In this age when the upsurge of religious extremism is strongly felt to be a universal threat to international, regional, national and personal security, it is easy for many of us to overlook or even forget the threat from its antithesis, namely modernist extremism.

Indeed, more often than not, the ideas and forces of modernist extremism are uncritically mobilised to combat religious extremism, creating a bipolar or binary situation and mode of reasoning which is reminiscent of the early years of the Cold War between the late 1940s and early 1970s.

In those years, nothing could or was allowed to exist and operate in between liberal democracy and communism: anti-colonial nationalism in the Third World as well as social democracy in Western countries was branded as fellow travellers or agents of the Moscow- or Beijing-based international communist movement.

Similarly, in Moscow, Beijing and other countries that adopted their system of economy and governance, social democracy and nationalism that was not seen to be radical enough could be labelled as neo-colonial, conservative and reactionary props.

However, if we observe carefully, the ideologies of both liberal democracy and communism share certain elements of the world view and cultural heritage of the European renaissance, enlightenment and the Industrial Revolution which celebrate secular modernity and the notion of linear, continuous and inevitable progress.

Of course, besides liberal democracy and communism, modernity has also been also sometimes articulated in the ideological form of fascism and militarism like Nazi Germany and militarist Japan in the 1920s and 1930s.

Those in contemporary Malaysia and Singapore who have only seen how the Ismalic Taliban in Afghanistan physically destroyed the unIslamic past and terrorist acts which killed and maimed many innocent people, should also balance their understanding by examining similar acts of extremism in the French Revolution, the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia, Nazification of Germany, militarisation of Japan, the Chinese Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution or Pol Pot's vision of an ideal society.

Deleting heritage

Like the religious Taliban, the extreme modernists in those upheavals also attempted to destroy the past: clerics and those who were learnt in religious studies were discredited or even maimed and killed in the name of facilitating scientific progress, places of worship and cultural heritages from the previous eras were destroyed in the name of modern development.

Classic literature as well as religious scriptures were banned and denounced as unscientific, conservative or reactionary.

In the minds of the extreme modernists, everything from the past, tangible or intangible, must be bad or unworthy and should be destroyed, and this includes collective memories, religions and cultural heritage.

We should not under-estimate the psychological urge, individual and collective, to be extreme modernists: for everyone, community and nations yearn to be better, more excellent and more affluent than the previous generations, and this yearning is dynamically competitive. Everyone just wants to outdo one another to be more modern.

In their misguided search and impatient quest for modernity, many governments and peoples in developing countries have been prepared to destroy historical sites like temples, churches, mosques, old schools and war memorials (with the limited exceptions of those protected by law), for the constrction of shopping malls, skyscrapers, airports, ahistorical and vainglorious monuments like Putrajaya and other symbols of modernity.

The education system is not spared too: religious and classical studies, as well as other 'unproductive' subjects like classical philosophy and history, are often perceived or felt by extreme modernists to be mental obstacles to progress. These subjects are either scrapped or funding for these is slashed.

Students and youths are indiscriminately forced by the government and parents, to study physics, biology, chemistry, mathematics, accounting, law, medicine, business management, computer science and food technology.

The end result of these multi-pronged efforts to modernise is a society with many technically educated men and women with high intelligence quotient (IQ), but also low emotional quotient (EQ), propensity for cultural vulgarity or vulgar culture, lack of human relations and social connectedness and, above all, the inner self-restraining mechanisms of mercy and compassion for the weak.

For these men and women, other human beings are mostly likely to be treated just as digits in their computers, account books, police or prison-wardens' files, electoral roll and party membership lists - instead of also citizens, friends, neighbours, parents, children and above all, fellow human beings.

New language

Because religions and traditional cultures have been discredited, despised or even destroyed, the only form of after-work comfort and relaxation, or non-work leisurely activities, are market-based and standardised mass entertainment.

Even private inter-personal conversations now tend to be based on sharply logical, show-me-the-statistics, do-or-die or see-you-in-court type of arguments, instead of a neighbourly, story-telling and open-end reasoning. The latter is often sprinkled with politically-not-so-correct jokes, tension-breaking humour, out-of-the-box analogies or comparisons, and a quotation or two from scriptures or classical literature.

The language used by extreme modernists in public discourses is often devoid of human passion and feeling because such expression is equated with manifestations of religious extremism, cultural chauvinism or backward irrationality.

Or, because of the lack of education in the classics and religious literature, the command of languages that can express human passion and feeling has been lost in the misguided and impatient quest for modernity.

So, a combination of 'social-scientific', bureaucratic, legalistic and statistical expressions are used just to show we are modern and rational, or not involved in or linked to any forms of religious extremism or cultural and linguistic chauvinism.

But the ultimate expression of modernist extremism seems to be that even if a Western-trained medical specialist wears jubah or tudung , cheongsam , sari or turban, one is instinctively and automatically suspected as a religious extremist or cultural chauvinist. The person is socially guilty until proven innocent by extreme modernists who control opinion-making.

But if an illiterate exorcist or spiritual medium wears a Western coat or jeans made in the United States, he or she is first assumed to be a modern - and therefore rational or scientific - person.

Where is the 'logic' in this?