Lightening

The sky darkens and high in the heavens a cooler mass of air comes in contact with a warmer one. If enough of a temperature difference exists, thunder, lightening and rain occur. A violent storm shakes the earth.

For a half a millennium Western culture has rolled over others. Often the clash was a violent storm. Today we have a ring side seat to a clash of the East and the West.

We believe, especially here in America, our Western culture is superior and will triumph.  What might we see looking over the warfare trench wall to the battlefield?  We see America and its allies invading the traditionally Muslin area of Afghanistan and the Russians in Chechnya. We see Italy throwing up barrier to immigration from North Africa. We witnessed the Serbs war on Bosnia and Herzegovina. We see the Swiss banning the building of minarets or the French the burka. It seems Muslin immigrants do not seek assimilation.

Through the lightening and rain we see that in France Islam is the second most widely practiced religion. The worshipers are an estimated to total 5 to 10 percent of the population. Muslims in Britain have grown to more than 2.4 million in just four years. It is growing 10 times faster than the rest of that society. There are large communities of Muslims in China, the Balkans, and Russia. India is over 13%. Israel is over 16%. The Guinness World Records (reportedly a generally reliable and unbiased source) rates Islam as the world’s fastest-growing religion. In the world around one in five people follow Islam.

The victor today in the battle of cultures is not assured. The Swiss recognize Sharia law. Britain adopted recognition of Islamic Law and gives its courts full power to rule on civil cases. Sharia law is seeping across Canada. But what about the most important icon of Western culture, “capitalism”?  Economist sometime are willing to admit that capitalism is an imperfect system. The problem has been nothing better to replace it. But the same was said about the barter or mercantile systems in their time. Here in America we are devout in our worship of capitalism.

Suppose that blinding flash of lightening on the cultural war battle field is the advance of the Islamic economic system vanquishing capitalism?