Saturday, 07 June 2014
While
preparing for the lectures I gave recently on Islam and
globalization, I came across a wide array of books and articles that
suggested that Islam and globalization are at the two ends of the
spectrum with no common meeting ground. Famous Political Scientist Samuel
Huntington in his book “The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of
the World Order” ruled out the chances of the Islamic countries ever
being a part of the process of globalization. Instead, he predicted that
there would inevitably be a clash between the western civilization and
“the Islamic civilization”.
Professor Huntington originally
articulated the idea of the so-called clash in an article for the
Foreign Affairs journal in 1993 that he titled as “the Clash of
Civilizations?” The question mark suggested that he had some element of
doubt about the thesis. In the book however he dropped the question mark
that suggested that any doubt that he had at the time of writing the
article had gone and he was convinced that the world was inevitably
moving towards a clash between the western world and the world of Islam.
He therefore wrote the book as a prescription to the western world to
prepare itself in order to be in the position to lead the new world
order that would emerge as a result of the clash between the western
world and the “Islamic world.”
The events of 9/11 were the perfect
breeding ground for such a thesis to find acceptance in the West. Many
in the West grabbed Professor Huntington’s theory and used it to justify
the heavy price that the Muslims have paid since 9/11 for the crimes of
the few terrorists who have been alleged to have committed the
dastardly acts on 9/11.
The United States and allied troops went
to Afghanistan and later to Iraq in pursuit of those they thought had
masterminded the 9/11 attacks and their compatriots. The wars in Iraq
and Afghanistan resulted in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of
innocent Muslims, including women and children as “collateral damage”
as the US led allied troops pursued Al Qaeda and “Islamic terrorists”. The US left Iraq a few years ago. It is
now preparing to leave Aghhanistan with its combat troops numbering
100,00 together with 40,000 from allied countries by the end of the
year. In Iraq, the current semblance of democracy notwithstanding,
the country is yet far from becoming the sort of country that the US had
promised it would be after it had removed Saddam Hossain for power and
hanged him.
Sectarian viloence between the Sunnis
and Shias resulting in deaths in large numbers are now common place. The
US would be leaving Afghanistan by year’s end after its longest war
ever with the Taliban showing signs of returning once the US troops
leave the country. In fact, between Iraq and Afghanistan, the United
States has established the cardinal errors in the thesis of Professor
Huntington, errors that have been underlined by another scholar of
history Edward Said in no uncertain manner.
Years before Professor Huntington wrote
his book, Edward Said in his book “Orientalism”, written in 1979, had
exposed the gross error in the way the western world perceived the
Orient. He underlined the West’s failure to understand the internal
cultural/regilious/ethni divisions and differences among those that made
up the Orient among whom were the Muslims.Edward Said later elaborated his ideas
in the light of Professor Huntington’s book and the spin given to it
in the West as justfication for the actions of the United States and the
alied troops in Iraq and Afghainstan. In series of lectures and
articles, he argued that the Muslims are niether a monolith nor a
civilization and that within the so-called Islamic world, there were
regional, cultural and sectaran differences that made the argument
forwarded by Professor Huntngton palpably erroneous.He underlined the differences between
the Arab Muslims who constituted only 20 % of the Muslims of the
world but perceived in the West as the entire Muslim world and the
Muslims elsewhere.
The present situation in Iraq and
Afghanistan have destroyed Professor Huntington’s thesis on clash of
civilizations further. Instead it underscored the correctness of Edward
Said’s arguments about the wrong path taken by the United States and the
alllies in pursuing their so-called war on terror. In fact, the
present situation in the two countries went to establish that the Muslim
world was far from being a monolith that Professor Huntington had said
it was and in no way ready or interested or even in any positiion to
clash with any civilization, let alone the West. In fact, Muslims are
dying at the hands of fellow Muslims suggesting that the clash of
civilizations had been used by the West as an excuse to attack Muslim
countries and that the Muslim countries had little to do with the clash
and instead were the victims.
That the western countries had
themselves contributed to the one-sided clash between the West and the
Muslim countries has been underlined very recently by no other than
Hillary Clinton. In an interview to FOX TV recently, she said that the
Taliban in Afghanistan that “we are now fighting” was created by the
United States . She also stated that the US acting through Pakistan had
sponsored and supplied the other logistics to arm and strenghten the
Taliban so that it would work with the Mujahideens to fight the
Najibullah Government and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in the
1980s.
Once the Soviet Union fell and the war
in Afghanistan ended, the US withdrew from the region and left
Afghanistan to be overtaken by the Taliban and Pakistan to be
permanently scarred by the Taliban Frankenenstein that it had helped
create. In fact, even Osama Ben Laden’s safe passage from Sudan to
Afghanistan was arranged by the US intellegence.
Therefore, the admission from Hilary
Clinton that USA had a hand in establishing the Taliban is promising.
It shows a sense of responsibility of the West in acknowledging problems
in the Muslim countries where the cause of the problems have not been
the Muslim countries but the western powers. There are other promising
signs in the USA of the country moving away from the position where
it was holding Muslims no matter where they came from, responsible for
the crimes of few in the context of the events of 9/11. Already, the
signs are visible in places like the airports where Muslims no longer
feel they are being held up and harassed because of the crimes of the
9/11 terrorists. The US State Department recently came out with a
publication available on the internet. It showed how American Muslims
, estimated by sources to be close to 7 million, have been integrating
in the US mainstream and how their efforts were being supported by
the Americans encouraged by the US Government. Readers may wish to read
the publication available in the website given here;
http://photos.state.gov/libraries/amgov/30145/publications-english/American_Muslims.pdf.
If the integration of American Muslims into mainstream America is
successful and it looks it is going that way, it could lead to positive
developments for integrating the Muslim countries with the West. Muslim
Americans have their linkages with hundreds of millions of Muslims in
the rest of the world where the message of their successful integration
would undoubtedly have positive ramifications. That in turn would no
doubt establish the fallacy of Professor Samuel Huntington’s thesis of
the clash of civilizations; that a new world order would emerge as a
consequence of that clash.
The writer is a retired career Ambassador and his email id is
ambserajulislam@gmail.com
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