The clash inside
By Khaled Diab
The stubbornly persistent ‘clash of civilisations’ theory ignores the
abundant clashes within ‘civilisations’ and the alliances that traverse them.
July 2008
They’ve been at it again. Those two middle-aged
sons of dynasties anointed with the sacred oil of petroleum have been posing as
God-inspired leaders of a titanic struggle between the forces of “good” and
“evil”.
The first to take the world stage was US
President George W Bush. While his comments about appeasement
caught the media’s attention, I found another part of his speech just as
troubling. Addressing the Israeli Knesset on Israel’s 60th
anniversary, he declared:
The fight against terror and
extremism is the defining challenge of our time. It is more than a clash of
arms. It is a clash of visions, a great ideological struggle… This struggle is
waged with the technology of the 21st century, but at its core it is
an ancient battle between good and evil.
Not one to take such affronts quietly, Bush’s
convenient nemesis delivered his own birthday message to Israel. Perhaps in a
bid to bolster his mystical image, Osama bin Laden released an audiotape
instead of his more usual grainy, post-modern videos. In it, he claimed:
We will continue, God permitting, the fight
against the Israelis and their allies… and will not give up a single inch of
Palestine as long as there is one true Muslim on earth.
The frightening thing for me is not the almighty clash to which B&B
allude, but that anyone should give such barmy views credence. Despite the
mountains of evidence to the contrary, I am confounded by how otherwise
intelligent people buy into the nonsense that there is some mammoth
jihad/crusade afoot.
The political scientist Samuel Huntington
gave the idea of a monumental “clash of civilisations”
intellectual credibility when he published, first an essay
(1993), and then a book (1996) on the issue.
Although Huntington popularised the term (and Bernard Lewis probably
coined it), the notion of a clash of civilisations is certainly not new. It was
a convenient cover for Soviet and US imperial expansionism and hegemony during
the Cold War, under the ideological cover of ‘communism’ and ‘capitalism’ – and
the popularity of Huntington’s theory may reflect the desperate need to find a
new enemy.
Huntington divided the world into a number of vaguely defined
civilisations, singling out the ‘Islamic’ and ‘Sinic’
civilisations as the main challengers to the ‘west’. In the intervening years,
supporters of this thesis have seen the 11 September 2001 attacks, and the wars
in Afghanistan and Iraq, as confirmation of this clash. And the current
tensions with China might be viewed as an early dress rehearsal for a potential
future confrontation with the Sino civilisation.
To his credit, Huntington does point out that a clash of civilisations is
not inevitable. What baffles me is why he would
propose one in the first place, seeing as there is scant evidence to back up
his thesis.
Of course, there is something of a case to be made that groups of
societies share, or aspire to, certain common features and values. Although
millions of people, including myself, may wish peace and freedom for all of
humanity, societies rarely clash over abstract notions. Dress them up in all
the ideological masks you wish, but most conflicts find their roots in the
plain old struggle for land and resources. Self-interest – greed-driven,
enlightened or pragmatic – is the main guiding principle of international
relations.
Two major failings in the clash of civilisations theory is that it
glosses over or ignores the very real conflicts and potential conflicts within
individual civilisations, and it overlooks the fact that political alliances
are multiple, shifting, and often cut across civilisational
boundaries.
Take the Muslim world, one of the main theatres of the supposed
confrontation. Viewed through the prism of Huntington’s clash, there seems to
be no civilisational rhyme or reason to its
geopolitical realities.
For example, the first major conflict to emerge in the Middle East in the
dying days of the Cold War involved not a clash between ‘Islam’ and the ‘west’,
but the invasion of one Arab country by another, when Iraq invaded Kuwait. In
addition, the US-led international alliance which ended the short-lived
occupation saw Arab and western soldiers fight side by side.
In the process, the consistently tyrannical Saddam Hussein metamorphosed
from “our son of a bitch” into a tyrant of Hitlerian
proportions. And since 1990 until the present, Iraq, the one-time ally against
Iran, has suffered the crushing Anglo-American-led wrath of bombings, crippling
sanctions and occupation, which have helped transform it into a more theocratic
state.
Syria, a dictatorship whose secular values are closer to the west’s, is
regarded as a dangerous pariah, despite its international isolation, Meanwhile,
Saudi Arabia – an absolutist monarchy and Islamic theocracy which exports its
intolerant Wahhabi
brand of Islam, inspiring extremist groups around the world – is feted as a
staunch and loyal ally. Iran, another theocracy but one with greater democratic
credentials, is vilified.
Surely, if contemporary clashes were about ‘culture’, as Huntington
proposes, Saudi, not Syria, would be at odds with the west. Why is this not the
case? Huntington admits that there is “a very
obvious reason” for this. Ten guesses what that is?
Moreover, if ‘Islam’ were a single civilisation capable of posing some
sort of threat, should it not be capable of presenting some sort of united
front, rather than its divided reality?
Huntington posits
that: “Islam is less unified than any other civilisation”. If it is so
disunited and none of its countries are at war with the west, who exactly will
lead the charge: al-Qaida? Can a few thousand
extremists be classed as the main protagonists in a civilisational
clash, without the notion being met with derisive laughter?
Similarly, the west is not some unified civilisation, as was amply
demonstrated in European opposition to the Anglo-American military
misadventures in Iraq and Afghanistan, which led Washington to accuse Germany,
France and Belgium of being an Axis of Weasels. At the
time, there were fears that NATO might collapse, and had America not enjoyed
such overwhelming domination of the western alliance, the strain could have
been far more damaging.
One reason why a confrontation between Muslim countries and the west
seems so credible to some is that it has an ancient, if long dormant, pedigree.
However, the idea of Islam v Christendom is, in many ways, a convenient fiction
perpetuated on both sides. Although many Christians and Muslims may feel a
certain special connection with their co-religionists, realpolitik
is more often the guide to actual politics.
The First World War – which was described by Henry James as the ‘crash
of civilisation’ and demonstrates the ferocity of intra-civilisational
conflict – is a telling example. The Arabs aided the British and French against
the Turks, while one-time enemies, the Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman empires,
fought on the same side.
The British and the French fought together in both world wars, despite
the fact that they have historically been the bitterest enemies, despising each
other possibly more than they did Muslims. For instance, Admiral
Nelson once told a crewmember: “You must hate a Frenchman as you do the
devil.”
Similarly, ever since the dawn of Islam, Muslims have been at war with
one another perhaps more than with Christians. The shia’a-sunni
schism appeared early on. In addition, Islam quickly acquired two caliphates as
the Umayyads fled west when
they were ousted by the Abbasids.
In addition, Christian-Islamic alliances have an ancient history,
although this is often forgotten. For instance, Islam’s entry into Europe was
aided by local notables, such as Count Julian of Ceuta, and the local population did not aid their hated
Visigoth overlords. Over the next seven centuries, Muslim and Christian
kingdoms often found themselves fighting on the same side, despite the stated
aims of the reconquista.
This continued into Ottoman times. While central and eastern
Europe feared and were overtaken by the Turks, many countries in western
Europe, such as France, England and the Netherlands forged alliances with the
Ottomans against the Hapsburgs or the Spanish.
With few exceptions, there has never really been an actual clash of
civilisations, and to avoid one from emerging as a self-fulfilling prophecy, we
must dig deeper than narrow cultural reductionism and examine and address the
complex underlying causes of tensions and conflicts, such as inequality,
poverty and oppression. Our shrinking and threatened world needs us to reach
beyond narrow ideological boundaries.
This column appeared in The Guardian Unlimited’s Comment is Free section on 2 June
2008. Read the related
discussion.
ã2008 K. Diab. Unless otherwise stated, all the content on this website is the
copyright of Khaled Diab.