A former American diplomat, Robert R. Reilly, who was also the director of the Voice of America until Joe Biden removed him, has written a book titled: “The Closing of the Muslim Mind.” In it, the author suggests that people are not only shocked and frightened by the behaviour of the Muslims because it is violent, but it is “inexplicable.” He identifies the major cause as a contemporary crisis. He argues that irrationality has won over reason due to pathology of Islam and a dysfunctional culture.
Now, let us examine Reilly’s conclusion. In my opinion, the Muslim behaviour is quite explicable because of our open practice, but complications and conflicts have been caused by the very American political and foreign policy. Ever since the end of America’s Isolationist policy, arguably due to Hitler taking over Europe and Japanese attack of Pearl Harbour, America replaced its isolationism by state terrorism. It began to interfer in the matter of other countries and dictate their internal and external policies. Many groups described by America as terrorists were created by itself to destabilise the Muslim world. Nobody in the Muslim world knew of Al-Qaida and ISIS until America highlighted them. The Afghans were Mujahedeen until they fought the Soviet Union with full American support, but they were called terrorists when they oppose America taking over Afghanistan.
Saddam Hussein was a good guy until he fought Iran, but a terrorist afterwards. Modi and Netanyahu supported by America are democrat but Qadafi was a terrorist and so is Bashar al Asad of Syria. This is the behaviour, which threatens and terrifies the Muslim World. I have been 40 years in a political struggle for the reunification of Jammu Kashmir. I haven’t got forty guns in forty years, but there are groups created over night with all sorts of weapons. Who after all creates and funds them? These are the questions asked by the Muslim world, which must be answered.
We also need to know who is causing a dysfunctional educational culture in our societies , where English curriculum and language is imposed in the name of modern education. This has caused a system of memorization rather than comprehension. This is what is closing the Muslim Mind, because they have to memorise the foreign curriculum in a foreign language. This is leading to Intellectual and Institutional Suicide. It is happening all over the Muslim countries, whose leaders are mainly responsible for a dysfunctional educational culture.
