At
the year end, and this year also brings to an end a conflict-ridden decade, we
are ritually inundated with reviews of past months and predictions for the
future in magazines and journals from around the world.

On
my desk, for instance, I have the Economist cautioning us about the “dangers of
a rising China,” and the prestigious journal Foreign Affairs assembling wise
individuals to map for us what we might find in the “World
Ahead.”

From my perspective — one shaped by travels, readings and talking with
people in foreign lands — there is a seismic shift unfolding in global politics
and culture.

The
man who sensed this shift perhaps most acutely, and described presciently its
effect as the “clash of civilizations” was Samuel Huntington.

The
severest of this clash is one between political Islam and the
West.

I
say political Islam to distinguish this ideology of murder and mayhem from Islam
— the faith-tradition of hundreds of millions of simple, honest, God-fearing
Muslims devoted to their family as were my parents, and also victims of
Islamists who turned a simple faith into death-cult ideology.

This struggle between political Islam and the West will stay with us well
into the next decade and, perhaps, beyond. It will end only when Islamists are
effectively defeated and political Islam expunged similar to the defeat of
German Nazis and Japanese militarists.

The
struggle of this nature is invariably ugly. It is also bewildering to people
caught in the midst of the struggle.

The ground zero of this struggle ironically is situated in the heart of Jerusalem. I was there a few months ago and, in visiting this noblest of cities, it became strikingly clear for me why the simplest solution to the strife that desecrates Jerusalem remains the most difficult to consummate.

The
distance between the Dome of the Rock and the Western Wall — two sacred places
of worship where I joined Muslims and Jews respectively engaged in their prayers
— takes a few minutes to walk.

The
physical distance between the Dome and the Wall is, however, trivial when
compared to the immense psychological distance separating Jews and
Muslims.

If
there is to be peace between these two peoples who revere Abraham and embrace
his monotheism, then this psychological distance between the Dome and the Wall
has to dissolve for Jews and Muslims acknowledging together what is common to
both is greater than what divides them.

The
greater burden of equal acceptance of the other rests with Arabs and Muslims
given their history of empire and politics.

They allowed this history to obscure the truth that Muhammad’s monotheism
is anchored in Judaism.

This history also gets in the way of what the noblest of men once
preached in this city of King David.

Jesus taught “cast out the beam out of thine own eye” prior to removing
any speck from the neighbour’s eye.

This requisite to examine oneself, or change one’s heart as the Qur’an
admonishes, for peace is more difficult than ascending Mount Everest or landing
man on the moon.

And
so in my final column of this decade I predict the “clash” Huntington foresaw
will get more severe before it eventually comes to an
end.