From a friend:

IMO, the long predicted war between western materialism and Islam has now started, and I find it very interesting that it was the west who invaded first. It may be that our strategists thought it better to get at the oil before they bought so much of the western world with their petro-dollars that they would control us almost completely even before we realised what they wanted to do, but I think that implies too much intelligence within our political apparatus. I also don’t think anyone thought that the US would go into terminal decline (economically) so quickly, thus devaluing all those dollars invested in the US by the arabs. I also think that many overestimatated how long it would take to reach peak oil production, and the drastic effects of global warming on energy consumption.

Now that all these factors have come into play more or less simultaneously, we have a very interesting situation, thanks largely to George W. I certainly wouldn’t want to be the next president!

Is this a a conflict between civil society and Islam? I don’t think so. It looks more like the traditional conflict between power blocs to me – one on the way up and one on the way down. The only complicating factor is the rise of the Chinese, who seem set to take over the economic power of the US in a decade or two. The Arabs may have the oil and the dollars invested, but they have little manufacturing industry or food production, except in other countries. To oppose the Chinese, they would need to be in alliance with the US and particularly Europe, or to have taken them over completely. I really cannot see radical Islamists becoming the new industrialists anywhere!

My guess is that the arab leaders will have to rein in the radicals in the next few years. The main question is how they do this. Fanatical muslims seem very good at destroying their own (eg Sunni vs Shia), and the Muslim world is very well split between the two. To unite them, a war against the west is a good idea, but even in Iraq, they spend most of their time fighting each other. And such a war must leave their assets intact, something which is rather difficult, if it became nuclear for example. They need a strong leader to unite them, and I know of none in the Muslim world at the moment who can bring them together.

Of course, we are seeing a rapid spread of Islam in the west, and it may be that this will make a big difference. How can Islamic countries wage war against other countries with significant Islamic populations? Those groups will have absorbed many of our western ideas about democracy and human rights, even freedom of religion (as in Bosnia), so will not necessarily support the attacks by radical Islamists. Many left poor Islamic countries for a better life, and will not want to return to poverty.

So should we be so ultra-sensitive to islamic concerns? Perhaps, because as christians we may soon be in a minority position and will want them to be sensitive to ours. We have lived in harmony before, so surely there is no reason why we cannot now. I think the main thing is to try and separate power politics from religion. They are not really connected – its usually just a way to convince soldiers that they should be willing to die for the power elites who never put their own lives at risk. If we could remove the obvious injustices in the Middle East it would help, but they are likely to get greater rather than less because of corruption and vested interests. The main thing will be not to atagonise them to the point where they unite against us, and hope they can sort out their own mess themselves. We can’t do it for them.

May 2008