Kansas City is the jumping-off point for an upcoming academic study of why Palestinian Arabs have embraced the deadly culture of suicide bombing. The man undertaking the study is Mohammed Hafez, a University of Missouri-Kansas City visiting professor of political science and author of the provocative new book - "Why Muslims Rebel: Repression and Resistance in the Islamic World," published earlier this year by Lynne Rienner.
In some sense, at least, Hafez's upcoming trip to Israel, the West Bank and Gaza to probe the root causes of terrorism, will represent the closing of a circle. Hafez, age 32, is a child of the Palestinian Diaspora, born in Kuwait and educated in the United States. He has been a member of the UMKC faculty since 2002.
Hafez came to the United States with his family in the early 1980s. He earned a bachelor's degree in political science from the University of California-Los Angeles, a master's degree in international relations from the University of Southern California and a doctorate from the London School of Economics and Political Science.
Personal experience led Hafez to explore Islamic revivalism in the early stages of his research.
"I am a Muslim," he said. "I was raised in an Islamic family that started out being somewhat secular. But over the years, particularly when they moved to America, they became more and more traditional in their beliefs. They were trying to get back to their roots. ... That's what initially interested me in studying the Islamic movement."
His book attempts to deal with the scope of Islamist militancy around the globe, including conflicts in Algeria, Egypt, Chechnya and Kashmir. He says, "The premise of my book is that Muslims rebel because they live in societies that are repressive, exclusionary and do not allow for political participation. The only effective avenue for political reform and political change is often through the underground, through violence and militancy."
In going down this path, Hafez better understood the extent of misconceptions about the connection between Islam and violence.
"Particularly after Sept. 11, we see the image of Islam as a violent, rebellious religion," Hafez said. "If you do a quick survey of the Muslim world, you will see that there are those who are indeed violent, like Bin Laden and others. But there are plenty that are not violent at all."
Through his research, Hafez attempts to clear up these misconceptions and present a nuanced view of the political and social dynamics in the Muslim world.
"The premise of my book is that Muslims rebel because they live in societies that are repressive, exclusionary and do not allow for political participation," said Hafez. "The only effective avenue for political reform and political change is often through the underground through violence and militancy. If Muslim societies become more democratic and more open to political participation from the opposition, then violence is likely to diminish and eventually end."
Authoritarian rule
Democracy is the exception, rather than the rule in the Islamic world.
"Why is it that the Muslim world has been the least susceptible to democratic transitions and reforms?" Hafez asked. "This is an interesting question, and a question that a lot of scholars are trying to figure out."
Hafez believes there are several factors at work. One has to do with the way Muslim countries developed in the post-colonial period.
"The military played a dominant role in leading the revolutions against colonial powers," he said. "But once the militaries took over power - as militaries often do - they started to concentrate power in their own hands. They tended to build institutions that gave a great deal of executive authority and marginalized civil society."
According to Hafez, oil and the resultant wealth that it brought also has contributed to the current situation.
"The fact that they don't need civil society for revenue means that they can impose authoritarian institutions or authoritarian rule without suffering the consequences," Hafez said. "As you know, in America we fought a revolution based on 'No taxation without representation.' "
In most Islamic countries, including Kuwait where Hafez grew up, there is little or no taxation and little or no representation.
"There was a sort of unspoken social contract where the ruling elite said 'You leave the politics to us and we will provide you with the basic services and necessities of life,' " he said.
Hafez said manipulation of the Islamic world by the West is another factor. In the battle against communism, the U.S. often supported authoritarian Islamic regimes "... in order to roll back communism and prevent it from spreading in the Muslim world."
"When the 1990s came around and the Soviet Union had gone away, there was really no major incentive for the U.S. to begin to push for democracy."
In fact, Hafez said, the West is terrified of the Islamic movements, which are the main opposition to the authoritarian regimes.
"The fear is that, once those groups come to power, they will hamper the democratic process and end up ruling through a theocracy, as happened in Afghanistan or Iran," he said. "The feeling in Western countries is that the devil that we know is better than the devil that we don't know."
And that's the crux of the problem, Hafez said. Continued repression only stokes violence among those groups that are prone to it.
"What we need to do is to set clear rules of the game and say we are willing to support the democratic process and whatever happens as a result," he said. "Let's not make assumptions about what they will do. Let's create opportunities and see what will happen."
A culture of suicide
Hafez's next project will look at the culture of suicide bombing among Palestinians. The project is funded by a major grant from the United States Institute of Peace.
Congress set up the Institute of Peace in 1984 to research non-military solutions to world conflicts. It is the panel to whose board the nomination and ultimate recess appointment of occasional Jewish Chronicle columnist Daniel Pipes caused such a controversy recently.
Over the next two years, Hafez plans to make a number of trips to Israel, the West Bank and Gaza to conduct research. His first visit will take place later this year.
Hafez describes his latest project as a puzzle with three levels. He wants to look at why Palestinian organizations have embraced suicide violence, why individuals have embraced the role of martyr and why Palestinian society as a whole has venerated this behavior.
As part of the project, Hafez said he hopes to explore the root causes of the culture of suicide and the impact on both Palestinian and Israeli societies. To that end, he plans to speak with experts on both sides, families of bombers and families of victims.
Hafez is a firm believer that frank discussion is the only way out of the current abyss.
"I'm a Muslim. I come from the Arab world. But I'm very much open to talking to Jews and Israelis because I believe that this is the key to moving forward," he said.
'The end game'
The violence that has occurred since the collapse of the Oslo peace process is tragic, Hafez said.
"Clearly, a solution was at hand whether it was at Camp David in 2000 or in Taba in 2001," he said. "The Palestinians and Israelis were as close as possible to the end game. Today the real challenge is not figuring out what the end game is or what an equitable solution is but instead how we get there."
Hafez blames the current stalemate on a "failure of leadership on both sides."
"One could trace back the chronology of events and try to figure out what went wrong and who's more to blame," he said. "But ultimately where we are at today is that we have two sides that are more concerned about finger-pointing, about revenge and about firing the last shot and less concerned about how we end this tragic crisis. Until that crisis of leadership on both sides is resolved, an equitable solution is not going to take place."
External intervention and a more active effort on the part of the U.S. are critical, Hafez said.
"When two people are fighting in the street, you don't expect them to calm themselves down and resolve their issues," he said. "Your immediate instinct is to go between them, try to separate them, calm them down and then maybe you can mediate. This analogy applies to the Palestinians and Israelis today. They cannot untangle themselves. They need someone - the quartet, the U.N. or the U.S. by itself - to come in, separate the two sides and figure out how to move forward."