Clash of Civilizations as an Avoidable Phenomenon - Assignment Example

Clash of Civilizations an Avoidable Phenomenon Study of civilizations based on religion has never been an easy task; it encompasses every aspect of human life. The diversity and depth of this topic intensifies with the growing need of multi culture societies. Civilizations need to learn lessons of peace and harmony because now, they have to live and interact in much compressed global village. Scholars have always been presenting their perspective in this connection which has far-reaching consequences on these civilizations and their followers. Islam, being a more then fourteen centuries old civilization and the second largest religion of the world with followers that forms 21 – 23 % of the world populations (Wikipedia, Islam) has got proportionate deliberations by scholars of almost every religion of the world. However, the perspective of various scholars has been quite diverse and sometime poles apart to each other. No matter how differently been they thinking and understanding the various aspect of Islam, the Islamic civilizations has got extensive popularity even in Western world. Broadly speaking, these perspectives can be divided into two major categories of Muslim and Non-Muslim scholars, whether western or eastern. Excluding the hardcore religious scholars on both sides the picture of Islam is presented in a realistic fashion without any prejudice. However, Islamic civilization has got major distortion in the last two centuries, owing to their increasing ignorance, intolerance and poor governance in Muslim ruled countries. Most of the modern age western scholars have presented adequate evidence of this Muslim decline in the recent past. They present this decline as an argument for Islam being an obsolete and inherently inimical religion to walk along the modern age requirements. Secondly, these western scholars claim that the under the resentment of this failure as a nation and Ummah (A word used to represent Muslims as a unit) Muslims have adopted a course of collision with west to regain their long lost glory. The other perspective however is quite different and has some substance to convince the moderate western mindset. Most of Muslim scholars are not only aware of the decay of Muslim civilization as general but also know exactly, the reasons of their downfall. They know how far the lack of education and growing social differences has contributed to their present disgrace. Though, less in number, scholars and intellectuals in Muslim Ummah are trying to rectify the situation with reason and vision. They have moderate and friendly stake towards the Western world and trying to avoid and eliminate extremist thoughts and elements. However, the phenomenon of global transformation has further complicated the issue of Islamic Identity. In simplest words by global transformation we mean open ethnic communities and cultures which accept the changing social values dictated by global media and powerful societies around the globe. The overwhelming fast development of societies and knowledge base has posed extra ordinary challenges to nearly all societies and religion of the world to protect and maintain their self-identity as a nation or a religious group. The global transformation demands a new multi-culture approach where people have to live and share in more compressed globe as identified by Ronald Robertson, "the worlds compression, which is accompanied by the emergence of multicultural identity" (Robertson 1992: 61). The challenge of combating this great surge of globalization with magnanimity and dignity is itself a great test of nerves for a culture, who values the self-esteem high. Nearly, all the major communities and religion have resisted this global transformation, but what makes it different in case of Islam, is the extremism. The Islamic resistance to the global transformation is not a unique phenomenon; however its dimensions, severity and approach can be analyzed and reviewed at appropriate intellectual level. There is a general feeling of anger, denial, and social tension which should be addressed in an educated and prudent manner. This leads us to the question of exploring issues which need attention of Muslim societies to bring programmatic changes from within to cope up with these issues at a critical period of Islamic history. The first and foremost issue of Islamic world is to bring about an education revolution. This will not only built their future races but will also rebuild their self-esteem and worth among other civilizations. Muslims have got tremendous past to boost their moral and should strive to be the leaders in every field of knowledge and specially science and technology. This gigantic task requires an all-out effort by Muslim societies, particularly from those who have got sufficient resources to rebuild future of their own and rest of the Muslim Ummah. They have to set education as their first priority in regaining an elevated and respected place in global context. More and more resources are required to be put into the education sector. They need to concentrate is higher education, where universities producing hundreds and thousands of Muslim philosophers and scholars every year. Their contribution in the field of research and development should increase to their proportionate presence on the globe. Rising from this level of academic dearth to the glories of knowledge is not a simple formula; it requires ambition, vision, hard work and sincere implementation of long-term policies. The second, most important issue is to introduce revolutionary changes in their political system, where the presence of common men is only nominal. Mostly, the political scene is dominated by the elite class, either ancestry or millionaires. And none of them is interested in the well being and social equality of the masses. Democracy, if at all, it is there has to be strengthened. A democratic system can bring the common man up into the main stream gradually but surely. It will also promote social justice in long-run which can turn the destiny of masses. Stable democratic societies will ensure stable economic growth and a culture of accountability among the ruling class, which can bring better life to people. More and more satisfied people with better education and skills will display a better attitude towards their social and global responsibilities. It will mollify the anger and intolerance and will bring more happiness and contentment in the life of common men. Poverty is the root cause of instability, insecurity and public anger in most of the third world Muslim societies. It instigates intolerance and extremism which has manifested itself in various forms of violence. More often than not, poverty is attributed to mismanagement and misconduct in economic policies. Corruption has dismantled most of the efforts to eradicate the curse of poverty from these societies. In most cases there is no stability of polices and political process which reduces chances of foreign investment. Economically stable Islamic block has to come forward and address the issue in a befitting manner by either direct or indirect funding into the various poverty alleviation programs and projects. Establishment of Islamic Common Wealth organization will be considered a serious step towards the overall betterment of Muslim Ummah. Better education, stable democratic process and poverty alleviation are not the only issues but they may be termed as the key issues. A speedy resolution of these concerns will ultimately pave the way for prosper and stable Islamic societies. These steps in fact are the basic teaching of Islam and if Muslims begin to practice their religion in letter and spirit, they can bring programmatic changes in their societies which are the need of hour at this critical period in the history of Islam. As far the question of a surge clashes is concerned, under the circumstances any such expedition by Islamic World against the West is fairly unlikely. Most of the Islamic world is confronting serious internal and external challenges. A clash with West is not the best option for them, rather it will further aggravate the situation because Islamic world is facing lack of leadership, technology and strength as an Ummah. Some frustrated Muslim groups are launching terrorist and extremist attack on Western interests; however, these extremist groups have failed to display any reasonable support of Muslims at large. Having said this, the limited episodes of clashes are quite probable but these are confined to specific areas and groups. A lot of power has already been employed to curb these activists and extremist group and this have reduced the chances of any clash of global impact to the minimum. It is imperative defuse the tension created by the 9/11 attacks because declaring those attacks “Crusade” was not a prudent gesture rather it added fuel to the fire and Muslims perceived that the Western powers are dogged to uproot the Muslim civilization. No doubt, the 9/11 attacks should have been dealt as fiercely as it is done but educated decisions should have been made at the highest level to eradicate any attempts of translating the war against terror to a war against Islamic civilizations. The phenomenon of clashes is overstated by a limited number of scholars mainly based on the activities of few Islamic extremist. “Cavitations are the largest aggregates that command human loyalties and account for much of the bloodshed in the recorded human history. Cold war marked a brief departure from it but now old enemies could go to the past time, waging wars against each other. The biggest threat to the west at present comes from China and Islam.” (Huntington, 1993). However, it is important to understand the state of affairs in a balanced way, while many fundamentalist groups are posing an organized resistance to global transformation and liberalism; there are even larger groups of moderate Muslims in Islamic World. Therefore, fundamentalist have failed to launch serious and persistent clash movements against West. The role of silent majority has played a pivotal role in avoiding clash of civilizations to a great extent and West should encourage and assist to organize such moderate Muslims to counter the extremism and terrorism from within Islamic world. It is the need of hour to extinguish the fire of hatred among the two great civilizations and to promote peace and harmony. Works Cited Huntington, Samuel P. Clash of Civilizations. USA: Journal of Foreign Affairs, 1993. Print. Robertson, Ronald. Globalization: Social Theory and Global Culture, Newbury Park, CA: Sage, 1992, Print Web Publications Wikipedia. “Islam”. Wikipedia.org. Islam, Web. 08 December, 2010. Read More