In recent years, some scholars have spoken of a clash
of civilizations between Islam and modern secular (or Judeo-Christian)
democratic values and culture, or between Islamic civilization and the
West.
Professor Samuel P. Huntington, in his article “The
Clash of Civilizations” and later in his book of the same name, argues
that the root of global conflict at the turn of the century is neither
ideological nor economic, but primarily cultural.
Huntington singles out Islamic civilization as the
most militant cultural form, and emphasizes the inherent conflict between
it and Western and other civilizations.
Although Huntington’s premise can be brought into
question, as shown by John Esposito (“Political Islam and the West”,
JFQ, Spring 2000), the Muslim world today is torn by a deep internal
conflict over the essence and purpose of Islamic society. The outcome of
this internal conflict has dictated, and continues to dictate, the nature
of the ties between Muslim civilization and Western and other
civilizations.
Islamic fundamentalism is funneled through dozens of
Islamist organizations that operate throughout the Muslim world. In
addition, there are three states – Iran, Afghanistan, and the Sudan –
whose fundamentalist Islamic regimes provide spiritual and material succor
to the radical Islamic movements. These states work independently and
through the radical Islamic movements to export the Islamic revolution to
the entire Muslim world, and spearhead the struggle against foreign –
particularly Western – civilizations.
In this article we shall be focusing on a recent
phenomenon which clearly exemplifies Huntington’s theory of the “clash of
civilizations” – that of the “Afghan mujahideen” – the spearhead of
radical Islam’s struggle against heretical cultures. Despite their name,
the “Afghan terrorists” are not affiliated with a specific movement or
state, but see themselves as the representatives of Islam’s relentless
struggle against secular Muslim regimes and heretical cultures.
Osama bin Laden is one of the outstanding “products”
of the Afghan war, and his organization “Al-Qa’idah” is one of the main
expressions of the “Afghan” phenomenon. Bin Laden views his struggle as
part of the conflict between Islamic and other civilizations, particularly
“the Jewish-Crusader civilization”, as he calls it.
As a cultural struggle, the world-wide Afghan
struggle is being waged on three fronts: within Muslim countries (to
reinstate the rule of shari’a law); in countries with Muslim
minorities, situated on “fault lines” with other cultures (the Balkans,
the Caucasus, Kashmir, etc.); and, internationally, in the struggle
against Western, particularly US, civilization, which is perceived by the
fundamentalists as the source of all evil, and the primary threat to
Islam.
It looks as if the clash of civilizations as
perceived by Huntington, at one extreme, and Osama bin Laden, at the
other, is with us to stay, at least for the foreseeable future.