Islam Stands Alone
Samuel Huntington’s 1993 essay “The Clash of Civilizations” quickly became a modern classic. His central observation was that the post Cold War world was settling out along cultural fault lines based primarily on religion. He predicted these faults would produce conflicts and define a new historic era. Events in the intervening years suggest he may have overstated the case. The civilizations he considered have all more or less put aside their differences in favor of a new world order based on trade; all save one that is, Islam. Even there we have to distinguish between Arabic civilization, which begat the faith, and Islam among non-Arabs.
Huntington enumerated seven or eight current civilizations; Western, Confucian, Japanese, Islamic, Hindu, Slavic-Orthodox, Latin American, and possibly African. He modified the list somewhat later on but for purposes of this discussion I will stay with the original. He wrote at a time when the breakup of the Soviet Union was fresh. That of Yugoslavia was still in progress. In that context his conclusions appeared prescient, but in retrospect a number of the conflicts seem to have been no more than the pains of adjusting to a new reality. Stalin and Tito were gone. In their absence there were old scores to settle, and quite a lot of jockeying to fill the resulting power vacuums. Some of it spilled over into war. A new term entered the language, ethnic cleansing. The conflicts were tragic enough. Even Europe experienced destruction and an exodus of refugees that hadn’t been seen there since WWII. In Yugoslavia it looked like Huntington was right. Orthodox Serbs, Catholic Croats, and Muslim Bosniacs were at each others’ throats. All three were busy slaughtering or expelling minority populations while expanding their borders to include as many of their ethnic kin as possible. Serbs turned on Albanian Muslims in Kosovo to avenge a centuries old massacre perpetrated by an Ottoman Sultan. Europeans were reminded that WWI began there, and over the same conflicts.
The dismembered Yugoslavia is quiet now. NATO intervened and still patrols. Slobodan Milosevic is dead and though a few war criminals are still free they are fugitives and international pariahs. None of them remain in power. No one expects a repeat of the 1990s. Most of the people there are ready to put the past behind them. They look around at their former communist brethren in Hungary and Poland and envy their progress. They haven’t forgotten, but are ready to move on.
As for the others on Huntington’s list, except for a separatist movement or two nobody seems to be permanently at loggerheads with anybody but Islam. Japan hasn’t been any where near a war since 1945. North Korean saber rattling could change that but you can’t fairly call that a civilizational conflict. South Korea is more threatened than Japan and in any case the issues are left over from an earlier ideological war, not a new cultural one. Despite what some consider a menacing military buildup, China isn’t close to open hostilities outside her borders; her issues with Taiwan are intramural. China’s desire to become a global economic power demand integration with the world trade community and she has joined the WTO. That will constrain her militarist faction for the foreseeable future. There was a major incident with an American reconnaissance plane in early 2001 but that isn’t likely to be repeated. There is too much commerce at stake. The same is true with India. Despite several border wars with China in the latter half of the twentieth century, their rivalry today is economic, not military.
What about Latin America? The United States has been at odds with Fidel Castro since 1958 but for ideological reasons, not cultural, certainly not religious. The Cuban Missal Crisis was between the US and the USSR. Cuba was a not-so-innocent bystander. We will never reconcile with Cuba while Castro is in power because so many Cuban exiles have become influential American citizens in a state that can swing presidential elections. It’s hardly a civilizational conflict. Neither is our disagreement with Hugo Chavez. His country has been a major oil supplier and an ally for much of the past half century. There too our conflicts are commercial. Our invasion of Panama had to do with the drug trade and a century of interventions in Nicaragua also had to do with commercial interests. What problems we have with Mexico have mostly to do with illegal immigration. The eventual solution will require economic progress in Mexico. There will be no armed conflict. The dominant topic in the Americas for the next decade will be NAFTA, CAFTA, and the other trade agreements in varying stages of consideration.
That leaves Islam. None of the others are involved in anything like Huntington’s clash with each other, only with Islam. Even Islam breaks down into components, some more confrontational than others. We don’t see much about this but there are at least three distinct Islamic cultures. There are Turks, Malays, and Arabs. Somewhere in there you have to fit Indians, Pakistanis, Kurds, Iranians, non-Arabic Africans, and other Asians and Pacific Islanders. But Indian Muslims are still Indians. They differ from Hindus in diet and religion but to an outsider the differences are superficial. Many Pakistanis are culturally akin to Indians in the same way, though others are from the wild tribes of the Hindu Kush. None of them are Arab, though in recent years they have been heavily influenced by Wahabi financed madrasas. Kurds are a distinct people but their consuming interest is separatism and there aren’t enough of them to be called a civilization. All of these groups have their problems with the neighbors of course but it seems to me that the conflict of historic proportions predicted by Huntington comes from the vision of global domination associated with Arabs and Iranians. Others are infected by it but to not nearly the same degree. Only in the Middle East and parts of North Africa do Islamic extremists have the power to influence the decisions of war and peace that might make them a serious risk for even regional conflagration, let alone global.
Everywhere else Islamic communities are being forced to adapt and accommodate their neighbors. They are finding that they must control their more radical elements in order to survive and prosper, and they are doing just that. Indonesia’s neighbors don’t feel any need to intervene there to track down terrorists. Authorities may ask for and get international intelligence cooperation but they are more than capable of policing their own populace. They aren’t about to wink at groups of adventurers that might drag Indonesia into a foreign war. Even Pakistan has begun to think twice about allowing her territory to be used for guerrilla operations in Indian controlled Kashmir. The prospect of nuclear holocaust has a sobering effect even among war mongers and more than a few Pakistanis have noticed India’s emerging prosperity. There is a reason why American Diplomats are welcome in Islamabad. Huntington was wrong. Everywhere the forces of the modern age are having their effect. Civilizations, cultures, and religions are learning to live with one another. The world is slowly becoming a more peaceful place.
Huntington enumerated seven or eight current civilizations; Western, Confucian, Japanese, Islamic, Hindu, Slavic-Orthodox, Latin American, and possibly African. He modified the list somewhat later on but for purposes of this discussion I will stay with the original. He wrote at a time when the breakup of the Soviet Union was fresh. That of Yugoslavia was still in progress. In that context his conclusions appeared prescient, but in retrospect a number of the conflicts seem to have been no more than the pains of adjusting to a new reality. Stalin and Tito were gone. In their absence there were old scores to settle, and quite a lot of jockeying to fill the resulting power vacuums. Some of it spilled over into war. A new term entered the language, ethnic cleansing. The conflicts were tragic enough. Even Europe experienced destruction and an exodus of refugees that hadn’t been seen there since WWII. In Yugoslavia it looked like Huntington was right. Orthodox Serbs, Catholic Croats, and Muslim Bosniacs were at each others’ throats. All three were busy slaughtering or expelling minority populations while expanding their borders to include as many of their ethnic kin as possible. Serbs turned on Albanian Muslims in Kosovo to avenge a centuries old massacre perpetrated by an Ottoman Sultan. Europeans were reminded that WWI began there, and over the same conflicts.
The dismembered Yugoslavia is quiet now. NATO intervened and still patrols. Slobodan Milosevic is dead and though a few war criminals are still free they are fugitives and international pariahs. None of them remain in power. No one expects a repeat of the 1990s. Most of the people there are ready to put the past behind them. They look around at their former communist brethren in Hungary and Poland and envy their progress. They haven’t forgotten, but are ready to move on.
As for the others on Huntington’s list, except for a separatist movement or two nobody seems to be permanently at loggerheads with anybody but Islam. Japan hasn’t been any where near a war since 1945. North Korean saber rattling could change that but you can’t fairly call that a civilizational conflict. South Korea is more threatened than Japan and in any case the issues are left over from an earlier ideological war, not a new cultural one. Despite what some consider a menacing military buildup, China isn’t close to open hostilities outside her borders; her issues with Taiwan are intramural. China’s desire to become a global economic power demand integration with the world trade community and she has joined the WTO. That will constrain her militarist faction for the foreseeable future. There was a major incident with an American reconnaissance plane in early 2001 but that isn’t likely to be repeated. There is too much commerce at stake. The same is true with India. Despite several border wars with China in the latter half of the twentieth century, their rivalry today is economic, not military.
What about Latin America? The United States has been at odds with Fidel Castro since 1958 but for ideological reasons, not cultural, certainly not religious. The Cuban Missal Crisis was between the US and the USSR. Cuba was a not-so-innocent bystander. We will never reconcile with Cuba while Castro is in power because so many Cuban exiles have become influential American citizens in a state that can swing presidential elections. It’s hardly a civilizational conflict. Neither is our disagreement with Hugo Chavez. His country has been a major oil supplier and an ally for much of the past half century. There too our conflicts are commercial. Our invasion of Panama had to do with the drug trade and a century of interventions in Nicaragua also had to do with commercial interests. What problems we have with Mexico have mostly to do with illegal immigration. The eventual solution will require economic progress in Mexico. There will be no armed conflict. The dominant topic in the Americas for the next decade will be NAFTA, CAFTA, and the other trade agreements in varying stages of consideration.
That leaves Islam. None of the others are involved in anything like Huntington’s clash with each other, only with Islam. Even Islam breaks down into components, some more confrontational than others. We don’t see much about this but there are at least three distinct Islamic cultures. There are Turks, Malays, and Arabs. Somewhere in there you have to fit Indians, Pakistanis, Kurds, Iranians, non-Arabic Africans, and other Asians and Pacific Islanders. But Indian Muslims are still Indians. They differ from Hindus in diet and religion but to an outsider the differences are superficial. Many Pakistanis are culturally akin to Indians in the same way, though others are from the wild tribes of the Hindu Kush. None of them are Arab, though in recent years they have been heavily influenced by Wahabi financed madrasas. Kurds are a distinct people but their consuming interest is separatism and there aren’t enough of them to be called a civilization. All of these groups have their problems with the neighbors of course but it seems to me that the conflict of historic proportions predicted by Huntington comes from the vision of global domination associated with Arabs and Iranians. Others are infected by it but to not nearly the same degree. Only in the Middle East and parts of North Africa do Islamic extremists have the power to influence the decisions of war and peace that might make them a serious risk for even regional conflagration, let alone global.
Everywhere else Islamic communities are being forced to adapt and accommodate their neighbors. They are finding that they must control their more radical elements in order to survive and prosper, and they are doing just that. Indonesia’s neighbors don’t feel any need to intervene there to track down terrorists. Authorities may ask for and get international intelligence cooperation but they are more than capable of policing their own populace. They aren’t about to wink at groups of adventurers that might drag Indonesia into a foreign war. Even Pakistan has begun to think twice about allowing her territory to be used for guerrilla operations in Indian controlled Kashmir. The prospect of nuclear holocaust has a sobering effect even among war mongers and more than a few Pakistanis have noticed India’s emerging prosperity. There is a reason why American Diplomats are welcome in Islamabad. Huntington was wrong. Everywhere the forces of the modern age are having their effect. Civilizations, cultures, and religions are learning to live with one another. The world is slowly becoming a more peaceful place.
posted by Onfoot at 2:50 PM
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