Rushdie Haunted by his unholy Ghosts — Page 33
Rushdie: Haunted By His Unholy Ghosts 33 dead and buried like its Prophet(as), while Christianity appeared to be back in the ascendancy and in the clouds. But there was worse to follow, for the West that is. The mass migration over the last two to three decades to Britain especially and to some other European countries and America and Canada of ethnic groups from all over the world, has turned the affairs of the West upside-down. It is true that some of the cultures of the ethnic minorities have been completely swamped by the predominant culture of the West; people from the West Indies, Africa, the Far East and the Indian sub- continent have tried to assimilate into the Western way of life, to be accepted into their society and basically have taken a laissez-faire attitude of ‘When in Rome, do as the Romans do’. Although these immigrants have kept their individual faiths to a point, they have, nevertheless, acquired similar habits in most social areas; for example, the free intermingling of the sexes, the way that they dress, unprohibited drinking, gambling and dancing. The West had thought, naively perhaps, that the Muslims too would lose their way and their faith and stray from the right path, and that the name of Islam would slowly disintegrate. But sadly for the West, Islam made a dramatic return to fundamentalism - fundamentalism in law, in economy, and especially in culture. This resurgence in Islam, as it were, saw a cultural trend back towards conservatism, not only in Islamic countries, but also in the West as well - right in the heart of the homeland of the Christian nations of the West. The social status of the Imam of the local mosque in- creased considerably and his views were listened to with the great- est respect. Another aspect of the fervour in the religious climate was the growth and popularity of religious student unions who organised many of the anti-Western demonstrations. It should be remembered that not all such demonstrations are truly Islamic, however they do refl ect the people’s strengthening ties with their religion - a feature which gives them a sense of identity.