What intellectual debate pits Osama bin Laden, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and one of the premier political scientists in America against Bill Clinton, George Bush and Arab leaders?
The idea that brings together odd bedfellows and divides longstanding allies is the "clash of civilizations," a thesis coined by Samuel P. Huntington, a renowned Harvard professor described by Henry Kissinger "as one of the West's most eminent political scientists."
Huntington believes there is an inevitable and fundamental conflict between Islam and the West. In his 1996 book, "The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order," he writes, "Some Westerners, including President Bill Clinton, have argued that the West does not have problems with Islam but only with violent Islamic extremists. Fourteen hundred years of history demonstrate otherwise."
Huntington's interpretation is officially contested by, among others, all the leaders of the Western democracies. That's with the possible exception of Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, who has said the West is superior to Islam, and Prime Minister Sharon, who speaks generically of "Arabs" as if they all constituted a single, monolithic, Nazi-like enemy.
Moreover, Huntington's "clash of civilizations" is just one of many theses being argued in many lively intellectual forums. It's also a thesis with which many Americans are becoming familiar, judging by a ranking of No. 32 attained by Huntington's book on Amazon.com's best-seller list.
Contrast that, for instance, with a ranking of No. 300 for "Orientalism," a book by distinguished Columbia University professor Edward W. Said, in which the author seeks to expose Western scholars' misconceptions about a supposed unchanging and exotic "East."
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But Said's book is hard reading. Karen Armstrong's "Islam: A Short History," which argues that "the picture of Islam as a violent, backward and insular tradition should be laid to rest," is at No. 11.
Huntington's prestige makes his book particularly influential. The crux of his argument is that "the problem for the West is not Islamic fundamentalism" but "Islam, a different civilization whose people are convinced of the superiority of their culture and are obsessed with the inferiority of their power."
Conversely, the problem for Islam is not "the CIA or the U.S. Department of Defense" but "the West, a different civilization whose people are convinced of the universality of their culture and believe that their superior, if declining, power imposes on them the obligation to extend that culture throughout the world."
What is wrong with this reading? In the first place, as Said and others point out, the concepts of "the West" and "Islam" are labels that obscure enormous diversity and dynamism.
Second, people in every culture believe that their way of life is superior - it is called ethnocentrism and it is universal. But cultures are not always or inevitably engaged in violent clashes, so what makes the West/Islam one unavoidable?
Finally, it can be expected that people in any culture would object when people of another culture feel a necessity to impose their ways. That is not a response specific to Islam. Moreover, in that case, the problem would be a power struggle resulting from arrogance, not a clash of civilizations.
But is such a conflict inevitable? And do the citizens of the Western nations really feel a need to impose their culture on Islamic societies?
Huntington's clash of civilizations turns out to be inevitable only if one believes that the only natural and possible relation between the West and Islam is one in which the West imposes its culture on the "other" by popular demand.
A respectful dialogue of civilizations is the alternative. Such a dialogue may not persuade hard-core zealots, but it will isolate and ultimately defeat them. It's a conversation that will take longer and be more difficult than the fight against terror itself, but it is one we can't avoid if we want to be spared a future of endless horror and devastation.
by Max J. Castro
Knight Ridder-Tribune Columnist
Max J. Castro is a senior research associate at the University of Miami's Dante B. Fascell North-South Center and a columnist for the Miami Herald. Readers may write to him at: Miami Herald, One Herald Plaza, Miami, Fla. 33132, or by e-mail at: maxcastro@)miami.edu.
