The Long March from Jihad to Xenophobia
During his recent visit to Gaza, Jared Kushner — Donald Trump’s ever-serene son-in-law and self-appointed statesman — was asked on television what he had seen there. His reply: “It looks like a nuclear bomb was dropped.” When pressed further — “Was this genocide?” — Kushner, a man more comfortable dealing in property than in pity, said “No.” Buildings turned to ash, hospitals to craters, hunger to strategy. But unlike Afghanistan in 1979, the “Muslim world” did not erupt. No calls for jihad, no volunteers crossing borders, no princes emptying treasuries.
Where, one might ask, are the new Mujahedeen?
To find them, we must go back to that bitter winter of 1979,
when the Soviet Union marched into Afghanistan. The Soviets said they came
reluctantly, to rescue a collapsing ally. But once Soviet boots touched Afghan
soil, a guerrilla army sprouted almost overnight — the Mujahedeen,
“fighters of Islam.” They were not Afghans alone. They came from the deserts of
Arabia, the plains of Egypt, even the islands of Indonesia, all claiming divine
duty to battle godless communism.
America paid the bills. Pakistan, under General Zia-ul-Haq,
offered the staging ground. Zia needed divine legitimacy; Reagan needed moral
theatre. And thus began the great experiment: Islam as an export commodity,
jihad as foreign policy.
News from Afghanistan in those days came pre-packaged. The
heroes were photogenic, the villains Russian, the sponsors generous. Hollywood
played its part—Rambo III ended with a dedication “to the brave people
of Afghanistan.” It was the age of Stinger missiles and sanctimony.
Fast forward to 2023. Hamas attacked Israel, and
Israel responded with overwhelming, surgical cruelty. The bombardment of Gaza
was broadcast live, in 4K, across social media. The world saw apartment
blocks collapse, medics gunned down, children pulled from the rubble. Even some
Israeli soldiers posted videos celebrating their acts, as though barbarity had
become entertainment.
Had the faith that once armed men against tanks evaporated?
Or was Gaza’s blood simply the wrong shade of Muslim?
The answer lies in the fine print of history. The Mujahedeen
were never divine soldiers; they were dollar soldiers. Once the Soviets
withdrew, their patrons withdrew faster. Afghanistan was left with rubble and
rifles. Those jobless holy warriors soon found new employers— Rawalpindi
deployed them in Kashmir, Bosnia, Chechnya, followed—and finally, New York.
When the Twin Towers fell, America met the ghost of its own
creation. As Hillary Clinton later said with chilling honesty, “You can’t rear
snakes in your backyard and expect them to bite only your neighbours.”
Then came the “War on Terror,” that twenty-year sermon in
hypocrisy. Iraq was destroyed over imaginary weapons. Afghanistan was
re-invaded to liberate women, and abandoned to the same Taliban who had once
been celebrated as freedom fighters. In Syria, the script replayed itself: the
CIA armed “moderate rebels” who promptly became extremists. Assad bombed, the
rebels beheaded, and a country turned into a graveyard of Western experiments. By
the time Assad fled, Syria was in pieces, ruled not by democrats or reformers
but by men like Abu Mohammad al-Julani, a former commander of ISIS
— the Frankenstein’s monster of modern geopolitics.
Everywhere that Washington sowed piety for policy, chaos
followed. Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Pakistan—each a scar of the same design.
And when the flames reached their zenith, came the refugees: men, women, and
children trudging toward Europe with their memories and their hunger. Germany
opened its doors; liberals wept with pride. But good intentions age badly. Fear
found its flag again, and the AfD rose from Europe’s old ashes,
promising to “defend Christian civilization” from those very refugees who were,
in truth, the children of Western wars
The Mujahedeen of yesterday have become the refugees of
today, and their children are the scapegoats of tomorrow. The same West that
once sanctified jihad now sanctifies fear — both dressed in the rhetoric of
self-defense. From Kabul to Gaza, from Peshawar to Dresden,
the story remains one of manipulation and moral amnesia.
maiñ kis ke haath pe apnā lahū talāsh karūñ
tamām shahr ne pahne hue haiñ dastāne
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