I used to wonder if the trending narrative about a subterranean Islamisation agenda sponsored by Nigerian Muslims, or the Islamisation of Europe by Muslim migrants has not already happened in inverse bearing. Just how Christianised is the world today? Just how Christianised am I as someone born and bred in a heavily Westernised, Eurocentric world? Plenty.
But I do not see this as a terrible violation – either because I have lived that life and did not see anything so wrong in it, or because I have been hypnotised by this Christianisation so I don’t see anything wrong about it.
But what if Nigeria and the world, are indeed undergoing an Islamisation phase? Needless to say, I do not advocate this or the idea of political Islam as a whole – but Nigeria is a democracy and half of its citizens are Muslims and deserve to see themselves and their identities in the national scheme of things. Isn’t that what democracy is all about? Besides, if I was willing to accept, why shouldn’t I be reciprocally accepted as well?
Now, I do not believe that there is an Islamisation agenda but to me, that would not be so terrible even if there was. It is only that when you look at Islam as an abhorrent scourge that should be eradicated not propagated, but the funny thing is that those most likely to agree with this notion are those who do not see anything wrong with how Christianised the world is. That makes me uncomfortable indeed.
For the record, I am not out to speak for or speak out against anyone—my intention is to lay bare the conscious schematics of my people, in the hope of fostering the type of mutual understanding and awareness needed to build a united nation bound by common purpose and vision.
The traditional Muslim mindset sees the world in two geopolitical partitions – the Muslim world centred in the Middle East and the Christian world headquartered in Europe. The struggle between these two power centres goes back to the days of the Rashidun Caliphs and Byzantine Rome, escalating with the Crusades when Christian armies marched from Western Europe to liberate the Holy Land from the Muslims. For the most part, that did not work.
Fast forward to Sykes-Picot. This was an armed geostrategic coup orchestrated by European (Christian) powers against the Muslim political order. As Europe steadily moves to the far right of the political spectrum, Christian/Western nationalists accuse Muslims of trying to replicate this—but forget to add that they’re doing it legally if that was what they really have in mind.
What they are so extremely terrified of is what has already happened to the Muslim world. What has happened to me?
When the Europeans returned to the Middle East during the Napoleonic Wars and then after the defeat of the Ottoman Empire in WW I, the Muslim world declined and was no match for the military might of the West.
In that aftermath, the Middle East was carved up by the French and British, who proceeded to manipulate it, and strangulate it in pursuit of certain motives I must admit have less to do with religion and more to do with imperial political objectives. The rest, as they say, is history.
By the beginning of the 20th Century, the world was a global social mass, under the undisputed hegemony of the West. The 21st Century is decisively Euro-Centric, with Western Civilization practically assuming the role of a global auxiliary culture which everyone must adopt or become a cultural pariah. It is the established normal of pop culture everyone is expected to conform to by default.
Yes, that is why it is such a big deal when Muslims assert a part of their identity that is against this default, or why the Arabic script on the naira bill had to go because, to the other side, that might as well be a quote straight from the Qur’an since it’s in the Arabic script. That is also why Islamic finance is an obnoxious bait that has to be resisted, that is why letting Muslims into Europe is a bad idea because they are on a mission to take over. That is why every Muslim must condemn Hamas because when they do it, it’s terrorism but when others do it, it is self-defence, it is war—and people die during wars so that’s fine.
Religion, Karl Marx says, is the opium of the masses, the heart of a heartless world. Because of their pitiable place in the world order, Muslims find themselves with no other option but to fall back on their faith for solace and orientation. As a collective community, the Muslim world has zero clout. It has been completely conquered and divided… no Muslim power has the power to protect Muslim interests politically like the Western superpowers can for example. Should a Muslim power for instance, for whatever reason under the sun cause the death of 45,000 civilians, sadistically brutalize and traumatize a Christian or Jewish population of two million because there are Christian/Jewish terrorists hiding among them… should a Muslim power drop bombs on hospitals full of Christian kids because terrorists had command centres underneath them or desecrate a Jewish cemetery looking for bodies who may or may not be of Muslim hostage, all because Jewish terrorists invaded and killed 1,200 Muslims—that Muslim power would have been nuked to kingdom come by NATO!
Coupled with the dearth of clear leadership, this fact encourages the individualization of response or retaliation – both kinetic and non-kinetic. It doesn’t matter that I am a Nigerian just like my good friend Kelvin from Port Harcourt, I, and other Nigerian Muslims, draw our inspiration and symbolic nativity from the heart of the Muslim which is the Middle East while good old Kelvin, by the virtue of his own identity, derives his from the West when it comes to spiritual matters.
There is no country or group of countries in the Muslim world with the strategic leverage to stand up for the interests of Muslims, but there are so many countries in the Christian world with such latitude so for the most part, a Christian person may get the feeling that their interests are being taken care of well and so does not need to resort to self-help or direct action because they have a strong hand and a firm voice behind them.
So, which agenda is what?