believe?”(10:99). The former senator cited several passages from the sacred texts on this subject that Muslims have used for centuries to hold extremists at bay and construct another story:
“O Mankind! We created you from a single (pair) of male and female, and made you into nations and tribes, that you may know each other (not that you may despise each other. Verily, the most honored of you in the sight of Allah is (he who is) the most righteous of you. And Allah has full knowledge and is well acquainted (with all things)” (49:13).

Part of the Omani’s affection for Christians and Jews flows from their emphasis on the Islamic belief strand that even the earliest Jews and Christians were also Muslim. The former Deputy President said “We believe that all Christians are Muslims, and that all Jews are Muslims.” The former senator elaborated that “Islam is the moving away from paganism to the tawheed—the oneness of God, so the followers of Judaism as monotheists were the first Muslims. They went into some deviation, and Jesus came to correct their view.” He recommended the Cross and the Crescent by Dirks to better understand this belief strand.

On the hot-button issue of sharia and its incompatibility with human rights and the West’s perceptions of civilization, the wise men were animated. “Where is stoning and the punishment aspects of sharia carried out?” the former senator asked. I replied, “Saudi Arabia and Iran.” He replied, “If you talk about the combined population of Saudi Arabia and Iran, they are less than 8 percent of the umma. And do all people in Saudi Arabia and Iran condone this?” He then went to his study, and returned to show me a segment from Hassan Hathout’s book, Reading the Muslim Mind (1995: xx).
“It is indeed unfortunate that these brilliant aspects of the Shari’ah, which serves humanity like no other legal system does, should be eclipsed by the tendency of some Muslims to exaggerate the harshness of the concept of punishment in Islam. This is the result of a serious misunderstanding of Islam to which Muslims, let alone alien orientalists, have fallen victim. Islam was not revealed in order to amputate the thieving hand or to stone the fornicator, but rather it came to protect and safeguard human dignity. The harshness of the punishment for the offender is meant more a deterrent than for prompt application. This is borne out by the fact that many obstacles have to be overcome before punishment can be affected—the burden of proof is so onerous that implementing the punishment can be practically impossible”

To these Muslims, Islam’s mission is first and foremost one of stewardship of the trust of the final revelation given through Muhammad. Accordingly, this ethos of “stewardship of the given” is such that interpretations will tend to reinforce the status quo, or conserve orthodoxy. Interpretations of sharia, for this reason, tend to uphold medieval interpretations and are slow in adjusting to the modern age. But despite the petro-dollar fueled revival of the salafi reform movement, sharia—though expanding—shows signs of its ability to adapt to global consensus and solidarity of morality and human rights.  Sharia, the former senator explained, is experiencing taqrib—the theological movement that is consolidating, narrowing of the fiqh; widening it to deal with the issues that didn’t exist 1400 years ago. Renewal, or tajdid, he explained, “means to try and look at life today, and try to look at the sharia’s new interpretation on how to deal with things like transplants, organ donation, and Darwinism in schools.”

A narrative getting extensive play today is that sharia is by its nature undemocratic and antithetical to basic human rights. His Excellency, the State Council Member discussed the shura concept of democracy and human rights in Islam. “In Ibadism everybody is equal; the most competent should lead; this is where we come to the same line as the democracy of the US.” Similarly, the Secretary General, said “Democracy is near to the Muslim heart”, putting his hand on his heart. But, he was pragmatic about when it should be advanced: “You should have listened to us about democracy project in Iraq; we knew that Iraq was no where near ready for this.”

Another basic narrative among non-Muslims everywhere is that Islam socially oppresses and even physically abuses its women. Living with this pious Muslim family in their home—watching their morning and evening routine of reading the Quran—and yet watching their interpretation of it with respect to women left me with the sense that much of the problem lies mainly with the local culture’s influence on the ambiguous parts of the sacred text. The former senator gave me a copy of a letter that three young women in his extended family wrote to Oprah in response to one of her programs that fostered this Orientalist stereotype. The letter addressed several categories: the rights of women in Islam; the rights of the wife in divorce, in financial independence from the husband, in education, in the husband’s duties to the wife, in inheritance, and “the value of female capabilities as opposed to trying to be like a man”. They were writing not as women oppressed by Islam, but women oppressed by the Orientalist narrative of women in Islam. They complained about the non-representative “negative portrayal of Saudi Arabian culture,” and “secondly, the link of these cultural practices to Islam.”  They wrote: “It seems as though the media only focuses on poor implementation, but never looks at what is really expected of Muslims. It never focuses on the people or groups of people who correctly implement Islam. What was most disappointing about your show is that you reinforced this negative stereotype, when the purpose of that show was to create awareness.”

The hijab is another popular topic among security professionals in the West who are perplexed by its rise in use, so I engaged the former senator’s wife over the topic. On the former senator’s desk there a picture of her , slightly younger, but not wearing the hijab as is her current practice. I told her that many of those who study Muslim communities have concluded that the return to the hijab by Muslim women worldwide in the past twenty years is the result of a deliberate strategy by Islamists to foster a sense of global Islamic resistance to Western influence, and to use it as a non-assimilation tool to keep Muslims from assimilating into a global civil society in the age of globalization. I asked her why she changed her practice and started to wear it. She said, “I chose to wear a hijab; he never forced me” pointing to her husband.  I asked her, what the hijab means to her. “American women, when they go to church,” she replied, “dress modestly.”  She said that “I feel more comfortable. When you get older it covers your age. This is Islam; it tells that women should be modest.”

Causes of Extremism

Oman’s sages saw strategic misunderstandings in America’s view of extremism within Islam’s vast continuum. Their main point was that the al-Qaeda brand of extremism is not Islam. To make this point, the former Deputy President asked, “Is the Oklahoma bombing Christianity? And was the assassination of Rabin, was that Judaism?” He was adamant: “And for God’s sake, never look at the deeds of a particular person who calls himself a Muslim and attribute those deeds to the faith.” I asked the fourth professor about the extremist Muslim trend in Europe. He said that extremism is on the rise everywhere, not just among Muslim youth. “In Europe,” he pointed out, “there are the new Nazis; so who is your enemy?”

The sages outlined several causes of extremism: physical occupation of Muslim communities, injustice in American foreign policies in general,  America’s discourse of danger about Islam, America’s lopsided support for Israel and apparent unconcern over Israel’s injustices against Palestinians, America’s intercultural ignorance, the radicalizing influence of American culture on Muslim youth, poverty and the related frustration at the huge disparity in wealth between Muslim communities and Western communities, and, finally, modernity itself and the ruptures it creates in traditional societies.

Physical occupation was a key factor in extremism. At a time when Israel and America were two states occupying other states in the Middle East, occupation was very much on the Arab mind, and support for resistance movements was strong. The former senator’s wife said that “Hizballah is not only looked at as a big thing by the Shia, but by all of us Muslims. When you create situations that provoke resistance, then not-so-good people become heroes because of their will to resist.” Some violence in Islamic communities, the Omanis were quick to point out, should be categorized under the just war traditions that all humans hold. All of the Omanis agreed that not all violence by Muslims is a sign of extremism, but rather Muslims under extreme pressure and finding within their faith the legitimacy of a just resistance against an oppressive occupation. On this “just war” doctrine in Islam, the former senator showed me this passage from Understanding Islam and the Muslims, by T.J. Winter, a Muslim of Cambridge:
  “Complete renunciation of war can thus ironically defeat its own purpose, by easing the triumph of aggression. Most religions and cultures recognize that there can be no peace and security without deterrence. The Quran says, Had it not been for God’s repelling some people by means of others, monasteries, churches, synagogues and mosques, in which the name of God is often mentioned, would have been destroyed (22: 40). Islam, like other religions, recognizes that responsible human beings must sometimes take up arms to resist evil and tyranny” (2002:69)

America’s support for Israel’s occupation was also a key factor in the radicalization of youth and support for extremism in their view. As the second professor put it, “If it were not for America’s blind support for Israel, there would be no bin Laden; and you would be selling more products, creating more jobs, and oil would be cheap.” Indeed Osama bin Laden’s support among Muslims comes in no small part in his principled stance against Israel’s aggression against the Palestinians; bin Laden said in his new audio released on my last day in Oman that al-Qaeda will continue its holy war against Israel and its allies until it liberates Palestine.  And if bin Laden knows anything, it’s that any support and recruitment for violence against the so-called “Crusader-Zionist alliance” depends on its principled stand against the injustice in Palestine. He knew that all Arabs—including Oman’s wise men—placed all other tragedies and looming storms in the Arab and Muslim communities a distant second to the nakba of Palestine.

Here they contextualized extremism, making distinctions between deviancy of al-Qaeda and the legitimate resistance of Hamas and Hizballah. “To brand Hizballah and Hamas as terrorist organizations would require changing the United Nations charter,” said the former senator. “Hamas and Hizballah are viewed as freedom fighters; they are not viewed as terrorist organizations.”  Hamas, the Omanis believed, simply wouldn’t exist were it not for Israel’s expanding settlements and its apartheid-like control of the Palestinians. I had argued with the former senator: “Where Hamas erred was in not taking the path of Gandhi and Martin Luther King; had it embraced an ethos of principled, morally superior non-violence, then the Palestinians would have had the entire world behind them, and Israel would have been forced to retreat to the 1967 borders a generation ago.” He disagreed. “If there was progress,” he said, “if Oslo was being implemented, if the settlements were being dismantled and good faith was being shown, then that path could have worked. Instead, the Israelis increased their settlement building and roads, dividing the West Bank into hundreds of [noncontiguous] cantons, and making life increasingly more difficult, frustrating and humiliating for the Palestinians.” 

Similarly, in the Omani view of the world, Hizballah was not part of the axis of evil as much as it was part of the axis of the oppressed. And Hizballah was a frequent topic of discussion as we were watching al-Jazeera’s coverage of Lebanon on the verge of another civil war. Among the Sunni Omanis there wasn’t a hint of Sunni-Shia divide; only a justice-injustice divide. “I support Hizballah”, the former senator said. “I watch Said Haririr” and find a mere boy who is so ignorant. Shiekh Nasrallah has reasonable, just demands.” The Member of the State Council, said, “On Hizballah, the Shia have always felt that they have been dominated by Sunnis and Christians for many years. This is the first time for the Shia to rise. The core of the problem is the Palestinian problem; first let’s solve this problem.”

Other perceived injustices also played a role. The Secretary General saw that America’s policies were forcing youth to radicalize. Another of the wise men declared that “America’s actions and rhetoric are causing Islam to spread and deepen.”  The former senator added: “The driver here is not religion, but being oppressed and not being given equal justice.” To them, extremism wouldn’t even receive an honorable mention in the world’s security discourse if it were it not for America’s actions that unjustly hit Muslim communities in a way that Americans themselves would not want to be treated if the shoe was on the other foot.  The former senator’s wife described to me how she felt as if her world was under siege by America: “Fighting against America is fighting for Muslim rights, because we feel that America is against Islam. When pressed for an explanation for America’s war on Islam, she provided a short list of perceived attacks on Islam. Iraq was the center of gravity, “Beginning with the sanctions,” she said, “no one suffered but the children and older people.” Iraq was followed by Guantanamo; “Everyday when I pray, I pray for God to free them,” speaking about the detainees. “I saw it on Al-Jazeera how they are treated. She saw the region’s regimes as American puppets: “Do you know what President Mubarak is called? She asked “He is called lavashkri—the laughing cow― a brand name of one of the cheeses sold in the region. King Abdullah of Jordan is the worst; nobody likes him at all.”

America’s rhetoric or discourse about Islam was also a factor. The infamous JihadWatch was blocked by OmanTel, along with other websites that it called “pornographic sites.” JihadWatch’s daily e-mail came through okay to Gmail account, but when a particular story interested me and I wanted to call it up and discuss it with the former senator, OmanTel blocked it. I confronted the former senator about this censorship, and he said, “Yes, and this proves that we don’t tolerate extremism”.  He then went into his study and pulled Steve Emerson’s American Jihad: The Terrorists Living Among Us. “Have you read this?”  “Yes,” I replied, “Steve sent an autographed copy of it to my house.” I advised him that censorship was a mistake; that—no matter how much they disagreed with the analysis—Omanis should view Emerson’s and Spencer’s respective daily news summaries/blogs, not merely to scan them for articles of interest, but, more importantly, to understand their powerful criticism, if for nothing else to refute them. Ignoring them, I advised, only makes the matter worse, especially since they have global influence and are advancing narratives that Muslim leaders are not effectively challenging with intellectually honest dialogue.  He replied, “Those who run the west are supposed to be people of high moral values, civilized and educated. Should they be automatons and follow blindly what these evil preachers write or say?  We are not on the defensive because we are not guilty of any wrong doing. We don’t occupy any one’s land and we have not insulted any religion or tried to change them.”

The mix of American culture and Islam was seen as a radicalizing influence on youth in general. Toward this view, the former senator’s wife said that the Omani mothers are trying to keep their boys from going to America to study because they come back more religiously radicalized. She described her nephew as a case in point. I said that the same thing must be true of studying in Britain or Western Europe in general, but she said, “no; only with America.” She mentioned a Muslim students’ organization in America as having a radicalizing influence. This narrative surfaced once more. Riding with the former senator near the old coastline village well down the coast from Muscat, there were youth in shorts and tee-shirts, not wearing the dishdasha and cumma. The former senator said, “Kids watch The Simpsons; my boy plays the same games as American kids. The patriarchal structures that collectively raised children a generation ago are gone or going. “America’s strategy,” he said, “should be spreading good culture; but Muslims feel that we shouldn’t be intruded upon with values that are not ours.” But the America’s Hollywood culture was indeed intruding and infecting.  This was a source of friction simply because, while America had no absolutes other than the absolute of freedom,  “freedom” had a few limits in a Muslim community. While there are homosexuals everywhere, he said, a Muslim community cannot allow open homosexuality. Freedom was cherished; but it had moral limits.

Besides America’s role as the root cause of extremism, some of the wise men mentioned others that were also, ultimately, caused by America and the Western colonial powers. The second professor spoke of the poverty in Morocco, and that in Iran, 40 percent—nearly half—were in poverty. “All potential extremists groups are related to poverty,” he said. The vast disparity between the West and its perceived cronies and post-Colonial Muslim communities drives even the more fortunate Muslims living in the West to altruistic defense of their coreligionists. The internet, said the Secretary General, promoted a kind of cyber-individualism, tearing at the patriarchal family web. Parents in Oman are all worried because they don’t know who or what their kids are seeing on the internet, who they are listening to. It’s a complete lack of control. The main enemies of human kind, he said, were not extremism, but rather natural: desertification and water, he listed as the first. He described the rapid increase in wheat and other basic food stuff prices, as unparalleled since the early 1970s. The extremism came from Western political ideologies mixed with the religion, just like Nasserism and Baathism.

Only one of Oman’s wise men—the Sheikh that looked indistinguishably identical to Osama bin Laden—provided a narrative that looked more to modernity in general than to American in particular as the cause of rising extremism.  “Unlike the normal irresponsible tendency of youth in all ages, this age is not vesting responsibility on young souls.” The former senator agreed; he said.
“There is a lot of materialism; they are attending private schools, driving and being driven—often in Porsches and other expensive cars. Copying others—unlike peer pressure in every age—kids today are not their own persons.  Kids don’t read; they are interested in entertainment. We, as kids, used to always sit and listen to the older people; this broadens your view as a youngster, and you know how to think and behave; and this is not there anymore; they are either too busy with games or homework. Another problem: In the past, we were brought up by the community as a whole; there was always a watchful eye somewhere. There was constant training; you were taught about your past—who you are and what you are—these are the things that were ingrained in your life. These things kept people constantly aware of what they were doing, because what you do reflected upon your family and community. In the past, everyone was home and we went to the mosque at the same time with our parents, and we had lunch and dinner with our parents—never missing. You have your meal, then you go to your friends; after sunset, no more visiting—you don’t go to your friends; friends don’t come to you. There was a discipline. This is gone.”

Even though al-Qaeda and other extremists point to Islamic justifications for their ‘jihad’, Oman’s wise men seemed reluctant to address the problems within Islam that must be better managed. The Omanis never discussed the radicalizing role of ambiguity in the sacred texts, or the classical interpretation of Islam’s texts as set down in the fiqh, or main schools of jurisprudence, and the tafsir, or authoritative commentaries.  On my last evening in Oman I challenged my host on this. I asked him what he thought about the ambiguity in Islam’s sacred texts—the ambiguity that allowed such a wide diversity of non-violent, near-violent and violent movements to exist, all citing the sacred texts as their source of confident legitimacy. I described how that I believed this ambiguity in the sacred texts would always produce from Islam’s vast population of 700 million youth a small percentage of extremists; it was simply inevitable, and all talk of “winning” the “war” on extremism was ill-informed; the best we will do is to manage or contain it. “This is also in Islam,” he said. “Ambiguity is therefore the reason that you need to strive to achieve understanding.” In other words, the real jihad was striving to live by faith with ambiguous revelations, and earnestly seeking the true path amidst the false ones. Those who did were the real mujahids.

I also challenged the former senator about the radicalizing role of famous Islamist preachers, like the Egyptian Sheikh Yousef Qaradawi. Admittedly, I arrived in Oman thinking of Qaradawi as one of the long line of “angry old Islamists” who were responsible for the rise of al-Qaedaism.  The former senator said that he watched Sheikh Qaradawi each week on Al-Jazeera, and he disagreed with my assessment. “He’s not an angry old Islamist; his contention is that the West has double standards; he’s a moderate, or wasatiyya sheikh. The former senator said that his books and website IslamOnline are testimony to his moderate nature.

When I mentioned that Qaradawi sanctioned jihad and martyrdom operations against Israelis, he replied that this is the only instance in which it has been authorized in the entire world, and that no one questions this, as long as it is against “legitimate targets”; it is a just response to the atrocities that the Israelis are committing against the Palestinians.  “There are two areas where [Qaradawi] is very much against Israel,” he continued. “For him, as a religious leader, not to be firm and even angry about what is happening to the Palestinians would be morally irresponsible; he wouldn’t be living up to the spirit of a Muslim leader.” I asked, “Do you see this as forbidding evil? “Yes”, he said, “Qaradawi was kicked out of his own country because he opposed the government.”  Similarly, the Secretary General said “Sheikh Qaradawi is being misrepresented. Israel is occupying the Palestinian land—the West Bank. In Islam, someone who resists occupation and dies fighting injustice, against the occupier, is a martyr. Sheikh Qaradawi cannot change the tenets of Islam. By the U.N. definition, Palestine is an occupied territory, and he will lose his credentials as a Muslim scholar if he softens his position on this.”  Finally, one of the wise men brushed off America’s emphasis on what television preachers say. He said, “It’s condescending for people in the West to think that we are automatons who follow what some extremist sheikh or imam says.”

In the face of these seemingly intractable causal factors, the Omani sages were mixed in their assessment of the future with regard to the creeping extremism. The Member of the State Council was the most optimisti