The General Aim

"the general aim of the jihad and the mujahadeen is to strike at the foundations and infrastructure of the Western colonialist program or at the so-called world order.... Their defeat means, simply, the elimination of all forms of nation-states, such that all that remains is the natural existence familiar to Islam, the regional entity under the great Islamic state."

Osama Bin Laden

I came across this quotation in a magazine article and I have so many questions:

1) The Muslim zealots who secretly or not so secretly sympathize with Bin Laden because they see him as 'standing up' to the evil, colonialist West, how many of them are aware of this 'general aim'? Do they WANT to see the destruction of their nation-states? Do they WANT to see it dissolve into a regional entity under the rule of Bin Laden or someone like him?

Do Egyptians want to see Egypt dissolve? The Saudis? The Syrians? The Iraqis?

The 'Islamic World' is a term that includes some of the most tribal, clannish, prejudiced people in the world. Even within the same village, people don't want to be ruled by someone from another family or tribe, let alone give up their whole country.


2) Do most Muslims realize that by issuing this sort of statement - and then following it up with random acts of violence - these people are infact declaring war on the existing world order i.e. the rest of the world IN OUR NAME - even though we never gave them a mandate to and most of us have no idea what they are doing?

Do we realize that their ultimate aim is to provoke the rest of the world to declare war on Muslim countries so Muslims will then have no choice but to fight back? That this is their idea of how to unify Muslims?

Do the Muslims who are always feeling like victims and complaining about Islamophobia realize that there are - among our own numbers - those who see Islamophobia as a good thing and want to see more of it?


I could complain about Islamophobia. There are times when I've gotten the distinct impression that one of the factors complicating my immigration procedure is that while some of the caseworkers can't quite find anything to indicate that me and my husband won't be able to integrate well or will be murdering moviemakers or cartoon artists or our female relatives to save our 'honor', they've had bad experiences with Muslims in the past and they've read all the wrong stuff by Muslims.

Instead I find myself much angrier at those Muslims who create the kind of ill-will that the rest of us then have to suffer from. I think of how they feel free to bring down reprisals on the heads of innocent people in so many parts of the world. Bloody, disasterous reprisals that make my own troubles seem inconsequential. I think of the way they start wars they know they can't win and then run away and leave innocent civilians to bear the brunt while they move on somewhere else to start a new war.


I've been reading them a lot lately - something I've mostly avoided in the past only because I find them so distasteful. And the more I read, the more I find that the underlying theme is that they want us to hate and be hated.

And all for what? Nothing? Perpetual strife and war as an objective in itself?