Letter on repressing extremism

Dear readers,

A very liberal sentiment was once expressed by Mohammed ‘Anni’ Nasheed (before he became the President of the Maldives), which many believe is now being proved to have been a naive and a false sentiment.

It was expressed during the course of a small debate held on a rooftop in Male’ before a journalist from Al-Jazeera between Mohammed Nasheed and the Honorable Mr Umar Naseer, at that time the leader of his own IDP (Islamic Democratic Party), and the Honorable Mr Mohamed Nasheed, the ‘then’ Information Minister under the Gayoom adminstration.

Opposing Umar Naseer’s opinion that the government needs to curb extremism through repressive measures for extremism to cease being a threat, Mohammed ‘Anni’ Nasheed expressed that he believed that a government cannot end extremist attitudes through repression.

Despite the fact that recent events in the Maldives (flag burning, the repression of women etc) really do seem to make Anni’s liberal belief seem optimistic to the point of being naive, I can still say that ultimately, I believe Mohammed ‘Anni’ Nasheed was correct.

Repression does not deal with the underlying issues which cause the hatred, it merely makes most people afraid of expressing that hatred openly. At the same time, repression causes that hatred to brew like a pressure cooker.

It has often been argued that these problems of religiously masked hatred were created due to the repression of people’s democratic hopes and ambitions (read some post-modern, pseudo-anarchist view’s on liberty such as Noam Chomsky for example).

US foreign policy is very often blamed by left wing think tanks for the existence of terrorism. However, despite these views, I am also of the opinion that Mr Umar Naseer’s view that the government must repress the expression of hatred, does seem to have some validity to it.

Such a view is becoming increasinly popular amongst Maldivians I have spoken to. Evidence that I have encountered does indeed suggest that the act of merely granting freedom and removing political repression are nowhere near enough to get rid of the hatred expressed through religious extremism.

When freedom is given, often the hatred does the opposite of dissipating – it vents itself fully. It reminds me of a cobra – lying still, wanting to attack yet afraid, then standing strong and venting – ready to attack once it has the power and freedom to do so!

For example, about a year before Khomeini came into power in Iran in 1979, the US felt it had made a mistake giving too much power to the Shah to repress any dissidence. The US encouraged the Shah to remove many restrictions on thought and belief.

The US did this because anti-US sentiment was reaching boiling point and the US felt it needed to alleviate some of the tension it created, and thought that hatred would die if freedom was given. However, Khomeini’s fierce anti-US tapes and messages, banned by the Shah, were all of a sudden made legal and reached EVERYONE, not only the ultra-religious and those in the game of smuggling propaganda illegally.

All of a sudden, the hateful felt the courage to vent that hatred like never before, that whipped the whole nation up into a frienzy of hatred as the ‘fire’ caught on, and WHAM! The Iranian people used the freedom they had been given to throw themselves straight into a darker, more brutal political and ideological prison than what they experienced under the Shah!

When the US encouraged the Saudis to remove certain restrictions, extremist opposition, which lay dormant through repression, came “out of the closet” like never before! The same thing happened in Iraq when Saddam was taken from power.

Yet I have said does not mean that I believe that hatred can be eradicated through repression! It only means that I believe that hatred can only be repressed through repression.

Sometimes, unfortunately, until hatred and violence can be removed from a person’s heart, it MUST be repressed for the protection of others. Ultimately, however, I do believe that only caring and personal humility can take away the disease of hatred in a person’s soul, and that the role of a government should not be merely to repress the expression of hatred.

A Government should also use its power to strive to create a situation where the hearts of the hateful can be transformed through the power of genuine caring and universal love. This may take years of pain and caring to achieve, but it must be achieved.

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