Muslims everywhere are in a deep state of denial. From Egypt to Malaysia, there is an aversion to seeing terrorism as a Muslim problem and a Muslim responsibility.
Terrorism is a Muslim problem for particularly good reasons. To begin with, most of the terrorist incidents actually occur within the Muslim world. In Pakistan, for example, terrorist violence is endemic. Marauding groups of fanatics such as Sipa-e-Sahiba and Sipa-e-Muhammad have spread terror throughout the country. In Egypt, militants of Islamic Jihad have killed tourists, and members of the extremist organisation Gama-e-Islami have made the life of ordinary Muslims a living hell. The Abu Sayyaf group of the Philippines, rather than fighting for 'liberation' as they claim to, is nothing more than a band of ruthless kidnappers who kill other Muslims without hesitation. Saudi Arabia, Indonesia, Algeria, Bangladesh, Lebanon, Iran - there is hardly a Muslim country that is not plagued by terrorism. It goes without saying , then, that the bulk of victims to terrorism are also Muslims, Sept. 11th notwithstanding. This is particularly so when we consider that violence and brutality has become the norm during the perpetual quests for self-determination in places such as Palestine, Kashmir and Chechnya. Terror and counter-terror forms an endless cycle that has cost countless Muslim lives. Thus, terrorism and the horrors it provokes and the consequences it breeds, are more familiar to Muslims than to any other people.
Yet, while we have been shocked and although we sympathise with the victims of the atrocities in the US, as Muslims we have stubbornly refused to see terrorism as an internal problem. While the Muslim world has suffered, they have blamed everyone but themselves. The problems we face as a global Muslim community as always the fault of 'the West', the CIA, 'the Indians' or sometimes even 'the Zionists' who are devising yet another conspiracy against Islam. The indifference displayed by Muslims leave them ill-equipped to deal with problems of endemic terrorism. Indiscriminate violence, terror by governments against their own people, terror by opposition groups and between factions; these have increasingly become an integral part of the political discourse of failed nations. In the US-led coalition against the Taliban, liberal Muslims have found an ideal substitute for self-examination and the critical, internal struggle needed to address these home-grown problems. The coalition now waging 'War against terrorism' in Afghanistan harbours another danger for Muslims. In the varied politics of coalition, the first people that the hesitant Muslim states will turn against are the few voices of sanity in their midst.
As Anwar Ibrahim, the former Deputy Prime Minister of Malaysia points out, the democratic cause in Muslim countries 'will regress for a few decades as ruling autocrats use their critics and dissenters.' This is definitely not the time to stir up anti-American sentiments, or sermonise over US foreign policy. It is time to ask how, in the Twenty-first century, the Muslim world could have produced a bin Laden. The answer has two components. Firstly, there is simply no place in the Muslim world to express to objection to politics. Autocratic, theocratic and despotic regimes allow no political freedom, all thought is outlawed, and brute suppression is the norm. In such circumstances, violence is seen as the only way of expressing dissent .
It is in the Islamic movements that we must look for the second reason for the violent state of affairs in Muslim societies. In the Sixties and the Seventies, the Islamic movements such as Jamaat-e Islami of Pakistan and the Muslim Brotherhood of Eygpt, represented hope, justice, the ideal of self-reliance for the masses languishing in misery. A plethora of Islamic movements and initiatives made their appearance, and we toiled against autocracies and persecution in Muslim Societies. But the movements became a mirror image of what they were initially created to combat. The leadership passed from intellectuals to semi-literate manipulators. What the Islamic movement have generated is fanatic militancy. A fundamentalism that is as autocratic, illiberal and repressive as the established order they sought to de-throne has been created. Instead of allowing debate, or a re-thinking about the contemporary meaning of Islam, fundamentalist notions became something to die for and finally something to kill and destroy for in an affirmation of pure hatred.
The failure of Islamic movements can be put down to their inability to come to terms with modernity, the failure to give modernity a sustainable home-grown voice. Instead of engaging with teeming problems that bedevil Muslim lives, the Islamic prescription consists of the blind following of narrow devotion and the slavish submission to inept obscurantists. Instead of embracing engagement with the wider world, the movements have made Islam into an ethic of under-development, and separation and exclusion from the rest of the world.
The struggle against violence in the Muslim world is much than a struggle against murdering fanatics like the Taliban or against tyrannical leaders like Saddam Hussain. It is becoming a struggle against the Islamic movements whose simplistic and malignant rhetoric often end up sanctifying the fundamentalists.
The answers to the problem of the Muslim societies are not hard to find - they are merely difficult to initiate. Political freedom, open debate, the liberation of society to be civil, plural and humane - these are clear solutions. However, the Islamic movements pose as barriers suppressing these solutions, not allowing to be acknowledged. We need deliberate creativity and critical awareness, but above all else is the need for humility. The humility to acknowledge one's own mistakes and shortcomings. By addressing the flaws, we can accept the solution and work towards implementing new law and order to combat the prevailing poison that the Muslim world has been struggling with for decades.

(Raiyan Khan is 18 years old, who is presently in Pakistan, but has studied in the UK for most of her school years).