Islam's Response to Contemporary Issues — Page 124
124 islam’s response to contemporary issues changes in the USSR and Eastern Europe. This could be further fanned by consideration of vested interests on both sides. I am afraid that in this regard, the clergy of both Christianity and Islam are very likely to play a sinister role in aggravating the situation and further destroying the prospects of peace and harmony between Muslims and Christians. If this happens, it would certainly be of advantage to the cause of Israel. Israel cannot be conceived in the role of a disinterested and uninvolved observer. Again, there are politico-economic dividing lines, which are giving birth to a new type of racialism i. e. , the racialism between the rich North and the poorer South, and the East and West best expressed by: East is East and West is West And never the twain shall meet. The recent rapprochement and détente between the superpowers may revive the historic religio-political controversies and rivalries between the Christian occident and the Muslim Orient. It should not at all be surprising if East and West begin to drift further apart as a result of the new imperialism and a broadly based racialism which is bound to be borne out of the recent détente between the superpowers. According to the universally accepted terminology, I may appear to be out-stepping the definition of racialism and extending it to areas which are not understood to have any racial implications. But my observation is based on a detached and deeper study of human motives, which give birth to racialism. As long as the underlying motive forces remain the same, whether you name a certain expression of distorted human behaviour as racialism or call it by any other decent and civilised name, essentially the malady remains the same.