As Narendra Modi continued to raise his voice against terror & tirelessly campaigned against it all over the globe, he hardly ever directly mentioned the role of Radical Islam behind terror. However, even if Modi didn’t categorically mention the role of Radical Islam behind terrorism, it was implied that he meant Islamic Terror to build global consensus against the said crime. However, at Houston, Texas, at the platform of HowdyModi, US President Donald Trump unambiguously associated global terror with Radical Islam in his own signature style. He took the platform to utter almost a war cry against Radical Islamic Terrorism & declared to join India to fight against it. Trump’s declaration gathered standing ovation of all dignitaries present there including PM Modi, distinctly implying that Modi appreciated Trump’s stand. The deafening sound of spontaneous claps within the stadium indicated that America wanted action against Islamic terror.
This declaration of the US President is supposed to have great significance in World Politics. Modi was hyper-active & tireless to campaign against terrorism for last 6 years. He travelled to different countries for this purpose including the Islamic countries of the Middle East which he visited repeatedly. If America truly synergizes India’s Anti-terror efforts, pulse of World Politics is expected to change. Whereas terror is interpreted to be a part of Islamic religion by many, Islamic countries would have to either associate or dissociate themselves from terror which is expected to result in a terror-centric polarization-politics. Each of the Islamic countries would have to clear its own stand in the new global perspective. Any country embracing the terror-way, thereafter, would perhaps have to be ready for being a lone crusader that way & to face the political & economic adversities thereof. Following Modi-Trump synergy against Islamic terror, PAK PM Imran Khan took the stage at UNGA to speak against Islamophobia. He rightly mentioned that because of a few terrorists, the world shouldn’t be phobic about Islam in general. However, he also appeared to promote terrorism very subtly when he hinted that there may be another Pulwama in short future.
With respect to such words of PAK PM, it would be highly desirable that keeping in congruence with the contemporary world politics, Islam moves towards reform where Islamists all over the globe would have to disown the path of terror & their inherent policies of aggression towards Non-Muslims. Organization of Islamic Countries would need to brainstorm about how to work out the reform for better living of all. Doing so, Islamists would perhaps have to seclude those from their religious society who’d engage directly or indirectly into terrorism & aggression which would ultimately downsize the Islamic society itself. Otherwise, under the increasing global pressure against terror, Islam might even bifurcate into two streams, Pro & Anti terror.
It would be pertinent to mention here that Bangladesh & Pakistan have been the crying examples of Islamic aggression upon Non-Muslims. Minorities of both the Islamic Countries continue to live under steady threats of persecution. Protecting their properties in these two countries, minorities are struggling everyday to live with dignity. Priya Saha, a Hindu Bangali lady from Bangladesh recently depicted to President Trump how the minorities are facing Islamic aggression in Bangladesh. Social Media too shows glimpses of Radical Islamic attitude exhibited by Muslims. PAK PM’s speech at UNGA too was kind of indirect terror-mongering which may be assumed to be reflective of PAK’s general attitude towards Non-Muslims.
However, in spite of all these, there are innumerable Muslims all over the globe who don’t support or practice terrorism at all. They are as peace-loving as people of any other faith. Given a choice, they would perhaps unhesitatingly embrace the Anti-terror wing of Islam. However, would it be easy to unconditionally believe them in spite of that? Majority of Islamists are certainly not pro-terror. Yet after that, History of last almost 1300 years of Islamic arrogance might perhaps create hindrance against Islamists in general. This is perhaps why Arfa Khanum, the journalist of ‘The Wire’, on President Trump’s statement against Radical Islamic Terror, had tweeted that supporters of both Modi & Trump hated Islam. To her, it appeared that resisting Radical Islam meant resisting Islam in general. Though her message dragged many counter-tweets which refused to equate Islam with Radical Islam, yet the real concern of hers couldn’t be ruled out. How can it be confirmed that even anti-terror Islamists wouldn’t stand silently beside the pro-terror ones? Even PAK PM assumed antipathy towards Radical Islamic Terror to be ‘Islamophobia’ at UNGA. Did he too equate terror with Islam? Imran Khan needs to realize that Islam’s aggressive political tradition of plunder, forced conversion or merciless slaying of infidels, capturing lands by multiplying in number, applying fraudulent tricks, murder, terror & reckless rapes of women of other faith to gain imperial control is expected to go against Islamists in general. In the new World Political Chemistry that started brewing at Houston on the stage of HowdyModi, PAK PM’s mere appeal against Islamophobia would not help improve the general image of Islamists.
Debjani Bhattacharyya