The road less travelled

An interview with the Observer's chief correspondent

Generalisations irk Jason Burke. After recklessly throwing in his lot with the Kurdish Peshmerga at the tender age of 19, his interest in militancy has seen him irrepressibly progress from an enthusiastic graduate newshound, to chief reporter at The Observer, one of Britain’s best respected weekly broadsheets. To make a sweeping statement about the Muslim world is to invoke his ire.

From brutal bloodshed to animistic shrines in Islamabad, saying that Burke has seen a lot is something of an understatement. Recollections of his encounters with Islamic cultures along the path from Algeria to Indonesia confirm to him that the much-touted Western perception of a monolithic Islam simply does not exist. But how does this reconcile with Burke’s message of a common humanity?

‘This was the point I got stuck at when writing the book; its purpose is to show that we are all the same whatever broad faith or non faith box we are dropped into. I was writing about Islamic communities, which obviously poses considerable problems when you are writing a book saying that the world cannot simply be divided into Islamic and non-Islamic. Human beings across the planet are 95 per cent the same, there is only a very small element of our make up which is variable, and only a very small percentage of that which is religiously variable. I had to break up the stereotype that there is one Islamic world populated exclusively by mad, gun-toting Muslims, and show that 99 per cent of Muslims are the same as people from anywhere else.’

It’s a point which has persistently been underplayed by Western newspapers who rarely, if ever, print stories of genuine human interest from the Islamic world, preferring instead to dwell on the atrocities committed by warmongering extremists and oppressive regimes. Burke has often complained about the unfair amount of column inches given to news from conflicted areas in the Islamic world, claiming that the unremitting rhetoric of suicide bombing and Al Qaedism has stretched global empathy to breaking point.

‘Most of the time these voices, the voices of the vast silent majority, are not heard. Because they are not heard, the people in the West increasingly think that Muslim equals terrorist madman. Muslims, like anyone else, just want to get food on the table at the end of the day – they want to go home to their wives or their husbands, they want healthcare for grandma and they want their kids to get some kind of education. There is a preconception embedded in the question ‘where are the most devout Muslims?’ and that is one which equates devout with extreme. What do we in the West mean when we talk about Islamic countries? Do we mean countries in which the majority of the population are practicing Muslims? Fine, but you get into hot water when you ask what it means to be a Muslim. Take Iraq as an example: I met many people in Iraq who you could not call classically devout or practicing Muslims – they may fast during Ramadan but they don’t pray five times a day, they drink, they eat pork and few make the pilgrimage to Mecca, yet they are fiercely proud of being Muslim. Near where I lived in Islamabad there was a shrine to a local saint called Bari Imam where hundreds of people went to pray. They were the poor, the uneducated, the sick: peasants who go to ask for divine intercession or to be healed by putting out regular offerings or tying favours to trees. Effectively worshipping a saint, these practices are forbidden in classic Islam – to me these people were devout Muslims practicing a practical, functioning variety of their religion. They believe in the shrine, the saint and the power of God and they believe that they are Muslims. It is not for me to say whether they are or they are not, but then, I am not a Muslim or a Christian or a believing person. Equally there are people who I spoke with several times from northwest Afghanistan who believe in a wide range of things which are classically described as being fundamentalist. But who is the more devout Muslim? You tell me.’

Travelling up and down the Islamic world, revisiting old acquaintances and meeting new faces on each trip, Burke’s voice is one which lets the events he witnesses and people he encounters speak for themselves. It’s not easy to give a positive spin to the much-maligned members of the Taliban, a regime which has been at the heart of so much furious invective from the Western press. Burke’s impression of the fighters he meets in Kandahar, however, is forgiving – he finds he cannot accept the label of ‘mad mullahs’ which the West so rapidly gave to the members of this distant regime. ‘The Taliban always seemed to me like abused children trying, in their own damaged way, to make the world better and in doing so visiting the abuse they had suffered on others. I felt sorry for them. They were part of the tragedy that was Afghanistan, not its cause.’

The fiercely emotive power of language to demarcate and condemn in sweeping generalisations is an issue which Burke doesn’t dwell on, although he’s ready to admit that the future of accurate reporting will be dictated by public interest. ‘I’ve been a working journalist on British national papers for the last 15 years – I don’t expect miracles. We have to accept that there are serious constraints on journalists throughout the world. Increasingly, papers don’t invest in hard news, preferring to focus on fashion and lifestyle and fair enough, nobody wants to read about Al Qaeda on every page of every newspaper. I’ve been in a position where I have been given the resources to go beyond the easy headline, which is something that most journalists never have the chance to do.

Many web-based forums which discuss Islam would agree that Western media-speak has portrayed Islam, particularly over the last five years, in an ill-informed and bigoted fashion. Islamonline.com argues that the British media in particular has been at worst propagandist and, at best, selective and partisan in its reporting of the Muslim world since the London bombings of July 7 2005. It’s a valid point to raise when so much of the criticism levelled at Islamic countries is focused upon the democratic issues of press-censorship and a lack of free speech. If Western papers cannot report unbiased accounts of events, how can they level such criticisms at their eastern counterparts?

‘Journalists need to know that with freedoms come responsibilities – even if you are not being censored, there is no excuse for printing rubbish. In fact, a free press means you have to take more care because you have to print the truth. I am a firm believer in free speech, free conversation and the power of reason. Particularly the latter as well written, truthful reporting will carry an argument and win the day every time. The truth will always be the strongest news you can print. One of the great problems for the press in the Middle East is that the culture of fact is so debased that no one believes anything. The result is that abhorrent, morally repulsive conspiracy theories emerge. It’s just rubbish, it belittles anyone who thinks like that and makes reasonable debate impossible. We need responsible press freedom – it’s a fundamental tenet of democracy. It’s rubbish to say that a free press is not compatible with Islam. Why not? Pakistan has a fairly free press, as does Indonesia. Even Algeria has a remarkably free press for what is essentially a quasi-military state. But you cannot just stop with press freedoms, we also need freedoms of religion association and speech as well.’

Burke’s mood is certainly more reflective than in his last book Al Qaeda: The True Story of Radical Islam which focused solely on the terrorist group and its many misinterpretations in the West. On the Road to Kandahar turns the spotlight from the radical elements and focuses on ordinary people, the crowds in the streets and the children in the schoolroom. It’s the infinitely recognisable human traits of kindness, weakness and determination which shine through the bearded surface of his interviewees. It’s these local touches, the wider view of the paths which he has travelled, which cause Burke so much trouble in reaching a resolution. Returning to Pakistan in late 2005 to revisit an extremist acquaintance he once felt nothing but amicable disdain for, he realises that his sympathies have been sharply realigned by recent events. ‘The London bombings had made it abundantly clear that in the first decade of the 21st century the world was too small a place for ideas and acts anywhere to be safely ignored. It was no longer possible to be just an observer.’

So it seems we are all participants in this global conflict which is growing to embrace every creed of humanity with alarming speed. Burke, however, views the emergent issues of the 21st century with more optimism: ‘The problem is one which is very much at the heart of the Middle Eastern situation – how do we reconcile identity with globalisation? How, when there is increasingly a single vision of how we are meant to live our lives, do we reconcile this homogenous vision with local traditions, religions values and societies? How do we combine the potential economic and political benefits of globalisation with that very human craving to feel at home and master of ones self and ones destiny? You see these questions asked everywhere, in Europe in America – it might be at the root of both religious nationalisms and political fundamentalisms, which all lead to frustrations, and sometimes, violence. This is the great challenge of the 21st century and watching how it develops will be an extremely interesting experience.’

On the Road to Kandahar: Travels Through Conflict in the Islamic World is published by Allen Lane and is available from Penguin Books online. www.penguin.com


By Michelle Madsen, July 2006 (Time Out)