Intense scrutiny of Muslim society

I recall The Economist publishing a survey of 'Islam and the West', pointing out all our so-called deficiencies: how we (mis)treat women, lack democracy, lack our reformation, and so on.

It was, however, the West that encouraged the Islamisation of Muslim countries. Under Yahya Khan, it was the United States that aided military crackdown against a secular movement; under General Zia-ul-Huq, Pakistani society was radicalised: the brave Mujahideen were fighting the common enemy in Afghanistan, the godless Soviet Union.

Earlier, General Suharto's Muslim Indonesia was welcomed after Sukarno's communist interlude.

After the collapse of the Berlin Wall, the Mujahideen turned inevitably against the West and its Middle Eastern policy.

The West now began to try to de-Islamise society. Sermons previously directed against the Soviet Union were now directed at us: our entire civilisation was wrong.

This is remarkable in view of the similarities between Muslim society and other Asian societies. In Japan, women don't work; until Viagra came up, they were denied the pill and had to undergo abortions regularly. In South Korea, the ratio of male to female births has increased ! In 1987, it was 109 boys to 100 girls; by 1992, the figure was 114! Similar statistics are available for India and China. Indeed, in India, there have been several cases of sati in recent years, and these have been quietly ignored by the western media The Palestinian issue was bound to resurface after the cold war. And when Saddam lobbed a few missiles at Israel, he sealed his own doom and his people's.

The de-Islamisation that we see going on now is, like Islamisation before it, purely in the interest of western powers.