http://www.slate.com/id/2138731/ What Clash of Civilizations?
Why religious identity isn't destiny.
By Amartya Sen This essay is adapted from the new book Identity and Violence , published by Norton.
That some barbed cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed could
generate turmoil in so many countries tells us some rather important things
about the contemporary world. Among other issues, it points up the intense
sensitivity of many Muslims about representation and derision of the prophet in
the Western press (and the ridiculing of Muslim religious beliefs that is taken
to go with it) and the evident power of determined agitators to generate the
kind of anger that leads immediately to violence. But stereotyped
representations of this kind do another sort of damage as well, by making huge
groups of people in the world to look peculiarly narrow and unreal. The portrayal of the prophet with a bomb in the form of a hat
is obviously a figment of imagination and cannot be judged literally, and the
relevance of that representation cannot be dissociated from the way the
followers of the prophet may be seen. What we ought to take very seriously is
the way Islamic identity, in this sort of depiction, is assumed to drown, if
only implicitly, all other affiliations, priorities, and pursuits that a Muslim
person may have. A person belongs to many different groups, of which a religious
affiliation is only one. To see, for example, a mathematician who happens to be
a Muslim by religion mainly in terms of Islamic identity would be to hide more
than it reveals. Even today, when a modern mathematician at, say, MIT or
Princeton invokes an "algorithm" to solve a difficult computational
problem, he or she helps to commemorate the contributions of the ninth-century
Muslim mathematician Al-Khwarizmi, from whose name the term algorithm is
derived (the term "algebra" comes from the title of his Arabic
mathematical treatise "Al Jabr wa-al-Muqabilah"). To concentrate only
on Al-Khwarizmi's Islamic identity over his identity as a mathematician would
be extremely misleading, and yet he clearly was also a Muslim. Similarly, to
give an automatic priority to the Islamic identity of a Muslim person in order
to understand his or her role in the civil society, or in the literary world,
or in creative work in arts and science, can result in profound
misunderstanding. The increasing tendency to overlook the many identities that
any human being has and to try to classify individuals according to a single
allegedly pre-eminent religious identity is an intellectual confusion that can
animate dangerous divisiveness. An Islamist instigator of violence against
infidels may want Muslims to forget that they have any identity other than
being Islamic. What is surprising is that those who would like to quell that
violence promote, in effect, the same intellectual disorientation by seeing
Muslims primarily as members of an Islamic world. The world is made much more
incendiary by the advocacy and popularity of single-dimensional categorization
of human beings, which combines haziness of vision with increased scope for the
exploitation of that haze by the champions of violence. A remarkable use of imagined singularity can be found in
Samuel Huntington's influential 1998 book The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of the World
Order. The difficulty with In fact, of course, the people of the world can be classified
according to many other partitions, each of which has some—often
far-reaching—relevance in our lives: nationalities, locations, classes,
occupations, social status, languages, politics, and many others. While
religious categories have received much airing in recent years, they cannot be
presumed to obliterate other distinctions, and even less can they be seen as
the only relevant system of classifying people across the globe. In
partitioning the population of the world into those belonging to "the
Islamic world," "the Western world," "the Hindu
world," "the Buddhist world," the divisive power of
classificatory priority is implicitly used to place people firmly inside a
unique set of rigid boxes. Other divisions (say, between the rich and the poor,
between members of different classes and occupations, between people of
different politics, between distinct nationalities and residential locations,
between language groups, etc.) are all submerged by this allegedly primal way
of seeing the differences between people. The difficulty with the clash of civilizations thesis begins
with the presumption of the unique relevance of a singular classification.
Indeed, the question "Do civilizations clash?" is founded on the
presumption that humanity can be pre-eminently classified into distinct and
discrete civilizations, and that the relations between different human beings
can somehow be seen, without serious loss of understanding, in terms of
relations between different civilizations. This reductionist view is typically combined, I am afraid,
with a rather foggy perception of world history that overlooks, first, the
extent of internal diversities within these civilizational categories, and
second, the reach and influence of interactions—intellectual as well as
material—that go right across the regional borders of so-called
civilizations. And its power to befuddle can trap not only those who would like
to support the thesis of a clash (varying from Western chauvinists to Islamic
fundamentalists), but also those who would like to dispute it and yet try to
respond within the straitjacket of its prespecified terms of reference. The limitations of such civilization-based thinking can prove
just as treacherous for programs of "dialogue among civilizations"
(much in vogue these days) as they are for theories of a clash of
civilizations. The noble and elevating search for amity among people seen as
amity between civilizations speedily reduces many-sided human beings to one
dimension each and muzzles the variety of involvements that have provided rich
and diverse grounds for cross-border interactions over many centuries,
including the arts, literature, science, mathematics, games, trade, politics,
and other arenas of shared human interest. Well-meaning attempts at pursuing
global peace can have very counterproductive consequences when these attempts
are founded on a fundamentally illusory understanding of the world of human
beings. Increasing reliance on religion-based classification of the
people of the world also tends to make the Western response to global terrorism
and conflict peculiarly ham-handed. Respect for "other people" is
shown by praising their religious books, rather than by taking note of the
many-sided involvements and achievements, in nonreligious as well as religious
fields, of different people in a globally interactive world. In confronting
what is called "Islamic terrorism" in the muddled vocabulary of contemporary
global politics, the intellectual force of Western policy is aimed quite
substantially at trying to define—or redefine—Islam. To focus just on the grand religious classification is not
only to miss other significant concerns and ideas that move people. It also has
the effect of generally magnifying the voice of religious authority. The Muslim
clerics, for example, are then treated as the ex officio spokesmen for the
so-called Islamic world, even though a great many people who happen to be
Muslim by religion have profound differences with what is proposed by one
mullah or another. Despite our diverse diversities, the world is suddenly seen
not as a collection of people, but as a federation of religions and civilizations.
In Religious or civilizational classification can be a source of
belligerent distortion as well. It can, for example, take the form of crude
beliefs well exemplified by U.S. Lt. Gen. William Boykin's blaring—and by
now well-known—remark describing his battle against Muslims with
disarming coarseness: "I knew that my God was bigger than his," and
that the Christian God "was a real God, and [the Muslim's] was an idol."
The idiocy of such bigotry is easy to diagnose, so there is comparatively
limited danger in the uncouth hurling of such unguided missiles. There is, in
contrast, a much more serious problem in the use in Western public policy of
intellectual "guided missiles" that present a superficially nobler
vision to woo Muslim activists away from opposition through the apparently
benign strategy of defining Islam appropriately. They try to wrench Islamic
terrorists from violence by insisting that Islam is a religion of peace, and
that a "true Muslim" must be a tolerant individual ("so come off
it and be peaceful"). The rejection of a confrontational view of Islam is
certainly appropriate and extremely important at this time, but we must ask
whether it is necessary or useful, or even possible, to try to define in
largely political terms what a "true Muslim" must be like. ****** A person's religion need not be his or her all-encompassing
and exclusive identity. Islam, as a religion, does not obliterate responsible
choice for Muslims in many spheres of life. Indeed, it is possible for one
Muslim to take a confrontational view and another to be thoroughly tolerant of
heterodoxy without either of them ceasing to be a Muslim for that reason alone.
The response to Islamic fundamentalism and to the terrorism
linked with it also becomes particularly confused when there is a general
failure to distinguish between Islamic history and the history of Muslim
people. Muslims, like all other people in the world, have many different
pursuits, and not all their priorities and values need be placed within their
singular identity of being Islamic. It is, of course, not surprising at all
that the champions of Islamic fundamentalism would like to suppress all other
identities of Muslims in favor of being only Islamic. But it is extremely odd
that those who want to overcome the tensions and conflicts linked with Islamic
fundamentalism also seem unable to see Muslim people in any form other than
their being just Islamic. People see themselves—and have reason to see themselves—in
many different ways. For example, a Bangladeshi Muslim is not only a Muslim but
also a Bengali and a Bangladeshi, typically quite proud of the Bengali
language, literature, and music, not to mention the other identities he or she
may have connected with class, gender, occupation, politics, aesthetic taste,
and so on. Bangladesh's separation from Pakistan was not based on religion at
all, since a Muslim identity was shared by the bulk of the population in the
two wings of undivided Similarly, there is no empirical reason at all why champions
of the Muslim past, or for that matter of the Arab heritage, have to
concentrate specifically on religious beliefs only and not also on science and
mathematics, to which Arab and Muslim societies have contributed so much, and
which can also be part of a Muslim or an Arab identity. Despite the importance
of this heritage, crude classifications have tended to put science and
mathematics in the basket of "Western science," leaving other people
to mine their pride in religious depths. If the disaffected Arab activist today
can take pride only in the purity of Islam, rather than in the many-sided
richness of Arab history, the unique prioritization of religion, shared by
warriors on both sides, plays a major part in incarcerating people within the
enclosure of a singular identity. Even the frantic Western search for "the moderate
Muslim" confounds moderation in political beliefs with moderateness of
religious faith. A person can have strong religious faith—Islamic or any
other—along with tolerant politics. Emperor Saladin, who fought valiantly
for Islam in the Crusades in the 12 th century, could offer, without
any contradiction, an honored place in his Egyptian royal court to Maimonides
as that distinguished Jewish philosopher fled an intolerant The point that needs particular attention is that while Akbar
was free to pursue his liberal politics without ceasing to be a Muslim, that
liberality was in no way ordained—nor of course prohibited—by
Islam. Another Mughal emperor, Aurangzeb, could deny minority rights and
persecute non-Muslims without, for that reason, failing to be a Muslim, in
exactly the same way that Akbar did not terminate being a Muslim because of his
tolerantly pluralist politics. The insistence, if only implicitly, on a choiceless
singularity of human identity not only diminishes us all, it also makes the
world much more flammable. The alternative to the divisiveness of one
pre-eminent categorization is not any unreal claim that we are all much the
same. Rather, the main hope of harmony in our troubled world lies in the
plurality of our identities, which cut across each other and work against sharp
divisions around one single hardened line of vehement division that allegedly
cannot be resisted. Our shared humanity gets savagely challenged when our
differences are narrowed into one devised system of uniquely powerful categorization.
Perhaps the worst impairment comes from the neglect—and
denial—of the roles of reasoning and choice, which follow from the
recognition of our plural identities. The illusion of unique identity is much
more divisive than the universe of plural and diverse classifications that
characterize the world in which we actually live. The descriptive weakness of
choiceless singularity has the effect of momentously impoverishing the power
and reach of our social and political reasoning. The illusion of destiny exacts
a remarkably heavy price. Amartya Sen is the *************************************************************************** {Invite (mankind, O Muhammad ) to the Way of your Lord (i.e. Islam) with wisdom (i.e. with the Divine Inspiration and the Qur'an) and fair preaching, and argue with them in a way that is better. Truly, your Lord knows best who has gone astray from His Path, and He is the Best Aware of those who are guided.} (Holy Quran-16:125) {And who is better in speech than he who [says: "My Lord is Allah (believes in His Oneness)," and then stands straight (acts upon His Order), and] invites (men) to Allah's (Islamic Monotheism), and does righteous deeds, and says: "I am one of the Muslims."} (Holy Quran-41:33) The prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) said: "By Allah, if Allah guides one person by you, it is better for you than the best types of camels." [al-Bukhaaree, Muslim] The prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) also said, "Whoever calls to guidance will have a reward similar to the reward of the one who follows him, without the reward of either of them being lessened at all." [Muslim, Ahmad, Aboo Daawood, an-Nasaa'ee, at-Tirmidhee, Ibn Maajah] -------------------------------------------------------------------------- All views expressed herein belong to the individuals concerned and do not in any way reflect the official views of IslamCity unless sanctioned or approved otherwise. If your mailbox clogged with mails from IslamCity, you may wish to get a daily digest of emails by logging-on to http://www.yahoogroups.com to change your mail delivery settings or email the moderators at [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the title "change to daily digest".
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