It IS a "clash of civilizations"


	November 28, 2001	atimes.com

Central Asia/Russia

It IS a "clash of civilizations"
By Marc Erikson

The Clash of Civilizations? by Samuel P Huntington (1993)

The Islamic Resurgence by Samuel P Huntington (1996)

As they pursue the war on terror and in Afghanistan, the United States' Bush administration and its Western allies have been at pains to stress that this is not a war on Islam and not the beginning of the "clash of civilizations" as predicted in Harvard professor Samuel P Huntington's famed summer of 1993 article in "Foreign Affairs".

There are the obvious reasons for such denials: The US, notably Secretary of State Colin Powell, saw it as crucial to enlist a broad alliance of nations - notably including so-called moderate Arab states - in support of the war effort, and it sees it as essential to keep that alliance intact.

Anti-Islamic overtones or even hints that a clash of cultures or fundamental civilizational values is involved must be avoided at all cost as a matter of raison d'etat (or de guerre). Fears are that any such references could make the alliance come apart or destabilize moderate Arab (Saudi Arabia, other Gulf states, Jordan, Egypt) or Islamic (Pakistan) regimes.

Well, America has its strategy, but there are facts, truths and consequences that cannot and should not be ignored in the further pursuit of the war on terror. One truth, by no means limited to the Arab realm, but certainly much appreciated there, is that winning counts and earns respect. Though much remains unfinished in Afghanistan, victory over the despotic Taliban regime has been achieved more rapidly than most expected and - as importantly - is being PERCEIVED to have been achieved. Coalition fence-sitters now know better which way to jump. The need for exaggerated diplomatic caution has become less urgent.

Another truth, however, is that in the longer run, as the war on terror turns to new targets, coalitions between Western and "moderate" Arab and Muslim nations will come under greater strain and prove of limited duration at best. The "clash of civilizations" posited by Huntington is real. Various interpretations of Islam aside, the fact is that it is self-proclaimed ISLAMIC holy warriors who committed the September 11 and numerous prior atrocities, that jihad against the West and the US in particular is tacitly subscribed to even by many "moderate" Arabs and that - to the best of this writer's knowledge but not surprise - no fatwa (religious ruling) has yet been issued by a respected Muslim cleric branding the jihadist terrorists the tools and their despicable acts the work of Satan.

Huntington defines a civilization as "the broadest level of cultural identity" of an individual, ethnic group or nation and distinguishes three major ones: Western, Islamic-Arabic and Chinese. They may share certain values and over time may come to share more. But for the time being and for several generations, rather than just decades to come, the differences between them are "not only real, but basic". Certain Western values such as individualism, liberty, equality, tolerance, constitutional government, the rule of law, democracy, or free markets are not only found in the West; but fundamental commitment to them in combination certainly is. Not only the Taliban's Afghanistan, but numerous so-called moderate Arab/Islamic states and their regimes abhor, even criminalize, many of these values.

Huntington surmises - and to all appearances rightly so - that Islamic fundamentalism came to be subscribed to and embraced by many often young, well-to-do, well-educated Arabs in reaction to their sense of weakening identity in face of the march of globalism, the advance of Western political, social and economic values. Such characterization fits to the "T" the profile of most of the terrorists of September 11, in many respects even that of their mastermind Osama bin Laden. Huntington also believes that the growth of fundamentalism, the ongoing "unsecularization" of many parts of the world, is by no means anywhere near a completed process. Cultural clashes will continue to proliferate.

Whether for reasons of strategic necessity or convenience the US wants to hold onto and build cross-civilizational coalitions against terror or not, it is in the context of the clash of cultures and civilizations that the war on terror is being fought. There will inevitably come the time when for reasons of war and in order to succeed, the US and the West will have to ignore the sensibilities of some of their allies and will have to stop worrying about destabilizing some or all of the Arab or Islamic regimes whose basic values are in profound contradiction to those of the West. There will also come the time when Islam as a major religion will - through its leading clerics, elders and philosophers - have to ask itself what laws, values and predispositions have to be purged from it in order for it to play a constructive rather than a reactionary and destructive role as this century unfolds.

Terrorism is not some sort of abstract social phenomenon in its own right. It is the method of warfare of choice of fundamentalist warriors of a retrograde civilizational persuasion. In the longer run, we can hope for and expect the emergence of a "universal" culture of shared values best embodying mankind's shared progressive aspirations. In the meantime, the war on terror will succeed only if its protagonists recognize that the clash of civilizations is real.

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