October 3, 2001
Why the deep hatred of America by Muslim fundamentalists?
September 2001: exactly seven years after the “cultural attack” of the Cairo Population Conference of September 1994.
The attack on the US was planned to commemorate the seventh anniversary (the number seven is highly significant in Islam) of what is perceived in the Islamic world as the most dangerous cultural attack against the Islamic world of values. In September 1994 the international population conference was convened in Cairo by the United Nations for the purpose of reducing the rate of population-growth in the world. This “roving” conference, which meets once every few years, each time in a densely populated country, is aimed at bringing the “gospel” of low birth-rate of western culture to the Third World. This is presented as a means for development and stability, since over-population is a heavy burden on the economies of these countries. The 1994 conference aimed at bringing this idea to the Egyptian people, as well as to the Arab and Islamic peoples, bearing in UN stamp of approval.
The conference in Cairo dealt with a variety of topics which promote the lowering of birth-rate: legitimizing abortions; raising the age of marriage; promoting “safe” sex between teenagers by the use contraceptives and sex education; monogamy; official recognition of the right of homosexuals and lesbians to establish families; and women’s autonomy over their bodies. All these values, which in Islamic eyes characterize western civilization of this generation, are fundamentally opposed to the Islamic values of modesty, family stability and sexual morality. Therefore, the dissemination of these Western values in Islamic countries was nothing less than an attack against Islam. As part of the media coverage on the issue of women’s rights during the conference CNN broadcast the famous report which showed the circumcision of a ten-year-old Egyptian girl. This report caused wide anti-American resentment in Egypt and in the Arab and Islamic world. The repercussions of this broadcast were felt during the entire conference.
The Islamic press in Egypt, and especially the Moslem Brotherhood’s al-Sha‘b, published a spate of articles against the conference, before it convened, during and after it. The al-Sha‘b articles reflected the attitude of Islamic fundamentalists towards western culture and several examples, mainly headlines, will be quoted here. “An update from the UN on the population conference: Propagation of sex among adolescents and providing them with contraceptives”. The article mentioned that “all the issues of sexual permissiveness, circulating sex culture and promoting of legislation permitting abortions were agreed upon ahead of time and given top priority on the conference agenda.” The paper accompanies this article with a photo of crowded street in Cairo with the ironic caption: “They should all be exterminated” (August 26, 1994). Homosexuality was one of the values which the conference promoted, since homosexual marriages produce no children. On the same page, Muhammad al-Ghazzali, one of the most prominent Islamic propagandists today, regards to homosexuality under the headline: “Stone the perverts and don’t fall into the “trap” of the UN.” He stated: “The human race and the animal kingdom have never seen anything like what the West stands for. He called on all the forces to rise against this questionable conference which was convened especially to fight against us in our faith (muharabatuna fi ‘aqidatina), and we therefore have to rise against them because of the war which was declared on us ... Even if their imperialistic governments permitted them (homosexuals, M. K.) to establish organizations in their countries, they have no right to defile the streets of Cairo with their perversions.” To emphasize al-Gazzali’s statements, the paper published photos of male couples kissing in public.
Sheikh ‘Ikrima Sabri, the Mufti of the Palestinian Authority and al-Aqsa mosque, attended this conference. On September 9, 1994, under the title “Al-Aqsa preacher warns: the conference' closing statement will provoke the emotions of the Moslems” he is quoted: “The superpowers are planning to destroy of the Third World after sucking its blood”.
Some other headlines which reflect the attitude of the Islamic fundamentalists towards the conference are: “Everything in the closing document of the conference which deals with development and the freedom of woman is in contradiction with Islam” (Aug. 26, 1994); “An international organization strives to turn the family-planning centers into centers of promoting adultery” (Aug. 30, 1994); “Extermination of human beings (i.e. abortions, M. K.) is the official and public policy of the international system” (Sept. 6, 1994); “Taking exception to the resolutions of the population conference, which contradict our religion and traditions, is not enough” (Aug. 30, 1994); “American officials admit: stopping the population growth in the Islamic world is one of the primary considerations for American national security” (Sept. 2, 1994); “Moral corruption and abortions are dominating the discussions of the conference” (Sept. 9, 1994); “In the conference publications: pamphlets mocking Allah and blaming Moslems for beggary and backwardness” (Sept. 9, 1994); “America stands behind the conference and is the wicked force that drives it” (Sept. 9, 1994); “The adoption of the document is a success of ‘the world government’ under the leadership of America and Zionism” (Sept. 16, 1994); The American role in the conference was clear: the closing document was formed in May 1994 in a preparatory conference which convened in New York.
The leitmotif of this outpouring of news-items and articles published about the conference is that Islam and its traditions are under a vicious attack of western-American culture, which aimed at secularization of Moslem peoples, and to bring to them, through the Cairo conference, the ‘gospel of progress’ of the West, which is anti-Islamic in its spirit, its essence and its methods. Globalization - as Islam sees it - has less to do with economy or environment issues than with the global spread of western-American social and cultural values which pose a threat not only to the Islamic states as political and national frameworks, but primarily upon the whole set of values of every individual, family and group in the Islamic world. Dr. Muhammad ‘Amara, one of the regular contributors to al-Sha‘b, analyzes in the August 2001 issue of the Egyptian monthly “al-Hilal” the disingenuous language of the 1994 conference resolutions which threaten to destroy the value system of Islamic families in our day.
It has been asserted that the clash between Bin-Laden and America is the outcome of the Arab-Israeli conflict. But Israel, according to the Islamic fundamentalists, is only “The Small Satan”, since it poses a threat to its close environment: the Palestinians, the Syrians and the Lebanese, while America is “The Big Satan” threatening as it does the whole value system of the entire Islamic world, from Indonesia in the East to Morocco in the west.
The Egyptian context of Bin-Laden is well known: his deputy and close friend is Ayman al-Zawahiri, who headed the Egyptian Jihad terror organization which had planned the destruction of the Egyptian regime, which it considered to be “an agent of the imperialistic West”, which blindly followed the American permissive and corrupt culture. The contemporary American imperialism - as Islamic fundamentalists see it - is not territorial occupation or economic hegemony, but cultural dictatorship since current Western values are fundamentally opposed to all that is sacred in the eyes of every Moslem who is committed to his tradition. Therefore Islam has no other choice but to wage a Jihad of defense against those who threaten the values of personal modesty and family stability, basic values in Islam. The clash of cultures between the West and Islam did not erupt in September 2001 but much earlier; however, the population conference of September 1994 in Cairo was an important milestone in the western campaign against the Islamic culture and tradition. The writing on the wall had been there for a long time, but unfortunately it was written in Arabic.