Shortly after the Cold War ended with the dissolution of Soviet Union in 1991, American scholar Professor Samuel Huntington averred that clashes between cultures and cultural identities, at the broadest civilisational level, would be the primary cause of future conflicts in the world. Huntington described this as a “Clash of Civilisations”. Many in the western world regarded the emerging global scenario as a clash with “militant Islam”. People in most Islamic countries, in turn, regarded the invasion of Iraq and the accompanying American presence in countries such as Saudi Arabia as a virtual takeover of holy Islamic lands. The events of 9/11 brought these sentiments into a sharper focus.
Conflicts in Iraq, Syria and Libya, largely based on American/European military interventions, have led to terrorist attacks across the US and Europe, by Islamic groups comprising disillusioned and disgruntled Muslim immigrants. They have led to what can only be described as “Islamophobia”, in the western world. The greatest challenge for the US and its European partners today is how to keep their societies inclusive and multi-cultural as demands rise for banning, or slowing, the inflow of new Muslim immigrants. If Al Qaeda was the product of American intervention in Afghanistan and Persian Gulf, Islamic State (IS) is regarded as the product of western interventions in Iraq, Libya, Syria, Somalia and elsewhere.
Even as the western world bemoans the challenges it faces from “militant Islam”, it is the Islamic world that faces the maximum turmoil and suffering in recent days. Syria and Yemen suffered the most. In these countries, millions have lost their lives, or have been displaced from homes, not because of western intervention alone, but also because of sectarian (Shia-Sunni) and civilisational (Arab, Persian, Turkish) rivalries, within the Islamic World. The Syrian civil war has seen 4.7 lakh Syrians, including 17,000 children, killed. Sunni-dominated Turkey, Qatar and Saudi Arabia, on the one hand, and Shia-dominated Iran and Lebanon’s Shia militia, Hezbollah, on the other, back rival sectarian militias. If Sunni-dominated Syria is ruled by a Shia minority, Shia-dominated Iraq was ruled by a Sunni minority. Sectarian bloodletting in both the countries had been gruesome.
A similar situation prevails in the civil war in Yemen, where an Iranian-backed Shia Houthi militia, controlling the southern and coastal areas of Yemen, is pitted against a Saudi-backed Sunni-dominated government, wielding control over north and central Yemen. So far, 16,200 people have perished in the conflict and 2.4 million displaced. The Saudi intervention, which has included widespread aerial bombing of civilian areas, has been widely condemned by western countries, which are nominally Saudi allies. Alarmed with the conflict spreading across its borders with Yemen, Saudi Arabia has set up a 57-member Islamic Military Alliance, comprising Sunni-dominated IS. Pakistan’s loud-mouthed former Army Chief General Raheel Sharif has been designated to lead this “Islamic” force. His appointment has raised concerns in Pakistan, which has a sizeable Shia minority.
PM Narendra Modi and indeed people virtually across the entire political spectrum in India have steered clear of getting involved in these sectarian and civilisational squabbles. It is estimated that roughly 40 million out of India’s 170 million Muslims are Shias. India has the second-largest Shia population in the world. Unlike other parts of the world, and especially Pakistan, Shias and Sunnis live together amicably in India. Mohammed Ali Jinnah, an Ismaili Shia, would today have been regarded by many as a Kaffir in the country he created in the name of Islam, amidst growing Wahhabi radicalisation and sectarian strife there.
G Parthasarathy
Former diplomat
dadpartha@gmail.com