Unavoidable Task
By Mowahid Hussain Shah
Attacks in Europe, turmoil in the Middle East, and proliferation of hate speech in mainstream USA put a unique pressure on the Western Muslim community and overall on the Muslim world. Is this a situation that may spiral out of control, or is there an alternative pathway? If so, what that might be?
Many Muslims living in the West exist on the fringe, struggling to adapt in the mainstream, and often are the routine targets of slurs in public space. The combination of alienation and humiliation exacerbated by a toxic social media and unraveling in the Middle East, are producing an explosive mix of cultural homelessness, along with deep disillusionment with happenings in the Muslim World.
In the 1930’s, European Jewry was a scapegoat; today it’s the Muslims. Western misadventures and miscalculations in Iraq and Afghanistan have led to ISIS emergence, Taliban resurgence, and Russian reassertion.
What hasn’t worked? Force hasn’t worked. This is the abiding lesson of the post-9/11 world. So-called deterrence doesn’t deter.
The Muslim world has yet to grasp the gravity of the situation. Their elites still are busy in the pursuit of paisa and perpetuation of chair occupation.
Two opportunities specific to Pakistan have been missed. The illicit Indo-US nuclear deal was, in effect, swallowed and let India and the United States off the hook when Pakistan asked for the same deal. Secondly, Indian Prime Minister Modi was barred for ten years from visiting the United States because of his complicity in the Gujarat massacre of 2002. The basis of that denial and exclusion could have been made public and that theme repeatedly hammered in global forums.
Ten years ago, the OIC missed a golden opportunity to draw a red line when the cartoon controversy originated from Denmark and erupted elsewhere in Europe.
The West may be forging a consensus on Muslims, but do Muslims have a collective consensus on the magnitude of the challenge? Instead, self-defeating infighting is rife. Missing here is an indomitable attitude.
What hovers over Western-Muslim interaction is hate. Whether in Washington or in Waziristan, the language of hate is same. One difference, however, is that in the West hate-speech now is becoming embedded in the mainstream.
US election year 2016 is proving to be a watershed for Muslims. Anti-Muslim hate has become politically profitable and socially respectable. Why? Because very few Muslims have entered into the domain of thinking professions like law, media, academia and the creative arts to present a counter-argument and a counter-narrative. This has given ample space to Indians to fill the vacuum.
By not aiming high and fixating on economic pursuits, the Muslim community became a sitting duck thereby compromising their dignity as well as their security.
Much of the crisis today is generated by power imbalance. The inertia of Millennial Muslims – mired in sameness – has aggravated the issue. Despite good education, they often lack the knowledge and confidence to dominate. Elsewhere, the net output of Muslim leadership has led to rise of sectarianism, ethnic polarization, tribal factionalism, and the poison of provincialism.
The task to redress the foregoing is unavoidable. The alternative is inferno.
