Impact of the New World Order on Contemporary Islam

The end of the WW II (1939-1945) is a landmark in the contemporary world politics and history. It was also the beginning of the Cold War, as a result of which the US and USSR emerged as two super powers, which threatened to divide the entire world into two camps.

Written by

Dr. Obaidur Rahman Nadwi

Published on

The end of the WW II (1939-1945) is a landmark in the contemporary world politics and history. It was also the beginning of the Cold War, as a result of which the US and USSR emerged as two super powers, which threatened to divide the entire world into two camps.

The Western Europe sided with the US and the Eastern Europe joined the Soviet camp. The western alliance was formalised into the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) in April 1949. It was an association of 12 states, which declared that armed attack on any of them in Europe or North America would be regarded as an attack on all of them. The eastern alliance created in 1955, known as the Warsaw Pact, was led by the Soviet Union. Its principal function was to counter NATO forces in Europe.

Both the Blocs were hostile to each other. Their hostility posed a threat to the newly independent countries of Asia, Africa and South America, which could progress and stabilise only under peaceful circumstances.

In order to keep themselves from the two super blocs and to live in peace, the newly independent countries of the third world set up the  Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) in 1961. India’s role in founding and supporting the NAM could not be ignored. Consequently, the world was divided in three blocs; Capitalist, Communist and the Non-Aligned.

The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) came into being after the Socialist Revolution in Russia in 1917. The East European countries that the Soviet army had liberated from the western forces came under the USSR. This group of countries was called the Second World or the socialist bloc. The Soviet economy was at that stronger and industry more developed than those in the rest of the world, except the US.

In the course of time the Soviet system, however, became very bureaucratic and authoritarian, making life very difficult for its citizens. Lack of democracy and the absence of freedom subdued people who often expressed their dissent through jokes and cartoons.

The one-party system represented by the Communist Party of the Soviet Union had tight control over all state and society institutions and failed to meet the aspirations of the people in the 15 different republics that formed the Soviet Union. Due to internal differences and a host of drawbacks, the Soviet Union began to dwindle. Moreover, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979 weakened the system even further, both militarily and economically.

Mikhail Gorbachev sought to reform this faltering system. But ultimately the Soviet system collapsed. Boris Yeltsin took the former Soviet Union republics back to the path of prosperity. But in December 1991, under Yeltsin, Russia, Ukraine and Belarus, three major republics of the USSR, declared that the Soviet Union is disbanded. The Communist Party of the Soviet Union was banned, ultimately drawing curtains to the  old Soviet Union forever.

It left a profound impact on the world politics. The end of the cold war left the US without any serious rival in the world. The US hegemony took a new upswing on world politics in 1991 after the Soviet power disappeared from the international scene.

In August 1990, Iraq invaded Kuwait. Exploiting the situation, the US gathered 660,000 troops from 34 countries to fight Iraq. Eventually, they defeated Iraq and termed it as the First Gulf War. The then, US President, H.W. Bush hailed it as beginning of a new world order. Since then the concept of the new world order came in vogue. We may easily understand the deceitful intent of H.W. Bush as despite winning the First Gulf War he lost the next US Presidential elections of 1992.

After the fall of the Soviet Union, Communism, the western powers and Israel made Islam their target and started projecting Islam as a greater threat not only for the US, Europe but also for the rest of the world. Jewish thinkers like Bernard Louis and Samuel Huntington propagated the concept of clashes of civilizations, which later became the war slogan of Zionism against Islam.

September 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon were the outcome of a conspiracy that was hatched by Jews in collaboration with their American masters. It is said that the mastermind of this tragic event was Usama bin Laden and his organisation “al-Qaida”. But “the American intelligence agencies have denied Usama bin Laden’s and al Qaida’s role in September 11 attacks. Even the French and American scholars have proved beyond doubt that none but America itself is responsible for those attacks. The gist of the evidences provided by these scholars is that the propaganda made by America and the world media about the attacks is a transparent lie, a big fraud. It was, in fact, a mutiny of the high military officials themselves with the agenda to compel President G.W. Bush to change his policies”. (Western Media and Its Impact on Society, p. 149)

No doubt, 9/11 opened a Pandora’s box and interpretations and questions about Islam started. Since then Islamophobia gained wide momentum. Accordingly, they started destroying Islamic countries, one by one. First, they raided Afghanistan, suspecting that Usama bin Laden, the mastermind of 9/11 was there.

Later on, as part of their larger sinister plan, on 19 March 2003, the US launched its invasion of Iraq under the codename “Operation Iraqi Freedom”. The ostensible purpose of the invasion was to prevent Iraq from developing weapons of mass destruction (WMDs). While no credible evidence of WMDs has been unearthed in Iraq, so far. It has led to destroying not just Iraq but the whole region; 60,000 Iraqi civilians were killed in the US-led invasion. The similar situation continues in Syria, Libya and Palestine, taking a huge toll on human lives.

Since its inception Israel has been exercising all kinds of oppression and atrocities on Palestinians and Lebanese. Despite this, America has been extending both financial and military aid to Israel. After Hitler’s destruction, UNO came into existence to maintain international peace and security besides increasing cooperation in solving international, political, economic, social, cultural and humanitarian problems as well. Strangely, America has attacked more than 21 countries from Vietnam to Nicaragua. Despite that, the UNO has helped the US by keeping mum or adopting useless and ineffective resolutions. The UNO has failed in implementing its charter under the influence of the US.

To sum up, the main plank of the US and Israel is to root out Islam from the surface of the earth. But the question is, will America succeed in achieving its goal? The answer will indeed be in the negative.

Recently, the US like the erstwhile USSR, had to pay a heavy price in Afghanistan after continuous military reverses and financial drain. It can be said with certainty that time is not far off when the USA too would face the same fate as the USSR. Akbar S. Ahmad has sagely said: “The 21th century will be the century of Islam. The events of September 11 saw to that.”

[The writer is Faculty Member, Darul Uloom Nadwatul Ulama, Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh]