Winning the battle against Islamist fanaticism

The world needs to support muslim leaders facing attacks by islamic state extremists in the Middle East

The two gunmen were referred to as "knights of the Islamic State" for murdering 20 foreign tourists at a museum in Tunisia. Islamic State (IS) took credit for the attacks and said this was a sign of more things to come. It was the "first drop of the rain", IS said.

Tunisia was not chosen out of the blue. Because of its secular atmosphere and a sense of strong cultural, academic and intellectual history that pre-date Islam, Tunisia is a threat to Islamic State, or the kind of Islamic society ISIS wants to create.

In many ways, Tunisia was a model for the future. It was there where the "Arab springs" had emerged four years ago and it was there where values such as democracy, civil society, peaceful co-existence and human rights have a chance of making it.

The incident was another example of how low IS can sink with its tactics. It was also another wake-up call for the Muslim world to see IS for what it is and to take a stand because, essentially, they are the ones under the IS guns.

In the previous decades, especially when al-Qaeda was making headlines, there was a tendency to dismiss these terrorist acts as part of bigger battle between the West and the East.

But that narrative has taken a back seat to the reality that came about with the emergence of IS. Attacking the West was not an end in itself; the West was a sideshow; the West was attacked because they were backing a different horse.

Experts said it was a 'convenient' way to unite the Muslim world under one single narrative. Radical Islamists wanted to portray the West as the big bad wolf and the Muslim world as the defenceless victims. Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan reinforced that perception.

Using the West as a stepping-stone to the end-game came about after the Islamists failed to unite the Muslim world by turning their guns on their authoritarian leaders back in the 1970s-80s. Many of those governments were secular politically and most were extremely repressive and dictatorial.

The anti-West campaign worked to some extent as Muslims, as well as non-Muslims, accept the misleading "clash of civilisation" theory. In Thailand, even outspoken non-Muslim intellectuals were telling Muslims that Islam was the only force to counter Western hegemony.

But deep down inside, taking into consideration the historical context and the battle between Islamists and authoritarian Muslim countries since the early 1980s, the real prize for the militant Islamists was control over the respective Muslim state.

The plan is to remove authoritarian governments and replace them with the militant Islamist fighters.

It was largely a Sunni movement but the first country that succeeded in making this transition was the Shiites in Iran.

The repressive nature of Iran under the mullahs was well documented. But it was not long before the mullahs in Iran realised that they could not keep the aspirations and free spirit of the Iranian people caged up. And so over recent years, things began to unravel for the better.

Unlike the clerics in Iran, IS fighters, as seen with their senseless killings, are not interested in norms or decency. So grotesque were their tactics that even groups like al-Qaeda rejected being allies with them.

If al-Qaeda was credited for taking this war against the West, Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) is trying to finish off the "last stage of the game" by turning their guns to the nations of the Middle East.

The two are part of the same evolution of militant Islam whose aim, as stated earlier, is to dissolve these modern Arab nation states and replace them with a classical community romanticised by these fanatics.

What's alarming for governments around the world is that the fanatic romantic notion of IS has lured many Muslims men and some women from around the globe to their hideous ways and means.

The East vs West narrative no longer holds water. At stake now is the fate and sustainability of the socio-political future of the Arab world. Muslims will have to take the lead on this fight and the world needs to stand by them. The Nation Bangkok