Who is winning in the “Clash of Civilizations”?
Five years after the events of September 11th, the House International Relations Subcommittee on the Middle East and Central Asia held a hearing yesterday entitled “Is there a Clash of Civilizations? Islam, Democracy and Central Asia Policy.” The hearing plays on Samuel Huntington’s fateful doctrine. Rather than using the hearing to debate the existence of a cultural clash between the Muslim and non-Muslim World, the subcommittee used the time to prove that such a clash does in fact exist. The idea of a fundamental “clash,” combined with violent images in the Middle East, has worked rhetorical wonders in alarming and confusing us into believing that ‘they” hate “us” because of our freedom, liberty, and democracy. Such language that treats differences between the Muslim and non-Muslim world as an epic battle plays right into the hands of those like Osama bin Laden, who have built their followings on a similar worldview. The hearing proved that the battle for “hearts and minds” has as mu
