Back in 1993, an article by American scholar Samuel P. Huntington appeared in Foreign Affairs magazine, causing no end of chatter among the educated classes. ‘The Clash of Civilisations’ explained that “world politics is entering a new phase” and that the main source of conflicts will not be “primarily ideological or primarily economic.” As Huntington explained: “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 civilisations will dominate global politics. The fault lines between civilisations will be the battle lines of the future.” According to him, there are seven or eight main civilisations, namely “Western, Confucian, Japanese, Islamic, Hindu, Slavic-Orthodox, Latin American and possibly African” and “the most important conflicts of the future will occur along the cultural fault lines separating these civilisations from one another.” But the main “fault line” will be between “Western” and “Islamic” civilisations.

Apart from the educated elite, no one really paid much attention to him. However, the terrorist atrocities in New York in September 2001 cast Huntington’s thesis as a prophecy. As the new century progressed, Osama bin Laden and his followers wrecked more havoc around the world. Equally, the Americans, together with their faithful British lieutenant, became embroiled in imperial wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. ‘The clash of civilisations’ had suddenly become reality for a growing number of people.

Another two incidents reinforced the apparent ‘clash’ between the West and Islam. First, there was the issue of the Danish cartoons. Racist in their undertones, they caused a number of protests and riots in several Muslim countries, burnt embassies and lost lives. Then, it was the turn of the Pope to get involved. His speech in Germany was judged deeply insulting by some Muslims and protests duly followed in a number of countries. Rather than dialogue, there have been the usual acrimonious exchanges on both sides. Worryingly, it seems that the belligerents have been able to convince many on the reasoned side.

Increasingly, commentators in Europe and America are framing these conflicts in terms of a ‘clash of civilisations’. Thus, they claim Muslims are different to ‘us’. The comments are typical of the worst theses on race that were popular in Europe until the Holocaust caused a major reappraisal of the consequences of racism.

One piece in the Irish Times (the bastion of liberal thought in Ireland), last week, on the controversy about the remarks of the Pope contained all the generalisations, stereotypes, and self-righteous tone that are rooted in the ‘them’ and ‘us’ debate. The article was titled ‘East-West chasm lies at the heart of Muslim ire over Pope’. The author claims that “history is a living presence in the Muslim world and all its bloody miseries come to life with every new violation inflicted by the West. A West, let it be said, where there is little sense of history.” It should be asked who commemorates, the Battle of Trafalgar, D-Day, and how the symbols of Empire, like the royal family fit into this supposedly unhistorical ‘West’ And what of the English supporters, whose anthem is Rule Britannia, a celebration of imperialism?

Much of the article continues to extol the sense of the West’s grandeur. He says that “many in Muslim countries simply do not understand a western culture where, for instance, little is sacred or there is little sense of the sacred, when it comes to freedom of expression. They, and many people in the East generally, simply do not “get” the western take on life.” Furthermore, “they do not understand the western tradition of dialogue and debate,” and “they do not appreciate the western method of inquiry which employs argument and counter-argument as a means of arriving at the truth.” It continues along the same line arguing that Muslims “find the tradition of scepticism impolite.” They “do not compartmentalise life as westerners do, placing the sacred in a side category.” Accordingly Muslims cannot separate their religion and their every day life. Pious irrationality guides the lives of Muslims in every aspect. Thus, this crass generalisation stipulates that a Muslim doctor, instead of referring to his/her medical training, would turn to the Koran.

This kind of opinion smacks of the cultural superiority that has plagued Europe intermittently. It is the poisoned ideology of far-right parties, now increasingly finding a way in mainstream opinion. And a major pillar of this ‘them’ and ‘us’ talk(where ‘we’ are always culturally and morally superior) is the ‘clash of civilisations’ theory. But this is a largely discredited thesis, which the Palestinian academic Edward Said famously dubbed ‘the clash of ignorance’. In an article for The Nation, he wrote: “The Clash of Civilisations” thesis is a gimmick like “The War of the Worlds, better for reinforcing defensive self-pride than for critical understanding of the bewildering interdependence of our time.”

The problem is its increasingly prominent role in defining political and social activity in the world, punctuated by gloating assertions on both sides, but now worryingly affecting liberal opinion in Europe. However, it important to retain what Alain Gresh, a journalist at Le Monde Diplomatique, says in the preface to his new book, Islam, The Republic and the World : “There does not exist one homogenous ‘Muslim civilisation’, in which every human being acts in the same way, thinks in the same way, lives in the same way.” To most Mauritians, it is like preaching to the converted, but this is an important debate that we should keep in mind when analysing world events.

<B>Diren VALAYDEN</B> <I>Outlook Correspondent in Dublin</I>