This open challenge is for the Muslim Ummah, especially the American
Muslims and their leadership. They are facing a "difficult" situation in the
USA. It presents a lay out for them for attaining success in both the
worlds. They can start a dialogue between them and develop a comprehensive
program to attain the cherished goal as elaborated in this article.
Shukrun
In the Name of Allah, the Beneficent, the
Merciful
SOUTH
AMERICA – AN OPEN CHALLENGE
[Shamim A
Siddiqi, New
York]
South America [SA] was
discovered by Christopher Columbus, a Spaniard. He landed in
Venezuela in
1498. Both Spain
and Portugal
subdued local Indian societies and spread Roman Catholicism and Liberian culture
in their dominions. They enriched their countries with silver and gold that
dazzled Europe with subsequent other discoveries- tin in
Bolivia, copper
in Chile and oil
in Venezuela.
Agricultural products were later on added to export list in 1880s. The colonial
powers developed the Continent with foreign entrepreneurs subsequently. The
Continent is spread over 14 countries and regions and constitutes a population
of about 370 million people. Linguistically, mostly people speak Spanish. Thus,
transforming South America into a homogeneous Continent
with prominent Liberian
culture all around.
The Continent has remarkable land-scape with
world’s greatest mountain chain, the Andes along its
Western margin, a large rain forest that spreads across the Amazon basin and
plateaus covering vast tract of land. Due to these natural barriers,
transportation and communication are mainly by sea and air whereas highways are
being developed speedily. Its past is enriched by INCA civilization and less
advanced Indian groups. The Continent is mostly inhabited by immigrants from
many European countries and North America with about five
million slaves from Africa, embodying a great ethnic
diversity. Roman Catholic missionaries were the greatest force of social,
educational and medical services, converting the local Indians to their faith
but traditional local beliefs are also surviving along with it.
The Continent was ruled from
Lisbon and
Madrid till Napoleon overruled
Liberia in 1808,
weakening their rule over colonies in SA and giving birth to Independent
movements by the settlers.
Venezuela,
Colombia and
Ecuador were
liberated in 1821.
Brazil got
independence from
Portugal in
1822. By the 20th century most of the countries came under oligarchic
rule and 1960s saw a wave of military take overs, resulting in tight political
control and repression. In its wake, many countries nationalized the basic
industries. South America is a fast developing continent
with a total foreign debt of about 550 billion dollars. The biggest debtor
countries are
Brazil,
Argentina,
Chile,
Colombia and
Venezuela.
Broadly speaking South America is developing by all
standards with rich mineral wealth, forest and agricultural products and
abundance of other natural resources but with unstable governments and political
instability giving temptation to opportunists leaders to try their luck. The
Continent contains many countries with vast tract of land but numerically
“little” population. This is a special feature of South American countries.
However, ideologically, South
America is not settled as yet. Christianity, no doubt, is the
paramount religion of its people but it could not deliver any system of life to
its inhabitants as happened in Europe and
America. As
such, the entire Continent is practicing secularism as its way of life –
somewhere in the form of secular democracy, somewhere secular opportunist
military dictatorship and somewhere it is embracing socialism as “panacea” for
its growing evils and poverty. Capitalism as a system failed to deliver any good
to the Southern societies, except
growing gaps in income and life standard of the rich and the poor. The
USA could not
build a broad based cohesiveness to
bring the Continent under its “protective” umbrella. People and leadership both
are allergic to its dominance. The Continent as a whole is drifting from the
influence of the
USA and
gradually landing in the fold of socialism.
The
USA could not
contain the influence of Cuban President Fidel Castro, a persistent critic of
Washington. His growing influence
is fast changing the geopolitical situation of South America: a worker Lula is the President of
Brazil; Nestor Kirchner is presiding over Argentina; an Indian tribal leader Evo
Morales, a vocal critic of President Bush, became the President of Bolivia on
January 2006; Hugo Chavez, an “aggressive” critic of the USA and its policy is
the President of Venezuela with a socialist agenda and a vast source of oil
revenue to influence the region. And now on March 11, 2006, a socialist pediatrician Michelle
Bachelet was sworn in as the President of Chile. She is openly agnostic and has
promised a government with equality
in gender, a socialist agenda and total parity between men and women . This emerging
socialist leadership in the South is close friend of Fidel Castro of
Cuba. His
influence is likely to increase and the
USA being
governed predominantly by the corporate interests is bound to lag behind in
checking other countries in the South to turn to socialism for their burning
problems and getting rid of the domination of the mega-superpower of Northern
Hemisphere. The socialist leadership is determined to free the Southern
hemisphere from the monopolistic influence of capitalism and its catchwords –
globalization and market economy which benefit only the developed countries of
the world.
The growing situation in the South foretells that
there is an ideological vacuum in the Continent as a whole. Both Christianity and
capitalism could not deliver any cognizable good to its people. Socialism too is
just like a passing cloud as currently there is no alternative before the people
and southern leadership to fall back. Apparently, they have no choice but to go
again for the failed system of socialism as it could not do any good either in
Russia or in
China, the two
stalwarts of state sponsored socialism. They are now fast drifting towards
capitalistic economy as they too have no alternative to fall back. At this
juncture, Islam could come to help at both the places but its followers are in
deep slumber.
Here in South America,
history is offering another opportunity to Muslim Ummah to come to their help.
This is a unique development of events and has come to this “climax” through
development of events as depicted above in short. Muslims around the world,
especially that of
America must
grasp this opportunity lest it become too late as in the case of
Russia and
China. American
Muslims must devote their time, talents and resources in learning Spanish
language and the Liberian culture in depth and find out the traces of Islamic
influence over Spanish culture as Islam dominated Spain for over 800 years. It
would help them in freely mixing with the Spanish people everywhere. They should
arrange, regular Dawah sojourn to
different countries of the South as per their convenient and introduce Islam as
a way of life to the people of this virgin land for Islam. Muslim Institutions
like ISNA, ICNA, CAIR, MPAC and others should and must divert their resources of
men and material to this project as the life artery of their existence in the
western hemisphere now depends on this undertaking, keeping in view that many
countries in SA have vast territory but “little” population and hence they can
manage intensive Dawah activities very effectively. The Continent in the South
is an open challenge for Muslims and their ingenuity to make it the “next”
homeland for Islam in twenty-first century as they failed to do so for in the
North.
We are to bear in mind that in the
USA too, the
growing trend of Spanish population is bound to transform it into a majority
community in this country within
next fifty years. The estimation of
Census Bureau confirms it. Hence, the investment of Muslim Institutions of the
USA in
“Dawah-in-Spanish” project will become a boon for them within a decade or so. In
1996 in my humble way, I invited the attention of Muslim leadership to this hard
fact of our existence in
America in
Chapter – 4 of my book: “The Revival” under the heading: “Future Prospects” at
pages 66-67. [available on my Website] The time is fast running out. Before the
ideological vacuum in South America is filled by other
materialistic ideologies, Muslims of America and elsewhere in the world must
come forward fast and fill the gap with Islam as the future ideology of the
South. The Muslim leadership must think over it positively and resolve to march
ahead with the conviction that Allah will pave their way to success. The
“safety” of American Muslims now
goes through this way.
Shamim Siddiqi
Website: WWW.dawahinamericas.com
March 13, 2006
