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Extracted Text (OCR)
women outnumber the men 65 percent to 35 percent. Even some Islamic
countries that were initially reluctant to embrace modernization have begun
to do so. For example, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates
now feature satellite campuses of major Western universities. One reason
for the shift is that the experience of other regions, such as Asia, has shown
that modernization does not simply equal westernization-that it is possible
to pursue, say, economic and social development while still retaining
distinctive cultural characteristics.
It is true that a certain number of young Muslims will continue to choose
rebellion against the modern world rather than integration into it, joining
radical Islamist groups and trying to wreak havoc where they can. About
30,000 Muslim fighters from all over the world, including the West, have
joined the Islamic State (also known as ISIS). But however much they
constitute a major global security problem, they are dwarfed by, say, the 200
million nonradical Muslims who live peacefully in Indonesia alone.
Indonesia has elected two consecutive leaders committed to integrating the
country into the modern world, and its largest Muslim organization, the 50-
million-plus-member Nahdlatul Ulama, has publicly challenged ISIS'
actions and ideology.
The real challenge, therefore, is not the Islamic world per se but figuring out
how to bolster the pro-modernization trends in that world while containing
the radical trend. In retrospect, it was a mistake for the West to have
remained silent when Saudi funding dramatically increased the number of
radical madrasahs around the world. A comparable investment today in
building a good modern school next to each radical one would create a
contest for legitimacy that would likely spread Enlightenment values far and
wide. Such a program could be undertaken by the UN agencies UNESCO
and UNICEF at relatively modest cost, and it is only one of many possible
lines of advance in attacking the problem.
CHALLENGING CHINESE
The second great challenge many worry about is the rise of China. China's
success, however, can also be seen as the ultimate triumph of the West. The
emperor Qianlong famously wrote to Great Britain's King George III in 1793
saying, "Our Celestial Empire possesses all things in prolific abundance and
lacks no product within its own borders. There [is] therefore no need to
import the manufactures of outside barbarians in exchange for our own
produce." Two centuries later, the Chinese understand that absorbing
Western modernity into their society has been crucial to their country's
reemergence. It has led to rapid economic growth, new and gleaming
infrastructure, triumphs in space exploration, the spectacular 2008 Olympic
Games in Beijing, and much more.
Even as Chinese society has accepted modernity with great enthusiasm,
however, it has not abandoned its Chinese cultural roots. The Chinese look
at their modern Chinese civilization and emphasize its Chineseness, seeing
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