Auf der Website von Newsweek schreibt der marokkanische Kollege Achmed Benchemsi, Herausgeber von TelQuel und Nichane, warum Ayman Al-Zawahiri so nervös ist angesichts des kommenden amerikanischen Präsidenten:
Al Qaeda and all its followers badly need to perpetuate Samuel Huntington’s „clash of civilizations“ paradigm. The West and Islam are deadly enemies, in the radicals‘ view. The more irreconcilable the former, the happier the latter. In this regard, the agenda of Bush and the neocons was a true blessing for the terrorists. Consider this: after 9/11 and the U.S. strike on Afghanistan, Al Qaeda was badly hit and its leaders were piteously hiding in caves. Later, by attacking Iraq for no valid reason–which caused, as a direct or indirect consequence, hundreds of thousands of deaths among innocent civilians–Bush’s administration provided Al Qaeda leaders with a new rationale. They reinvigorated, prospered and recruited hundreds, if not thousands, of brand-new adeptsfollowers, infused with a strong willingness for jihad. „War on terror“? If they could, they would just keep it on forever.
Al Qaeda’s true problem with Obama has indeed nothing to do with the color of his skin. By proposing to meet Iran’s Ahmadinejad without preconditions instead of just bombing him out, the American president-elect thinks outside of the confrontation box. The radicals just hate that. And above all, they hate the idea of the United States resuming the chase of Al Qaeda operatives in the mountains of the Pakistan-Afghanistan borders. He’s coming to them, how could they not react fiercely?
There is something else, which I witness everyday in the streets of Casablanca, where I live: Muslims tend to claim Obama as their own—because he’s black, because he comes from an oppressed minority, because his middle name is Hussein. I presume this holds true for all the nonradical Muslims (the vast majority of them) throughout the world. Not that they think Obama is a Muslim himself—he made clear that he was not. Yet he could have been. His father was. Anyway, this man looks like a „brother“ to many Muslims, which is indeed a good thing for the prospect of global peace.
Not surprisingly, Zawahiri’s video message targeted this specific point: „Obama is not a Muslim, he’s a renegade who abandoned his ancestor’s religion to embrace the ‚crusaders faith‘ and the ‚Zionists‘ ideology‘,“ Zawahiri suggests. The genuine message being: please don’t like him!
Well, too bad for them: we do. We will like him more, of course, if he keeps his promise of backing out of Iraq within 16 months and putting the Israeli-Palestinian peace process back on track. Meanwhile, let’s all of us, Muslims and Westerners, take advantage of the honeymoon period. And let’s enjoy the terrorists‘ embarrassment: it’s a rare occasion.
Hier ein Interview mit dem klugen und mutigen Benchemsi (frz), dessen Zeitschriften schon verboten wurden, weil er das Königshaus kritisiert hatte.
Hier sieht man Benchemsi (rechts) beim Betreten des Gerichts in Casablanca. Er mußte sich im letzten Jahr dort verantworten wegen „mangelnden Respekts vor dem Königshaus“.
Achmed Benchemsi Foto: AFP – Abdelhek Senna