Reality of the Clash

There is no gainsaying that the 9/11 attack on America was the most defining moment of the last decade in the clash between modernism and medieval-age savagery. That was not just an attack on America and its policies, but a calculated assault of jihadi super-terrorists with the sole intent of sending out a message of exclusivity to the so-called infidels across the world. Remember, Al-Qaeda’s target was, and is, not just the US; its, in tandem with forces like the Taliban, is an ambitious project for a worldwide Caliphate where there will be no room for non-Islamic faiths. Nor will that perverse order tolerate the liberal Muslim. Let us accept this: Samuel Huntington’s ‘‘clash of civilization’’ thesis may be wild imagination for the self-styled secularist or peacenik for whom it is politically inconvenient to accept the fact of jihadi terrorism, but it is this very clash that the likes of Osama bin Laden are proud of having taken to a new criminal height. Ditto with groups like Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) and Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM), under the tutelage of the Pakistan Army’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), which seek to carve an Islamic state out of the Hindu-majority India. It does not matter to them that they live in a different world and have no takers among the sensible Muslim lot. But what matters to them is their commitment to fanaticism, the support they enjoy in their community, and the half-hearted condemnation of their ideas and actions by even the modern Muslim voice — thus giving them the impression that they are the real saviours of Muslims. This is the tragedy. THE SENTINEL