In an interview with the United Press International in London recently, Prime Minister Dr Mahathir saidthe "world is now witnessing a clash of civilisations. The powerful nations of the West are clearly targeting the Muslim nations. Their aim is to reshape and reform the Muslim world after their own fashion".

He basically recommended that Muslim countries unite to co-ordinate their political and diplomatic activities, and use their natural resources and their markets as a means of strengthening their political defences to avoid sanctions or invasion.

This raises a couple of interesting questions regarding internal consistencies with our position. If Malaysia is a Muslim nation, as the premier declared, has the West targeted us or tried to reshape and reform us?

The government has exhorted us to embrace globalisation and the information age. When we established the Multimedia Super Corridor, were we emulating Silicon Valley and western values, or was that a result of the US trying to reshape and reform us?

If the Afghanistan and Iraq wars - justified by the West as a campaign against terrorism - were but a mere cloak to veil the hidden US intention to counter, shape and reform Islamic identity, why do we still continue to:

host a regional anti-terrorism centre in co-operation with the US?

conduct joint military exercises with the US within the country?

trade with the US to the extent that it is our biggest partner?

If the West, led by US, were trying to change Muslims traditions and identity, isn't it strange that many Muslim nations in Middle East do not perceive this to be so?

If the Afghanistan and Iraq wars were flashpoints in this civilisational clash, it was strange that many Muslim countries from Saudi Arabia to Pakistan offered material and logistical assistance against the Taliban and Osama bin Laden, and Kuwait and Qatar allowed their lands to be used as bases against former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein. Maybe the leaders of these Muslim countries did not know better.

But what about the hypothesis of the West being viewed as a monolithic entity harbouring the intention to reshape and reform Islamic civilisation? The expression 'West' is itself an amorphous term-defying definition. Which powerful countries, like the US and UK, are included under the label 'West' and which are excluded?

Are France Germany and Russia, which are powerful nations opposed to Anglo-American position on Iraq war included in the 'West'?

In interview with UPI , the premier also made these key points:

"Malaysia has become an active partner in the global war against terrorism, led by the US because terrorists who use religion as an ideology are not fundamentalists but innovators . Islam in both Indonesia and Malaysia is open, forward-looking and, if you like, liberal. Some extremist ideas have been exported to our region from the Middle East. Many in the West ignore the fact that the first victims of terrorism are Muslim peoples.

"Islam says women should dress modestly. That is fine advice. The so-called religious militants, however, want to impose a special hijab of their own design, a political prop that they use as a symbol of their political presence. Today you see that hijab everywhere, in Malaysia and even in London. Many of those who wear it do not know it has nothing to do with Islam."

In the context above, where do some of us Malaysians stand in this so-called civilisational conflict? I cite the following:

Salbiah Ahmad complained that "Abu Sulayman, then rector of the International Islamic University of Malaysia (IIUM), told me that my contract as a law lecturer would not be renewed in July 1992 as 'my dress was not Islamic'."

Salbiah also commented that theologian Dr Amina Wadud was forced to retract her paper in an international Islamic conference on Islamic approaches to combating Aids/HIV because her remarks were deemed blasphemous.

Ipoh Datuk Bandar Datuk Sirajuddin Salleh, meanwhile, wantshis city to be "morally clean". As a result, a non-Muslim college student Lai Kar Leong, who was holding hands and talking with his girlfriend in the park, was booked under the Ipoh Municipal Council 1985 Parks Bylaw on April 13 by Ipoh City Council for "indecent behaviour".

Are all these people shaped and reformed by Western values? Or are Islamic innovators (or fundamentalists) trying to change and reshape their identities?

Is there a clash of civilisation right here in our midst? If so, which side of the civilisation is the government defending here?