THE desecration of the Holy Quran in the West is generally believed to be an act of Islamophobia. I beg to differ. The individuals who commit such crimes

are not Islamophobic. These acts are carefully planned and executed by agents working on behalf of the state using the façade of the ‘right to freedom of expression’.

The Western states protect these criminals in the name of freedom of expression, but do not themselves tolerate the use of words, like, say, ‘Zionism’. Any criticism of Zionist Jews is considered ‘anti-Semitism’ and legal action is taken against writers or speakers in Europe if they dare criticise the Zionists.

As someone who got his education in Europe as a psychologist and lived there for a long time, I have extensive knowledge and qualitative data of the views of the Western people. According to the Oxford dictionary, phobia is an unreasonable and instinctive fear of something or a situation. That being so, the defect is in the individual rather than the situation. A phobic may well be suffering from mental disorder.

The Quran, however, is not insulted by mentally retarded individuals. Rather, it is a controlled and carefully planned policy by certain sections and agencies of some Western states. I say states, because most of the people in the West do not want a cultural clash and do not discriminate against Islam. Many Western people have rather embraced Islam, which is not just confined to prayers and rituals. It offers a social, political and economic system. This is what the political operators and thinkers fear about in the West.

They fear they will not be able to carry on their own exploitative and hegemonic system. Islam had the upper hand until the 19th century, but the West first conspired to dismantle the whole system and then controlled it through the imposition of despotic

rulers in the Islamic world. They support democracy at home and oppose it in the Muslim countries. Iran and Algeria are two major examples. Iran continues to suffer from international economic sanctions because of Islamic revolution.

The democratic governments in the Muslim world are demonised, while despotic rulers are used in the West to discredit Islam to prove that the West is ‘good’ and Islam is ‘bad’. They want to prove the West enjoys freedom and Islam deprives people of freedom, choice and opportunities. The West is progressive and Islam is regressive. The Westerners are learned and the Muslims are ignorant. Islam is dark and the West is enlightened. This is not done instinctively, but deliberately, and with due planning.

How should we deal with this situation? Islam is a universal faith with its tested social, political and economic system. This is what the Western economy and politics based on privatisation is concerned about. We should resist Western binary division of ‘us’ versus ‘them’.

We should educate our people so that they may start refusing to tolerate their respective rulers who are a source of regression and insult. We should strengthen our social, economic and political system to prevent Western hegemony. The Muslims should unite, consolidate their network, and reach out to people of all social, cultural and religious backgrounds to remove inter-faith misunderstandings.

It must be noted that Western democracy produces minority governments that create fears among their people to keep them united behind them. Otherwise, they fear, Islam will deprive them of their freedom.

It is these minority governments that use some individuals to desecrate the Quran to cause a so-called ‘clash of civilisation’. We, the Muslims, should act wisely and promote public diplomacy.

Quayyum Raja
Mirpur

Published in Dawn, October 6th, 2023