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Not a clash of civilizations; but world culture vs. Islamist culture

He believed that the Western civilization, owing to its superior values, had in fact triumphed above other civilizations. Fukuyama's proposition is that liberal democracy, which first developed in the cradle of Western civilization, is a universally acceptable concept, and that the world is now moving decisively towards embracing it. Resistance to this universal establishment of Western democracy could come from resistant cultures rejecting values fundamental to democracy. Hence this had to be effectively countered by sponsoring a universal democratic crusade in defence of Western values.

At the heart of this high moral rhetoric, however, was the gusto for achieving its strategic objectives to gain control over resource-rich areas of the non West and be able to direct and influence policy to safeguard U. Fukuyama made some sense amidst the early euphoria of the post Soviet era. Western institutions had triumphed after all, and the period of stability before the onset of the Bosnian crisis and the rise of ethnic conflict globally seemed to augur well.

There were a number of cracks and loopholes in the system: Huntington makes more sense in the post-Bosnia context. He takes a more realistic stance and perhaps one that fits in more with post-Cold War U. S foreign policy orientation by identifying potential areas of conflict along civilizational lines. Despite the differences in approach, the two theses are logically sequenced and interlinked. The close kinship between the two apparently disparate theories has been highlighted insightfully by Professor Ahmet Duvatoglu: Huntington completes the picture drawn by Fukuyama by providing the hegemonic powers with a theoretical justification for the overall political and military strategies required to control and reshape the international system: Western values and political structures have an intrinsic and irresistible universality Fukuyama , and it is other civilizations which are responsible for the political crises and clashes Huntington.

Whereas Fukuyama emphasizes the unavoidable and irresistible universalization of Western values, Huntington attempts to explain the alternative processes of civilization which mobilize the masses into political action and confrontation. In contrast to state-centric realist theory and system-oriented neo-realist model, Huntington primarily focuses on cultural-religious-civilizational factors. He calls forth a paradigmatic shift to understand the post-Cold War global politics. He very clearly had his eye on rivals in the policy-making ranks, theorists such as Francis Fukuyama and his "end of history" ideas, as well as the legions who had celebrated the onset of globalism, tribalism and the dissipation of the state.

But they, he allowed, had understood only some aspects of this new period. He was about to announce the "crucial, indeed a central, aspect" of what "global politics is likely to be in the coming years. The Cold War theory of an ideological conflict between Communism and Capitalism that were inherently irreconcileable was an over-simplification of the actual dynamics of conflict. This paradigm fits very well with the neo Realist school of thought that dominates U. S foreign policy making machinery.

Importantly, however, Huntington is not merely a neorealist theorist. He asserts that underneath political, economic and cultural interests lie civilization-based identities which are significantly more difficult to accommodate to one another.

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It is a simplified hypothesis easy to sell to American foreign policy making elite who sought a new paradigm after the Cold War order collapsed. Edward Said comments that at the core of this theory is the fact that its true importance derives from its timing. He warns about a conflict with China, for example, which is hardly a replacement for the Cold War mentality; it is nothing more than an extension of it. Essentially Huntington has written a disposable policy book about the coming war with the East, a work of fortune-telling The independent and self-sufficient assertion of the Non Aligned Third World countries radiated a spirit of rejection of Western universalism which presented a challenge to the West that aspired to establish its system globally after the Communist hurdle had been done away with.

It has resulted in an ongoing de-centring of power beyond the hegemonic control and cartographic sublimations of the US State Department and US Pacific Command. The West confronts nowadays numerous problems of slow economic growth, stagnating populations, unemployment, huge government deficits, low savings rates, social degeneration, drugs and crime.

Rockefeller Center - “Islam and the West: Dialogue or Clash of Civilizations?"

Thus, economic power is shifting to Asia. Asia and Islam have been the active civilizations of the last quarter century. China is likely to have the world's largest economy early in the 21st century. In addition, Asia is expected to have seven of the ten largest economies by In view of this fact which presented a brazen challenge to Western aspirations to global ascendancy after Communism, there was a general anxiety and chagrin among Western policy makers.

This prevailing mood in the West is exactly what Huntington reflects in his thesis: The presentation of the world in a certain way legitimizes certain politics. Interventionist and aggressive, the concept of civilizational clash is aimed at maintaining a war time status in the minds of the West.

What must be noticed, for a fuller understanding of Huntington in context, is the connection Huntington establishes between his theoretical analysis of civilizational clash and his strategic recommendations to Western policy makers. The Muslim world is composed of the most strategic parts of the Rimland and Heartland Mackinder talked about.

This has not only brought advantages but also risks to the Muslim world. The basic weakness of the hegemonic powers in the previous two centuries was in having only such geographical capacity as allowed the development of either a continental or maritime strategy. For example, Britain and the US applied a basically maritime strategy while Germany and Russia had to concentrate on a continental strategy based on land power.

This created a geostrategic balance and internal conflict among the hegemonic powers over the Muslim lands. This accounts for the unstable international position of the Muslim world as the victim of strategic competition. The presentation of the Muslim world as a potential enemy Western strategic interests in preserving undemocratic political systems have caused instability and provided hegemonic powers with an opportunity to manipulate internal conflicts for their own strategic aims.

It also leads to the toleration of oppression of Muslim minorities as internal affairs of those countries. It has resulted in the creation of international coalitions against a possible Islamic threat Strategic analysts try to prove that the belt of Muslim countries stretching from Turkey, Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan across five former Soviet republics might turn to fundamentalism. It is interesting that the same Islamic belt was encouraged by the U. Without mincing words, he proclaims that the West, in order to maintain its sway, must manipulate and provoke clashes in order to pursue its strategic interests.

To fully understand how the Huntingtonian thesis is central to U. S foreign policy agenda, it is important to understand both the background and the influences on the writing of the article. S and the necessity of U. S military intervention in the Third World. In an influential article he advocated the concentration of the rural population of South Vietnam as a means of isolating the Viet Cong. In , after a paper he presented at an international conference, Huntington was widely accused of misusing mathematics and engaging in pseudo-science.

So, there is an underlying bias right from the beginning. I think it is politically motivated. I think that it comes from The American Enterprise Institute is perhaps the most important aspect of the book yet it is the aspect not even considered. Although this is a general human failing, it is most pronounced and obvious in the case of the perception by the West of what is called the Orient or the world East of the Occident.

Orientalism, then, is the lens through which the West has viewed the East or the Orient traditionally and historically, and continues to do so. The Orient is not only adjacent to Europe. In addition, the Orient has helped to define Europe or the West as its contrasting image, idea, personality, experience. Yet none of this Orient is merely imaginative. The Orient is an integral part of European material civilization and culture. Orientalism expresses and represents that part culturally and even ideologically as a mode of discourse with supporting institutions, vocabulary, scholarship, imagery, doctrines, even colonial bureaucracies and colonial styles.

Gradually the Orient, in the Western mindset, began to be identified with these accorded characteristics. The Orient existed as a place isolated from the mainstream of European progress in the sciences, arts and commerce. Orientals were rarely seen or looked at; they were seen through, analyzed not as citizens or even people, but as problems to be solved or confined or taken over Since the Oriental was a member of the subject race, he had to be subjected: One of the most strikingly invariable features of Orientalism through the ages is the Orientalist consensus on the predominant religion of the Orient: It runs as a constant underlying theme throughout Orientalist tradition with exceptions being few and far between.

The roots of this trend fundamental to Orientalist scholarship go far back in time to the genesis of Islam itself. From the very outset, Islam, under the leadership of the Prophet PBUH established a dynamic outreach across communities, religious groups and cultures. Islam fomented deep connections through interaction and contact with both Jews and Christians. The first documented response from the Christian world to the Call of Islam, however, came as early as 50 A.

E , from St. John, numerous other eminent Christian saints and scholars wrote critiques of Islam which form the core and the ethos of Orientalism. Among these saints are St. Both the saints and their classical, foundational texts set the tenor for the future course of Orientalism. If one may generalize, there are, very broadly speaking, six primary fundamental suppositions about Islam contained in Orientalism.

Briefly put, these are: Until the middle of the nineteenth century, Orientalist scholarship was grounded in the purely theological basis of Christian dogma.

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Edward Said holds that Orientalism is created by an historical, institutional context and its present day form is embedded in the history of imperial conquest. In this sense, Orientalism becomes a ploy for military and ideological conquest of the Orient by the Occident. The first modern imperial expedition is important in the evolution of Orientalism. This was the conquest of Egypt undertaken by Napoleon Bonaparte in Following this, there developed a profound relationship between Orientalism and power politics.

Orientalism underwent an important secular transition following the Second World War. Islam is no longer condemned because of its rejection of the Trinity, the Divinity of Christ or the dogma of the Original Sin. Despite the evolution Orientalism has undergone, however, the polemics of Orientalism have varied little: It has been subjected to grotesque distortions, the traces of which lie still in the European mind. Even today there are many Westerners for whom Islam can be reduced to three ideas: The modern transition of Orientalism involved the transference of the disseminating authority from the former European colonial powers to the United States.

While Britain and France had had direct experience of the Orient in their colonies, this could not be said about America. American Orientalism therefore, is based not on experience but largely on abstraction. This has had profound influences on Orientalism in America. S definitions in the context of the so-called War on Terror have been standardized as a global paradigm which consists of the ancient, core stereotypes of Islam prevalent in Orientalist discourse.

The impact that this has had on the news media and the representation of Muslims is immense: This can particularly be noticed in the coverage and understanding of the Middle East-Palestine issue which is lamentably lopsided: No attention is paid to the hundreds of thousands who suffer due to military occupation. It is no more possible for an American to know the truth about the Middle East A lot else is going on in the Middle East that is not seen or understood by the West.

The True Clash of Civilizations

When we see anyone fitting that description, we think of fanatics, extremists, fundamentalists and terrorists. This takes away the humanity and diversity of millions of human beings who live normal, decent lives. Religion is often given as an explanatory factor for behaviour and overall an official hegemonic viewpoint dominates.

Orientalists believe about Islam: Hence the influence of Orientalism in Western policy-making elite cannot be ignored. For his viewpoint on Islam, Huntington, in a classical Orientalist gesture, borrows from Bernard Lewis who embodies in his work the essence of modern Orientalism. In this belligerent kind of thought, he relies heavily on a article by the veteran Orientalist Bernard Lewis, whose ideological colors are manifest in its title, "The Roots of Muslim Rage. Certainly neither Huntington nor Lewis has much time to spare for It is crucially important that we on our side should not be provoked into an equally historic but equally irrational reaction against that rival.

Huntington came up with a similar argument stating: The great divisions among humankind and the dominating source of conflict will be cultural. Nation states will remain the most powerful actors in world affairs, but the principal conflicts of global politics will occur between nations and groups of different civilizations. The clash of civilizations will dominate global politics. The fault lines between civilizations will be the battle lines of the future. The whole point of his exposition is to frighten his audience and not let them yield an inch to Islam. Lewis tries to give the impression that Islam never modernized, nor did the Muslims.

According to Lewis, Islam does not develop, and neither do Muslims; they merely are, and are to be watched, on account of the pure essence of theirs, which happens to include a long-standing hatred of Christians and Jews. Yet for at least a decade and a half his work in the main has been aggressively ideological, despite his various attempts at subtlety and irony. His work purports to be liberal objective scholarship but is in reality very close to being propaganda against the subject material. Wherever one looks along the perimeter of Islam, Muslims have problems living peaceably with their neighbours.

The question naturally arises as to whether this pattern of late-twentieth century conflict between Muslim and non Muslim groups is equally true of relations between groups from other civilizations. In fact, it is not. The evidence is overwhelming In the early s Muslims were engaged in more inter-group violence than non Muslims, and two-thirds to three-quarters of intercivilizational wars were between Muslims and non Muslims. Huntington emphatically states this hence: The frequency, intensity and violence of fault line wars are greatly enhanced by beliefs in different gods.

Therefore, the Orientalists conclude, the only road to progress is an uncritical adoption of Western materialism. According to Huntington the essence of Western civilization is based on Greek rationalism, Roman law, Catholicism and Protestantism, the variety of European languages, the division of church and state power, rule of law, social pluralism, representative public bodies and individualism. With slight exaggeration he even argues that these characteristics are Western but not modern in the Western world.

The essential characteristics of the West are much older. Tabitha Basa-Ong has made an interesting comparison of Lewis and Huntington with Osama bin Laden, all proponents of a clash between civilizations: In the end, he makes Muslims the victim, saying that the West is so bad because we have done so many things, and that he is only attacking out of defense. From his rhetoric, he dislikes the West so much because the West has constantly attacked them in the past. Not everyone in the Islamic world is the same, just as not everyone in the West is the same.

Lewis and Huntington cannot assume that every Muslim wants to attack the West because they are so backward, and the West is so developed. Karl Rove invited him to speak at the White House. Orientalist think tanks generate opinions and opinion leaders that are profoundly influential and have a say in U. There exist dozens of periodicals, most of them financed by state authorities, devoted entirely to the study of Islam, the Muslims and the Middle East that are essentially Orientalist in outlook and steer the course of U.

The impact of this politicization and mainstreaming of Orientalism on Western society has been immense. Ironically, however, despite the pervasive and deep influence of Orientalism in Western policy making and scholarship, the fact remains that Orientalist perceptions are not backed by any sound, real evidence and hence do not qualify as authentic scholarship at all. You can read through reams of expert writing on the modern Near East and never encounter a single reference to Literature. Years later after Nine Eleven intensified the Orientalist sway, Said wrote: Most of the earlier material was subject to the slower and therefore more careful procedures of print; to produce a piece of scholarship you had to go through the motions of exploring history, citing books, using footnotes--actually attempting to prove a point by developing an argument.

Today's discourse on terrorism is an altogether streamlined thing. Its scholarship is yesterday's newspaper or today's CNN bulletin. Its gurus are journalists with obscure, even ambiguous, backgrounds. Most writing about terrorism is brief, pithy, totally devoid of the scholarly armature of evidence, proof, argument. Its paradigm is the television interview, the spot news announcement, the instant gratification one associates with the Reagan White House's "reality time," the evening news. The single greatest failing of Western scholarship, of which Huntington is a part, is the legacy of Orientalism central to it.

Orientalism has utterly failed to lend objectivity to research, which is essential to make any piece of work credible. Second, that abstractions about the Orient are always preferable to direct evidence from Oriental realities. The influence of Orientalism in the work of both Lewis and Huntington takes away objectivity and credibility from their work: He defines Islamic civilization reductively, as if all that matters about it is its anti Westernism, as if the other Muslims have nothing else to do but think of the West with hatred; all they think about is how to destroy the West and bomb it.

Orientalism in Huntington and elsewhere, keeping in mind its tremendous repercussions on society and politics, has deeper, underlying motivations that need to be studied for a fuller picture. Contemporary materialism, on the other hand, assumes that moral and aesthetic values are limited to time, place and circumstance and continually subject to change in the course of human evolutionary progress.

This is totally different from what to a Muslim living in its domain, Islam really is. The theory of the Clash of Civilizations has helped create a foe in the Western mind to replace the Communist arch-enemy after the Cold War. This is a foe that is rather familiar and easy to sell to the Western public because of the history of Orientalist stereotypes of Islam that abound in Western tradition. The purpose it serves is the same as stated by a newscaster commenting on the World Trade Centre bombings: The phenomenon distorts religion, debases tradition, and twists the political process wherever it unfolds.

The West fails to acknowledge the debt it owes to Islam, the centrality of Islamic values in the heritage of Europe and the essential commonalities between the two.

Islam is inside from the start Similarly, Islam impacted law and architecture, literature and culture Contact with Islam compelled Europeans to reconsider their values, ushering in free thinking and ending the suffocating absolutism of the Church. Civilizations embody many similar values and ideals. At the philosophical level at least, Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Islam, Judaism, Sikhism, Taoism among other world religions share certain common perspectives on the relationship between the human being and his environment, the integrity of the community, the importance of the family, the significance of moral leadership and indeed the meaning and purpose of life.

He expands upon his contentious statement in his book in the following words: The question naturally arises as to whether this pattern of late twentieth century conflict between Muslim and non Muslim groups is equally true of relations between groups from other civilizations. This thesis is objectionable on many counts. Besides, it seems to create an image of a sword-wielding barbaric, monolithic Muslim civilization bent upon the destruction of all and sundry, while the West and its allies cower with bated breath.

This is far from reality and needs to be effectively refuted. As for Islam being intrinsically bloody, it is enlightening to read what the basic sources and fundamental texts of Islam have to say on the matter: Catherine Monastery in Mt. It consisted of several clauses covering all aspects of human rights including such topics as the protection of Christians, freedom of worship and movement, freedom to appoint their own judges and to own and maintain their property, exemption from military service, and the right to protection in war.

The True Clash of Civilizations – Foreign Policy

An English translation of that document is presented here: This is a message from Muhammad ibn Abdullah, as a covenant to those who adopt Christianity, near and far, we are with them. Verily I, the servants, the helpers, and my followers defend them, because Christians are my citizens; and by Allah!

I hold out against anything that displeases them. No compulsion is to be on them.

Neither are their judges to be removed from their jobs nor their monks from their monasteries. No one is to destroy a house of their religion, to damage it, or to carry anything from it to the Muslims' houses. Should anyone take any of these, he would spoil God's covenant and disobey His Prophet.

Verily, they are my allies and have my secure charter against all that they hate. No one is to force them to travel or to oblige them to fight. The Muslims are to fight for them. Yet Huntington is correct when he argues that cultural differences have taken on a new importance, forming the fault lines for future conflict. Although nearly the entire world pays lip service to democracy, there is still no global consensus on the self-expression values — such as social tolerance, gender equality, freedom of speech, and interpersonal trust — that are crucial to democracy.

Today, these divergent values constitute the real clash between Muslim societies and the West. But economic development generates changed attitudes in virtually any society. In particular, modernization compels systematic, predictable changes in gender roles: Industrialization brings women into the paid work force and dramatically reduces fertility rates. Women become literate and begin to participate in representative government but still have far less power than men. Then, the postindustrial phase brings a shift toward greater gender equality as women move into higher-status economic roles in management and gain political influence within elected and appointed bodies.

Thus, relatively industrialized Muslim societies such as Turkey share the same views on gender equality and sexual liberalization as other new democracies. Even in established democracies, changes in cultural attitudes — and eventually, attitudes toward democracy — seem to be closely linked with modernization. Women did not attain the right to vote in most historically Protestant societies until about , and in much of Roman Catholic Europe until after World War II.

In , only 3 percent of the members of parliaments around the world were women. In , the figure rose to 8 percent, in to 12 percent, and in to 15 percent. The United States cannot expect to foster democracy in the Muslim world simply by getting countries to adopt the trappings of democratic governance, such as holding elections and having a parliament. Nor is it realistic to expect that nascent democracies in the Middle East will inspire a wave of reforms reminiscent of the velvet revolutions that swept Eastern Europe in the final days of the Cold War.

A real commitment to democratic reform will be measured by the willingness to commit the resources necessary to foster human development in the Muslim world. Culture has a lasting impact on how societies evolve. But culture does not have to be destiny. Trending Now Sponsored Links by Taboola. Sign up for free access to 3 articles per month and weekly email updates from expert policy analysts. Create a Foreign Policy account to access 3 articles per month and free newsletters developed by policy experts. The cultural fault line that divides the West and the Muslim world is not about democracy but sex.

According to a new survey, Muslims and their Western counterparts want democracy, yet they are worlds apart when it comes to attitudes toward divorce, abortion, gender equality, and gay rights -- which may not bode well for democracy's future in the Middle East. More from Foreign Policy. How Russia Hacked U. At the same time as Europe wrestles with this new debate, many parts of the Islamic world are cannibalizing themselves. The tragic surrender of too many Muslim countries to Islamist culture has eaten away these countries and their formerly diverse cultures. While the number of minorities and diversity increases in India, in Pakistan people are slaughtered for their faith.

In northern Nigeria minorities are ethnically cleansed, women kidnapped, mosques bombed; in southern Nigeria they are not. This is a common phenomenon. In the past 50 years every European country has become home to a plethora of minority cultures, while the Middle East has succeeded in destroying its cultural and religious heritage. Whether it is sexual harassment, the death penalty, massacres for blasphemy, terrorism, or being offended by a statue, all these things once existed in every other culture in the world.

If Hindu nationalism is offensive, Islamist nationalism is offensive. If the anti-gay rhetoric of an Evangelical pastor bothers you, so should the hanging of gays in Iran. Mass sexual harassment of women surely existed not so long ago in many places, and still does; it can be defeated the same way every time. Were their classes for Western men explaining to them not to rape women in the street? How were they educated not to rape? There is no cultural excuse. Much of the world made major progress in just 50 years on basic issues of human rights, democracy and individual freedoms.

The freedom not to be hacked to death like secular bloggers in Bangladesh. The freedom not to be sold into slavery like Yazidis in Iraq. The freedom not to be whipped publicly as occurs in Aceh province, Indonesia. Basic freedoms much of the world all takes for granted have been called into question in recent years, much as Nazism and Communism called them into question in recent history. The 21st century should not be the one that surrenders to the values of the 16th or 9th centuries. Symbolic surrender, such as covering up a painting, is as bad as surrendering the hard fought rights of women not to be groped en masse.

This presents itself as a European problem, since Europe championed many of the rights the world considers normal, and Europeans have now begun to find it difficult to enforce them. Has the world been suckered into embracing values that are naturally deracinating their local culture into a world culture, so that they refuse to defend against assault by extremists?

Has the world said we will enforce secularism on all groups, Hindu extremists, Buddhist extremists, Jewish extremists, Christian extremists, but not Islamic extremists? Will future generations still take for granted abortion rights, or the right not to be stoned to death, not to have a house of faith blown up?

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Not a clash of civilizations; but world culture vs. Islamist culture

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The True Clash of Civilizations

The True Clash of Civilizations – Foreign Policy