Asian Century, Muslim Pride and the Merits of Silver versus Gold
This is a sundry post, but I hope it would be the impetus for discussion, debate or at least some imaginative thought.
On a whim, I decided to find out all I can about the era of 10,000 BCE; I was probably inspired by the grossly inaccurate and unhistorical 2008 movie, 10 000 BC.
You know how Wikipedia is - as I was reading about the things that happened to humankind and the planet around 10,000 BCE, one thing led to another - I was reading entries about Persia, Asia, Egypt, the dog, the goat (which was domesticated in Persia), Confucius, Buddha, Laozi (might not be correct spelling), Socrates, Mahavira, Zoroaster until eventually I decided to reduce all the potentially blogworthy and interesting Wiki entries to only 2 - Asian Century and Golden Rule.
Read the entries. They make interesting boredom-killing reading, especially Asian Century.
I don’t know if I had speed read about it from Newsweek or from the newspapers, but I’ve always had this gut feeling that the 21st century will be the century of Asia, an Asian century, in which Asian culture, peoples and philosophies will dominate the planet.
Besides this, I’ve also been having this ’sense’ that the 21st century will also be the century of the Muslims, pretty much like the 20th century was somewhat the century of the Jews. Now, don’t take this offensively - there is no anti-semitic or pro-Islamofascist sentiment here.
Why did I say the 20th century was the Jewish century? Because Israel was ‘founded’ (with much violent controversy) in the last century and, like it or not, Israel and the Jewish people have, in one way or another, attracted the most attention in international affairs militarily, politically and socio-religiously. I can be wrong. It might be selective observer bias. But consider these points - the United Nations (or League of Nations) was founded after World War II, in which millions of Jews were slaughtered by the Nazi regime during the Holocaust. In a way, the formation of the UN was in response / a reaction to the terrible atrocities inflicted by Hitler. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in the 40’s and one of its influencing factors was the Holocaust.
Now, why then do I say the 21st century can be the century of the Muslims? First of all, I realise that when I said the 20th century was that of the Jews, I was referring to the Jewish people, their ethnicity (and nationality), and not Judaism, while I refer to Muslims per se when I said century of Muslims. Of course, Muslims consist of people from all nations and races.
An obvious ‘excuse’ for the 21st century being that of the Muslims would be, of all things, 9/11. Again, this can be selective observer bias, and it is entirely justifiable for me to be in error. We can see a significant amount of attention (either positive or negative) being paid to Islam - to the Muslims, its laws, its beliefs, its history, its ‘founder’ (the Prophet), its code of morality, its positions on such critical human issues as civilisation, human rights, freedom, politics, its future and so on.
There have been positive and negative (polarities depend upon perspective of observers) developments in the Muslim world - the Ummah - and I can only hope that the final outcome be good not only for Muslims but for human civilisation in its entirety.
I agree with the so-called ‘progressive’ Muslim liberal thinkers that we as a people should do some serious and critical self-examination and subsequent improvement, but, having that fundamentalist (which does not equate to radicalist or extremist) and orthodox (not referring to its originally Christian context) streak in me, I ‘respectfully’ disagree with their notions, suggestions and ideas for doing so (e.g. calling for a radical redefinition of all Islamic principles and free-for-all ‘Ijtihad’ for every Muslim man, woman and child).
In comparison, while my so-called Jewish Century came about in a sense as a response to a terrible atrocity happening to them (the Jewish people); my so-called Muslim Century shall come about as an act of self-correction and in some aspects as a response to external factors.
I hope not to be misunderstood, however. While I am a Shia who awaits the Advent of the 12th Imam, the same way some Jews and Christians await the coming of the Messiah (whoever that person is going to be according to them), my idea of the Muslim Century is not one in which the supremacist ideals of a portion of the Muslim population are unleashed upon the world, where suddenly you see a population explosion of angry-looking men in white with turbans and beards, and women in various fashions of the burqa.
I would cringe at that thought.
The Muslim Century need not be a century that sees a massive adoption of the Islamic faith by more of the populace, but one that sees the coming of age of the Muslim Ummah (a real one, finally, after over 1400 years since the time of the Prophet [p] and Ali) as a significant contributor and cooperator in the family of humanity.
As for the merits of the Silver Rule versus the Golden Rule, I urge you to read those entries for a comparison.
10 000 BC, Wikipedia, Asian Century, Golden Rule, United Nations, Universal Declaration of Human Rights