The West is the Problem

The interaction between the West and the Middle East dates back from the early period of Islam. The West was, then, represented by the Byzantine Empire. Today the West, however, refers to the Western Europe and USA. Then, as now, the core philosophy of the West has been to create a world of its liking. This has prompted them to impose their will, design, even economic and political structures on the rest of the world. For them it has been immaterial if the world was willing or unwilling to accept their worldview. The West of the pre-Islamic and of early Islamic periods sought to dominate the world mainly through the military means. The modern West, however, has been cunning besides being brute; it has constantly sought to find out elements in the non-Western world who would embrace the Western agenda as a panacea for the ills of their societies. This insidious collaboration between the West and the Westernized is the original source of many problems the world is faced with today.

It is not to suggest that other big powers, particularly of the East, have never sought domination over the others. However, it ought to be noted that there is a sea difference between “seeking domination” and imposing one’s will over others by unmatched military superiority.

Muslims of West Asia had their times of domination; they even conquered huge territories of the non-Muslim nations. But instead of superimposing their worldview on the conquered nations, they devised means and methods of plural coexistence. One has the right to agree or disagree with how the Muslims treated their non-Muslim subjects? The fact, however, is that they gave some rights to their non-Muslim subjects, tolerated their worldview and sought coexistence with them. In the long history of Islam there might be found some exceptions to this general principle but, as the saying goes, exceptions only improve the rule.

Since the Renaissance of 13^th – 14^th centuries, the West has sought domination over the East including the Islamic world for two specific goals: to monopolize the East-West commerce and to spread Christianity or Christianity-based Western culture and civilization. Even the famous modernity movement of 19^th-20^th centuries had a pronounced Christian bias.

The terms “Christian” and “Christianity” have been used loosely, and not in their strict dictionary sense. The West, in fact, approached the East as a commercial commodity which was to be traded or captured as the situation demanded. The West also saw the Easterners as naïve, incompetent, and mired in the distant past and hence incapable of coping with the fast-paced modern world. This prejudiced view compelled them to look down upon the people of the East as inferior whose affairs must be managed by the superior and competent West. This misplaced thinking gave birth to the false superiority complex that the West has never been able to recover from.

The Muslim approach to the sciences of mankind has been one of a genuine seeker. Moreover, Islam did not monopolize sciences for itself; it rather subjected them to the service of mankind as it declared knowledge to be a common property of the human race. This attitude compelled Muslims not to think of other nations as inferior, learn from the conquered people and grab wisdom thinking as it was their own lost property. They contributed to the material development of the world but did not try to Islamize it by using force, though they had the belief that their religion was divine and, therefore, the best.

Unlike Islam, the West has always been plagued by a superiority complex. There is no denying the fact that since the Industrial Age specially the West has given the world more material comport than any previous generation of mankind. But alongside it has vainly tried to create a world of its liking and has, therefore, attempted to export its culture and worldview. In so doing it has succeeded only in creating a class of Westoxicated Easterners. The two, the West and the Westernized, with their misplaced zeal, have thrown the world into a sea of troubles. In sum, the West, being also the teacher of the Westernized, is the problem; it is specially so in the Middle East.

[August, 2003]