The Wicked Civilisation

by Iftekhar Sayeed
The demonization of the Soviet Union came to an abrupt stop with the disappearance of ‎the alleged demon. New allegations were immediately raised against the Muslim world, ‎large parts of which had been partners of the west against the former Mephistopheles. ‎Only the Muslim world posed any threat to the west - especially to America - and that, ‎too, for good reasons, as the West knew well. ‎

The Israel-Palestinian conflict had been there for decades, and now that the common ‎enemy had departed, it was time for Muslims to settle old scores. So, it was not surprising ‎that the London-based Economist newspaper devoted an entire survey to "Islam and the ‎West" in August, 1994. "One of the commonest prophecies of the mid-1990s," opined the ‎newspaper, "is that the Muslim world is heading for a fight with other parts of the world." ‎No points for guessing which other parts they might be.
Why did the Economist think that Islam might go to war with the West? Not because of ‎Israel, or the Gulf War, or the treatment meted out to the Algerian Islamists who won ‎elections there - no, not by a long shot; but because Muslims "feel ashamed of the past ‎few centuries" when they were humiliated by the West. That is to say, Muslims have an ‎irrational chip on their shoulder, not any valid grounds for complaint. After all, India and ‎China had also been humiliated, but they weren't griping against western civilization (of ‎course, this line of reasoning undermines the Economist's thesis, but never mind)....LINK 1 of 5 pages