ADELINA KRUPSKI

COMTEMPORARY SOCIETY

NOVEMBER 14, 2005

A) Can we really argue that international politics is increasingly characterised by a conflict between Western secularism and Islamic fundamentalism? Are there any alternatives to this analysis of seeing the world as one of cultures in conflict?

Conflict sustains international politics. It is almost impossible to imagine international politics without some kind of disagreement, whether it occurs between civilizations, cultures, religions, or sects. Following the end of World War II, relations between the United States and the Soviet Union were dominated by the Cold War, a struggle that lasted until the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. During this time, despite unfavourable preconceptions held by populations identified as ‘the West’, policymakers in the United States saw Islamic forces as potentially useful allies. With the Cold War at an end, Islam took the place of Communism and the Middle East was built up as the new enemy, a role complicated by United States' support of Israel as well as the need to continue trade centred on stable oil supplies. Since then, as a response to the attacks on September 11, 2001, George W. Bush launched a “war on terrorism”, which continues to this day. Clearly the conflict between the West and Islam has taken over international politics, yet the extent to which differences in religious beliefs are the source of this conflict is open to dispute. To more thoroughly examine this question, several key ideas relating to the tension between Western secularism and Islamic fundamentalism are discussed, as well as some alternatives to the widely-accepted position that this is primarily a cultural conflict.

The first idea is that of the ‘Islamic threat’, or the Green Peril, which came about as a result of the United States’ search for new enemies after the Cold War. It would have been expected that, with the collapse of the Soviet Union, the United States reduce its military commitments and interventions abroad. Instead, as if to fill a void, the United States wasted no time in initiating the process of identifying a new peril. “As the cold war ended, the historic cultural difference between the West and Islam re-emerged as one of the principal frontiers of cultural suspicion.” According to Leon Hadar, the former journalist with the Jerusalem Post, the Green Peril was “symbolized by the Middle Eastern Moslem fundamentalist...a Khomeini-like creature, armed with a radical ideology, equipped with nuclear weapons, and intent on launching a violent jihad against Western civilization.” An element of this idea of the ‘Islamic threat’ is the myth of the necessary enemy. Yet, “it is a profound if widespread mistake to think that in any general sense the West ‘needs’ an enemy. ...There is nothing in Western society - be it profit, market, or ideological and cultural stability - that requires and ‘enemy’ in the form of communism, Islam, Japan or anything else.” In addition, some completely reject the possibility of such a threat, especially when considering that, not only is the combined strength of the Islamic world far inferior to that of the West, but also, the Islamic states do not represent a coherent, internationally constituted alliance, making them more likely to conflict with each other than to unite against the West. Hence, a different way of interpreting the reason behind the ‘Islamic threat’ is to consider the historical inclination for a community or civilization to identify the ‘Other’, or those outside the group. “The conflict with the Islamic world allegedly reflects some inner need of Western society for a menacing, but subordinated, ‘other’: a linkage is made between the traditional religious-based hostility to Islamic society that goes back to the crusades and the need to assert a post-communist hegemony.” The representation of the ‘Other’ is almost always stereotyped and degrading. For this reason, it is essential to look at Islam in two different ways: first, from the viewpoint of the West and second, from that of Islam itself.

The modern conceptualisation of an ‘Islamic threat’ came at a time when twentieth century Western thinkers sought to restructure the world, in the process conveniently typecasting the Islamic ‘Other’. For example, many fail to separate the observance of Islamic doctrine in a general religious or cultural sense from adherence to beliefs and policies that are strictly described as ‘Islamist’ or ‘fundamentalist’. Instead, it is assumed that most Muslims “seek to impose a political programme, supposedly derived from their religion, on their societies. The fact that most Muslims are not supporters of Islamist movements is obscured, as are the conditions under which people who are Muslims do turn to this particular option. All is far too easily ascribed to the general influence of ‘Islam’.” When one realizes that most of the 1.2 billion Muslims around the world live lives of tolerance, order and decency, the emptiness of this stereotype of suicide bombers, terrorists and fundamentalist clerics becomes evident. Fundamentalism supports the belief that religious or political doctrine should be implemented literally and occurs worldwide, with movements in Indonesia, India, the Philippines, and the United States. These movements are not necessarily anti-Western, although the Islamist movement rejects Western values of secularism, democracy, the rule of civil law, equality between men and women, and between Muslims and non-Muslims. Rather, “whilst a track record of Islamic violence and anti-Westernism was demonstrable, to talk of a coherent Islamic civilization was another matter. In reality, Islam was thoroughly divided, and any voice that it had was diffuse.” Fundamentalism consists of different sects, including Shiite and Sunni, between which disputes occur continually. Sunni, the largest branch of Islam, is known for its nationalistic or left-wing politics. “In the absence of a universally accepted religious authority, the Sunni tradition is vulnerable to religious extremism and to the appeal of fundamentalist leaders.” On the other hand, Shiite Islam bases itself on the belief in the Hidden Imam, who will return to restore peace and justice on earth. Though an oppressed minority, Shiite Muslims supported the 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon. “If power is part of the problem with the United States, it is lack of power that besets Islam. In various contexts in recent years, Muslims have been on the receiving end of world politics. They have frequently been victims, although they are invariably presented as perpetrators.” In addition, the Islamic states have long felt a sense of exclusion from the benefits of Western modernity. They deeply resent the West’s cultural dominance and stand in opposition to its social and political values, a hostility that seems to have grown in recent years.

Both Islam and the West have formed stereotypical views of each other. As a result, this conflict between Islamic fundamentalism and Western secularism becomes more complicated than it is on the surface. Instead of a simple ‘clash of civilizations’, it turns out as a “confusion of misunderstandings, crude stereotypes, and parallel absences of self-knowledge.” For example, the West is depicted as “a civilization of lazy people obsessed with longevity, physical beauty, financial success and material possessions.” Criticized for its injustice towards the Islamic world and ‘defiance of the rules of Allah’, the West is regarded as a civilization in decline. Above all, Islamist thinkers criticise the concept of ‘secularism’, the European-generated idea that law and politics should be separated from the church and from invocations of divine authority, which they regard as “un-Islamic, and indeed one of the sources of Western decadence.” Secularism, a relatively recent development in the West, emerged out of the religious conflict between different Christian groups in Europe during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries and became a necessary component of modernization because of the need for civil peace. In the eyes of the Islamic world, secularism led to the corruption of the West. Fundamentalists hate the dedication of the state in Western societies towards religious tolerance and pluralism, rather than to serving religious truth. In the 1970s, hatred for Europe was succeeded by hatred for the United States. “Anti-Americanism was first propagated as a major theme of Muslim fundamentalism by young men and women from Islamic countries who had spent time in the United States as students or workers.” Nevertheless, it is not so much the United States that is hated, considering that the large Muslim population in the country does not seek emigrate and that the American people and their way of life are respected throughout the world. Instead, “it is the policies of successive US governments that are so hated: the manner in which the world's sole superpower tends to get its way; its sometimes brutal foreign policy and profitable project of globalization; its support for tyrants while mouthing the language of democracy and human rights; and the way it uses local proxies to dominate the global order.” The United States has grown increasingly unpopular since the start of George W. Bush’s “war on terrorism”, which plays a significant part in the examination of the conflict between Western secularism and Islamic fundamentalism.

Since the attacks of September 11, 2001, the media has labelled a whole range of violent acts as ‘terrorism’. Though the meaning and usage of the word have changed over time, ‘terrorism’ is a fundamentally political term, as the act of terrorism is the use of violence in pursuit of, or in service of, a political aim. The Western public mind widely associates terrorism with the Middle East, despite the fact that “modern political terrorism did not originate in the Middle East, or among Muslims, nor has it been predominantly carried out by such people.” Like any great religion, Islam has a set of texts, but these texts do not explain how the interpretation is rendered simply because they contain within them a range of possible uses. During his speech to the Labour Party conference in October 2001, Tony Blair said “we do not act against Islam”. While the Bush and Blair administrations claim that the current struggle is against terrorists, not a war between the West and Islam, there are clearly cultural issues at play. However, alternatives to this analysis is that the conflict is built around geopolitical or economic interests rather than cultural or religious considerations. If the “war on terrorism" truly isn't about ‘acting against Islam’, then why did the United States intervene militarily in the affairs of countries that had no direct link to the 11 September attacks? Why would the war be focused on the Middle East and not any other part of the world in which terrorism occurs? In addition, rather than attacking poverty and injustice in order to eliminate the sources of terrorism, Bush prefers to implement a muscular diplomacy, which will only encourage more terrorism. There are many elements to take into account when investigating this particular conflict, as it is so expansive that it can be viewed from an almost infinite number of angles, each time focusing on a different aspect.

In conclusion, though it can easily be argued that international politics is increasingly characterised by a conflict between Western secularism and Islamic fundamentalism, there are a few key ideas that point to alternatives to viewing the world as one represented by cultures in conflict. If the misunderstandings, stereotypes, political rejection and economic exclusion that separate the West from Islam were taken away, it is possible to see a core of shared structures.

 

Works Cited

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Hadar, Leon T. “The ‘Green Peril’: Creating the Islamic Fundamentalist Threat”. Cato Institute. 27 August 1992 .

Hafez, Kai. Islam and the West in the Mass Media: Fragmented Images in a Globalizing World. New Jersey: Hampton Press, 2000.

Halliday, Fred. Islam and the Myth of Confrontation. New York: I.B. Tauris & Co Ltd, 2003.

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Hertsgaard, Mark. The Eagle’s Shadow: Why America Fascinates and Infuriates the World. London: Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, 2002.

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