- "The West won the world not by the superiority of
its ideas or values or religion but rather by its superiority in applying
organized violence. Westerners often forget this fact, non-Westerners never
do." - Samuel P. Huntington
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- During his visit to Europe, George Bush emphasised to
his European hosts that spreading freedom and democracy was the only way
of defeating terrorism in the Middle East and the wider Muslim world. His
remarks echo a familiar tenet of his presidency - freedom triumphing over
terrorism.
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- But, by coining the struggle as freedom versus terrorism,
the Bush administration has avoided answering some pertinent questions
like - What is terrorism? Who are the terrorists? Who is the enemy in the
eyes of Bush and his acolytes the neo-conservatives?
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- The 9/11 Commission (by no means the first) stressed
that the term war on terrorism was misleading and recommended that it should
be renamed to place greater ideological emphasis against Islam. In October
2001 US General Wesley Clark, said that the US war against terrorism "was
a war over Islam" that would define Islam "as either a peaceful
or militant" force in society [1]. Yet others have argued that it
should be appropriately labelled war against political Islam.
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- Whatever differences exist amongst Americaís political
elite over the naming of the war there are few to be found amongst ordinary
Americans. Thanks to the Islamaphobic corporate media, most Americans irrespective
of their political orientation view the war on terror as a fight against
Islam.
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- The same milieu exits in Europe. The lack of boldness
on part of the Europeís political class to confront Bush on these
questions together with the Islamaphobic media has convinced ordinary Europeans
that their new enemy is Islam and Muslims who live in their midst
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- Before 9/11 Muslims long held the view that American
intervention in their lands is part of the ongoing struggle between Islam
and the West. The aftermath of 9/11 only served to reinforce this view.
Today an overwhelming majority of Muslims believe unequivocally that the
war terrorism is a war against Islam and Muslims.
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- Hence, behind Bushís charade of fighting terrorism
the clash between Islam and the West is well and truly under way. This
struggle is being fought at several levels. The most important of all is
the ideological struggle. The winner of this battle will decide whether
the future belongs to Islam or Western secular liberalism.
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- So the question that now arises is who is winning the
battle of ideas? The answer is that the West long ago lost the ideological
war against Islam. This due to the following reasons:
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- 1. The West has spent the last two hundred years combating
Islamic thoughts in the hope of dissuading Muslims from Islam. This campaign
began with the orientalists who studied Islam and attacked its beliefs
and rules.
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- For instance they attacked the divinity of the Quran,
jihad, polygamy, the Islamic punishment system and the Caliphate. But despite
this organised effort to alienate Muslims from Islam, the West is facing
a resurgent Islam both at home and abroad.
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- In the West, Islam is the fastest growing religion both
amongst immigrants and the indigenous community. Between 1989 and 1998
the Islamic population in Europe grew by over 100 percent, to 14 million
(approximately 2 percent of the population), according to United Nations
statistics [2]. "Within the next 20 years the number of British converts
will equal or overtake the immigrant Muslim community that brought the
faith here", says Rose Kendrick the author of a textbook guide to
the Koran [3]. America is not immune from this phenomenon. One expert estimates
that 25,000 people a year become Muslims in the US; some clerics say they
have seen conversion rates quadruple since Sept. 11[4].
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- Conversion figures aside, the attitudes of Muslims living
in the West towards secular liberalism is equally damning. A recent ICM
poll surveying Muslim attitudes in Britain published the following results:
81% view freedom of speech as a means of insulting Islam, 61% support the
Sharia, 88% want Islam in schools, and 60% do not think they need to integrate.
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- If this is the outlook of Muslims in one of the main
citadels of enlightenment then one can only guess the stance of Muslim
world towards secular liberal values. Suffice to say that the West has
failed to convince the Muslim masses that Western culture is better than
Islam.
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- 2.In the past the West employed the services of modernists
such as Rifaía At-Tahtawi (1801-1873), Jamal Ad-Din Al-Afghani (1838-1897),
Muhammad Abduh (1849-1905), Taha Hussein (1889,1973) and Rashid Rida (1865-1935),
Syed Ahmad Khan (1817-1898) to spear head their campaign of introducing
Western culture under the guise of Islam. The impact of these reformists
has not only been nullified but also reversed.
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- Todayís modernists find themselves in precarious
situation. They are despised by Muslims and are seen as instruments of
the cultural imperialism undertaking the Westís bidding to defame
Islam.
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- In Western eyes they are viewed as being too Islamic
and are no longer entrusted with the responsibility of turning Muslims
away from Islam. Americaís decision to revoke Tariq Ramadanís
visa and the media outrage at Al-Qardawiís visit to the UK epitomises
Westís mistrust of modernists. On the whole they are discredited
and have become irrelevant in the battle of ideas between the West and
Islam.
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- 3. The biggest blow dealt by the West against the Islamic
world came on March 3rd, 1924, when Britain through her stooge Mustafa
Kamal destroyed the Caliphate. Lord Curzon speaking in the House of Commons
said, "The point at issue is that Turkey has been destroyed and shall
never rise again, because we have destroyed her spiritual power: the Caliphate
and Islam. ì Subsequently, the European powers curved up the Islamic
lands between them establishing direct colonial rule over the Muslim people.
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- The Muslim masses for the first time were exposed to
Western solutions ranging from economic solutions which plundered their
wealth to an educational syllabus which disconnected them from their history,
reduced Islam to a mere set of rituals and taught them how to think like
Westerners.
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- Moreover, Islam was effaced from temporal life only to
be replaced by a secular rule. Later the West granted pseudo independence
to the Muslim countries they had invented and appointed loyal servants
to safeguard Western interests and to rule over Muslim people on their
behalf.
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- If the West had thought that eight years of subjugation
to secularism would have been enough to deter the Muslim masses from political
Islam then they were gravely mistaken. The ferocity and direction of todayís
Islamic revival has seized the attention of Western leaders. Vladimir Putin,
Tony Blair and Donald Rumsfeld have joined a long chorus of Western leaders
in 2004 warning about the dangers of a resurgent Caliphate. This was aptly
summed up by Kissinger who said,îÖwhat we call terrorism in
the United States, but which is really the uprising of radical Islam against
the secular world, and against the democratic world, on behalf of re-establishing
a sort of Caliphate [5]î.
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- 4. There is an inherent flaw in the ideology of secularism,
which has led to its predictable rejection by the Muslim world. This is
because secularism insists on restricting the role of Islam in society
to personal worships only. Political decisions about running the society
are left to human beings. This directly contradicts the doctrine of Muslims,
which considers politics an indivisible part of Islam i.e. to Muslims Islam
is politics. Bernard Lewis gave a similar assessment and said, ìThe
absence of native secularism in Islam and the wide spread rejection of
an imported secularism inspired by Christian example, may be attributed
to certain profound differences of belief and experience in the two religious
cultures [6]î.
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- Furthermore, secularism always leaves a spiritual void,
especially when human beings are confronted by problems, which they are
unable to solve. Separating God from temporal matters only accentuates
this feeling
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- It is this intellectual weakness that has contributed
to the dramatic rise of political Islam under the secular autocratic rule,
which pervades much of the Muslim world.
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- The West should take heed from the inability of communism
to dissuade Muslims from Islam. Communism a far deeper ideology than secularism
also failed to convince the Muslim masses of materialism and man made laws.
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- 5. The duplicity of the West in promoting Western values
across the Muslim world has greatly undermined its credibility. Especially,
after September 11, when Western doubles standards reached new heights.
It was the episode of Abu Ghraib that revealed the true extent of the Western
hypocrisy and hatred towards Muslims.
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- Western ideas such as freedom, democracy, human rights
were given a devastating blow not by Muslims, but by America the so-called
defender of liberty. Even the agent rulers in the Muslim world were left
gasping and could not shield America from the evil crimes she had committed.
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- In one swoop, America by its own handiwork had permanently
damaged its standing in the Muslim world and had gravely weakened the very
ideas that represent the cornerstone of Western civilisation. So much so,
that many non-Muslims are questioning the validity of these ideas and the
deceitful role played by their governments abroad.
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- Hence for the very first time, Western governments are
faced with the challenge of convincing their own citizens why these values
have to be curbed at home, while these values are forcibly thrust upon
the Muslim world. Perhaps Westerners should seek solace in the words of
Oscar Wilde who said, ìDemocracy means simply the bludgeoning of
the people by the people for the people.î
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- These are some of the reasons, which have contributed
to the Muslim worldís rejection of Western culture and its secular
liberal philosophy.
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- The stark reality facing Western governments today is
that the Muslim ummah (Muslim nation) has won the battle of ideas. The
chapter of ideological struggle between the Muslim ummah and the West is
more or less closed. But the chapter of political struggle between the
ummah and the West is still open- albeit for limited period. This is because
the West and their surrogates have no political legitimacy left in the
Muslim world. These surrogates only survive because of dogged support from
Western powers.
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- Therefore the West and their puppets stand alone in coercing
the ummah to accept Western values. While the ummah stands firm rejecting
Western culture and calling for the return of a global Islamic state. The
two positions are irreconcilable and polarisation in viewpoints between
the regimes and its people cannot continue indefinitely.
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- It is only a matter of time before Muslims overthrow
the secular order, which has been unjustly imposed upon them. Sensing the
failure of its surrogates to contain political Islam, the West under the
pretext of fighting terrorism has sought to re-occupy the Muslim lands
in a desperate bid to reinforce its values and to safeguard its material
interests.
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- Westís behaviour towards the Muslim world can
be likened to that of a failed schoolteacher. A failed schoolteacher is
a person who continues to beat his pupils in the vain hope of imbuing them
with the values of the school. Instead, the teacher not only loses control
of the class but also brings down the very establishment he is trying to
protect.
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- Indeed Westerners have got far less to fear from the
Islamists and more to fear from their own governments who in the name of
freedom and democracy are slowly but surely ebbing away at the very foundations
of their civilisation.
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- 1. Wesley K. Clarke speaking on BBC World's Hardtalk
programme, October 29 2001
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- 2. Muslims in Europe, The Economist, October 18, 2001.
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- 3. The Spread of a World Creed, The Times, November 9
1993
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- 4. Islam Attracts Converts by the Thousands, The New
York Times, October 22 2001
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- 5. Henry Kissinger, Hindustan Times, Nov 2004
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- 6. What went wrong?, Bernard Lewis, 2003
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- http://www.aljazeerah.info/
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