The Clash Of Civilizations – Hypothesis

The phrase ‘Clash of Civilisations’ was first used by Samuel Huntington to describe the condition of the relationship between the West and the Muslim world. In this essay Samuel Huntington’s claim that a ‘Clash of Civilizations’ between the West and Islam would be the future of world politics after the Cold War will be assessed.
Samuel Huntington argues that the conflict between liberal democracy and Marxist-Leninism in the twentieth century was “only a fleeting and superficial historical phenomenon” compared to the troubled historical relations between Islam and Christianity. The two communities, according to Huntington, have for fourteen hundred years been engaged in a struggle for power and land with some periods of “peaceful coexistence” but more often “intense rivalry” and “varying degrees of hot war” (Huntington, 1997: 209).
The seeds for this clash may have been planted long ago but before the events of September 11th few people on either side thought that the problem would escalate into the issue it is today, with people in many of the world’s countries feeling threatened by the possibility of a terrorist attack. This essay will first consider the main reasons why many Muslims have come to view the West as their enemy. It will move on to consider some criticisms of the idea of a ‘clash of civilisations’, the dangers of the US response to 9/11 and strategies to ensure security before finishing with a look at the future prospects for this ‘clash’.
Samuel Huntington’s belief in the ‘clash of civilisations’ is based on two main conditions. Firstly, he believes that conflict between states is inevitable and secondly, that the US will always seek to advance its own cultural values. Halliday claims that the attacks on September 11th were in part caused by the conflict between reformists with a secular outlook and fundamentalists aiming to take or retain political power in the Muslim world. The underlying principle of Halliday’s claim is that rather than creating converts to their beliefs fundamentalists in all societies always value taking political power above all else. (Halliday, 2002: 46-47).
Muslim fundamentalists identify the West and especially US as their main enemy for three main reasons: US actions in the Muslim world as part of its ‘containment’ strategy of the Soviet Union; Western and US support given to Israel and a lack of consideration of the Palestinians; and Western and US policies aimed at securing the flow of oil at a reasonable price. One of the best examples of misinterpretation of local events in the Middle East because of the fear of Communism was the CIA-backed coup in Iran in 1953 to return the Shah to power. Following this, in order to prevent Iran falling into the Soviet orbit, the Shah’s regime was propped up, but the growing fundamentalism this was causing went unnoticed. (Mann, 2001: 70-71).
The crucial factor in encouraging the view of America as the ‘Great Satan’ is the unwavering support the US has provided for Israel and its seeming indifference to the hardship that has been endured by the Palestinians. When the US has played the role of mediator in the Arab-Israeli conflict in its brokering of peace deals between Israel and Egypt and Jordan, the US has used extensive military assistance to extract concessions from both sides. The problem that this created is that the Arab states receiving the US military equipment often used this equipment against their domestic opponents. (Mann, 2001: 70-71).
The US has got involved in local military conflicts such as the 1991 Gulf War where its interests are threatened to restore the status quo in the oil market and maintain a reasonably priced, reliable supply of oil. As the US has pursued a stable supply of oil at a reasonable price it has established US military bases in some Arab states such as Saudi Arabia. The response to this has been a series of terrorist attacks in recent years in countries such as Saudi Arabia. Additionally, the bombings of US embassies in Africa and the attacks of September 11th can be seen attempts to eradicate the US military presence in the area. (Klare, 2001: pp.3-4).
There is credibility in the argument that the West and the US could resolve the issue of Muslim fundamentalism by non-military measures. In order to succeed it would be necessary to increase development aid to Arab states to help to solve their social upheaval, to develop a strategy for global economic development that would spread the benefits of globalisation more effectively and less of a bias towards Israeli concerns in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict (Mann, 2001: 70-71).
It has been argued that the World Trade Centre was the target not because it was an easy target but because it is a symbol of globalisation (Rasmussen, 2002: 331). After September 11th Paul Wolfowitz remarked that alongside globalisation is a “parallel globalisation of terror, in which rogue states and terrorist organisations share information, intelligence, technology, weapons materials and know-how” (Rasmussen, 2002: 329). However, Fred Halliday argued that the aim of even the most extreme fundamental groups is not necessarily to attack the West but could be the attainment of political power in their states and in this perspective the September 11th attacks were aimed at the fundamentalist’s own states rather than at the West. (Halliday, 2002: 40).
The end of the Cold War meant that cultural differences, which had been put to one side, were now out in the open. Culture became a way to understand the changes to the world order as a “globalised culture met a multicultural world” (Murden, 2001: 458).
Liberal-capitalism is the dominant political and economic model in the post-Cold War world and the vast majority of states were drawn into the world market economy. Even in the Arab world, moves towards liberalisation were made and these developments prompted Francis Fukuyama to argue that competition over social order was finished as liberal democracy and market economies could not be challenged (Murden, 2001: 459).
The post-Cold War world also had an unprecedented global culture, what Benjamin Barber referred to as McWorld. By this he meant the spread of mainly American brands including Coca Cola, McDonalds, Disney and Nike. The effect of this global culture was to increase peoples desire for consumption and had a massive impact on society, with rapid cultural change turning many people against the global culture and the US (Murden, 2001: 459).
Huntington’s idea of a ‘clash of civilisations’ has been criticised as its “treatment of culture was brief, and the conclusions very pessimistic”. Some critics thought that because of the collapse of the Soviet threat, Huntington was merely “constructing new enemies for the West” and that his synthesis is a self-fulfilling prophecy (Murden, 2001: 462).
The most robust criticism of Huntington is his lack of emphasis given to global economics and its culture. Huntington failed to grasp the extent to which traditional cultures are modified by the impact of globalisation and how the necessities of a globalised world restrain tendencies for conflict (Murden, 2001: 462).
The challenge presented to corrupt states by disillusioned young Muslims has generally only caused more authoritarian measures against the populations and has encouraged the masses to take more of an international perspective when considering how to solve their conflicts. The demographic pressures and the failure of economic policies that are often attributed to Western influence have only encouraged this trend. If the states in question were only able to resolve their economic difficulties and give their societies at large a better standard of living then these tensions could easily be reduced (Mann, 2001: 69). If the West attempts to deal with the threat posed by young Muslim extremists by military means then it will only make the problem worse as they will be seen as confirming the beliefs of the fundamentalists. Perhaps the current situation in Iraq provides the best evidence of this argument, as the insurgency is getting fiercer as the occupation drags on (Mann, 2001: 69-70).
The threat exists that the response of the US to the September 11th attacks could prove Huntington’s thesis correct. Many members of the Bush administration believed that past administrations being timid had led to the relative decline of US hegemony and that the way to reverse the decline is the use of pre-emptive actions. This was based on the belief that the best way to deal with those states in the developing world that do not respond to US demands is intimidation and if this does not work then invasion. The problem with this is that it will only confirm the claims of the fundamentalists and could produce even more Muslims subscribing to these radical views and attempting attacks on the West and especially the US (Wallerstein, 2003: 32-33).
In general the idea that the September 11th attacks and the subsequent ‘War on Terror’ was a “Clash of Civilizations” had more credibility in the Muslim world than in the West. Western leaders were especially keen to distance themselves from this theory and emphasise that the war in Afghanistan was “not a war with Islam” (Rasmussen, 2002: 337-339). Rather than seeing Islamic terrorism as an expression of a new cultural challenge, like Huntington did, Western leaders viewed terrorism as a challenge to the current international order and to globalisation. Many Republicans argued that the 911 attacks demonstrated the need for US policies to make the world a better place and they advocated a more imperialist role for the US, aiming to increase international security.
Recent years have without doubt witnessed a revival of Muslim fundamentalism. The aims of this fundamentalism could be seen as the imposition of Shari’a law and the eradication of all foreign influence from their countries. Islam is not monolithic though and there are tensions within Islam itself as fundamentalists attack secularists and religious conservatives they identify as being aligned with the West. An example of this is the current tensions in the Palestinian territories where the fundamentalism of the elected Hamas government is engaged in a power struggle with the secular PLO (Mann, 2001: 67-69).
Although there have been many examples of different religions using suicide bombers as a weapon on a local scale, attacks on the West have only been carried out by Muslim groups. The weapon of the suicide bomber as well as causing disaster also has an ideological value and encourages others to follow in the path of the suicide bomber (Mann, 2001: 69-70). The threat of suicide bombers is very much on the mind of people in the West but despite this it is still unlikely that Western governments and the US in particular will pursue strategies that have a serious chance of reducing this threat. The measures that could change the current situation are non-military and very long term. They will also have little immediate impact and are very unlikely to be pursued thoroughly by any Western government.
Although some in the Western world may believe that terrorism enjoys widespread support in the Islamic world, it should be remembered that this is very unlikely to be true. The media, popular culture and Western governments have a lot to answer for in the development of this belief because of their misrepresentation of events. This misunderstanding could lead to a widespread radicalisation of opinions in the West and potentially to the electoral rise of extremist parties such as the British National Party. This would increase communal tensions and alienate Muslims in the West. This cycle, although unlikely at the moment, could continue to spiral out of control and eventually prove Huntington’s hypothesis correct (Zunes, 2001: 1).