February 11, 2006

The Emerging Conflict

Dr. Muzaffar Iqbal

Almost three months after their original publication, the “cartoons” have finally attracted the attention of Muslim religious leaders and, through their outburst, that of the masses. Citing the “right of freedom of expression”, the Danish government initially refused to take notice of the feeble protests of diplomatic envoys of Muslim countries who tried to extract an apology from the newspapers. Equally useless was the protest of the small local Muslim population and that of a few other isolated voices outside Denmark. But, as the protests gained momentum and boycott of Danish products became a reality, an apology of form was offered to satisfy the disgruntled, alongside an humiliatory rejoinder that unlike Europe, Islam and Muslims have yet to embrace the freedom of expression enjoyed by the civilized world. In short, it is the Rushdie Affair all over again. These despicable caricatures have touched certain old wounds in the Muslim psyche, but apart from emotive responses and anger a far more basic issue is involved.

Seen from the European perspective, nothing is more sacred than “freedom of expression”. This right has been won through a long process and remains the cornerstone of Western civilization and the basis of its political, economic, social, and cultural norms. This right to express one’s opinions freely has contributed tremendously to the emergence of stable polities in the West. But this stability has not been accomplished merely through the right and means of freedom of expression; rather, there have simultaneously appeared numerous state and private institutions which make the exercise of freedom of expression meaningful. Without these mechanisms, mere freedom of expression would have produced nothing but anarchy. These institutions not only include vast networks of public communication, but also civic bodies, local councils, and other institutions accountable to elected representatives.

However, all of these developments have been possible in Europe and North America only because of the reign of a certain worldview—one admittedly with numerous discordant voices, which however emerge from within its own prism. This prism through which most Westerners view everything emerged in Europe through two successive revolutions: the Scientific Revolution of the seventeenth century and the Enlightenment Movement. The first cast the two-thousand-year-old Aristotelian/Ptolemaic view of the physical universe into the dustbin of history, and the second revolution replaced the Kingdom of God with a Kingdom of Man in which nothing remained sacred except what men could make sacred.

These two revolutions forged a unity of thought in Europe and in their vast new home across the Atlantic over the next three hundred years. This was not achieved without numerous wars and conflicts, but the Second World War seems to have brought a final resolution to their internal conflicts by producing mechanisms to resolve new issues.

World War II also produced another revolutionary change in the world: the emergence of numerous small, impoverished, unstable, and violent states across the length and breadth of Asia, Africa, and the Middle East. Ironically, these states were carved out by the European powers themselves in order to perpetuate their interests in their former colonies in new form. But this transition also brought a very large number of people from the colonies to the European heartland and to North America. Among these emigrants, Muslims have now emerged as the single most distinct community. Thus, for the first time since the seventeenth century, the unity of thought achieved in the West faces a new challenge by a small community which has not subscribed to the European worldview. In addition, the sheer thrust of recent events has made the entire Muslim world focus of a new conflict which, in spite of its various political, economic, and cultural dimensions, remains a conflict between two very different belief systems.

The first consists of those beliefs of Western civilization which arose out of the two afore-mentioned revolutions in Europe and which established a Kingdom of Man in which the ultimate arbitrator of all affairs is Man himself. This belief system has produced its own political, economic, and cultural institutions and norms. It has given birth to a legal system and a system of statecraft in which a state can enact laws on the basis of public opinion without regard to any internal moral and ethical inconsistencies. For instance, the same state can enact laws to legalize same-sex marriage and to monitor email communications and wire-tap telephones without blinking twice, merely because public opinion is at the moment in favor of these. This is possible because there is no other standard left to monitor these developments.

On the other hand, the Muslim world—in spite of its numerous failures—remains bound to the Law of the Book which makes certain things sacred and deserving utmost respect and reverence. There are holy places and noble personalities, including Prophets who carried the Message of the Creator to humanity. There are certain beliefs and customs which are held in highest esteem. There are rights and rituals which significantly mark the passage of one’s life. And all of these come from beyond the human domain—from a Creator Whose presence is acknowledged by all believers throughout the day.

This the West ultimately cannot accept. It cannot grant the right to believe in the sacred. It cannot even fathom the unbound loyalty, love, and reverence for the Prophet which circulates in a Muslim’s blood. In spite of its self-proclaimed enlightenment, it cannot grasp the light in the heart of a believer when it is filled with divine presence. And Muslims cannot subscribe to the Kingdom of Man without compromising or revoking their belief in Islam. Thus we have the making of the new global conflict between two belief systems.

The outcome of this conflict is ultimately going to decide the fate of humanity, for it is a total encounter of a kind never before witnessed in human history. The sheer speed of events, the physical proximity of the two worldviews, and the extent of violence involved are indicative of its extraordinary nature. Nothing can be said with certainty about the next turn of events, though it seems that the conflict is going to sharpen in the years to come. Already, one can see that over the last quarter of a century, numerous events have forged greater unity among the peoples who are members of the “Kingdom of Man”. With its power base in the United States of America and satellites in New Zealand and Australia, Europe is forging an even closer unity. On the other hand, the Muslim world is just beginning to realize its predicament and its numerous leaders have yet to understand the fundamentals of this new conflict. In fact, most of them keep on repeating the patter that there is no fundamental conflict between Islam and the West.

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