Document Type
Book
Publication Date
10-7-2004
Abstract
Contemporary international politics is essentially the function of the interaction between the West and its global strategic environment. The Western mind always has been the directing force. The Lockean idea of the Commonwealth with its inherent war and peace attributes, and the Leninist conception of the world with its emphasis on capitalism and class conflict, are but different manifestations of the Western post-Enlightenment universalism.1 Colonialism and imperialism were mainly European preoccupations, and even with the best of intentions, as encapsulated in the Kipling's version of the "white man's burden", European nations had emerged as predatory states whose activities led to the subjugation of the non-Europeans. The League of Nations to all Intents and purposes was also a Western creation meant to salvage Judeo-Chrlstian civilization, while the United Nations, a post-World War Two concoction, was underglrded by the AngloSaxon desire to maintain its pre-eminent position. Even the Non-aligned Movement (NAM), that made its bid for power and prominence in the nineteensixties and seventies, had to contend with the prevailing bloc politics and could survive only at its dispensation. Islam and the Muslim world likewise have been defined by "others"; their roles have been circumscribed by the exigencies of the time, and at the height of the Cold War, they were tolerated for their strategic value and courted as such. The "others" conspired to make Islam and the Muslims relevant or irrelevant in the changing configuration of power. From their vantage position, scholars of international relations, either of the realist bent or idealist disposition, by and large saw the unfolding scene in a similar perspective.
Keywords
Politics, Western, Islam
Divisions
lecture
Publisher
University Of Malaya
Publisher Location
Kuala Lumpur