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 is 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 policies
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
March 13, 2006