"Clash of Civilizations"

This sets the ground for the susceptibility to an argument about there being an inevitable "clash of civilizations," which is the argument that Huntington made at the end of the Cold War. What is wrong with that argument, and how do we move beyond it?

Sam [Huntington] was right in identifying points of conflict. But Sam, first of all, came at it -- as indeed, most social scientists of his era -- with a certain kind of bias. To begin with, Sam was one of the founders of the "modernization and development" school, which he has since moved away from. But the implications of that school at that time would have put Islam on the back burner, in the backfield. Also, Sam comes from that period, the Cold War period, where you are seeing the world in terms of us and them, and therefore constantly looking for the next threat. Post - Cold War people were looking for the next threat. I think, also, one could look back at that history of conflict, and that would reinforce it -- the Gulf War.

But where he was wrong was that he talks about civilizations -- not just Islamic, but Chinese -- as if they're this monolithic block. Compared to what? Christian civilization? First of all, what does Christian civilization mean? Can we say that Britain and France, which are very secular countries today, have a great deal of religious commonality, let's say, with America? And look at the difference of civilizations among us. The block of Chinese: what do Chinese in Mongolia share with Chinese in Singapore? Even Islamic civilization: while religiously Muslims see themselves as connected, look at the centuries-long conflict between Iran and Iraq, the conflicts between Egypt, Libya, and the Sudan. So along with any kind of unity, there's always been this enormous diversity. I think that's where Sam was wrong.

He was right in saying that the post - Cold War [world] is not state-to-state; that religion and ethnicity become stronger; that there is a growth in numbers of youth in areas that are economically deprived. All of that is there.

In many ways, today, his theory would be right because we run a risk today on both sides. This is what I worry about, that if the Bush administration (or any administration in this post - 9/11 period) isn't careful in the way that it pursues the war [against global terrorism], it, along with the extremists on the other side, can in fact promote what will be seen by both sides as a clash of civilizations. Indeed, that's the way in which many on both sides now see it.

Next page: Islam and Modernity

See also the interview with Samuel Huntington (1985)