Part I: Muslims as a 'Domain of Thought' in the Capitalist Discourse

If the Muslim/Islam has any rivalry and antagonism with the West in general, and USA in particular, the rivalry is not with the people of the West in a generic sense, it is with the ideology it possesses, the ideology of capitalism, which affects the people of the West as well. The inherent nature of the ideology of capitalism is 'accumulation' and 'legitimization' (Panitch 1977). It has a tendency of 'ruthless expansion' by constantly revolutionizing its mode of production, as without it, capitalism will die (Black Star North Zine). History witnessed this scenario again and again.

McMichael (2000) elaborates how capitalism created the 'international food regime' by introducing 'Public Law 480 (PL-480) Programme' in USA to increase the consumption of US agricultural commodities in the foreign countries, and thereby change the dietary of the so called Third World population. The centerpiece of this new revolution of capitalism was the US government strategy of 'green power', a strategy of aggressive agro-exporting to consolidate America's role as the 'bread-basket' of the world. The constant expansion of capitalism in the domain of food and thereby gaining more power is remarkable: it led the Third World population, including Muslim societies, to shift their traditional food to wheat-based diet. Gradually the dietary shifted one step further, as some consumers shifted up the food chain to animal protein (beef, poultry, and pork). The fast-food industries like KFC, McDonalds, Pizza Hut, and many others, mushroomed all over the world. Consumption of these new diet, resulted by the capitalist expansion, became identified with 'American Way of Life', or 'Modernization' that captured the imagination of millions of people, and went on unchallenged.

Part of this capitalist expansion and thereby extension of its power is to constantly create and re-create discursively new domains of thought. Escobar (1995) very nicely delineates how 'poverty' was discovered and 'problematized', and the 'Third World' was constructed in the discourse of development, and how two-third of the world population was put under the regime of control by discursive practices. 'The poor increasingly appeared as a social problem requiring a new ways of intervention in society' (p. 22), and 'the treatment of poverty allowed society to conquer new domains' (p. 23).

The management of poverty then called for interventions in education, health, hygiene, morality, and employment, and the instilment of good habits of association, savings, child rearing and so on. The result was a panoply of interventions that accounted for the domain of knowledge and intervention. Not only poverty, but also health, education, hygiene, employment, and poor quality of life in towns and cities were constructed as social problems, requiring extensive knowledge about the population and appropriate modes of social planning (Escobar 1992). 'The most significant aspect of this phenomenon was the setting into place of apparatuses of knowledge and power that took upon themselves to optimize life by producing it under modern, "scientific" conditions' (Escobar 1995, p. 23). If we delve deeply into this construction, we will find an inherent power relation. The Third World is constructed by distancing it away from the civilized and developed West. Due to the construction of the Third World, the power relation between the agency who constructs, and constructed subjects becomes "father-child" or "doctor-patient" (Escobar 1995, p. 159).

In this way, capitalism is constantly expanding its power by constructing new domains. The conspicuous process is problematization: creating knowledge in a very efficient way, institutionalization: bureaucratization and managerialism, and finally normalization of power: the effects of power is rationalized, and go on uncontested. This is what Michel Foucault (1979, 1986) discovers and explicates the relation and exercise of power in the modern society. One of the apparent implications of this extension of power is that it 'privilege[s] certain actors, and marginalize[s] others' (Brosius 1999, p. 38).

The process is going on undefeated and unchallenged. History witnessed the fact that USSR was defeated and finally joined in the global capitalist club (McMichael 2000). It has conquered the 'women folk' in the West by deploying the 'feminist discourse', and expanded its power by creating fashion market and sex industries, where women are given the impression that they needed and finally got the freedom and honor (As-Sibaye 1998). By constructing the discourse of 'sustainable development', and problematizing 'global survival', capitalism conquered 'nature', in which the exploitation of nature becomes legitimate (Escobar 1995; Brosius 1999; McMichael 2000).

One of the recent domains of capitalist construction and expansion is the "Muslims". Although the construction started long before, it became intense after the Cold War, and more intense after the event of September 11, 2001. As the USSR, by embracing defeat from the capitalism, finally became part of the global capitalist club, capitalism did not have any common enemy, and a new domain of thought was necessary to construct. Different intellectuals emerged in the USA to construct this 'new enemy'. Not only that they also constructed the world as "Unipolar" in which USA is the only superpower to dominate the world politics. This kind of construction has two dreadful consequences. First, it gives an unprecedented status to USA, and instigates to strengthen her domination over the globe at any cost. Secondly, it overlooks the consistency and existence of other civilizations alongside the American one. For instance, Samuel Huntington (1996), in his theory, "the clash of civilization", constructs a future clash between civilizations, and he suggests USA to dismantle and emasculate any kind of military as well as economic build-up in other countries especially in the East. Huntington (1996) has pointed out to its long-term and short-term implications for Western policy and suggested the followings to keep up the global hegemony:

- It is the interest of the West to promote grater co-operation and unity within its own civilization, particularly between its European and North American components

- To incorporate into the West societies in Eastern Europe and Latin America, whose cultures are close to those of the West.

- To promote and maintain co-operative relations with Russia and Japan

- To prevent escalation of local inter civilization conflicts into major inter civilizations wars.

- To limit the expansion of the military strength of Confucian and Islamic states

- To moderate the reduction of Western military capabilities and maintain military superiority in East and South West Asia

- To exploit differences and conflicts among Confucian and Islamic states

- To support in other civilizations groups sympathetic to Western values And interests

- To strengthen international institution that reflects and legitimizes Western interest and values and promotes the involvement of non-western states in those institutions.

Two other prominent figures who pioneered in bringing Muslims to the capitalist 'domain of thought' and a 'new enemy' of USA, were Bernard Lewis and Fouad Azmi. Lewis, who came to USA from UK some thirty years ago to teach at Princeton, became prominent figure in the Zionist lobby because of his fervent anti-communism, disapproval of everything about contemporary Arabs and Islam, portrayal of Arab backwardness as viable route to truth. Samuel Huntington derived his lucrative concept from one of Lewis's essays about the 'Return of Islam'. What made Lewis's work so damaging was its appeal - in the absence of any counter-argument - to American policy-makers. That, together with the superciliousness of his manner, turned him into an 'authority' even though he hadn't entered, much less lived in, the Arab world in decades. His last book, What Went Wrong? became a post-11 September best-seller and, required reading for the US military, despite its unsupported and often factually incorrect statements about the history of the Arabs over the past five hundred years. Reading the book, one gets the idea that the Arabs are a useless bunch of primitives, easier to attack and destroy than ever before (Said 2003).

Fouad Ajami is a Lebanese Shia educated in the US who made his name as a pro-Palestinian commentator. But by the mid-1980s, he was teaching at Johns Hopkins; he'd become a fervent anti-Arab ideologue and had been taken up by the right-wing Zionist lobby. The author of two or three books, he has become influential as a 'native informant' - the Arab 'expert' is a rare species on American networks. Ten years ago, he started deploying 'we' as an imperial collectivity which, along with Israel, never does anything wrong. Arabs are to blame for everything and therefore deserve 'our' contempt and hostility. Like Lewis, Ajami hasn't been a resident of the Arab world for years, although he is rumoured to be close to the Saudis, of whom he has recently spoken as models for the Arab world's future governance (Said 2003).

By bringing 'Muslims' into the 'domain of thought' of the capitalist discourse, some critics think, these intellectuals committed "homicidal blunder", and "intellectual atrocities". Apart from adding fuel to the capitalist expansion, it suspends the room for possible peaceful coexistence, and, instead, it instigates cultural, economic, military means to suppress other nations. Ironically, American foreign policy has been designed accordingly, and the recent actions of USA are enough proof of their legacy.

Part II: The Construction and the Problematization of "Muslims":

As the 'Muslims' appeared as a 'domain of thought' in the capitalist discourse, Muslim societies witnessed a massive landing of experts, mostly western, each in charge of investigating, measuring, and theorizing about this or that little aspect of the Muslim societies. The proliferation of experts on the 'Muslims Subjects' in the West became more intense after the event of September 11, 2001, and the Muslims became an 'object of knowledge' and a 'new problematization' in the western discourse. It is interesting to see how 'various problems' were gradually and suddenly discovered in the Muslims societies and the Muslims were 'problematized' and constructed with various negative images in the Western discourse, and how one-fifth of the world population was put under the regime of control by discursive practices, as it was done on the so called Third World population after World War II.

In the Western media and academia, Muslims were constructed as 'other'. In order to create that, different negative images and convenient categories were labeled on them, like 'alien', 'inimical', 'terrorist', 'militant', 'fundamentalist', 'threat to the West' to cite some examples. They are constructed with negativity as opposed to the positivity of the West. The relation between the USA and the Muslims are constructed with 'Good vs. Evil' or 'We vs. They', and so forth. The social production of space implicit in these terms is bound with the production of difference, subjectivities, and social order. This distance, which is not a simple marker of cultural diversity, is branded with inferiority and negativity (backward, underdeveloped, poor, lacking, traditional.). When these kinds of negative images are constructed on a group of people, they automatically become preamble to certain treatments and interventions, and thus, the former justifies the latter.

The construction of Muslims as "others" by different negative images has some obvious implications. First, it limits the social space of the Muslims in the West. Starting from their inner-self to the job market to the global arena, they suffer from a considerable amount of agony, solitude, and lack of the sense of belongings. Second, the displacement of the Muslims from the West becomes legitimate. As the general public starts viewing Muslims as a potential threat to the West, any form of physical and mental violence on them goes on without any major challenges and protest. The oppression on the Muslims does not create any sympathy in the minds of the Western people. Third, from the part of constructing agency, we find different ideologies justifying their claims and constructions. It leads the Muslim subjects to react in various forms, ranging from death, through submission and internalization of inferiority, to a variety of resistances- from everyday forms through sporadic uprisings to mass political mobilization. Fourth, the construction deploys a regime of control on them. As they are branded with negative images (such as terrorist, militant), they will need a form of treatment. As the patient needs treatment from the doctor, the USA, self-proclaimed as "Good", and "Civilized", has automatic role and intervention on these "Muslim patients". It signalled a significant shift in power relation between USA and the Muslims- the relations of domination and subordination. This akin to what Edward Said sees in Orientalism:

[Orientalism] can be discussed and analyzed as the corporate institution for dealing with the Orient- dealing with it by making statements about it, authorizing views of it, describing it, by teaching it, setting it, ruling over it: in short, Orientalism as a western style for dominating, restructuring, and having authority over the Orient. My contention is that without examining Orientalism as a discourse we can not possibly understand the enormously systematic discipline by which European culture was able to manage- and even produce- the Orient politically, sociologically, ideologically, scientifically, and imaginatively during the post enlightenment period (1979, p. 3).

With these constructions, labelling different convenient images on the Muslims, the war on terrorism was justified. Additional grounds like the construction of the weapons of much destruction (WMD), Al-Qayeda Network, were staged. Many theories and models emerged to guide this 'inevitable campaign'. The whole world witnessed a remarkable growth of interest in the Muslim world, what once had been an area, which only diplomats and pioneering scholars ventured to explore, became almost, overnight the centre of attraction to government officials, as well as scholars. Several other problems like oppression on the women, repression by the government, ties to the terrorists, etc. were also discovered and discursively constructed in order to deploy a regime of control and intervention on the Muslim countries.

In this way, a whole range of new knowledge on Muslims was produced. To understand this, one must look not at the elements themselves, but at the system of relations established among them. 'It is a system that allows the systematic creation of objects, concepts, and strategies. the system of relations establishes a discursive practices that sets the rule of the game: who can speak, from what point of view, with what authority, and according to what criteria of expertise. It sets the rules that must be followed for this or that problem, theory, or object to emerge and be named, analyzed, and eventually transformed into a policy plan' (Escobar 1995, pp. 40-41). However, not all have the authority to do that. Some clear principles of authority were in operation. They concerned the role of experts, from whom certain criteria of knowledge and competence were asked; institutions, such as Think Tank, FBI, CIA, which had the moral, professional, and legal authority to name subjects, and define strategies; and US Administration, which carried the symbols of capital and power.

It is hegemonic as it blocked all other forms of knowledge and different other models of knowing. It completely suspends and erodes in a deeper manner the Muslim's ability to define themselves, and to take care of their own lives. The Muslims became the target of more sophisticated practices, of variety of programmes that seemed inescapable. In order to escape from the backwardness and 'problems', Muslim societies need whole transformation, sometimes by 'changing a regime'. But who has the ability to do it? Certainly USA! In this way, the whole social fabrics of the Muslim societies were put under the surveillance of the USA; everything was subjected to the eye of the new experts. The policies and programmes that originated from this vast field of knowledge inevitably carried with them strong normalizing components. It produced a regime of truth and norms about the Muslims, by passing judgement on the whole social group and forecasting their future. Different client groups are constructed even before interacting them. After formulating the 'problems', different lucrative policies and solutions (like 'taste of liberation' in case of Iraq, 'road map' for the Middle East) are presented. It does everything, but avoids responsibility for plan's implementation. If the policies eventually fail, the blame goes to the victims. In the war-torn Iraq, when US failed to restore orders there, they evaded their responsibility by imposing the blames on the Iraqis.

The power relation goes on unchallenged, though sometimes resisted. The continuous portrayal and display of pictures showing Muslims' deplorable situation (malnourishment, hunger, starvation, oppression of women by veiling.) on many covers of western magazines is the most striking symbol of power of America over the Muslim world. Intentionally created with scientific evidence and calculations in order to make unquestioned-acceptance, these actions exert a 'symbolic violence' on the Muslims, as they regulate the everyday going and coming of people. This scientific representation is extremely dehumanizing and objectifying. The power relation is not seen. It is not rational; but seen as rational. It privileges some, but marginalize others who are supposed to be privileged.

Part III: The Revival of Colonial Relations:

The event of September 11, 2001 (the atrocities done by whom is still in obscurity) provided a fertile ground for further expansion of capitalism and its power over the Muslim lands, as it provides a valid justification for invading Afghanistan. In wars, destruction, and numerous other abnormalities lies the lucrative interest of the corporations. American capitalist expansion thus became more aggressive. By using different rhetoric, (like "War on Terrorism", "Liberating Iraq", "Weapons of Mass Destruction", and "Regime Change") as we have seen before how capitalism expands by problematizing, the war was expanded to Iraq bulldozing world-wide resistance and protest. Some more Muslim countries including Iran and Syria are in the list of upcoming capitalist invasion.

It has complicated the situation more than before, and poses more questions than answers with regard to the relation between the USA and the Muslims. With the doctrine of 'pre-emptive attack', and 'policy of instigation' that America adopted, and thereafter actions and motives in Afghanistan and Iraq accordingly, one can find some obvious resemblances between the oppressive nature of British colonization and reified nature of American capitalist aggression. Though British does not have that much power to re-colonize the present world in its physical form, their colonial legacy in the form of colonizing the brains of the Muslim world is still prevalent, and most importantly they can be a great guiding partner of USA to show and guide in colonizing the world. British did it with its Zionist partners. All these three groups, America, British, and Zionists, are now working in a collaborative manner. Many may find it as a return of the colonial history. Let us expound some inherent convergences between British colonization and American aggression:

Teaching/Spreading Civilization

Former colonial masters took the burden/responsibility to spread their so-called "superior" civilization all over the globe. This is called "white-men burden", a concept in which the West viewed itself as the bearer of civilization to the darker races. French colonial historian Albert Sarraut claimed in 1923:

It should not be forgotten that we are centuries ahead of them, long centuries during which- slowly and painfully, through a lengthy effort of research, invention, meditation, and intellectual progress aided by the very influence of our temperate climate- a magnificent heritage of science, experience, and moral superiority has taken shape, which makes us eminently entitled to protect and lead the races lagging behind us (Rist 1997, p. 58).

They justified their colonial invasion (Removing the problem through extermination, suppression, and containment) over the globe with this 'responsibility'. This notion of 'white-men burden' was ramified by the theories of Darwin: survival of the fittest, and struggle for existence. Darwin's racist type of hypothetical assertion of the "origin of species by the law of natural selection" explicates, in the evolution process, the white people of Europe are at the highest and superior stage of development, while the non-white Asians are inferior in the process, and African blacks are mostly lagged behind, a specie that fall between the primates and the humans (not fully humans) (Darwin 1912).

The colonial discourse, legacy, and savagery can also be found in the modern version language. Behind the construction of different categories like "Asians", "Africans", "People of Colour", "People of the Third World", "Moslem"- there are inherent connotations of racism, as we have seen before. As Lohmann (1999) says, 'racism is a process of social control, not a set of beliefs and feelings' (p. 70). Muslims are constructed and hence viewed as 'different' from the West. Difference is not the simple marker of cultural diversity, but rather measured or constructed in terms of distance from the civilizing Euro-American Culture. Difference here is branded with inferiority and negativity. The colour of skin, facial and bodily features- all becomes signifiers of inferiority, composed of an inversion and a projection of what is considered "evil" by the colonizing society. Such visibility (of colour, and of minority in the West) indicates not only "difference", and "inferiority", but also preamble to "special treatment", the treatment that the 'superior' colonizers showed to the colonized subjects: removing the problem through extermination, suppression, and containment. As part of visible minorities in the West, the bodies of the Muslims 'are used to construct for them some sort of social zone, or prison, since they cannot crawl out of their skins, and this signals what life has to offer them in the western World. This special type of visibility is a social construction as well as political a statement' (Bannerji 1996, p. 120).

America is now following the footsteps of the British. It has taken the responsibility to spread the American culture, much of which has already been permeated over the globe by the process of globalization including media conglomerates. USA has shouldered the responsibility to teach 'democracy' and offer 'liberation' throughout the world. And if hundreds or even thousands of people are killed by America because of that, it is, to America, "price for democracy". This is an optimum form of deception, occlusion and reification, as this kind of statement shifts the responsibility from America to the people who are killed. Like the British colonial expansion and invasion, USA adopted almost similar kind of methods in Afghanistan, and then in Iraq. And all have been done in the name of liberation or democracy. Iran and Syria are in the list of forthcoming liberation!

Economic Motive

Behind all the rhetorical guises lies the real motive of economic interest. However, in the discourse of colonialism, this motive is hardly mentioned. Lured by the enormous wealth and property in the East, and Africa, British started their colonial expansion. First they transferred only the invaluable goods like gold and silver. With the invention of steam engine, they revolutionized their exploitation. They now transferred all other goods, like agricultural products and other raw materials. Within few hundred years of exploitation and transfer of wealth, a huge resource gap occurred between the colonizers and the colonized. The former colonized countries are still suffering due to this huge resource gap.

It appears clear that lured by the oil resource in the Middle East, and in Central Asia, USA invaded Afghanistan and Iraq. It might be surprising to many to hear that the invasion on Afghanistan by USA was designed two months before the September 11 attack. Aijaz Ahmed, a visiting Professor at York University, mentioned in a seminar that a dispute occurred between Taliban government and USA in a meeting three months before the invasion of Afghanistan over the issue of the construction of oil pipe on the soil of Afghanistan. America wants oil from the Central Asia, known as Second Kuwait in terms of oil reserve, and Afghanistan is a strategical area in that regard. One Taliban general in a press conference, as Aijaz Ahmed quoted, mentioned, 'We have been threatened to be attacked within three months if we do not comply with USA'. And ironically exactly after three months, USA attacked Afghanistan. By this time, September 11 happened, and becomes a valid justification for the invasion on Afghanistan. Aijaz Ahmed, hence, said, "September 11 is a great gift for United States" (Ahmed 2002).

Eric Margolis, an editor of Toronto Sun, gives an estimation of oil import of USA that previously it had to import one-third of its demand, now it has to import around half of its demand, and after few years, it will have to import two-third of its demand. Therefore, a great concern regarding future oil crisis permeated over the American administration. Moreover, oil is power, and Bush family has a long history of multi-billion-dollar-oil-business. Oil is one of the motivating forces for USA to go for war on Iraq as Iraq has world's 14 percent oil reserve, the second largest of the world next to Saudi Arabia. If USA can capture and control the oil resource of Iraq by assigning a puppet President there, who will be docile and subservient to USA as it did in Afghanistan, USA will be able to virtually dismantle the power of OPEC, and thereby hold the control of oil-pricing. In his speech, Bush urged the Iraqi people not to destroy the oil fields. It is because oil is the reason for which America invaded Iraq. It is assumed that upon capturing Iraq, USA will torn it into several pieces, and the power of the country will be permanently diminished, so that it can never be a great threat to Israel, the "great" ally of USA. As we know, Israel gets $ 2.2 billion military aid from USA per annum (Pilger 2002).

The motive of USA has become clear as the pipelines on the land of Afghanistan are in the process of building. Recently, the United States Army was criticised by an American Congressman for granting a multi-million dollar oil industry-related contract to Halliburton Co., run by Vice President Dick Cheney until 2000. The Army Corps of Engineers said that an oil fire-fighting contract had been given to Halliburton subsidiary Kellogg, Brown and Root (KBR) without being put out to tender (Al-Jazeera, April 5, 2003). The whole infrastructures of Iraq, including water, electricity, transportation, and communication were deliberately destroyed; as the top 8 corporations were already given contract to rebuild Iraq by using Iraqi oil. This is an absolute terrorism, not against terrorism (Baker 2003). Poverty, illiteracy, hunger, displacement, war-torn debris of infrastructures become the basis of lucrative industry for planners, experts and civil servants. This is the common feature of capitalist expansion, as Escobar says, "development proceeded by creating 'abnormalities' (such as the 'illiterate', the 'underdeveloped', the 'malnourished', 'small farmers', or 'landless peasants), which it would later treat and reform" (1995, p. 41).

Divide and Rule policy

The most obvious policy adopted by the British colonizers to capture the political power and thereby control the colonized territories is the 'divide and rule policy'. If the ruling government refused to cooperate with the British, they always supported the opposition by providing arms and money, and instigated to overthrow the ruling government. After overthrowing, the new administration used to become the real puppet of, and thereby facilitate to, the colonial administration. The real power remained in the hands of the colonial administration. During the colonial era, the development of the European society was pursued by disorganizing the non-European colonies.

For long time, Pentagon, the American Army, as well as CIA, adopted a policy known as the "policy of instigation". It means, if USA wants to ensure its presence, or to justify an invasion, it will, by the help of CIA and Pentagon, create an artificial crisis by providing money and arms to a group who will subsequently commit some atrocities therein. Those atrocities become a valid justification and pretext for USA to intervene and thereby strengthen its presence there (Ahmed 2002; Albert and Shalom 2002). There are proofs that Saddam Hussein, who was first installed in power by CIA, was instigated to attack Iran and also Kuwait. Even Osama bin Laden was also a creation of USA. America supported Northern Alliance, the opposition to ruling Taliban, in Afghanistan and installed CIA representative Hamid Karzai. US is trying to do the same in Iraq by installing Ahmad Chalabi, who has long association with CIA. The real power now lies in the hand of US Army. The policy of instigation is, to some extent, tantamount to the British policy of "divide and rule" during the oppressive period of colonization. American aggression can be worse than the British colonization as a new doctrine has also been added to the US-policy, the "doctrine of pre-emptive attack". It means, to attack a nation or a group of people assuming as a threat, before the actual threat comes or is detected clearly. This is the doctrine used by A. Hitler that led to the Second World War (Ahmed 2002).

Christian Missionaries

Cross or Christian missionaries always followed and facilitated the colonial administration. The ensuing colonial exchange, however, was captured in the post colonial African saying: "When the white man came, he had the Bible and we had the land. When the white man left, we had the Bible and he had the land." Under colonialism, when non-Europeans lost control of their of their land, their spiritual life was compromised insofar it was connected to their landscapes. It was difficult to sustain material and cultural integrity under these degrading conditions (McMichael 2000).

As an example, in 1757 the forces of British East India Company (the merchants had come to raise an army as well!) defeated the Muslim Ruler of Bengal, Nawab Siraju-d-Daulah, at the Battle of Plassey. By 1793, the famous British missionary, William Carey, had arrived in Calcutta. Work started on rendering the Bible into Bengali language and preparing other literature, and the missionary-run schools began to set up all over Bengal, and the sub-continent. The policy of the most Christian NGOs is to 'employ Muslims last' and to favor those who convert. The idea is to create economically and educationally influential community of converts who would, in due course, like in many parts of Africa, control all the key sectors of power: education, economy, social policy, bureaucracy and military. The direct colonization began to over after Second World War, but the missionaries remained in the colonies (Nuruzzaman 1994; Khan 1981; Hussain 1981; Islam 2001).

In case of Iraq and in Afghanistan, many missionaries have already started their operations. They are there with aids, and there are reports that they favour those who convert. A systematic poverty or impoverishment has been created by USA in Afghanistan and in Iraq, so that the long-afflicted and poverty-ridden people have no other option than to go to the missionaries for aids. Missionaries see this situation a golden opportunity to convert the people. This in fact implies another and worst form of subjugation, and this is how the colonial administration systematically makes the people of the colonized lands in all forms. They have a dream of establishing a universal Christian State. As John Henry Borrows 01 said:

I might sketch Christian movement in Musalman land which has touched, with the radiance of the cross, the Lebanon and the Persian mountains as well as the waters of the Basphorus and which will be sure harbinger of the day when the Cairo and Damascus and Tehran shall be the servants of Jesus and when even the solitudes of Arab will be pierced and the Christ in the person of his disciples, shall enter the 'Kaba' (Nuruzzaman 1994).

Part IV: Conclusion: Room for Peaceful Co-Existence?

If Islam is juxtaposed with the USA, and the relation is constructed with such a way that the former is inimical/antithetical to the latter, then, the survival of each increasingly depends on the limiting autonomy (power) of the other. The USA had this inimical relation with the former USSR, and the end result is the collapse of one. However, after the demise of USSR, the new constructed enemy is Islam, and hence, the capitalist project must go on to fight with Islam to emasculate its potential forces. With this struggle, making or remaking of new forces or enemies, sometimes by constructing the world as 'good vs. evil' sometimes as 'we vs. they', the capitalist project will survive, restructure, expand its power, and in Marxist term 'revolutionize', for without it 'capitalism must die'.

The inherent nature of capitalism is exploitation of human and natural resources by the way of colonization, development projects, globalization, and so on. The oppression will go on until there is a balance of power. As there was a balance of power, the capitalism's conflict with the former USSR was not in a physical form, and hence, it was known as Cold War. However, with the staging gulf war, and demise of USSR, the balance of power collapsed, and Muslims pose no balance of power with the USA. Whatever military power the Muslims possess, are in the process of complete emasculation. This analysis shows, the Muslims must face capitalist exploitation, oppression, and American hegemony until the Muslim world is united with their cultural, moral, and physical forces and potentialities, and poses a powerful entity to USA.

Muslims do not afford to ignore that USA is a powerful reality. Some people suggest a kind of civilizational dialogue with the USA for a peaceful coexistence. It is difficult to say how far that is effective as the experience of the last few decades does indicate that the attitude of USA can approach towards that goal. It also depends on the ability of Muslims: how they can negotiate with USA. Whatever is the outcome of the negotiation, the power relation can never be subverted, unless Muslims are in a position to pose a equitable balance of power. The Soviet Union's Premier, Joseph Stalin's proclamation is worth to mention: "We are fifty or hundred years behind the advanced countries. We must make good this distance in ten years. Either we do it, or they crash us" (Hettne 1990, p. 3).

References:

- As-Sibaye, Mustafa (1998). Islam O Paschatya Samaje Nari (Women in Islam and Western Society). Dhaka: Bangladesh Islamic Center.

- Black Star North Zine (2001). 'Beyond Anti-Globalization: Towards a Deeper Understanding of Capital and State', in Infoshop (www.infoshop.org), March 28.

- Brosius, Peter J. (1999). Green Dots, Pink Hearts: Displacing Politics from the Malaysian

- Escobar, Arturo (1992). 'Reflections on "Development": Grassroots Approaches and Alternative Politics in the Third World. Futures 24 (5): 411-36.

- Escober, Arturo (1995). Encountering Development: the Making and Unmaking of the Third World. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

- Foucault, "The Subject and Power", 208-26.

- Foucault, Michel (1979). "On Governmentality", Ideology and Consciousness 6: 5-21;

- Foucault, Michel (1986). The Use of Pleasure. New York: Pantheon Books.

- Huntington, Samuel P. (1996). The Clash of Civilization and the Making of the World Order. New York: Simon & Schuster.

- Leo Panitch (1977). (ed.). The Canadian State: Political Economy and Political Power. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.

- Leys, Colin (1996). The Rise and Fall of Development Theory. Indiana: Indiana University Press

- McMichael, Philip (2000). Development and Social Change. London: Pine Forge Press

- Pilger, John (2002). "American Bid for Global Dominance", in The New Statesman. December 12.

- Said, Edward (1979). Orientalism. New York: Vintage Books.

- Said, Edward (2003). "The Academy of Lagado" in LRB (London Review of Books), Vol. 25 No. 8 dated 17 April. http://www.lrb.co.uk/v25/n08/print/said01_.html