Realism requires us to accept that the Western world needs a strong USA to counter China, were this nation to enter into a payback mode; that is, to reprimand all those nations which sought to obtain a foothold on its home territory in an earlier century. Those incursions caused great damage to the people and their heritage.
But then the Western world needs not only the USA but also a friendly China and a united Europe (including Russia) to contain militant Islam’s growth. Were Islam to take over the world, what would happen to the liquor industry, the Christianising industry, the prostitution industry, and the usury industry? However, since the nations of Europe seem incapable of burying their sectarian or other ethno-cultural differences, one can only hope that the Sunni-Shia divide is like the Rift Valley of Africa.
A final question? Is the USA capable of becoming truly civilised, (that is, to look after all of its people) in order to receive the respect it needs as the leader of free peoples? What it needs to do at home, and how it has to treat other people, are surely self-evident.
These are extracts from my book ‘Musings at death’s door: an ancient bicultural Asian-Australian ponders about Australian society’
RAJA ARASA RATNAM 