Naren ji,
Thanks for your kind words about my posts
. Please feel free to ask any questions at any time. Sorry for my delayed response.
Religious faith systems have emerged in human society as society evolved from small hunting gathering communities to agricultural surplus producing city states, kingdoms, empires, civilizations etc. The trend continues as we speak. All of these faith systems claim to have entire and universal solution for human social needs, but since the dawn of civilizations, faith systems have risen and fallen and some have been forgotten in the mist of history. Nothing is permanent and even the existence of our species or lifeforms on this planet is only temporary in the very big picture, one can argue.
I view human societies as similar to highly evolved complex living organisms or large systems, always adapting and changing to keep up and cope with an ever changing environment:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sociocultural_system
Eurocentric view:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immanuel_Wallerstein
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World-systems_approach
More cosmopolitan view which looks at Asian perspective and world system in the making in past 5000 years:
https://faculty.washington.edu/modelski ... pires.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Janet_Abu_Lughod
http://rrojasdatabank.info/agfrank/
http://rrojasdatabank.info/agfrank/structural.html
http://rrojasdatabank.info/agfrank/asian_based.html
The clash of civilization you have described between collectivist, religious, theocratic, conservative Islam and individualistic, scientific, secular, liberal West is essentially the story of a rising global hegemon (the West) that was able to eclipse another alternate prevailing system which is perceived as one Islamic world, but was in reality 3 large functioning system and several minor ones, which are the Ottoman Empire, Iranian state and Mughal India, which was Muslim ruled for a time, but not Muslim majority.
It is difficult to talk in such general terms, because there are so many major players and so many series of incidents. But in brief, Ottoman collapsed and many nation states in Eastern Europe, Middle East and North Africa emerged from the broken parts. Mughal was already broken up in independent Maratha, Sikh, Durrani and Bengal states, when the British colonial forces emerged victorious in their struggle with the French and Portuguese to slowly take over all of India (except the Afghan part of the Durrani empire). Britain even occupied some additional parts such as Sri Lanka and Myanmar, which were never part of the Muslim rule. Only Iranian state remained in its previous form, except for some loss of Azeri homeland in the Northwest to Russian empire. Iran's Mullah run Shia regime is a caricature of a powerful state and survives only because of its large oil reserve and oil revenue. Only Turkey as the previous core of Ottoman empire has retained some of its adaptability and emerged as a relatively viable and powerful state. All others, including the ones in South Asia are toothless basket cases. So Islam has become essentially a spent force. There is no future possiblity of any powerful Islamic state to emerge in the foreseeable future that can ensure the continuity and cohesiveness of this faith system. In this vacuum several alternate and ineffective delusional players emerged, such as brotherhood in Egypt, Hizb-ut-Tahrir in Palestine/Jordan and finally the Wahhabi creed got a boost after oil became expensive in world market. None really have a solution, because none come from the old imperial cores or power centers, but from degenerated backwaters of the Islamic space and hence the poverty of their ideas and resulting delusion, at least in my POV. Pakistan or to be specific Pakistani part of Punjab as the power center of Pakistan is similar in this regard, which bungled their way into the current mess. So there never was any clash as clash are usually between equal or semi equal peer powers, but ineffective pin pricks which has nuisance value but no real potential for threat to the global status quo, in the way the PRC's emergence is for example.
Unfortunately, the human species over-react and blow things out of proportion, politicians use bogeyman and fear factor to score political points and the gullible take the bait.
So Al Quaeda's insane idea of Khilafat and world domination also generate equally insane neo-con led attacks in Afghanistan and Iraq and the saga continues.
The whole thing would be a tragi-comedy except that millions of innocent lives have been already lost in the resulting pandemonium and while the situation seems to be stabilizing in Iraq, there is no end in sight for Afghanistan, but then things never quite were good there, so it is nothing new since Mughal sway ended there and it became a land locked orphan state and a constant off and on cauldron of chaos.
The only threatening part that have emerged in this mix is the nuclear war heads and delivery system that Pakistan (or Punjab in Pakistan) have managed to develop probably from stolen material and some help from PRC. Iran's drive for nuclear weapon is another threat. But to put things in perspective, this Pakistani or Iranian threat is limited in scope and can be wiped out by the hyper nuclear powers, such as US, Russia or PRC at any time. So Pakistan's threat is mainly India specific (for the time being, as India will soon upset this balance as its economy continues to grow) while Iran's threat is GCC specific with a particular emphasis on Israel.
Considering that a mass of healthy and highly educated, skilled and creative manpower is the ultimate source of power with their research centers of excellence, powerhouse of technology, vibrant and world competitive manufacturing base and a military industrial complex - no Muslim majority country has these currently or going to achieve them anytime soon, except for Turkey to some extent, I can safely declare that no amount of Terrorism pin prick nuisance will turn any Islamic community in any significant global power center for the foreseeable future. And for all the "Islamist" "intellectuals" spouting their meaningless world Islamic brotherhood nonsense, I can safely say, that all that you are doing since the past 100 years and most visibly since 9/11 is making a Muslim's life more and more difficult and stigmatized as the follower of a "vile and evil" faith, in the world stage.
Sorry for going off on a tangent, but all of the above is to show that there is no "clash" of civilizations, as one had already collapsed and gone comatose and making occasional nuisance pin pricks to an opponent, while the opponent is giving this brain dead vegetable body in life support some sound bit of thrashing.
Western civilization in its current form, with all its faults, is a result of its own social evolution, so it is appropriate for its own societies. Bits and pieces of good ideas can be applied, such as democracy and empowerment of the masses, to other societies, but one cannot take a whole system and transplant it to other society in its entirety, as every society or large system, is in its own path and trajectory with its own historic indigenous system, which can evolve with time with minor adjustments here and there, avoiding large scale disruptions.
So, for India and its Dharmic communities, I am a tremendous admirer of Sanatan Dharma which has survived from antiquity despite suffering so much during the Muslim and British rule. I whole heartedly support a healthy revival of this tolerant creed.
IMHO Islam, more than anything else, first needs to loose this "Islamist" Egyptian and Saudi led virus it contracted in the last 100 years and hopefully can then address its myriads of problems which caused its failures in the first place. Accepting a separation of state and mosque would definitely be one and for the most part, this was the form that took shape in Ottoman, Mughal and Safavi and later Iranian dynasties, none were a theocratic state a la Khomeini or the historic 4-Khilafa state, but were more like a secular monarch led dynastic powers, where the monarch were called Khalifa for legitimacy (none were elected or chosen per Islamic law). In fact, after the first 4 Khalifa's, the Umayads and Abbasids were also more or less "secular" hereditary dynasties, more interested in power and territory. Islamic societies has the capacity to reform itself IMHO and enhance positive traits, from within, the only reasonable example I can provide is that of Turkey. For subcontinental Muslims and specifically Bangladeshi Muslims, and Muslims in other parts of the world, I would say, that one must reflect on their local reality, on their neighbors and country men, who profess other faith, forget about dreams of past empires, that were built on the backs of mainly the skills of desert nomads such as Bedouin warriors and steppe nomadic Turko-Mongols, who found opening of weakness in neighbor states and empires. Those days are gone as they say. So it is time to take stock and concentrate on becoming good citizens of respective countries, good neighbors of respective regions specially if the neighbors are of different faith and has been affected by past excesses of Muslim states. It is time we realize that we need to keep religion away from state craft. If there is people of other faith in our midst, we need to take extra care to make sure that they are not persecuted or marginalized in a Muslim majority country or community (Kashmiri's please take note, your best bet is to welcome back all Pandits and Sikhs who had to leave). It is time we become good citizens of the world. It is also time that we expose and excommunicate the extremist in our midst who are harboring the destructive ideas which are causing so much grief for our local communities.
