One session at ISNA that was worthy of the main hall but was instead relegated to one of the smaller rooms was the session entitled The Root Causes of Terrorism with speakers Dr. Parvez Ahmed of CAIR, Dr. Robert Pape, and Dr. Hatem Bazian. The three of them discussed terrorism and whether or not Islam is actually the root cause of terrorism and suicide bombings.
After studying facts and figures, the consensus achieved by the three panel members? No.
While people continued to file into the already full room, Ahmed, Pape, and Bazian went over their findings. Using data from a database that he compiled with statistics from suicide terrorism acts, Pape was able to show the reasoning behind why such violent acts occurred. The conclusion was that, when it does come to terrorism by Islamic fundamentalists, it’s not due to religion, but to foreign policy and occupation of foreign lands by the United States.
The session was an important one and Pape mentioned that he had reported his findings to many government institutions such as Homeland Security. Yet, this hasn’t helped the situation since U.S. forces are still occupying such places as Iraq which, according to Pape’s data, only fuels attacks.
Pape mostly summarized findings from his book, Dying to Win. Ahmed summarized a paper he wrote entitled Terror in the Name of Islam-Unholy War Not Jihad that presented similar findings and spoke of the “bash and cash” mentality in which people get profits from speaking ill of Islam.
In the end, the panelists were not too optimistic. Pape said: “I want to tell you that it will all get better, but I can’t.” He believes that if U.S. foreign policy is not revised and this country continues to occupy foreign lands, then an attack against Americans on U.S. soil is inevitable. Not a cheery thought. Even if the conclusion is grim, we still need to educate ourselves about this topic to be informed and also to have an answer to those who believe that Islam itself is the reason for such acts.
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I agree this should have been a session with a bigger billing. I did not even hear about it, but Sat. morning is still too early for me! Thanks for covering it!
Yeah, I didn’t get much sleep this weekend. . .