CHENNAI: Islam should not be suppressed out of fear that it breeds extremism, India-born philosopher and academic Akeel Bilgrami said on Monday. He contended that there is a kind of religious fundamentalism in the heart of the United States “comparable to the fundamentalism in Iran and Saudi Arabia”.

Speaking on ‘Mentality of Democracy’ in his inaugural address to the 2012-13 class of students at the Asian College of Journalism here, Bilgrami while alluding to Islamic resurgence in the world, observed, “A cold war is being fought against Islam”. This, he said, paved the way for expansion of a military-industrial complex in the United States where suppression is never overt but has taken the form of marginalization of alien viewpoints. “The opposite of freedom is not coercion… they just pity you… say poor chap, 50 years out of date. The marginalization is pervasive …you are treated as an eccentric, people snigger in corridors,” he explained.

“In the heart of America… in Nebraska and Kansas ... deeply conservative Christians go to the Church because it is part of human nature to seek solidarity and community,” said Bilgrami, Johnsonian Professor of Philosophy at Columbia University, New York. Obviously, common people’s need for well-being born out an alienation spawned by consumerist and exploitative capitalism could not be satiated by visiting a bowling alley, as political scientists may suggest, or obsession with entertainment or an icon like Sachin Tendulkar, he said. In the heart of America, a hub of religiosity, not surprisingly there is talk of ‘Armageddon’ reminiscent of the crusades, he said.

In contrast, there was an absence of religiosity in Europe though its people had experienced a similar kind of alienation due to the capitalist culture. However, since the late 19th century, there had been vibrant labour movements that provided the feeling of solidarity and community at weekly union hall meetings.

Reputed in the western academic world as a philosopher of language and mind, Bilgrami said the Arab Spring and revolutionary movements in West Asia could be attributed to a “change in the mental map of people brought about through public education by one television channel, Al Jazeera, telling people how corrupt their ruling elites are.”