Islam Rediscovered
12. Islamic Fundamentalism
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assisted in the dissemination of their literature all
over the world. But this enemy-of-my-enemy-is-a-
friend formula ultimately proved counter-
productive, in that it virtually amounted to
replacing one enemy with another. The waging of
this proxy war turned out to be only very
temporary in its benefits.
Those who at a later stage felt the impact of
extremist fundamentalism, took this to be a case of
violence against them. So they opted for a policy of
gun versus gun. But subsequent events proved this
policy to be a total failure, the reason being that the
issue was not that of conducting a purely physical
struggle, but of exposing and scotching the fallacies
of a flawed ideology. You can win a fight with
arms, but to defeat an ideology, a counter-ideology
is a
sine qua non.
Without that nothing can be
achieved.
There is no doubt about it that Muslim
fundamentalism is a threat to peace, for, due to
their fanaticism, its proponents do not stop short of
resorting to destructive activity, even if it should
prove suicidal. Now the task we must undertake is
