The model for Europe to learn from and change its ways was only one: the Muslim Caliphate, whereby all Muslim states, whether under direct control of the center of the Caliphate or as independent states, were nevertheless subjectively a part of and an ally to the Caliphate. Therefore, the emergent body of the Ummah was having a single consensual foreign policy, a mutual currency, free-to-cross borders and trade, and military alliance.
As it happened, the 2nd World War proved to be the last blow upon the already tottering institution of the Caliphate; the British and their Allies went to the last limit to ensure that the Caliphate should cease to exist even in a symbolic form, so that the Ummah could be stripped away from the very idea of Unity, rendering it further and further away from the possibility to re-merge in future. And, with this divide, Europe picked up its seed for uniting.
At the end of the 2nd World War, in 1948, Europe was able to conduct the Hague Congress, wherein the idea of a United Europe, and beyond that, a unity within the whole White/Christian world was laid down. In the Congress, the ‘European Movement International’ and the ‘College of Europe’ were founded, wherein aspiring elite Eurocrates were to be injected with a spirit of European solidarity and union. Therefore, with all their history of discord and barbarity behind them, Europe was being readied for this re-birth, under the guidance of a few thinkers who had finally learned the worth of unity.
Following many developmental stages and treaties, the EU officially came to place in 1993, aspiring to unite its 27 White/Christian member states into a single currency, a single trade-zone, a combined foreign policy, and a military alliance. Thus, within the diverse ethnicities, languages and cultures that had always vied for land and power, a unique concept of unity was initiated; a unity based on ‘diversity’; a unity that needed not the people to be unified subjectively, wherein they would have forsaken their objective differences to become one people; but a unity meant only to join for economic and strategic gains.
Here lies the stark difference between the European Union and the Islamic Union in the Caliphate, which Europe had connived to abolish. Here lay the reasons why the Caliphate, that had come into being upon the ideals of one man and had swiftly evolved within a few day of the death of the Prophet, perpetuated for over 13 centuries, leaving in its aftermaths an Ummah still united in a subjective ideal, yearning to come together again. While the EU, that took over 45 years, and the backing of its own organizations and colleges, and of the elite from all around Europe who worked for its evolution, is already facing dire crises that signal its falling apart, when it has been only 20 years to its birth.
It is a perplexity that the EU gave the world’s largest nominal GDP and PPP in 2011, and gave itself the 2012 Nobel Peace Prize, yet, since the last 10 years, it has been facing the worst financial crisis of history; the facts are contradicting and eye-opening!
What really happened was that in the formulation of the EU, it was decided between the states that in order to make the Euro a successful currency, the states will ensure to limit their deficit spending and debt levels. To maintain clean-face, governments were allowed to have pumped in billions of dollars in the name of ‘security’, from their own banks and from EU banks and organizations, even if it meant selling their sovereign rights and assets in return.
All this artificial insemination of funds did not prove to be a means for stabilizing the dwindling economies of these states as desired, rather, they heaped up as un-repayable debts, the vicious cycle of which was becoming unsustainable by the day. This eventuated in Greece, Ireland, Portugal, Spain and Cyprus collapsing into severe sovereign debt crisis and devastating political turmoil along with Slovenia, Slovakia and the Netherlands. Several banks and Multinational Organizations have collapsed, jobs have been lost and austerity for the common European is on the rise.
The usual dreams of grandeur and rose tinted views yet again. What Ummah? The Ummah where none of the Arab nations even bother giving citizenship or even equal rights to Pakistanis?
Are we talking about that Ummah or the one where Sunni states support terrorism in Shia states and vice versa?
The EU is an interesting concept. In another 100 years, it will perhaps stabilise. The Caliphate was a joke anyway. If it wasn’t – then it would have still existed – wouldn’t it?