Jumana al-Nimour is currently hosting an episode of Behind Events focusing on Abu Mohammed al-Maqdassi, his re-arrest, and his ideology. The show is exploring whether he should be considered a moderate or an extremist, and how to understand his re-arrest. As with the Zawahiri tape a few weeks ago, al-Jazeera intersperses lengthy clips of Maqdassi speaking with lengthy discussion among a variety of guests.
Jumana focuses the discussion on Maqdassi criticisms of the attacks on Shia and on civilians in Iraq, and pushes the guests to talk about whether there is a single salafi trend. She asks whether Maqdassi's remarks indicate important divisions or splits within the salafi movement, and also pushes the guests to speculate as to the real reasons for his re-arrest. (note: my summaries here are based on trying to type and watch simultaneously, which is always risky.. unfortunately the transcript won't be available for a couple of days...)
Jordanian journalist Mahmoud al-Rimawi begins by praising Maqdassi's recent remarks condemning attacks on civilians, but largely defends the official Jordanian reasons for his re-arrest. He sees Maqdassi as a leader of a dangerous, jihadist trend - practicing takfir (declaring a Muslim to be an apostate) and appealing to a global umma just like bin Laden. Later in the program, he downplays the significance of Maqdassi's criticisms of Zarqawi and of attacks on civilians, insisting that he remains part of the wider jihadist salafi threat.
Yasir al-Hilala, al-Jazeera's Amman bureau chief, is highly skeptical of the official reasons given for Maqdassi's re-arrest He says that the most likely explanation for the arrest was the interview with al-Jazeera, not the contacts with terrorists cited by the government. Perhaps feeling a bit guilty over being the putative proximate cause of his re-arrest, he emphasizes that Maqdassi had permission to talk to whatever media he wanted to.
Finally, the Islamist writer Bashir al-Nafaa, speaking from Cairo, argues that Maqdassi should be considered a moderate Islamist, not an extremist. He places him in a category with Qaradawi, Huwaydi, and other moderate Islamists. Abu Hilala disagreed with that assessment- Maqdassi clearly supports al-Qaeda, he points out, which puts him outside the moderate camp - even if he is independent-minded, with a wide margin of freedom. From what I know of Maqdassi I would tend to disagree with Nafaa's characterization.... he may be upset by the trend towards violent attacks on civilians, but he still seems quite the hard core jihadist to me.
In a rather heated exchange, Rimawi ultimately defended the arrest as in Jordan's interest, casting the arrest as a legitimate response to a threat posed by Maqdassi and salafi extremism. Nafaa says that Arab governments need to stop arresting people for their ideas - he casts the arrest as an instance of state repression, not as a legitimate counter-terrorism action. The argument ends inconclusively - partly because it has to, and partly because the episode was regrettably short (these 15-20 minute segments just aren't long enough to really get into the issues raised, I'm afraid).
Overall, I find it interesting that - as with Zawahiri - al-Jazeera takes the Islamist's words and makes them the starting point for critical dialogue, rather than either ignoring them or simply broadcasting them. It's also interesting that, because of what Maqdassi said and the way the program frames his remarks, Zarqawi comes off looking badly. Even Nafaa, the most sympathetic of the guests to Maqdassi, defends him by distancing him from Zarqawi. It's not clear whether that's right - Maqdassi objects to the violence in Iraq and the attacks on civilians, saying "The number of Iraqis killed in suicide operations has become a tragedy for Iraq's people ... the mujahedeen (holy fighters) must revise their tactics and I must stress that I have reservations about these actions." But he also called Zarqawi "sincere and compassionate", so there you go. At any rate, I don't think Zarqawi is going to be any happier with this program than he has been with other al-Jazeera programming recently...
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