A PAKISTANI-BORN MUSLIM

The West Treats Muslims as Second-Class Citizens of the World

By Ali Nawaz Memon

The Bosnian tragedy has caused enormous sorrow to Muslims around the world. Admittedly, it has not been a continuous pain, but rather one with peaks and valleys. In addition, the Bosnia story has revealed something about each of the key players.

Bosnian Muslims

The current helplessness of Muslims in Bosnia is clearly visible. Over the period of their lonely struggle, they continuously expected more from the West, and from the rest of the Muslims, than they have received. They misread the intentions of the West, which were based more on public opinion and on an evaluation of each country's own national interests than the Bosnian Muslims expected. They also vastly overestimated the abilities of their fellow Muslims around the world. This misreading of global realities may have led to the Bosnian government's decision to follow the Slovenian and Croatian examples of declaring independence from the former Yugoslavia without preparing adequately for the negative Serb reaction that was likely to follow, although it seemed to us all to be the right decision at the time.

Serbs

The continuing crisis has revealed the glaring cruelties of the Bosnian Serbs—concentration camps for all young and middle-aged men; rape and impregnation of young Muslim girls, and holding them captive until the "rape children" can no longer be aborted; immediate destruction or occupation of Muslim property as soon as a particular area is conquered; continual shelling and harassment of Muslim areas for months prior to their final capture; destruction of mosques and religious schools; cutting off of electricity and water to all Muslim villages, towns and suburbs over the years of war. In the face of such Bosnian Serb brutality, the solidarity of their fellow Serbs in Serbia and Montenegro and their supporters around the world is noteworthy. The Bosnian Serbs also have received strong, unwavering support from the Russian government and secret sympathizers among such World Wars I and II allies as Britain, France and other former allied powers in Europe. The Serb hatred for Muslims, and the open expression of that hatred, however, has astonished moderates around the world, as has the covert and even overt sympathy of many in the West for the Serbs.

Muslims Around the World

The crisis has again revealed the inability of Muslims around the world to translate their anger into concrete support of Muslims in Bosnia. Whether from a feeling of powerlessness or a lack of interest, Muslim-led governments have failed to bring coordinated pressure on their Western counterparts. Instead, most Muslim governments have relied on the West to resolve the Bosnia issue. This unwillingness to assume responsibility made it relatively easy for Muslims to forget about Bosnia when there were lulls in the fighting, and to plead powerlessness in times of increasing adversity. Although France has charged that Pakistan, Turkey, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and others are sending or financing arms to the Bosnian Muslims with U.S. connivance, there is clear physical evidence only of attempts by Iran, consistently and sometimes successfully, to provide small arms to Bosnia.

The United Nations

The crisis again has exposed the U.N. as a tool of the West, no matter who the secretary-general or the staff may be. U.N. representatives and mediators devised a slow death process for the Bosnians. The treachery of the United Nations, with nudges from the West, in keeping Bosnians defenseless through the arms embargo will be hard to forget. They herded Bosnians like sheep into "safe areas," disarmed them, and then declared that it was not part of their mission actually to defend the Bosnians within those safe areas.

The West

The record of the Western media in keeping Bosnia on the front page is praiseworthy. So is the consistent support from Jewish individuals and groups. It is surprising, however, that the support of these two powerful groups within the West did not lead to more concrete action. By contrast, the silence of the "moral majority" has been deafening. Such extreme indifference by Christian groups, including the proponents of interfaith dialogue and morality in public affairs, has been surprising. Muslims throughout the world have been shocked by (a) the United States' open declaration that it does not serve America's national interest to get involved in Bosnia; (b) the hollowness of the West's moral declarations regarding the need to defend the victims; and (c) the apparent decision of the European governments not to allow the establishment of a Muslim-led government in Europe, no matter how tolerant, moderate and modern the Bosnians may be. The overall lack of enthusiasm of the peoples of the West, who repeatedly claim to be champions of the weak and helpless, to become involved is surprising.

Lessons for the Future

Will the West or Muslims learn anything from the pain of Bosnia? The West has crossed another boundary in treating Muslims as lower-class citizens of the world without a visible adverse reaction from Muslims. It is predictable that in the future Western nations will be even less hesitant to disregard Muslim views, interests, honor and lives.

For their part, Muslim intellectuals may also forget Bosnia as soon as the Western press drops it from the headlines. They may take refuge in the fact that there are many other crises around the world where Muslims are on the receiving end of injustice. For their part, the governments of Muslim countries may plead that there are too many concerns of day-to-day living to divert resources to Bosnia; that the U.S. and the West are too powerful to challenge; and that their support is too necessary for protection against external aggression or internal subversion. The quick fall of Croatian-Serb-held areas in the face of the better armed Croatian army indicates that all may not be lost for Muslims as yet. Lifting of the arms embargo and supply of heavy weapons to match those of Serbs can still result in restoration of Bosnia to its earlier promise. The bottom line is that if Muslims expect to fare better in the future, they will have to find ways to become more effective partners in the new world order. In the meantime, if we continue to be regarded as second-class citizens of that order, we have no one to blame but ourselves.

Ali Nawaz Memon is the author of The Islamic Nation.