In a powerful article, ”Right Islam vs. Wrong Islam,” published in the Dec. 30, 2005, Wall Street Journal, Abdurrahman Wahid, a former president of Indonesia, the world`s largest Muslim nation, called on ”people of good will from every faith and nation to recognize that a terrible danger threatens humanity” caused by an ”extreme and perverse ideology in the minds of fanatics.” Wahid wrote: ”Fundamentalist strategy is often simple as well as brilliant.” The extremists are ”quick to drape themselves in the mantle of Islam and declare their opponents ”kafir,” or infidels, and thus smooth the way for slaughtering nonfundamentalist Muslims.” Wahid sees a ”simplistic, literal and highly selective reading” of the Koran and the prophet`s Sunna traditions being used ”to entrap” the Muslim world. Today`s world has some 6.5 billion people, of whom 1.5 billion are Muslims, divided into about 1 billion in Asia, 461 million in Africa and 51 million in Europe. Muslims are not all Arabs; the Arab world has about 300 million people. While in 10 years, the world`s population is projected to reach 7.5 billion, the U.S. Center for World Mission 1997 Report showed Muslim population will increase at 2.9 percent annually. To Wahid, the ”most effective way to overcome Islamist extremism is to explain what Islam truly is to Muslims and non-Muslims alike.” The failure to understand the true nature of Islam ”permits the continued radicalization of Muslims world-wide.” Islam ”teaches one to be lenient toward others and to understand their value systems, knowing that these are tolerated by Islam as a religion,” Wahid writes. He recites the words of the Koran: ”For you, your religion; for me, my religion.” ”Religious fanatics -- either purposely or out of ignorance -- pervert Islam into a dogma of ignorance, hatred and bloodshed. They justify their brutality with slogans such as `Islam is above everything else`” and intimidate or subdue those, ”regardless of nationality or religion,” who disagree with their extremist views. Some shed blood themselves, Wahid says; others sympathize with the extremists` violent actions ”or join in the complicity of silence.” Wahid calls for ”the combined weight of the vast majority of peace-loving Muslims, and the non-Muslim world,” in a ”coordinated campaign,” to resolve the ”crisis of misunderstanding that threatens to engulf our entire world.” In a lengthy article, ”It`s the Demography, Stupid” in the Jan. 4 Wall Street Journal, columnist and theater critic Mark Steyn mocks the Western world for having ”developed a great cult of worrying” about ”secondary” rather than ”primary impulses” of society as the ”real reason” the West is in danger of extinction. Steyn mocks those who are ”feeling good about other cultures” -- the ”adherents to the idea that all cultures are equal (yet) don`t want to live in anything but an advanced Western society” -- and questions how some can insist on being tolerant of other people`s intolerance. ”We fret about McDonald`s and Disney,” writes Steyn, while ”the big globalization success story” is how the Saudis have revived an 80-year-old ”obscure and unimportant strain of Islam practiced by Bedouins of no fixed abode” and ”successfully exported it to the heart of Copenhagen, Rotterdam, Manchester, Buffalo ...” Steyn reminds that between 1970 and 2000, the wealthy developed world ”declined” from under 30 percent of the world`s population to just over 20 percent, while in Muslim nations that segment increased from 15 percent to 20 percent. ”So the world`s people are a lot more Islamic ... and a lot less `Western`” by about 2020,” Steyn projected. This brings us back to Wahid`s calls to confront the ”Wahhabi/Salafi ideology -- a minority fundamentalist religious cult fueled by petrodollars,” a ”virulent ideology that underlies fundamentalist terrorism and threatens the very foundations of modern civilization.” A ”global crisis of misunderstanding” of Islam, Wahid said, is what is ”underlying, enabling and exacerbating this threat of religious extremism” and he calls for ”nothing less than a global struggle for the soul of Islam.” As we move into a new year, it`s time to think and act globally, recognize the big problem ahead, hear Wahid`s appeals to ”end” the bickering within and between nation-states, and adopt ”coherent long-term plan” before the world`s economy and modern civilization ”begin to crumble” under devastating attacks.