Importance of Ideas, Knowledge, and Information

Apparently (the practice of) Islam has continued intruding into our consciousness as evidenced by a plethora of posts related to the subject. Unfortunately all of the posts are from Christian West perspective. Since Islam is not going away any time soon and there is an undercurrent of campaign against Islam in the West and sometimes the campaign has taken a stridency and even touches of extremism, as educated people we need to look into what Islam actually is and what the current war against terrorism (read: against Islam in many aspects) is all about, I would like to mention 3 things:

1. Read Rashid Khalidi's book called Resurrecting Empire, western Footprints and America's Perilous Path in the Middle East. Khalid is a professor at Columbia University and is a well-known op-ed columnist and regular guest on numerous TV and radio news shows.

2. Samuel Huntington's notion about clash of civilizations (conflict between Christianity and Islam) has been pernicious and damaging to world peace.

3. Fukuyama's prediction of End of History in the aftermath of the collapse of Soviet Union has proven to be premature and wrong. The world is not unipolar and dominated by the U.S. China is now playing the role of the former Soviet Union as a counterweight to the U.S. China is egging the Muslim world to oppose the U.S. in order to weaken the U.S. China, not Islam, is plotting to take over the world. A great majority of Islamic countries are too poor and undeveloped to be a factor in world stage. The current Islamic extremists are a nuisance, not a threat. They are not supported by the majority of Muslims. However, if strident and provocative anti-Islam measures are allowed to proliferate in the West, we would unwittingly empower and legitimize the Islamic extremists.

Ideas and information and Knowledge are important and necessary to acquire if we want to think critically and wish to avoid being intellectual slaves.