Colonialism, which originally meant usurping the control of other people’s lands and rights in an illegal manner, took later several forms and names depending on the changing times. Modern historians are of the view that colonialism is a political, economic and military strategy adopted by the powerful nations to seize the territories and human and material resources of weak societies — something going on since the beginning of political history. The Europeans colonized the Asian and African regions during period between the 13th century and the middle of the 20th century. The colonialists killed and drove away the original inhabitants of a land. We all know how they eliminated the Red Indians of Americas or the natives of Rhodesia and South Africa and or the Arabs in Palestine.
Another type of colonialism is the occupation of a region in which the people’s lives are spared but their wealth and natural resources are robbed. The colonialists of this type are keen to destroy the cultural identity and values of the subjected people in order to guarantee that they never become powerful. The colonies of the British Empire had, at one time, covered almost half of the world. France, Spain, Portugal, Holland, Germany and Belgium had established their colonies in Africa, Asia and America in the past centuries. Japan was an Asian colonial power.
However the United Nations decided to free the world of every form of colonization in 1960. It meant giving the colonies their freedom to decide their future.
Though the UN adopted measures to eradicate the colonization it was not easy for colonial powers to leave their colonies for nothing. So they devised some schemes to sow sedition among the people of diverse tribal, ethnic and religious groups in the former colonies with the objective of leaving them politically unstable and economically weak. The former made it sure that they could continue the exploitation of the erstwhile colonies. It was with this motive that Britain established the Commonwealth and France the Francophone Federation.
The United States, a rather late entrant to the club of the colonial powers, mainly focused on economic colonization which was termed as American imperialism during the years of Cold War.
As a sequel to its capitalist colonization, the US also launched the so-called cultural imperialism aimed at establishing American hegemony over the cultures of the Third World.
It has been becoming increasingly evident in the recent years that the US is hostile to Islam and Muslims. Washington has chalked out special programs to wean the Muslim youths away from their cultural moorings with sweet-sounding slogans such as democracy, human rights and freedom of expression though in practice the US has been behaving in a manner contrary to all these values in the Arab and Muslim countries and several poor countries. This recent American strategy could be called the neoimperialism.
The US agencies have devised several strategies to get a true picture of the Muslim societies so that they could formulate the strategies to weaken the Muslims. Some American funds promote certain societies in these countries to promote American culture. They make special studies with the help of unemployed youth to know in detail of their lifestyle, religious convictions and practices, education, political inclinations, attitude toward male-female relations etc. The American-funded societies also make efforts to brainwash the youths to keep them away from their cultural values and go after the dazzlingly material American culture. The youths would be invited to special programs held in the US in which high-ranking US officials address them and impress them with the false glory of the American values. The speakers also emphasize the need for establishing democracy, highlighting the achievements of the American political system.
One wonders if the naïve Muslim youths attending such programs are misled to believe that it is the majority American voters and not various interest groups and self-seeking lobbies that dominate the US presidential campaigns. Or, are the Muslim youth taught that the freedom means violating all religious values including having illicit sexual relations? The ultimate goal of the US brainwashing is, undoubtedly, to destabilize the Islamic values and shake the foundations of the Muslim societies the world over.
