Just finished reading the book "The West's Last Chance: Will we win the Clash of Civilizations" by Tony Blankley, the editorial page editor of the Washington Times. The book is funny in parts but mostly, it scared me a lot. It represents all that is wrong with the way the US has conducted it's Middle East and Muslim policy.
The author compares, the current 'Struggle against Extremism' being waged by the US to the war they fought against Nazism. He points out, how at the time, the US government imposed serious restrictions on the right to information, free speech and other fundamental rights of Americans and how they were accepted, even supported by the public as temporary war measures. He argues that the current administration should act in the same way since it too is at war. What is surprising is that in one breath the author points out the differences between WW2 and the current one and then immediately proposes that the US apply the methods and tactics of the former to the later. Not only does this have the potential to backfire very badly on the US, it might even prove fatal to the struggle they are waging.
Another advice of the author is that Europe has weakened because it has lost touch with it's religious heritage, i.e. Christianity. So the Vatican should redouble it's evangelizing efforts and try to 'restrict' Islam to the desert. He even agrees with the Pope's opposition to the entry of Turkey into EU on the basis that it is a Muslim country. The only problem with this argument is, why stop at Christianity? Europe has a much grander Roman and Greek religious heritage. Indeed it could be argued with some merit, that under the stewardship of these two civilizations, Europe made greater cultural and scientific progress than under Christianity, which imprisoned Galileo for heresy and which even today tries to control and tailor scientific progress to religious doctrine (with lesser success, Thank God). So why not rediscover Roman culture and religion? They even have the advantage of hindsight. Now they know the mistakes the Romans committed. They can consciously avoid them.
A big mistake the author has made is to try to lighten the serious mood of the book using some comedy. Here is a very funny paragraph he wrote.
"It is true that America .... acted promptly after 9/11. The United States, under President Bush's admirable leadership, swiftly removed the Taliban from Afghanistan, overturned Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq, induced the government of Pakistan to switch most of it's loyalties from the terrorists to the West, and reversed a half century of American policy that supported dictators and kings in the Middle East." Very Funny. But try to keep this away from the poor soldiers who are actually fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan. It would be just cruel to them. Plus the author needs a reality check. The US took several weeks after 9/11 to invade the Afghans. Then too it tried to get the warlords to do their dirty work for them. And if the Taliban have been removed from Afghanistan, how come Hamid Karzai is little more than the Mayor of Kabul and why are US troops still dying there. As for Saddam, his ouster has nothing to do with 9/11. The US's own intelligence agencies had said that Saddam was a secular, who saw these Islamic fundamentalists as a threat and not friends. If Pakistan's government has switched loyalties, then why is the top leadership of the Al-Qaeda still free and why are Taliban fighters freely roaming the streets of Pakistan and carrying out their attacks against the US? As for Middle East dictators....they are still there! Four years after 9/11. That should have been enough time for the new policy to show some effect!
The problems the US and Europe is facing right now are of their own making. We all know that the Middle East political map and the Israel-Palestine problem has it's roots in the tendency of European imperialist powers to divide out the land according to their convenience and political expediency. US's foreign policy mantra is 'The ends justify the means'. If these people wish to contain the monsters they have released, they should take a cold hard look at themselves and their actions to date.
Of course, it's not all the US's fault. I agree that Muslims need to deshackle themselves from the influence of mullahs and qazis. These religious figures claim for themselves the exclusive right to understand and interpret the Prophet's words. Much as the church claims for itself the exclusive right to interpret the Bible and know God's will. As a Hindu, I can look back at my own past and compare these mullahs to the brahmins who restricted religious knowledge to themselves and claimed to be the sole channel to God. I can truthfully say, it didn't work out too well for us. Muslims and Christians should learn something from our experience and reduce their dependence on self-proclaimed religious leaders.
Now that I come to think of it, it's funny how without exceptions religious leaders are always self-proclaimed. We should try to bring democracy in religion. A person who wishes to be a brahmin/qazi/priest should first study and pass exams testing his knowledge of the relevant religious texts and then stand for election against other contenders in the temple/mosque/church that he wishes to preside on. An elected religious leader can hold that position for 4/5 yrs and then has to stand for re-election. That would be totally awesome. I am gonna write another blog on this one soon.
