Islam's Response to Contemporary Issues — Page 125
Social Peace 125 Racialism, in the broader sense, has to be understood as group prejudices as opposed to considerations of absolute justice and fair play. The rapid waning of polarisation between the American and Russian blocs has ushered us into a completely new era in which we are moving towards global readjustments rather than the disappearance of divisions. As ideological divisions fade, divisions already marked on different planes in international relations are bound to grow and become more sharply defined. The age-old traditional division between the Occident and the Orient was reduced to a comparatively insignificant second place during the era of heightened capitalist-socialist rivalries. That being no longer so, the East-West division will once again emerge as the most pronounced dividing line between the developed nations of the West and the underdeveloped nations of the East. The emancipated East European countries as well as Russia will gradually shift and ultimately merge with capitalist states adopting the same attitudes towards the Third World. Although new rivalries would result from a competition to capture and monopolise foreign markets, as a whole, the West will emerge as a much larger political- economic unit than ever before with the ultimate assimilation of the Eastern bloc. This will bring into greater relief and emphasise the traditional division between the Occident and the Orient. Add to this the birth of neo-socialism, where nations will replace the individual and classes of individuals. The have-all and have-not polarisation will, therefore, not be between the rich of one nation and their interplay with the poor of another country. For some years to come this catastrophic polarisation may be kept subdued and blunt but ultimate large-scale confrontation cannot be averted forever.