Donald Trump's win and clash of civilisations

In his campaign, US presidential-elect Donald Trump had three main thematic agendas. The most important one is his views on migrants and particularly Muslims, the other is a vague term he uses; Let’s make America Great Again! The third is creating jobs for the large number of the mostly American underclass.

These themes seem to have resonated well with mainly the deprived and desperate white voters that surprisingly included 53 per cent white women despite all the allegations about abusing women and using derogatory terms about them.

But Trump is a right-wing demagogue. All his speeches were filled with hate and rejected other cultures and countries. He became a radicalised right winger.

The triumph of Donald Trump’s right wing approach is not an isolated issue. It has happened before albeit on a small scale. Since the early 1990s after the collapse of the Berlin Wall, the rise of the extreme right groups in Europe started.

That was way before the start of the massive migration by people from the developing world to the more prosperous Western Europe and America.

Austria saw the rise of Jorge Haider, who galvanised the imagination of the Austrian people by portraying foreigners in general and Muslims in particular as the dangerous enemy. His demagogic rhetoric earned his party many seats in the National Parliament and was even co-opted into the ruling coalition.

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Many other European countries saw Jorge Haider wannabes rising and some have succeeded in rousing right-wing passion in a substantial percentage of their people.

In Holland, there was Pim Fortuyn, in Belgium there was Filip De Winter, and in the UK the UKIP leader Nigel Farage actually was one of Mr Trump’s main advisers in this election. He even attended one of the three presidential debates. After Mr Trump’s victory, all his extreme right friends sent their congratulations.

Most moderate European leaders were not in a hurry to recognise or congratulate The Donald. In all these, Islam is the enemy number one and they never hide it. This political climate has created essentially a clash of two cultures and philosophy.

In 1995 Willie Claes, then NATO Secretary General had started talking about Islam as being the next challenge for NATO. So the tone had already been set to make hatred against Islam almost look like a conspiracy. The rise of ISIL and Al Qaeda therefore is clearly linked by right wing groups to Islam attempting to take over the world.

One European writer predicted Islam might take over the western world. The migration of Muslims either as refugees or migrant workers is just the Trojan horse through which Islam is trying to establish itself in Western Europe and America and take over possibly the whole world, they claim.

This fear has been exacerbated by the fact that the population of Muslims in Europe would be around 30 per cent by the year 2050, which is just less than 40 years from now.

In his book, 'The Clash of Civilizations and Remaking of a New World Order' published in 1996, Samuel Huntington, an American political scientist, predicted the possibility of two cultures colliding; mainly the western, Caucasian and predominantly Christian and the Eastern civilisations.

Huntington’s hypothesis suggested that people’s religion and culture shall be the basis of conflict in the post-Cold War world. More than any other time in history and with Donald Trump having been elected as the next President of the United States, the clash and possible conflict predicted by Huntington looks eminent. Putting Trump aside, in the past two decades, the rise of the far right in Europe has been on the increase.

The driving factor in this rise of popularity of the extreme right in Europe is the dramatic increase in the number of Muslim immigrants into Europe and America.

The aftermath of the September 11, 2001 attack in America by an Al Qaeda-affiliated group has only increased the popularity and possibly, the potency of the far right.

The Muslims got vilified and were used as objects to frighten the voters. The voters in turn got convinced Donald Trump now is the de facto leader of the extreme right movement. I would not be surprised if a large number of right-wing leaders from Europe come to pay homage to the new US President because “their efforts were not in vain”.

On the other side and perhaps most worrying, the Muslim militants have also seen Donald Trump’s victory as an advantage. Because of the unintended consequence, they now have a partner in crime. Any statement, or move Donald Trump makes, will strengthen their position and give legitimacy to their action.

The clash of civilisations will now be a reality and the world will be divided further. So a number of the Muslims say they are happy with Donald Trump’s victory because in their view, the western world will no longer hide under the guise of democracy to interfere in their countries.

The enemy is very visible and has identified himself, according to them. This sounds to me like the coming of the apocalypse. The end of the world is near. I might be proven wrong.