Transcriber: Amaranta Heredia Jaén
Reviewer: Roozbeh Fakhr Could I protect my father from the armed
Islamic group with a pairing knife? That was the question I faced
one Tuesday morning in June of 1993 when I was a law student. I woke up early that morning
in dad's apartment, in the outskirts of Algiers Algeria, to an unrelenting pounding
on the front door. It was a season as described by the
local paper when every Tuesday a scholar fell to the bullets
of fundamentalist assassins. My father's university teaching
of Darwin had already provoked a classroom visit from the head of the so-called
Islamic salvation front, who denounced dad
as an advocate of biologism before dad had ejected the man. And now whoever was outside
would neither identify himself nor go away, so my father tried to
get the police on the phone But perhaps terrified
by the rising tide of armed extremism that had already claimed the lives
of so many Algerian officers, they didn't even answer... And that was when I went to the kitchen got out a pairing knife and took up
a position inside the entry way. It was a ridiculous thing to do but I couldn't think of anything else
and so there I stood. When I look back now
I think that that was the moment that set me on the path to writing a book called "Your Fatwa Does Not Apply Here". Untold stories from the fight
against Muslim fundamentalism. The title comes from a Pakistani play. I think it was actually that moment that sent me on the journey to interview 300 people of Muslim heritage
from nearly 30 countries, from Afghanistan to Mali. To find out how they fought
fundamentalism peacefully life my father did and how they coped with the attendant risks. Luckily, back in June of 1993
our unidentified visitor went away, but other families were so much less lucky and that was the thought
that motivated my research. In any case someone would return
a few months later and leave a note on dad's kitchen table which simply said
"Consider yourself dead". Subsequently, Algeria's
fundamentalist armed groups would murder as many as 200,000 civilians in what came to be known
as the "Dark decade of the 1990s" including every single one of the women that you see. In its harsh counter terrorist response the state resorted to torture and to forced disappearances.. And as terrible as all
of these events became the international community
largely ignored them. Finally my father, an Algerian
peasant's son turned professor, was forced to stop teaching
at the university and to flee his apartment. But what I will never forget
about Mahfoud Bennoune, my dad, was that like so many
Algerian intellectuals he refused to leave the country
and he continued to publish pointed criticisms
both of the fundamentalists and sometimes of the government
they battled. For example, in a November 1994 series in the newspaper "Al Watan" entitled "How fundamentalism
produced a terrorism without precedent", he denounced what he called the terrorist radical
break with the true Islam as it was lived by our ancestors. These were words
that could get you killed. My father's country taught me
in that dark decade of the 1990s that the popular struggle
against Muslim fundamentalism is one of the most important and overlooked human rights
struggles in the world. This remains true today
nearly 20 years later. You see in every country
where you hear about armed Jihadist targeting civilians, there are also unarmed people defined
militants that you don't hear about and those people need
our support to succeed. In the West it's often
assumed that Muslims generally condone terrorism. Some on the right
think this because they view Muslim culture as inherently violent and some on the left imagine this because they view
Muslim fundamentalist violence solely as a product
of legitimate grievances. But both views are dead wrong. In fact, many people of Muslim heritage around the world are staunch opponents both of fundamentalism and of terrorism and often for very good reason. You see, they are much more likely
to be victims of this violence than its perpetrators. Let me just give you one example. According to a 2009 survey
of Arabic language media resources, between 2004 and 2008 no more than 15% of Al-Qaeda's
victims were westerners. That's a terrible toll
but the vast majority were people of Muslims heritage
killed by Muslim fundamentalists. I've been talking
for the last 5 minutes about fundamentalism
and you have a right to know exactly what I mean. I cite the definition given by the Algerian
sociologist Maria May Ali Lucas. And she says that
Fundamentalisms, note the S, so within all of the world's
great religious traditions, fundamentalisms are political
movements of the extreme right which in a context of globalization manipulate religion in order
to achieve their political aims. Sadia Abbas has called this
the radical politicization of theology. I want to avoid projecting the notion that there's a monolith
out there called Muslim fundamentalism that's the same everywhere. Because these movements
also have their diversities. Some use and advocate violence, some do not but they are
often interrelated. They take different forms, some may be non-governmental organizations
even here in Britain, like Cage Prisoners. Some may become political parties
like the Muslims Brotherhood and some maybe openly armed
groups like the Taliban. But in any case
these are all radical projects. They are not conservative
or traditional approaches They are most often
about changing people's relationship with Islam rather than preserving it. What I'm talking about is
the Muslim extreme right and the fact that its adherents
are or purport to be Muslim makes them no less offensive than
the extreme right anywhere else. So in my view we consider ourselves
liberal or left wing, human rights loving or feminist, we must oppose these movements
and support their grassroots opponents. Now, let me be clear,
that I support an effective struggle against fundamentalism but also a struggle that must itself
respect international law. So nothing I'm saying should be taken as a justification
for refusals to democritise and here I send out a shout out support to pro democracy movement
in Algeria today, Barakat. Nor should anything I say
be taken as a justification of violations of human rights
like the mass death sentence handed out in Egypt earlier this week. But what I am saying
is that we must challenge these Muslim fundamentalist movements because they threaten human rights
across Muslim majority contexts. And they do this in a range of ways, most obviously
with the directed tax on civilians by the armed groups that carry those out, but that violence is
just the tip of the iceberg. These movements as a whole prevailed discrimination against
religious minorities and sexual minorities,
they seek to curtail the freedom of religion
of everyone who either practices in a different way
or chooses not to practice. And most definingly,
they lead an all out war on the rights of women. Faced with these movements
in recent years, Western discourses most often
offer two flawed responses. The first that one sometimes
finds on the right suggests that most Muslims
are fundamentalist or something about Islam is
inherently fundamentalist and this is just offensive and wrong. But unfortunately
on the left one sometimes encounters a discourse
that is too politically correct to acknowledge the problem of Muslim
fundamentalism at all or even worse, apologizes for it. And this is unacceptable as well. So what I am seeking
is a new way of talking about this all together, which is grounded in the lived experiences and the hope of the people
on the front lines. I'm painfully aware that there has been an increase in discrimination against
Muslims in recent years, in countries like the UK and the US and that too is a matter of grave concern. But I firmly believe that telling these counter-stereotypical stories of people
of Muslim heritage who have confronted the fundamentalists
and been their primary victims is also a great way of
countering that discrimination. Now let me introduce you
to four people whose stories I had the great honor of telling. Faizan Perzaida and
the Rafi Peer Theater workshop named for his father
have for years promoted the performing arts in Pakistan. With the rise of jihadist violence they began to receive threats
to call off their events which they refused to heed. And so bombers struck their 2008 8th World Performing
Arts Festival in Lahore producing rain of glass
that fell into the venue injuring nine people. And later that same night
the Peer Zaida's made a very difficult decision. They announced that their festival would continue as planned the next day. As Faizan said at the time
"If we bow down to the islamists, we'll just be sitting
in a dark corner". But they didn't know what would happen. Would any one come? In fact, thousands of people
came out the next day to support the performing arts in Lahore. and this simultaneously
thrilled and terrified Faizan and he ran up to a woman who had come in with her two small children
and he said "You do know there was a bomb here yesterday and you do know there is
a threat here today?" And she said "I know that,
but I came to your festival with my mother when I was
their age, and I still have those images in my mind,
we have to be here". With stall ward audience
like this the Peer Zaida's were able to conclude
their festival on schedule. And then the next year
they lost all of their sponsors due to the security risk. So when I met them in 2010
they were in the middle of the first subsequent event
that they were able to have in the same venue. And this was the 9th Youth
Performing Arts Festival held in Lahore in a year
when that city had already experienced 44 terror attacks. This was a time when the Pakistani Taliban had commenced their systematic
targeting of girls schools schools that would culminate
in the attack on Malala Yousafzai. What did the Peer Zaida's do
in that environment? They staged girls school theater! So I had the privilege
of watching Nang Wall which was a musical in Punjabi language and the girls of Lahore
Grammar School played all the parts, they sang and danced, they played the mice and the water buffalo and I held my breath wondering,
would we get to the end of this amazing show? And when we did, the whole
audience collectively exhaled and a few people actually wept
and they filled the auditorium with a peaceful boom of their applause. And I remember thinking in that moment that the bombers made headlines
here two years before but this night and these people
are as important a story. Maria Basheer is the first and only woman
chief prosecutor in Afghanistan. She's been in post since 2008
and actually opened an office to investigate cases of violence against women which she says
is the most important area in her mandate. When I meet her in her office in Harat, she enters surrounded by four large men
with four huge guns. In fact, she now has
23 body guards because because she has weathered bomb attacks
that nearly killed her kids and took the leg off of one of her guards. Why does she continue? She says with a smile
that that is the question that everyone asks and she puts it, Why you risk not living? And it is simply that for her
a better future for all the Maria Basheers
to come is worth the risk and she know that if people like her do not take the risk
there will be no better future. Later on in our interview
prosecutor Basheer tells me how worried she is about the possible outcome
of government negotiations with the Taliban, the people
who have been trying to kill her. "If we give them a place
in the government, who will protect women's rights?" And she urges the international community not to forget its promise about women because now they want
peace with the Taliban. A few weeks after I leave Afghanistan
I see a headline on the Internet. "An Afghan prosecutor
has been assassinated." I google desperately And thankfully that day I find out that Maria was not the victim
though sadly another Afghan prosecutor was gunned down on his way to work. When I hear headlines
like that now I think that as international troops leave
Afghanistan this year and beyond we must continue to care
about what happens to people there, to all of the Maria Basheers. Sometimes, I still hear
her voice in my head saying with no bravado whatsoever "The situation of the women of Afghanistan
will be better someday, we should prepare the ground for this, even if we are killed." There are no words adequate
to denounce the Al Shabab terrorists who attacked the Westgate Mall in Nairobi on the same day as a children's
cooking competition in September of 2013. They killed 67, including poets
and pregnant women. Far away in the American west
I had the good fortune of meeting Somali Americans
who were working to counter the efforts of Al Shabab to recruit small number of young people from their city of Minneapolis
to take part in atrocities like Westgate. Abdulrazak Bihi's
studious 17 year old nephew Burhan Hassan was recruited here in 2008 speared into Somalia and then killed when he
tried to come home. Since that time Mr Bihi, who directs the no budget Somali education
and advocacy center, has been vocally denouncing
the recruitment and the failures of government
and Somali American institutions like the Abu Bakr Al Siddiq Islamic center where he believes
his nephew was radicalized during a youth program. But he doesn't just criticize the mosque, he also takes on the government
for its failure to do more to prevent poverty in his community. Given his own lack of financial resources, Mr Bihi has had to be creative. To counter the efforts of Al Shabab
to sway more disaffected youth, in the wake of the group's 2010 attack
on world cup viewers in Uganda, he organized a Ramadan
basketball tournament in Minneapolis in response. Scores of Somali American kids
came out to embrace sport despite the Fatwa against it. They played basketball
as Burhan Hassan never would again. For his efforts, Mr Bihi
has been ostracized by the leadership of
Abu Bakr Al Siddiq Islamic center with which he used to have good relations. He told me one day
we saw the imam on TV calling us infidels and saying
these families are trying to destroy the mosque. This is at complete odds
with how Abdulrazak Bihi understands what he
was trying to do by exposing Al Shabab recruitment which is "To save the religion I love from
a small number of extremists." Now I want to tell one last story that of a 22-year-old
law student in Algeria of a legal career that
named Amal Zenon Zawani who had the same dreams
I did back in the 90s. She refused to give up her studies despite the fact that the fundamentalists
battling the Algerian state back then threatened all who continued
their education. On January 26th 1997,
Amal bordered the bus in Algiers where she was
studying to go home and spend Ramadan evening with her family and would never finish law school. When the bus reached
the outskirts of her home town it was stopped at a check point manned by men
from the armed Islamic group. Carrying her school bag, Amal was taken off the bus
and killed in the street. The men who cut her throat
then told everyone else "If you go to university the day will come when we will kill all of you
just like this." Amal died at exactly 5:17 PM which we know because when she fell in the street,
her watch broke. Her mother showed me
the watch with the second hand still aimed optimistically
upward toward a 5:18 that would never come. Shortly before her death Amal had said to her mother of herself and her sisters "Nothing will happen to us,
Inshallah, God willing. But if something happens you must know that we are dead for knowledge, you and father must keep
your heads held high." The loss of such young woman
is unfathomable. And so, as I did my research
I found myself searching for Amal's
hope again and her name even means hope in Arabic. I think I found it in two places. The first is in the strength
of her family and all the other families to continue telling their stories and to go on with their lives
despite the terrorism. In fact, Amal's sister Lamia
overcame her grief went to law school
and practices as a lawyer in Algiers today,
something which is only possible because the armed fundamentalists were largely defeated in the country. And the second place I found
Amal's hope was everywhere that women and men
continue to defy the jihadists. We must support all
of those in honor of Amal who continue this human rights
struggle today like the Network of Women
living under Muslim laws. It is not enough
as the victim's rights advocate Sharifa Khadar told me in Algiers, "It isn't enough just to battle terrorism,
we must also challenge fundamentalism because fundamentalism is the ideology that makes the bed of this terrorism. Why is it that people like her,
like all of them are not more well known? Why is that everyone knows
who Osama Bin Laden was and so few know of all of those
standing up to the Bin Laden's in their own contexts. We must change that
and so I ask you to please help share these stories
through you networks. Look again at Amal Zanon's watch
forever frozen and now please look at
your own watch and decide that this is the moment that you commi
to supporting people like Amal. We don't have the right
to be silent about them because it is easier
or because Western policy is flawed as well. Because 5:17 is still coming
to too many Amal Zanons in places like northern Nigeria
where jihadists still kill students. The time to speak up
and support all of those who peacefully challenge
fundamentalism and terrorism in their own communities is now. Thank you. (Applause)
