What Ails The West?
Or Why Is It Afraid of Islam?

This is a question that I have been asking myself for some time now. Before I proceed further, let me define what I mean by "The West". These are mainly West European nations that started the wave of exploration and eventually conquest from the sixteenth century onwards. The United States, Australia, New Zealand and Russia are also included in this category. On the surface, the West is at a pinnacle of power and material success and has been so for atleast 200 years. All other nations are either trying to export goods and services to these countries or are wooing their citizens as tourists or sending their own people through legal and illegal channels to them. Militarily these countries are paramount. They not only have advanced military hardware, but they also control the production of the same. So no nation today is at a position to threaten them externally. The biggest security threats these countries face (apart from internal domestic crime waves) is from non state actors who perforce have to use non-conventional means to achieve their ends. But it is not as if the targeted countries are helpless in the face of such attacks. One feature of the modern world is that a large amount of analysis takes place of past and current conditions of people. We have a much greater understanding of economics, social conditions, psychology etc. than people of even three generations previously and this expansion of knowledge seems set to continue indefinitely.

In the face of all this, the question arises: what ails the West? More specifically, why are these nations so afraid of Islam? No nation in the muslim world is a match for any Western countries. The economy of nearly every muslim country is smaller than that of even the smaller Western countries. Yet the latter is obsessed with and seems to be afraid of the former. Why? Consider the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks. Muslims were immediately targeted for profiling and this happened not just in the US but also in other nations. There have been other so-called terrorist organisations. The Irish Republic Army comes to mind. These people waged a virtual war against Britain for a considerable period of time. It is a virtual certainty that they had sympathy and help from the Irish people and diaspora. Yet at no stage were the Irish profiled in the manner that is currently being done. Furthermore this profiling is being done to all the citizens of muslim nations including those whose governments have been extremely active in co-operating with Western governments often in the face of strong domestic opposition.

It is said that the father is the making of the son. In this case, it seems that hangovers from the past are affecting the present and reaching into the future. Despite being dominant from around the 16th century onwards (and overwhelmingly so in the last 200 years), the idea of an Islamic rise seems to terrify the West.