Moros shifting from datus to ayatollahs

The Moro Islamic Liberation Front professes to abhor terrorism. Yet it gingerly avoids denouncing the Jemaah Islamiyah, believed responsible for the Bali bombing and also operating in Mindanao. The hesitance is not so much out of fraternal ties with fellow Islamists than of internal risk. A good number of the MILF’s youthful recruits hold the same fanaticism as the JI and the al-Qaeda that fund it. The MILF hierarchy can’t be expected to isolate itself by alienating them.

True, several MILF segments had joint training camps with the JI in Maguindanao. But the operatives from Indonesia and Malaysia did not present themselves as JI or al-Qaeda agents, but as kindred separatists from Aceh and Borneo. More than that, an MILF negotiator confided to a government peace adviser, the foreigners donated much-needed cash and munitions. But that was before the Organization of Islamic Conference started disowning separatist and violent Islamic organizations. No longer can it be said that one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter. The MILF has since sent them away, aiming to shed its own terrorist image and even writing to Washington for understanding.

Thus, the peace adviser cautions, it may be inappropriate to press MILF leaders to condemn the JI as a condition for resuming peace talks next week in Kuala Lumpur. That’s asking too much too soon. Still, they will have to deal with Islamic extremism in settling the 17-year separatist war. Like the Moro National Liberation Front, the MILF will have a big say in the post-war reconstruction of Mindanao. The promised US and OIC aid to the island hinges on how rebels-turned-rulers will uphold religious tolerance and peaceful interaction with non-Muslims.

It’s not out of design that the MILF enlisted Islamic fundamentalists. The movement would have preferred all Moros from all branches of Islam bearing arms against Manila. But majority of Mindanao Muslims, while neglected by the central government, were busy unshackling themselves from the equally oppressive feudal rule of the datus. All they wanted was freedom not so much from faraway Manila but from the local lords who dictated their livelihoods and lifestyles. It was the fundamentalists who readily were enticed into the MILF.

The fundamentalists are products of infiltration of madrasahs, schools attached to mosques, by preceptors of Wahhabism. Half-educated because insulated from public schools while raised in puritan teachings, they imbibed a world view of hatred for anything that does not conform with Islam. They are enamored with the idea of forming an Islamic state out of Mindanao, Sulu and Palawan, an objective the MILF once espoused. By contrast, many of the MILF higher-ups were educated in philosophy or law in predominantly Muslim states but with secular governments like Egypt. Islamists they are, but also receptive to other cultures. Christian leaders believe they can live with them, but not with the fundamentalists who, given a slightest chance, will rule Mindanao as self-styled ayatollahs.

A madrasah is to poor Muslims as a day-care center is to everyone else. It is where Moro children traditionally get their first formal lessons in health and science, math and language (Arabic), and Koranic teachings. Of late, madrasahs have been taken over by jihad volunteers who had fought the Russians in Afghanistan. Radicalized by their religious war, these preachers prescribe puritan communal living as Muhammad did. They have discarded the usual math and science for pure Koranic tenets. Wahhabism is a radical sect of Sunni Islam that holds a fanatical view of the world and regards non-Muslims with great suspicion. Most of the 9/11 attackers came from it. Any madrasah that is run by Wahhabis thus becomes a virtual factory of terrorists.

Wahhabism found its way into the Philippines from the Middle East which greatly influences Mindanao Muslims. Its fundamentalist roots sprang from a region that virtually floats on oil but whose people live in poverty. Arab elites were insensitive to their plight, while in their midst rose Israel with a functioning democracy and thriving economy. US support for Israel as well as the Arab emirs and monarchs enraged the population. But they couldn’t do anything about it. Wahhabi preachers filled the void. Turning illiterate Arabs away from tribal but pluralistic Islamic practices, they taught an abstract and literal faith no longer based on historical experience but by the book.

The Arab elites sought a modus vivendi with the radical Wahhabis. They not only agreed to set up religious police units to herd Muslims into mosques and away from vice, but also funded the establishment of madrasahs worldwide to spread the Wahhabi creed. Saudi Arabia spends millions of dollars to maintain 3,000 such mosque schools in Mindanao. The RP government does not have an accurate count of which ones are steeped in Wahhabism. Cloaked with constitutional guarantee of freedom of worship, madrasahs are not formally under the education department. But the MILF acknowledges that a good number are run by Wahhabis.

Since the ’70s administrations have sought to put the madrasahs under some sort of control. One way was through the Office of Muslim Affairs under the Office of the President. The OMA strives to insert the education department’s curriculum in the madrasah course. In recent months, the government launched a distance-learning program which beams lessons on skills via satellite. But funding has been spotty by far. Modules have been developed for Grades 5 and 6, but not for lower grades and high school.

George W. Bush has vowed $30 million in aid to Muslim Mindanao, for starters, if a peace pact can be inked with the MILF. That amount can go a long way to upgrade madrasahs and wean them from Wahhabism. The MILF’s own survival depends on it.

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