Kosovo: A Watershed in U.S.-Islamic Relations

By M.A. Muqtedar Khan

The recent NATO campaign against Serbia, and the alliance’s manifest resolve to continue military action until Serb forces had withdrawn from Kosovo, is a major step toward the restoration of international law and the respect for human and minority rights globally. The campaign has also resuscitated the U.S. image as a superpower committed to global security and welfare. But the most remarkable, and perhaps unintended, consequence of NATO’s humanitarian mission in Kosovo is the re-evaluation of the United States by Muslims in the West as well as in the Muslim world.

For too long Muslims at all levels, from intellectuals to the man in the street, have been laboring under the impression that the sole purpose of U.S. foreign policy is to undermine the growth of Islam and the welfare of Muslims everywhere. The unwavering U.S. commitment to Israel, the implacable U.S. sanctions against Iraq even after acknowledging the great suffering of innocent Iraqis, and particularly Iraqi children, the recent U.S. bombing of Sudan and Afghanistan, and unceasing U.S. opposition to the Islamic regime in Iran, are only among some of the many instances frequently cited by Muslims as evidence of a continuing American crusade against Islam.

Nevertheless, there are Muslim intellectuals who consider the “clash of civilizations” thesis as nonsense and who have tried to convince their co-religionists that while the pursuit of American national and cultural interests may sometimes clash with the strategic and cultural interests of Muslims, the U.S. in fact is a self-centered nation in search of global self-actualization, and not of excuses for Islam-bashing. In support of this argument, Muslim moderates point to American relations with Saudi Arabia and its fellow Gulf Cooperation Council member nations and, above all, the relative freedom and security in which over six million Muslims live, thrive, prosper and propagate Islam in America, as concrete evidence that the U.S. is not anti-Islam. But until now, these arguments were easily dismissed by the critics of the U.S. as necessary to maintain its oil supplies and to sustain a charade of domestic freedom and democracy.

The centrality and utterly indispensable role of the U.S. in the Kosovo affair has for the first time made more open-minded Muslims, particularly those residing in the U.S., re-examine the popular image of the U.S. as the great Satan and enemy of Islam. The protracted nature of the U.S. diplomatic and military effort and the thoroughgoing coverage the U.S. media provided to the suffering of Muslims in Kosovo has gradually restored some of the long-missing Muslim confidence in American media.

A Humanistic Dimension

Importantly, the public expressions of pain and agony by American leaders over the carnage in Kosovo suddenly gave American leaders a new humanistic dimension. From being global tormentors of Islam they became, almost overnight, sympathetic allies of Muslims, sharing their pain and struggling with them in a common, humanitarian cause.

The image of American planes and missiles hitting Muslim targets in Libya, in Iraq, in Sudan and Afghanistan had become so commonplace that Muslims easily came to the conclusion that U.S. concern for human rights and democracy is just hypocrisy and doublespeak. While U.S. leaders lament the plight of Christians in Sudan and Indonesia and Jews in Iran, they have shown little concern for the plight of the Palestinians, Kashmiris or the Chechens.

Similarly, while Americans have for decades opposed the Islamic regimes in Iran and Sudan for their authoritarianism, the U.S. has allowed secular fundamentalists to use equally undemocratic methods to prevent Islamists from coming to power democratically in Algeria or to keep increasingly unpopular secularists illegitimately in power in Turkey.

In fact, many Muslims believe the Taliban government in Afghanistan deserves U.S. media ridicule for imposing unwarranted restrictions on women and for undermining the right of women to education. However, Muslims noted that the same U.S. media have found little to criticize in the equally absurd restrictions in France and Turkey against the wearing of Islamic headscarves by women in schools or government offices, and which stop women of strong Islamic faith from pursuing education just as effectively as do the Taliban. Muslims, until now, widely believed that hypocrisy was an integral element of U.S. foreign policy.

But the sight of American pilots repeatedly sent into harm’s way to protect Muslims and bomb the Serbian Christian soldiers who menaced them shattered stereotypes. In fact, it seemed so unbelievable that some diehard America haters continue to advance extremely complex and convoluted conspiracy theories about how the rescue of Kosovo is just another diabolic American scheme against Islam. But for many Muslims it has been an eye-opener.

Now more and more Muslims are willing to accept the stated objectives of American leaders. The American efforts in Bosnia, followed by American support for peace in the Middle East despite the obvious disdain of Israeli leaders, and now the Kosovo affair have significantly enhanced the credibility of American concerns for peace, democracy and human rights in the minds of Muslims, especially among those who actually live in the West and can observe the American people as well as their government at first hand.

The U.S. administration must be applauded for the manner in which it cooperated with American Muslims in organizing relief work and in helping the refugees. While there are more than 10,000 Muslims in the U.S. military, this was the first time that American Muslims felt that they were working with the U.S. in pursuit of a common goal. And, more significantly, this was also the first time that both parties fully trusted and cooperated with each other.

Indeed, this U.S. gesture of trust has gone a long way in making American Muslims feel at home and proud of being Americans. In several discussion groups on the Internet, at various community seminars and in question-and-answer sessions after public lectures, this new mood is palpable.

As a result of this singular event, American Muslims are increasingly re-imagining the U.S. and its global leadership. All the pro-U.S. arguments advanced by moderate Muslim intellectuals in the past are now getting more attention. The hawks are sulking and the doves are smiling. While one cannot expect an overnight “paradigm change” in the outlook of most Muslims toward the U.S., its inspiring response to the tragic episode of Kosovo has provided a good foundation stone for a new beginning in cultural and civilizational bridge building.

M.A. Muqtedar Khan, a doctoral fellow at Georgetown University and a visiting faculty member at Washington College in Maryland, is managing editor of the American Journal of Islamic Sciences and editor-in-chief of the American Muslim Quarterly. He also is general secretary of the Association of Muslim Social Scientists and director of the Center for the Study of Islam and Democracy. He recently was featured in a Washington Post article, “The Mufti on the Internet,” and can be reached at http://www.ijtihad.org