How Is the Rise of Islamophobia in the West Related to the Emergence of a New World Order - Literature review Example

Your Date “The rise of Islamophobia in the West is intimately related to the emergence of a New World Order.” Discuss Since ages, we have heard about the differences in East and West, and one cannot deny that the two in fact have different principles and ideas about the way of living. However, not many have been worried about the influence of Japanese, or Indian as much as about the influence of Islam or about the Muslim world. Islam, the meritorious religion with its association with Prophet Mohammad, is seen as no more than a danger to world peace. How true is that? Does this fear for Islam or Islamophobia hold any solid ground? Through this essay, we will not just try to understand Islam and Islamophobia but we will also try to understand how the trend is responsible for emergence of a new world order. It is more or less clear that after September 11 Muslims fear for their lives, cause they don’t know when they might be targeted by the CIA or any other police force for their alleged link ups with terrorist outfits. In fact, why just the CIA or western police forces, they don’t find themselves safe even in their homes-the East. Their place in Indian society has been highly endangered, especially with the Babri Demolition and Gujarat riots, Muslims know that Indian people have general hatred for them. Western countries obviously suspect them; Pakistan is like a volcano ready to erupt. Can people reside in a volcano, especially when they know it’s going to erupt? Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, and all of Middle East except for Dubai and maybe Israel (which too have seen a rise in the number of fanatics) are in no way a safe place to live not even for Muslims. It is the same in Bangladesh or other Southeast Asian countries. On the other hand, China, Korea, and Japan have such different culture that Muslims cannot adjust themselves in that environment. So where exactly should Muslims live? Muslim society is a confused society not just because they lack powerful leaders but also because their proclaimed leaders are fanatics who have done no good for them. Muslims are just as afraid about their position in the society as are the people in West afraid about emergence of extreme Islam. Doesn’t this indicate that Muslims as a society have in fact detached themselves from everybody else? The fact is that people don’t befriend Muslims easily, on top of that the identity of a Muslim fanatic as a beard growing, cruel person has only intensified the process. A normal middle class Muslim doesn’t grow a beard like a Maulavi does, but what if some people from your own religion terrorise you to keep a beard, can anyone oppose it. Look at the irony of this, SWAT’s Talibanisation has resulted in closure of barbershops, but the terrorists that attacked Mumbai were clean-shaved, smart, and young people. How can a normal person then differentiate between good and bad Muslim? This in turn has resulted in complete shunning of the group. This rise in Islamophobia, as a result of hyper active media, has only created problems for the society. Edward Said (2001) has correctly identified that “The Clash of Civilizations thesis is a gimmick like The War of the Worlds, better for reinforcing defensive self-pride than for critical understanding of the bewildering interdependence of our time.” When people go out shunning a community, they need to realize that there is going to be a backlash. The terrorist activity is certainly a backlash, and I am not justifying it. All I am saying is that, Asian and African people in West have always suffered some form of harrasment in the name of racial inferiority. When people filled with anger must have returned to their homeplaces, some of them must have thought of seeking revenge. Unfortunately, it is only the Muslim society that has come out so openly because they were the ones who had lesser knowledge compared to their counterparts and hence missed out on the opportunities the same West provided. Thus, even though they were filled with anger, but when people from almost every part of the world go against them, they will need to seek some form of protection measure, that unfortunately, turned out to be terrorism. These are perhaps the worst times for Muslim. Middle east Asia has never been stable and it still is in the same situation. If it were not for their rich oil resources, the middle east wouldn’t have been so influential, neither would have it been such a trouble maker. Afghanistan can only dream of being free from Taliban. The problem is that locals think they are too weak to go against Taliban and until someone from inside provides the necessary support, no amount of force by America can ever eradicate Taliban completely. To add to their woes, Pakistan has been declared a failed state. Pakistan’s obsession with India has completely swallowd it. They are ready to strike a peace deal with Taliban, but for all the peace efforts from India they have always shown their back. What kind of relationship/politics is that? They completely screwed the situation and in fact have left America, their allies red faced. Bangladesh too is going through a rough phase in spite of a successful democratic election process. Fanaticism of hardliners has even reached Malaysia. Can things get any worse for Muslims? Muslim society has been shifted to a brink of existence, fromwhere they cannot see their future, while the hardliners claim of wiping out all other religions. This situation is dangerous because what it means is that Muslims are living in a world of their own. Obviously there are some Muslims who are educated and well aware of the situation, like Taslima Nasrin and Salman Rushdie, but then they have fatwas issued against them. How can they fight for Muslims when they need to protect themselves from the hardliners first? In a remarkable series of three articles published between January and March 1999 in Dawn, Pakistans most respected weekly, the late Eqbal Ahmad, writing for a Muslim audience, analyzed what he called the roots of the religious right, coming down very harshly on the mutilations of Islam by absolutists and fanatical tyrants whose obsession with regulating personal behavior promotes "an Islamic order reduced to a penal code, stripped of its humanism, aesthetics, intellectual quests, and spiritual devotion." And this "entails an absolute assertion of one, generally de-contextualized, aspect of religion and a total disregard of another. The phenomenon distorts religion, debases tradition, and twists the political process wherever it unfolds." As a timely instance of this debasement, Ahmad proceeds first to present the rich, complex, pluralist meaning of the word jihad and then goes on to show that in the words current confinement to indiscriminate war against presumed enemies, it is impossible "to recognize the Islamic--religion, society, culture, history or politics--as lived and experienced by Muslims through the ages." The modern Islamists, Ahmad concludes, are "concerned with power, not with the soul; with the mobilization of people for political purposes rather than with sharing and alleviating their sufferings and aspirations. Theirs is a very limited and time-bound political agenda (Said 2001)." The late Eqbal Ahmad was so right, and yet today in a bid to protect their identity and their rightfulness, the same papers claim theories of conspiracy by India for every attack that happens in Pakistan, whether it’s Talibanisation of North West frontier or attack on Sri Lankan team. This shows the effects of Islamophobia. Not just Islamophobia has thrust Muslims in a shell but also this has forced them to get delusional and create their own theories rather than attack the problem. Due to the hype provided by media and the actions of hardliners, Muslims in general have been shunned. They have been shunned not just by Westerners but also by people from the same continent. This Islamophobia is not a good sign for any of us because it has created a vacuum between the society and the Muslim community. This vacuum cannot be filled as easily as one may think. Moreover, this gap has been steadily increasing. When one hears about one incident after another, one is bound to feel threatened. However, can we actually say that Muslim terrorists are the lone terrorists in this world? Of course not, before 9/11 one would have not even imagined that Muslim community would be shunned like that. They were considered normal human beings just like us. However, after that attack, the sort of attention they received from the media helped them grow. Today, it is a serious menace. India, perhaps the one country that always felt the need to curb Pakistan, shares its concerns with the world today. However, the measures being taken are still not enough. Edward Said has correctly called Westerner’s obsession with Islam and Islamophobia a clash of ignorance. How else can one explain George Bush’s Attack on Iraq? Not just the west but also the people in east are so obsessed with hating Muslims, that they are creating a ditch for themselves. Frequent attacks by Islamist fanatics prove this. Today we live in fear of being consumed by a terrorist attack, can we call it living? However, who is to blame for this condition? Have we ever tried to reach out to Muslims and listen to their ordeals before claiming that our fear for anybody who is a Muslim is justified? No, we never want to look beyond our own houses, why try to clean the neighbourhood when we can be safe in our homes? However, it is better if people realize that their own homes are not safe and it would be better to help Muslims to help ourselves. That would be possible only when we look beyond our fear and get over our Islamophobia. But we are all swimming in those waters, Westerners and Muslims and others alike. And since the waters are part of the ocean of history, trying to plow or divide them with barriers is futile. These are tense times, but it is better to think in terms of powerful and powerless communities, the secular politics of reason and ignorance, and universal principles of justice and injustice, than to wander off in search of vast abstractions that may give momentary satisfaction but little self-knowledge or informed analysis (Said 2001). Through the above discussion, we can conclude that Islamophobia is related to the emergence of a new world order. Islamophobia in not just west but also other parts of the world has lead to creation of a section that has its own rules and its own principles. A delusional society that thinks there is no other religion greater than their religion. Their delusion of superiority and of making the world a better place through eradication of all other religions is all a result of Islamophobia. It is essential for us to realize that by condemning a group we can never achieve peace. Neither the group being condemned nor the people condemning it can think of a bright future. This is exactly what has happened due to rise in Islamophobia. People have only grown more insecure. This world has become a less safe place. We need to understand that by creating a new world order neither the people, indulged in the act, nor are we going to achieve anything. Bibliography Al-Azmeh A & Fokas E (eds) (2007) Islam in Europe: Diversity, Identity and Influence (Cambridge: Cambridge University). Kastoryano, Riva (1998) “Transnational participation and citizenship: Immigrants in the European Union” in Transnational Communities Working Paper Series, Oxford University, December 1998 http://www.transcomm.ox.ac.uk/working%20papers/. Kastoryano, Riva (1999) “Muslim diaspora(s) in Western Europe”, The South Atlantic Quarterly, 98: 1/2, Winter/Spring. Lewis, P (1994) Islamic Britain (London: I. B. Tauris). Lincoln C (1973) The Black Muslims in America (Raleigh: Duke University Press). 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