Islam and the West: Blending, not Dividing
Islam and the West: blending, not dividing
By Allen Keiswetter
Six years after the 9/11 attacks against the United States, why are we still using the terms "Islam and the West"? After all, Islam is a religion and the West is a geographical term. Why not juxtapose Islam and Christendom, since both are religions that span many cultures? Or the Middle East and the West since both are geographical entities? Islam's 1.3 billion adherents stretch from Morocco to Indonesia, encompassing widely divergent cultures and beliefs. The West, as a term of political geography, is a remnant from the Cold War years when the West confronted the communist East. Now it is not so much a place as a diverse set of political and economic ideas shared in various degrees from Japan to Latin America, not just in Europe and North America.
In fact, Islam and the West today are increasingly blended, not divided.
Globalization has blended Islam and the West. Islam in the West is commonplace, including growing Muslim populations with increasing numbers of mosques and halal markets. Similarly, the West has penetrated deeply even into the cradle of Islam itself. A sign of this is the Golden Arches barometer: McDonalds serves halal hamburgers not only at its three franchises in the holy city of Mecca but also at franchises in Michigan and London.
What does this blending mean for Samuel Huntington's famous theory about a "clash of civilizations" between Islam and the West? A clash of civilizations is hardly the predominant characteristic of the recent era of international relations. Since 1945 more conflicts have erupted within civilizations than between them, and Christianity has been a more violent religion than Islam if judged by the number of conflicts. Generally, civilizational differences seem to exacerbate other differences rather than provoke conflict. The current sectarian violence between Sunni and Shiites Iraqis illustrates the point.
Nor are Islam and the West fated to clash. The diverse views within both broad communities provide scope for either reconciliation or conflict. The "sword" verses in the Koran are often used by both Islamists and their critics in the West to portray conflict as foreordained. I see a stronger argument in the "peace" verses of the Koran for reconciliation among the "people of the book" for those on either side who want it.
We should not ignore the strong areas of cooperation. Those who focus on a clash of civilizations ignore the broad areas of cooperation in trade, energy, defense and even counter-terrorism that mark relations between Islam and the West today. The Bush administration's pending $20 billion arms deal with America's Gulf allies is just one example.
Yes, there are differences between Islam and the West. Opinion polls highlight differences over issues like divorce, abortion, gender equality, and gay rights. These differences characterize traditional societies in general and spill over into the West. The current split over gay issues within the Episcopal Church is an example.
Interestingly, support for democracy is higher among Arabs than any other group, possibly because of their identification of democracy with economic well-being.
Surveys like the Pew Research Poll also show a decline in support for terrorism in Islamic countries. But that depends on where you live. Support remains high among Palestinians but the jihadist campaign of Al-Qaeda is losing its appeal in Morocco, Indonesia, Saudi Arabia and other Muslim countries wracked by terrorism. In short, Osama bin Laden is no longer a street hero.
Six years after 9/11 there is a promising dialogue taking place on Islamic issues. Within Islam, particularly among Sunnis, the debate about ijtihad, or interpretation, has intensified. Muslims are seeking new answers to the abiding questions about Islam's place in the world, fueling a growth of Islamic feminism and advocacy of practical reforms as espoused in United Nations Arab Human Development Reports.
So then, what are the policy implications of the increasingly blended relations between Islam and the West? For the United States to restore its credibility and influence in the Muslim world, it needs to fill the front lines with diplomats who listen, not soldiers who shoot.
"Allen Keiswetter is an adjunct scholar at the Middle East Institute in Washington. A former deputy assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern affairs, he also served as NATO deputy assistant secretary general for political affairs. He has taught at the National War College. This commentary is published by permission."
Extract from the Daily Star:
http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=1&categ_id=5&article_...
JFK was certainly a more intelligent man than George Bush but I don't think you can credit his administration with greater rationalism. The difference between Democratic and Republican camps is not their objectives, but their methods. JFK and Bush are probably the biggest contrast you can acheive in terms of outlook and politics within the US government's history (please correct me if I'm wrong, I'm only really familiar with US politics post-1917). Nevertheless, they're still entirely similar because their position exists for the same reason: namely, to ensure the continuation of US global political domination (admitedly the USSR existed in the 60s to counteract the US). Both administrations (as Alexa pointed out, you need to look predominantly at those pulling the strings behind the scenes) used rationalism to come to different conclusions about how to achieve this aim but they are essentially the same. The only real difference is that Bush's mob are much more prone to using direct military force to achieve their aims. But as the 10-year starvation and bombing campaign used by the US between Gulf Wars demonstrates, direct military action is not necessarily more brutal than so-called 'peaceful means.'
Joe Williams
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We are talking about the least worst leaders.
JFK might not be the prefect. People have different points of view about him. But he was using some reasoning and his mind to take decisions. Rulers are not perfect and the decisions do not get 100% acceptance, not even 80% or 70%
But as for Bush, six billions - excpet the few who were cheated and voted for him - agree that he is the worst president for USA and the best to attract the most hatred.
Absolutely: most obviously Bush is so clearly the front-man for various interest groups (most obviously military and oil). Blair/Brown were/are the same, as Brown's recently nauseatingly sycophantic behaviour around big businesses has demonstrated.
I think you’re right in a wider context as well: true totalitarian states do not and have never existed: they are more accurately described as oligarchies. You have to be careful of course; those who seek to disassociate some of the world’s most brutal rulers from the actions of their governments use a similar argument (eg all that ‘Hitler knew nothing about the Holocaust’ nonsense) but it is simply untenable that one person can a) protect a position of absolute power without support from leaders in the government/economy b) be responsible for every single decision.
Joe Williams
[email protected]
Agreed. It is impossible to rise to such elevated positions within these types of governments and exercise a genuine concern for the national or global population, however well intentioned a few of them are when they set out. As Lord Halisham famously said: "Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely."
Joe
Joe Williams
[email protected]
Have to agree with JoeWilliams on JFK. He wasn't as good as the history books made him seem. To be honest there have been very few really progressive and peaceful American presidents, ditto with British PM's.
"I fight with love and I laugh with rage, you have to live light enough to see the humor and long enough to see some change." Ani Difranco
Agreed. I feel as removed from Blair/Brown as you seem to from people like Bin Laden.
Not so sure JFK was any better though really. This is the guy that supported a violent coup against Kassem in Iraq and assisted the Baathist genocide against communists and intellectuals, the guy that supported Cuban exile militias in their attempt to reestablish the Cuban dictatorship at the Bay of Pigs, the guy who escalated American involvement in Vietnam (including authorising the use of napalm) and, to top it all, the gut was a hoffific womaniser. Just because he wore good suits, had a fit wife and talked the talk on civil liberties, his foreign policy record is as bad as the rest of them.
If Bush and Blair really represent the west. On the other hand, if Bin Laden and Nijad and similar persons really represent Islam.
To me, being an Arab and a Muslim, I do not consider Bin Laden and Nijad and people alike them, to represent Islam. Rather would be ashamed.
On the other hand. I feel it is horrible to see people like Bush and Blair leading the west. Still having hopes that things will straighten up there and we would see America having leaders like JFK, playing a positive and relatively fair role in the world.
Are we dreaming or thinking about the impossible?
Some interesting points here, particularly Keiswetter’s argument that the concept of a war between a geographical region and a religion is nonsensical and in his emphasis that within both ‘West’ and ‘Islam’ radically different strains of thought and culture exist, some with greater similarities to the perceived ‘enemy’ than those they are grouped together with by Huntingdon’s sickening analysis.
There are of course those analysts who try and portray the alliance between the UK and the USA – and Bush and Blair in particular – as primarily religious. Our mental images of the two leaders praying (preying?) together at Camp David fed into a convenient but ultimately incorrect formulation that the renewed ferocity of Western military involvement in the Middle East was inspired by some crusade to reclaim the Holy Land for the governments of Christian people.
As ever, however, such religious pretexts served only to garish support for the occupations of Iraq, Afghanistan and the continued support for Israel among the US’s rural poor. Though Bush may have been given confidence in his military actions though abstractly seeking ‘revenge’ for the events of 11th September 2001, their involvement in the region is almost entirely inspired by economic and geopolitical concerns.
I for one am tired of hearing the catchphrase ‘It’s all about the oil, man!’, not because this analysis is wrong, but because 0its so devastatingly simple and accurate the even the moronic trend-set that attached itself to the anti-war movement in England could grasp it. There are of course other concerns: creating compliant, remote states nearer to China for their war against the US not too far in the distant future, similarly ensuring some control over a military-resurgent Russia etc, but the US’s increasing willingness to become involved directly around the world is not to do with a desire to fight against Islam or Muslim culture, or even the fact that they’ve got a belligerent simpleton using the White House toilet paper, but because the US is increasingly aware that after nearly twenty years of near-absolute global political control, its time is coming to an end, and must use much more immediate and direct methods to try and maintain its hegemony.
But however distant the clash of religions or cultures truly is from the true motivations for Western aggression, the age-old adage remains true: if the actions of a government result in the oppression of a large section of a particular national, religious or cultural group, inevitably the resulting movement will build itself around that particular identity. Whether its English occupation of Ireland, Chinese occupation of Tibet or US oppression of Afro-Americans in its own cities, the oppression of one particular nation or group inevitably instills a sense of solidarity between those who share not only an identity but also a sense of subjugation.
As a result, many of the counter-imperialist groups fighting against the US and British occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan and the Zionist occupation of Palestine, and as a result the movement as a whole, will be extremely vocal about their Islamic, Arabic or nationalist identities. Though they are universally exploited materially for the benefit of Western nations, the most effective rallying call amongst these groups will appeal not to class solidarity but to their most deeply held beliefs; to people’s very sense of identity; of who they are as a person. This does not make the conflict religious or cultural: it remains a war for political and economic control of the religion, albeit one increasingly couched in a religious and cultural vocabulary.
The article itself provides good evidence of this mentioning Bush’s “pending $20 billion arms deal with America's Gulf allies”, presumably including Qatar. The US and Britain have not in any way struggled to find allies among Muslim or Arabic governments in their wars. Presumably such governments, particularly those who describe themselves as protecting the Islamic faith, would place themselves very firmly on the other side of any conflict designed to subjugate Islam to Christian rule. Ultimately, such governments are willing to cooperate (to varying degrees) with such conflict because their own political and economic interests are incorrigibly bound to the US’s.
I’d take issue with a couple of things Keiswetter said. Firstly the fact that McDonalds in London is selling halal burgers does not necessarily give the most accurate impression of inter-religious dialogue in Britain. There are growing tensions between (perceived) native and immigrant Muslim (and other) communities, largely because of the actions of our government’s in such wars. Jack Straw, former Home Secretary, last year announced that he would refuse to speak to women with their faces completely covered during his constituency surgery. The man who admitted on Newsnight that the war in Iraq was ‘partly’ about energy supplies making pronouncements on the ground rules inter-community relations. Cheers Jack, that’s very helpful.
Secondly, I think you’ll find that many of the most zealously religious Christians are in total agreement with the most passionately religious Muslims on issues such as “divorce, abortion, gender equality, and gay rights.”
Other than that, he’s pretty spot on. To repeat his last point: “For the United States to restore its credibility and influence in the Muslim world, it needs to fill the front lines with diplomats who listen, not soldiers who shoot.” That’s not ‘change its agenda’; not ‘give up on the idea that it has the right to dominate the affairs of all other nations and peoples’, but ‘recognise that the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have been abject failures and that they need to find more subtle, less confrontational methods of achieving this aim’.
Step forward, please, the new Democratic President.
Agree with you, specially your last statement.
Have a nice day
The logic that starts with defining/ redefining "Islam and the West" should only, in my humble opinion, lead to the right conclusion.
I liked the article, with little reservation regarding "support for democracy is higher among Arabs than any other group, possibly because of their identification of democracy with economic well-being".
We, Arabs, are still herds behind our governments being our shepherds, unfortunately.
Thanks
Salam