Shahid Bolsen on Global Muslim Rise to Superpower Status

Colonialism and imperialism operate on many different planes. There is an ongoing battle for cultural territory. And just as with geographic territory, you can gain or lose ground in that battle. While the Islamic movement has made significant strides in the Muslim world for the last fifty, sixty, seventy years or so, we have also lost considerable cultural and ideological territory. There are a lot of Muslims who have been completely subsumed by western cultural norms, standards, and values.

And not just Muslims, of course, this has happened to people across the global South. But Muslims have the distinction of possessing a codified, unified, articulate, and intricate belief system that encompasses law, ethics, morality, discipline, public and private conduct and behavior, business, and much more. All of which heavily informs and regulates the individual cultures across the Muslim world. In other words, we have our own long standing and powerful civilization that is more than adequate to nourish and fortify us against the comparatively newer, less coherent, and lethally inconsistent beliefs, ideologies, values, and culture of the collective West. There is no reason nor excuse why Muslims should lose much less surrender one centimeter of cultural territory.

We are entering a new era in the global order and the coercive power of the West Of Europe specifically and The UK is diminishing. It is absolutely the right time for Muslims to reassert our civilizational identity and to take back every inch of cultural territory that we've lost. Now, this shouldn't be seen in any way or declared in any way to be hostile towards or aggressive towards non Muslims, but only against any effort to subvert, subdue, subordinate or undermine our culture, our identities, our beliefs, and our values. Look, the inescapable reality is this. Some groups will always rise above others.

Some groups will always attain more power than others. We have all been living in a time when the collective West enjoys and asserts its dominance over the rest of the planet, But that time is ending. So amongst the people of the global South, who do you think is most likely to rise in cultural, political and economic dominance? There are only three relatively cohesive groups that are contenders for that position. The Hindus, the Catholics and the Muslims.

Now the Hindus of India and the Catholics of Africa and Latin America have the population of us, but they don't really have the civilizational architecture nor even the shared culture nor the inclusivity of the Muslims that would enable them to really operate as a truly global influence nor really does any group have the organizational history across borders that the Muslims have. It's simply inevitable that the Muslims will become the dominant group in the global South. Outside The United States Of America, there will be coalitions of Muslim states that collectively represent and constitute a global cultural and economic superpower. Now, of course, there will continue to be secular nation state based power players, but ideologically affiliated populations will eclipse these certainly in terms of cultural influence. The West has excelled in technological innovation, but they have failed as a civilization.

And they have failed as a civilization because the West has failed to civilize itself even after some two hundred years since the enlightenment. The entire global South can testify to their savagery, hypocrisy, and tyranny. While the Muslims can't claim that our tenure as an empire spanning more than a thousand years was immaculate. By comparison, our credentials against the West are pristine. And now, we the Muslims have experienced colonization, segregation.

We've tasted foreign tyranny. And we know what it feels like to be reviled by those who have more power than we do. And these are lessons that we will never forget and Allah forbid that we ever behave with the same cruelty, vindictiveness and intolerance that we have ourselves suffered. Our countries constitute roughly 20% of all land on the planet and the most strategic sea lanes in the world are largely under Muslim jurisdiction. The Suez Canal, the Mediterranean Sea, the Straits Of Hormuz, and the Straits Of Malacca.

Our natural resources dwarf those of the West. Not only do our countries account for roughly 75% of oil and gas, we also account for roughly 40% of global exports in every other sector. We are easily the single biggest, single most important demographic group in the world with the greatest potential. The last 100 or so of Muslim subjugation and weakness are going to end up just being an anomaly in our history just as Western and European dominance is an anomaly in their history. Both these phenomena are out of character And Europe and the West are returning to their natural state, and the Muslim world is returning to our natural state.

The sooner we and they understand this, the better for everyone. It is inevitable that the Muslims will become once again the greatest cultural, political, economic, and civilizational influence in the world. We need to recognize this ourselves and the westerners do too. Those in the West who let go of their animosity and hostility towards the Muslims will be ahead of the curve. And Muslims who let go of their awe and admiration for the West will save themselves from being left behind in an embarrassingly obsolete paradigm.