By Manish Chand

New Delhi, Sep 18 (IANS) Five years after 9/11, the much touted "clash of civilisations" is no longer a theory but a living reality and the US has become a byword for "belligerence, intolerance and self-righteousness" for Muslims, says well known historian Mushirul Hasan.

"Certainly the US government headed by George Bush and his advisers have done all they could possibly do to bring about this clash. They are deliberately creating conditions in which they themselves see Islam as the enemy and 'the other'," Hasan said in an interview.

"They have through their actions forced Muslims to believe that the West is the 'other'. There is a very real danger to this world unless the US very strongly and effectively dispels these impressions," said the vice chancellor of Jamia Millia Islamia university.

Hasan is also anguished by the increasing racial profiling of Muslims and the way they are misrepresented in the West as "hostile, fundamentally flawed and fundamentalists".

He added: "There is no empathy and understanding of who they are.

"I believe today that a set of factors, conditions and circumstances leading to a clash of civilisations has sharpened. Those who had a vested interest in putting forward this thing must be smiling and laughing. They couldn't believe (that) what they were saying then would become so successful."

Hasan - author of at least half a dozen books like "Legacy Of A Divided India" and "Will Secular India Survive?" - traces the deepening resentment, even hatred, among Muslims against the US due to the projection of brazen American power in Palestine, Iraq and Afghanistan.

"The US government is unpopular because it is equated with belligerence, intolerance and self-righteousness, all against the Christian faith that the present rulers of the US subscribe to."

Appalled at the American pretensions of exporting democracy to Muslim countries, he underlines the US equivocation in supporting repressive, autocratic monarchies in the Middle East.

"The point is that the American government should not feel safe with autocratic monarchies. The assumption that American interests are better safeguarded under a non-democratic system has been proved wrong by the emergence of Osama bin Laden and the Al Qaeda network that operates in countries that are US-friendly."

If the US government is serious about the revival of democracy in the Middle East, Hasan said, it should stop meddling in the internal affairs of Muslim nations and societies and leave them "free to chalk out their destinies".

But the historian warned that virulent anti-Americanism is not the answer to the ills that plague the Muslim world. The solution lies in a radical social and intellectual restructuring of Muslim societies.

"Post 9/11 terror attacks, there are important lessons to be learnt by the Muslim community. The stranglehold of the orthodoxy, especially in its political and religious form, has to be loosened and slackened.

"The answer lies in more and more Muslim communities moving towards democracy. There is no short cut to democracy," he added.

The contours of democratic and liberal Muslim societies and nations are, however, to be decided by the Muslims themselves and not by mimicking the West, he said.

"It's very important to change the face of Muslim societies, not in terms of simply making concessions to the West but in terms of engaging the world that has left them behind for a variety of reasons.

"The Muslim rulers can't be expected to abdicate or relinquish power. It has to be wrested by the people. The pharaohs in Egypt will have to go. There is no place for pharaohs in the modern world," he said.