FEBRUARY 01, 2017: DAILY SUN
This universe, especially our globe is ever changing. We have come to know so far that there is no existence of life in any of other planets, solar systems or galaxies of this universe which is expanding gradually spreading over millions of light years. And perhaps because of that the pace of changes, other than materialistic, is very much slow there. Only the intelligent living creatures can bring remarkable changes of both materialistic as well as abstract to any place or circumstances.
Since the very beginning of human civilisation the struggle for power, wealth, supremacy, and dominion has been prevailing in this planet. Every civilisation and super power of modern days would try to uphold their dominion over others forever. Any significant or remarkable changes took longer time to happen during the ancient period. One civilisation or power would rule over hundreds of years. The Greek, Roman and the Persian Civilisations reigned over a significant portion of the world over hundreds of years.
Since the inception of the Islamic civilisation such changes gained pace. The Islamic civilisation opened the door of multidimensional thinking, the thinking of modern science and technology. Hundreds of Muslim chemist, physicist, mathematicians and scientists of various branches of knowledge spread their knowledge throughout the world especially in Europe that eventually led to the Renaissance in Europe. Muslim scientists, scholars gained some knowledge from the ancient civilisation of Greek, Persian, Indian and other contemporary civilisations, but the thinking of those ancient civilisations was very much limited and in a very preliminary stage. Therefore, they could not make any revolutionary changes in the field of science and technology. Islamic civilisation did it with the mastery.
Before the inception of Islamic civilisation the Roman and Byzantine Empire spread over Europe, round the Mediterranean, Middle East and eventually they had to lose their supremacy in the rise of Islamic civilisation. During the middle ages, the Islamic civilisation reigned over more than half of the world. They were the supreme powers in terms of knowledge, wisdom, science, technology, honesty, morality and so on. They had been able to create a knowledge-based society with high moral and ethical values. Islamic Spain had played an important role as the intellectual Muslim centre in the West, through which Far and Near Eastern as well as Greek and Arabic technical, scientific and philosophical knowledge reached medieval Europe. Islamic Spain was also the most advanced and open civilisation in Europe or the Middle East. For more than 700 years, Islamic Spain was one of the most enlightened societies in the Western world. Unfortunately, it would not last. They had more concentration in practicing knowledge, building universities than patronising the efforts of spreading Islam. Eventually the Muslims were rooted out from Spain. Millions of books were burnt and many Muslims were also burnt alive.
The Mogul Emperors ruled India for hundreds of years, but inefficiencies, lack of foresightedness of some of the emperors and conflict for gaining power did not give them to last long. For example, the successor of the most successful emperor, Aurangzeb turned out to be weak and incompetent to take control of the entire empire. Most of them found pleasure in lavish lives without bothering the stability of the state. This created weaknesses that led to the decline of the once strong and stable empire.
It was also thought that the sun of British Empire never sets. But after a certain period they were bound to abandon their colony. Once they would dominate all over the world and at present they even cannot control their domestic affairs properly. Certainly the British colonialists did not want to abandon those countries as their colony. But there had been some changes in those countries such as, the rate of literacy, consciousness among the mass people about the basic human rights and independence. Moreover, it was also not viable for them to rule such a big empire.
With the immergence of the consumer society in the modern world dominating markets through corporate colonialism have become more viable than taking control over land. All of those changes were inevitable. The independence of South Asia from the British rule was the first blow to the mighty colonialists. The BREXIT might also be another turning point in the decline of British influence all over the world. Even the kingdom might be broken down in the near future.
But at present the number of Muslim population in Europe is increasing significantly even in Spain from where they were rooted out. The population of Muslim is increasing rapidly mainly in Britain, Germany and French. Some Social Scientists in Europe speculate that by the year 2050 the Muslim population in Europe would surpass the number of mainstream population. All of us must agree that the Christian world never tolerate the domination of Muslim in Europe. They do not imagine it even in their dream. Consequently the extreme rightist or populism movement is growing in Europe. But the question here is that why they do not oust the Muslim from Europe or stop their migration to Europe? The answer is that this is absolutely inevitable. They have been bound to consider the matter from humanitarian and economic point of view. The number of Muslim people has not increased overnight. Most of the Muslims are more or less scholar, honest or industrious. They are contributing a lot to their economy.
Under these circumstances they are in a complete dilemma. We also witnessed an effort of ethnic cleansing in former Yugoslavia when hundreds of thousands of Bosnian Muslims were brutally killed, but all of those cleansing efforts culminated in the creation of a new independent country, Bosnia Herzegovina.
Since the fall of Ottoman Empire of Turkey in early 20th century, the effort to establish extreme secularism started in the hands of Kamal Ataturk and continued up to the beginning of Erdogan era. During that period there had been a huge effort of the rulers of Turkey backed by the secularist Military to achieve the standard of mainstream Europe and to maintain the terms and condition given by the European Union. Despite their cordial efforts and maintaining the hard terms and conditions given by the European Union, Turkey is still remaining out of European Union whereas some predominant Christian countries have got membership very easily. The main reason behind this matter is that Turkey is predominantly a Muslim country. Whereas Europe has been suffering from the phobia of the growth of Muslim population and migrants coming from all over the world they do not want to take risk of free movement of additional 80 million Muslims from Turkey across Europe and the revival of the golden age of Ottoman Empire when Turkey dominated all over Europe.
The mass people of Turkey at last came to realise that in spite of their avoiding the heritage, rituals, culture and values of Islam the EU ultimately would refuge their membership in the Union. From that realisation people of Turkey have elected Recep Tayyip Erdogan as their president who believes in showing respect to the values, culture and the rituals of Islam, especially the Head Scarf which was strictly prohibited to wear publicly.
Consequently, the density of women wearing head scarfs once was less in Turkey than in Britain. Erdogan government has now lifted the ban on head scarf and hijab. Because wearing hijab, head scarf or bikini or whatever is the matter of the freedom of choice. At last the change has begun and this change would be inevitable to the secular Military power and with the recent failed coup their dream has reduced to a complete nightmare.
America is the country of migrants and is the largest brain hunter. It is also the dreamland for the people all over the world. A large number of students studying in the USA are from different countries. This is a huge income for the USA. Many scholars from all over the world are also contributing to the US economy, scientific and technological advancement significantly. Recently, the US authority is suspecting the Muslims, especially the students, as the mastermind behind the terrorist attacks in the USA. The popular slogan “we shall make America great again” played an influential role behind Trump’s victory in the US election. In the first week in power, Trump is implementing his inaugural speech “America First” and people of seven Muslim countries have been banned to enter USA. But why this slogan has been so popular? Has America lost its status of one and only superpower within a quarter century after the collapse of Soviet Union? This is a reality that America has lost its absolute dominion in terms of wealth, money, military power and knowledge. America has already spent trillions of dollars during the last two decades in the name of war on terror. But the enemy is still to be identified clearly. On the other hand, many other powerful nations, like China, Germany, Japan, Brazil, India and South Korea have been investing billions of dollars in industrialisation, education, research, innovation and human resource development. These two categories of spending or investment would inevitably bring two separate results.
Fall and rise of the civilisations, colonial powers and the richest nations is a natural phenomenon of the globe. Such type of change and shifting of power sometimes come overnight and sometimes take ages to come into being. Misconducts, wrong decisions, lack of foresightedness, oppression, fascism, cruelty and many other humanitarian follies and vices of some responsible personalities, leaders lead to ultimate destruction. The more serious the follies, the faster will be the ruin and visa versa.
© Copyright: Reserved by the writer (Noore Alam Siddiqui)
