Is Islam the West's Other? Identity and Conflict in the 21st Century and Beyond

 

It is commonly held that self definition requires the existence of an ‘other’. This, it is asserted, holds true for individuals and collectives like societies. Identity- a vague and a difficult to measure concept/notion- is informed by a dialectic akin to the Hegelian dialectic wherein identity formation takes place through interaction with either peoples from the same culture or others who differ significantly from oneself. This significant difference or significant ‘other’ accords coherence and a sense of structure to individuals and societies. Identity formation is then a complex process and game.

The Cold war accorded this coherence to the west and much of the western disarray and drift in the post Cold war, it is asserted, can be attributed to the absence of a significant ‘other’. Identity construction in this post Cold war world, in some quarters, constituted a quest ‘ in search of an enemy’. It was consequently asserted that Islam provided the perfect foil against which the west could define itself t. This assertion was premised upon the ‘bad blood’-the historical rivalry-between Islam and what constituted the west during the medieval ages.

 It was held that, even in their modern day avatars, the west and Islam stood in stark contradistinction to each other given their very different and fundamentally opposed outlooks and philosophies. This debate was lent credence after September 11 when a fringe Muslim group took upon itself to avenge the alleged ‘humiliations’ wrought upon the Islamic world by the west and attacked the United States. Both lay and sober opinion veered to this opinion in the west and the thesis propounded by that great political scientist, the scholar of scholars and the doyen of doyens, the late professor Huntington.

The thesis  titled, ‘The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order’, basically held that the end of structural bipolarity, or the Cold War would , in the 21^ST century would give way to an all encompassing conflict between civilizations. It was asserted by the shy professor that the main axis of this civilizational conflict would be between Islam and the west. Islam and the west, in the good professor’s schema, were condemned to a primordial conflict and the result of this conflict would redound negatively to civilization.

This raises a set of questions, the salient of which are: Is Islam the West’s other? Are both foreordained and doomed to clash? Or can the current and contemporary phase of globalization give short shrift to this conflict? Is identity construction necessarily contingent on the significant other?

Both Islam and the west or the philosophies undergirding either are universalistic. Egocentrism and a sense of superiority which is held to be the prelude to ethnocentrism inhere in both. This, on the face of it, renders conflict and clash between these two value systems and philosophies rather inevitable. The reality, however, is more complex. Both are torchbearers and flag bearers of great civilizations and as the history of civilizations reminds us civilizations go through a cycle of rise, decline and fall. This may even constitute a historical truth and verity. And, it is very salient and poignant for the Islamic civilization- an entity and a force that reached its apogee sometime in the seventh/eighth century AD and this golden age lasted till the twelfth century AD(roughly speaking). After this, barring periods of revival (especially the Ottoman period) the overall story has been of decline and torpor.

 During this period of Islamic efflorescence and the attendant decline, the west was not a coherent entity. It was more or less congeries of principalities and kingdoms overlain by Christianity which acquired its impetus from Constantine. The ‘bad blood’ that accrued from the intermittent conflicts between the dar el Islam and what constituted the west, was premised upon what have famously been called the Crusades. The impulses behind these Crusades were multifarious: the need to maintain control by the ‘unholy alliance’ of ecclesiastical authorities and the monarchs and protecting their turf from the encroachments of the ever expanding forces of Islam. In short, this was not a civilizational conflict but multifarious conflicts which were more or less political and territorial in nature.

The world of Islam or the Islamicate, gradually lost its vigor and vitality. It retreated into itself and cocooned itself from the world.  In the meantime, the entity or the geographical zone which came to be known as the west began its rise. This rise was predicated upon the ideas and philosophies of the Enlightenment and the Renaissance- the results and fruits of painstaking work by brilliant philsophers. Essentially, this set the tone for modernity and its handmaiden, the scientific temper. The distilled essence of modernity was the questioning of dogma and tradition and quest for the mastery over nature. And the elements of modernity were ideas about man, society, government and economics. In sum, this was a triump of reason over dogma and superstition. This rendered the west west and since then these ideas have been ascendant. Yes, modernity and the ideas or impulses behind these came from a region termed as the west, but this does not necessarily mean that the west is a region or these ideas could only emanate from a certain race. Modernity, its principles and premises are universal and any civilization or culture can claim ownership of these.  The question of a clash between civilizations does not arise. It is then all about a clash or competition of/for ideas. And the ideas that emanated from what is called the west reign supreme. What, the question arises, should Islam’s reaction be to it?

Given the demonstrated success of the application of reason and the scientific method in organizing society, government, economic growth and state making, it behoves upon the world of Islam to  integrate reason with faith. It can do this by looking deep into the reservoirs of its philosophies and history and then dig out the conditions upon which reason was elevated or in the least deemed as almost integral to faith. This tradition needs to be revived and integrated into the mainstream of Islam. This does not entail frisson with the west; but fusion and synthesis. It is upon this synthesis that the Islamic world can emerge out of comprehensive decay and torpor. The salubrious news is that this is made eminently possible by globalization. Fluidity and elasticity  is inherent in globalization. And globalization stands in contradistinction to fixed ideas and entities like the state which has historically been the peg around which people hung their identities to. This means and implies that a range of identities that individuals have need not be in conflict. They can be in harmony. How is this relevant to the Muslim condition and the clash of civilizations?

The Muslim attitude of deeming the entire world as a a domain is salient here. Muslims need not align themselves to a state or a civilizational entity. They can be global citizens and deem the globe as their oyster; not to conquer but inhabit and co exist. Globalization renders this eminently possible.  The interaction with a whole host of ‘different’ peoples and the dialectic this entails will potentially lead to a different Muslim personality-at peace with itself and the world. This inevitably entails an open attitude and a temper that is in accord with modernity that emanated from the west. This is not a hypothetical condition. It is real. Other cultures not burdened with historical legacy have been globalized and become cosmopolitan in the process. It stands to reason , that Muslims too can mutate and morph.

Identities, given the fluidity that globalization entails, need not be fixed and frozen and they don’t need the existence of a significant other to fructify. Identity is malleable. And civilizations are porous entities. The osmosis that inheres in globalization can redound positively to the world and the world of Islam.   Globalization is modernity writ large and the forces of modernity are inexorable. They bring into their rubric any people or culture. The challenge for Islam is to take the bull by the horns and integrate modernity with faith lest the whirlwind of modernity engulf the world of Islam in a manner that is detrimental.

The overwhelming and powerful civilization life force is that of modernity. It may have emerged from the west. But this is serendipitous and an accident. There is no clash of civilizations on the anvil. What is happening is a clash between modernity, tradition and the forces of regression wrapped in a mantle of identity conflicts. Islam is not the west’s other. It can potentially be the west’s mirror. What needs to be done to crystallize this is to forge a world that continues to march to the drum beat of globalization. In this lies emancipation for all. Let us make haste slowly and make this world real.