‘Clash of Civilizations’ debate revisiting West 

December 9, 2015, 8:52 pm

An interfaith memorial service at the Islamic Center of Redlands, for the victims of the San Bernardino mass shooting, on December 6, 2015 in Loma Linda, California (AFP Photo)

Is a ‘Clash of Civilizations’ upon the West? This is a prime poser facing the world in the wake of the recent terror attacks in France and the US. The perpetrators of the horrific deeds in question, such as the IS, claim that they are acting in the name of Islam. The time is ripe for the right-thinking to determine whether this is so.

Certainly, the West and other sections are coming under terror attacks of the most revolting kind unleashed by Jihadist groups which seem to be enjoying wide reach in and outside the Western hemisphere. At first blush, there seems to be some validity in political scientist Samuel Huntingdon’s thesis that the post-Cold War world is characterized by a ‘Clash of Civilizations’. That there are two main identity groups figuring in this clash, the so-called Islamists and the West - the latter, whose civilizational basis, apparently, is Christianity - could be seen as lending further credence to this celebrated argument.

But US President Barrack Obama is not one of those who counts himself as a defender of this thesis and his point of view needs close scrutiny. In an address to the ‘nation’ recently, the President said, among other things, ‘We cannot turn against one another by letting this fight be defined as a war between America and Islam……ISIS does not speak for Islam. They are thugs and killers. Part of a cult of death….they account for a tiny fraction of more than a billion Muslims around the world.’

This is very well said and squares fully with reason. The IS and other Jihadist groups do not represent the majority of the Muslim world. Sections of the Muslim world are beginning to speak out against such close identification and this too augurs well for cordiality and peace among communities. Islam, as most knowledgeable persons are aware, does not advocate the taking of lives, for the furtherance of power aspirations. The identification of terrorists with the Muslim world, therefore, is without foundation. Accordingly, Huntingdon’s thesis does not hold water. But there is no doubt that grave, widespread tensions exist among some sections of those who profess Islam and what is seen as the West.

However, President Obama has emerged as an interesting foil for Republican presidential hopeful Donald Trump who is taking a hard, vociferous line on the Muslim presence in the US. He has already gone to the extreme of saying that Muslims should be barred from entering the US. Earlier, Trump was on record as equating the current wave of violence with 'radical Islamic terror'. He said: 'We are having a tremendous problem with radical Islamic terrorism....And we have a president that won't issue the term. He won't talk about it.'

This characterization is as misleading as coupling terror in Sri Lanka with 'Tamil'. Inasmuch as the majority of the Tamil community in Sri Lanka does not advocate the use of violence for the gaining of political aims, leave alone back terror, and should not be linked with terrorists, it is entirely without foundation to speak of 'Islamic terror'. However, such irresponsible coupling of words could have the impact of prejudicing volatile sections against the Tamil community as well as those professing correctly conceived Islam. It is high time incendiary language of this kind is prohibited by democratic governments. Hopefully, the Sri Lankan government would show the way.

There is much that the US government and the Muslims of the West could do to foster and enhance inter-communal harmony. The US President should translate his perceptions on inter-communal relations into policies that would help in accelerating nation-building. The latter phrase, correctly understood, is all about integrating all the communities of a land into a united public. And equality is the essential ingredient in building and cementing national harmony. Accordingly, equal treatment of communities is the prime catalyst in nation-building and a state could not have one without the other.

Meanwhile, Muslims the world over would do well to distance themselves from extremists who seek to abuse Islam to advance their power aims. The Muslims of the world would need to be more vocal in this regard and proactively work towards communal and religious amity.

However, the US government would find itself to be sinking increasingly into the dilemma of how it could militarily neutralize the IS on the one hand and foster inter-communal harmony on the other. This issue gains increasing salience in view of the fact that NATO-led military operations in Syria, for instance, are apparently claiming civilian lives in significant numbers. President Obama is on the correct perceptual plane with regard to communal relations but his administration would need to figure out how military operations against the IS could be carried out without incurring the loss of civilian lives. If this problem is not managed effectively, anger against the West could not be prevented from rising. The West should also note that 'foreigners' in increasing numbers are joining the ranks of the IS. This is clear proof that the West is right now making more and more enemies.

These and many more issues are crying out for early resolution. And time is not on the side of the West. Even as this is being written the far right is making significant electoral gains in the West, notably France. Close on the heels of the recent Paris terror attacks, the rightist National Front has reportedly fared well in regional polls and these developments need to be seen as a hardening of the anti-foreigner sentiment in France. Such negative attitudes could not be prevented from spreading in particularly Syrian refugee receiving countries of the West, in the wake of stepped-up terror attacks.

It should not come as a surprise, therefore, if national security emerges as a prime concern in the West, against this bleak backdrop. This would be so because rising rightist sentiment is an essential element in inter-communal disharmony. In France and outside, rightist parties would be found to be churning-up ethnic and religious tensions for the purpose of political survival, close on the heels of increasing terror attacks against civilians.

For the West and its allies, the prime poser would be to safeguard national security and foster internal ethnic harmony while dealing with terror. While security issues need to be handled effectively by evolving law and order measures expeditiously, there is no getting away from the need to build harmonious ties among communities on the basis of humanity. The latter process must be quickened in the days ahead to prevent the disintegration of multiethnic countries.