| The
clash between the West and Islam is, from the Hindu view, a clash
within the greater field of Western culture. Islam today with its
intolerance of dissent and its insistence on religious law appears
much like Christianity did in the Middle Age. It resembles communism
of a few decades ago, with its militance and central control. Islam
presents a more medieval form of Western culture similar to what
missionary Christianity and revolutionary communism have projected,
the true faith seeking to conquer the world. The conflict between
Islam and the West therefore is largely a conflict between the older
religious side of the Western psyche, now represented by Islam, and
the newer secular side, now represented by America and Europe. Yet
one should note that Christian fundamentalists represent a similar
threat within Western culture as Islam does from the outside. Their
influence in America continues to grow and is becoming increasingly
political.
In the Hindu view communism along
with Western missionary religions, Christianity and Islam, possess a
similar exclusivist bias that breeds intolerance. If one looks at
Christianity and Islam from a Hindu perspective, both religions are
similar. Both are conversion based exclusivist monotheistic creeds.
Both have created largely materialistic cultures promoting their own
political and cultural expansion. Both tend to destroy any native
cultures in the regions they conquer, turning their pre conversion
period into a dark age. Both have rejected or marginalized any
genuine mystical or spiritual groups within them, particularly if
these seek to move outside the bounds of traditional religious
forms. |
