What are the cultural, historic and political roots of decades-long simmering political frustration of generations of Muslim youth across Asia’s Muslim regions? Their demands are ignored and/or suppressed both by national regimes and their international patrons. The vengeful unleashing of the so called global war on terror, instigated by fear following the 9-11-2001 attacks against the US mainland, only has added fuel to politics of rage and turning it effectively into a global war for terror.  Was such escalation of violence inevitable? If so, why?  Will a radical shift in the construction of “truth” about the root causes of politics of rage and wars of fear in Muslim Pan-Asia be considered or necessary for a better outcome for the region and the world? If so, what could it be?
Nazif Shahrani is Professor of Anthropology, Central Asia and Middle Eastern Studies at Indiana University, Bloomington. He has also served as Chairman of the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Culture (2007-2011) and Director of the Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies Program at Indiana University. Professor Shahrani has conducted extensive field research in the Middle East, Egypt in particular, Afghanistan and Central Asia. He has taught undergraduate and postgraduate courses in Middle Eastern and Central Asian history and politics. His current research focuses on the narratives of state-society relations and governance in multi-ethnic post-colonial failing nation states. He has published very widely, and, in addition to his intellectual focus on the Arab world, he is presently completing a book entitled State-Society Dynamics, Crisis of Legitimacy and Governance in Post-Taliban Afghanistan.