FROM the bloodletting in Aceh in Indonesia to the recent killings in Nigeria, Muslims and Christians are at each other's throats. Europe is not immune from these religious wars: witness the slaughter of Muslims in the Balkans and in Chechnya.
And yet followers of both faiths are 'people of the book' and adherents of very similar beliefs. What divides them is not so much conflicting dogmas as clashing nationalisms. A thousand years of invasions, crusades and jihads have burdened their relationship with a gory history. Myths and legends have been woven into the fabrics of both civilizations, extolling one and demonizing the other. For centuries, the exploits of Charles 'The Hammer' in stopping the advance of the Muslim army from Spain into France have been sung in courts and taverns across Europe. Similarly, stories about Salahuddin Ayubi, the scourge of the Crusaders, are taught to every Muslim schoolboy.
The fierce horsemen from the steppes of Central Asia have inspired great dread among the nations of Europe from the time of the Roman Empire. As many of these animists converted to Islam, this atavistic fear transferred to Muslims generally, and to Turks in particular. Once they had captured Constantinople in the 15th century, the worst fears of the West were confirmed, and a long struggle for supremacy began. In England, until the turn of the 19th century, nannies would threaten children with the "Terrible Turk" if they did not behave.
Without realizing it, Muslims lost this struggle when the Industrial Revolution took hold in Europe by the 18th century. Rapidly, much of the non-European world was colonized, and traders were accompanied by soldiers and priests. In much of the conquered territories, churches were viewed as symbols of imperialism, and conversions through force and bribery were common. Indeed, colonization was justified at home through pious talk about bringing the light of civilization and the Christian faith to heathens. As these colonists were white and most of their subjects ranged from yellow to black, it was inevitable that racism developed quickly, and was institutionalized as a de facto apartheid.
This, then, is the historical, cultural and emotional baggage Muslims and Christians are carrying in their interaction with each other. Apart from personal prejudices, Muslims also have a collective sense of historic grievance as they feel they have been displaced as a world power by the Christian West. This sense of deprivation is unique to them as the Hindus and Buddhists, for example, were not expansionist civilizations.
Israel, a Jewish state, is widely viewed in the Muslim world as a dagger planted by the West in the heart of Islam. This view is reinforced by the open-ended financial, military and diplomatic support given to Tel Aviv by the United States. It is human nature to blame others for our own faults and weaknesses, and Arabs have consistently ascribed their humiliating military defeats at the hands of Israel to Western plots and conspiracies instead of analyzing the flaws in their own societies.
The one thing that unifies Islamic militants and politicians across the world is a burning hatred of the West in general, and the United States in particular. Alleged terrorists like Bin Laden and Ramzi Yusuf are heroes in the eyes of bearded militants from Karachi to Khartoum. In their narrow world-view, all liberal, secular and rational thought reflects a Western mindset, and anybody professing such a philosophy is automatically suspect. This obscurantist attitude has translated into a crippling rejection of science and scientific methodology, and the result is the prevailing barrenness in virtually every area of research in Muslim nations.
The last millennium has witnessed much competition and strife between Islam and Christianity, and if the current mood of militancy is anything to go by, this conflict will extend well into the new era. The demographic reality is that Muslim populations are increasing at a much faster rate than Western, Christian ones. To sustain their current level of material well-being, industrialized countries will have to allow significant numbers of immigrant workers to replace their aging workforce, and many of these will be Muslim. Already there is growing friction in Europe between Muslim workers and locals; this alienation will only increase, and will in turn feed resentment in the West and the East.
The growing religious fervour and militancy in countries like Indonesia, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Algeria, Sudan and Nigeria is a matter of great concern among more moderate Muslim nations. This problem assumes an international dimension when one considers that traditionally Islam does not recognize national frontiers. Thus, radical elements consider it their right and indeed, duty, to go to other Muslim countries to topple what they consider 'unIslamic' governments. In line with this belief, volunteers from other Muslim countries (including Pakistan) are fighting in Afghanistan and Chechnya. Their active presence is also alleged in Indian-held Kashmir.
The flip-side of this internationalist coin is that these extremists do not have much of a stake in their own countries, and consider local laws and institutions to be irrelevant to their agenda. With the stated intention of uprooting the existing system and replacing it with a vague one based on faith, they are implacable foes of the post-colonial state. In their world-view, the ruling elites are perceived as agents of the West and therefore to be overthrown. Scientific education and research are viewed with deep suspicion. Women are relegated to an inferior position in society.
These self-imposed constraints have the ironic effect of hampering the declared effort to confront and defeat the West. Weakened by their own refusal to modernize and frustrated by the West's ever-increasing ascendancy, these radicals turn to terrorism and random violence. But ultimately, terrorism is a weapon of the weak, and its indiscriminate use in the name of religion alienates even sympathetic people in the West and moderates at home. Unfortunately, given the rapidly rising populations and the resulting poverty and unemployment in much of the Muslim world, many young men join bands of Jihadis who promise to change the world in the blurred image of an Islamic millennium.
There is little doubt that this trend will grow and sharpen over the coming years. The only solution is to address the problems of poverty and unemployment afflicting this part of the world: it is only when the proponents of an Islamic revolution have a stake in the system that their zeal and ardour will cool. But the Catch-22 here is that the present state of turmoil and instability in countries like Pakistan will discourage the very investment needed to usher in prosperity.