Revisiting the war on terror

US President Barack Obama in his first major speech on terrorism has hinted that the ongoing fight against terror will ultimately have come to an end. And this is where Muslims, especially those living in the West, can help.

In fact the contribution of the Muslim community in helping rein in extremist activities has already begun. Recently, the community in Canada helped foil a plot to target a railway line by alerting the law enforcement agencies, thus averting a London and Madrid like disaster.

The police, taking a serious view of the threats, put the two suspects under surveillance, which ended in their arrest. This was a strong message from the Muslim community pledging to defend the society it is living in and ensuring its safety.

But Muslims also need support from the West to be more effective in protecting their newly adopted societies and safeguarding them against retaliation and suspicion from other groups.

However, there is the view that terrorism, led by the US is in effect a product of Western countries that are more or less targeting Muslims for a variety of reasons. They put this down to the fact that to a large extent, the areas suffering such violence are inhabited by Muslims.

The most striking example is the drone program, which started during the Bush era, in which only 50 strikes were carried out in the eight years of his presidency while Obama launched 300 in his first term alone.

Those strikes may have killed some terrorists but they acted as catalysts for promoting anti-West feelings owing to the large number of civilians killed by the very drones meant to put terrorists out of business.

The drone program and the Guantanamo Bay debacle seem destined to be at the center of public debate for a long time to come.

In a more transparent society where the vote of the individual counts, it is the duty of Muslims to make their voice heard. And the only way to make that happen is through organization at grass roots level which should help gather the scattered vote bank worthy enough for political calculation.

There is no need to start from the scratch. The Muslim and the Arab world has rich experience in terms of shoring up unity, but there is a dearth of focus and finance. Moreover, many of them have simply resorted to modeling the pathetic experiences back home.

The most important starting point is for these communities to see themselves first as citizens in their newly adopted homes and integrate into the system at all possible levels be it social, economic or political.

With younger generations having built greater associations with their new societies, there is a good chance for a change to make some impact.

Added to this is the growing need to identify with a culture that may not fit in well with their beliefs. The terrorist incidents that hit London several years ago were perpetrated by products of the same British society: Some had been born there while the rest had studied in its institutions.

Some conservatives jumped to the easy conclusion that the London underground incident signals to the fact that the multicultural policies Britain has been pursuing for decades have in effect failed.

That argument misses the main point that with the growth of globalization, it is becoming harder to group all people into one culture. Also, the advancement of technology allows people to have a feel of other cultures and with whom they can relate somehow.

The real challenge posing Muslims is how to make use of these developments, especially when Muslim communities start to influence policies in their adopted countries thus reducing the possibility of terror against them.