During the Gulf War, the West was seriously concerned with the possibility of a militant Islamist backlash against intervention, unveiling several fault-lines between and within Mediterranean polities and societies. This signalled the re-arrangement of world order, reducing East-West antagonism to a minimum, while re-emphasising the Orient-Occident and North-South divides, thus offering useful ammunition to those arguing that the dominant conflict post-1989 is between Occidental and Oriental values, or an Occidental economic/technological ‘post-historical’ world and an Oriental ‘historical’ world [29]. Rather effortlessly, Huntington depicted multiple (sub)regional ‘clashes’ as a result of the irrefutable existence of different cultures (civilisations), projecting a historical Mediterranean fragmentation, rather than unity [30]. His Clash of Civilisations raised the question of security’s cultural dimension, in that the ‘clash’ occurs along the lines of religiously inspired militancy against Western liberal values. But his analysis missed the underlying causes of Islamic resurgence, as it is obsessed with the cultural symbols or the retrieval of collective historical memories. A related criticism is that, by rewriting Muslim history, he failed to encourage intelligent dialogue between the two opposing cultures. As Sachedina asserts, such scholarship effectively corrupts the common moral and political language of the two cultures, fosters confrontation, and prolongs historical stereotypes [31]. Arguing that the notion of ‘Islam vs. the West’ will not represent the arena of the next ideological struggle, Fuller and Lesser suggest that a comprehensive reform to break away from authoritarianism is imperative, that political Islam threatens the established order in Muslim countries far more than the West, and that confrontation can best be prevented by integrating Islam into the global process [32]. Nevertheless, concern of an Islamic ‘threat’ to the West increased after the Gulf War, by creating a new enemy stereotype after the demise of communism, preparing a climate for a ‘new cultural war’ [33]. Rising anxiety in international relations is, according to Blunden, contagious [34]. All too often, Western foreign policy-makers have exploited a general public ignorance about ‘Orientalism’ to advance self-serving objectives. Since ‘Islam is both a religion and a polity’ [35], several extremist groups have used it for radical purposes. The traditional view of ‘Orientalists’ in the West is that the Arabs/Muslims ‘show lack of coordination and harmony in organisation and function, nor have they revealed an ability for cooperation. Any collective action for mutual benefit or common profit is alien to them’ [36]. Crucial to the creation of such stereotypes has been the role played by the Western media in equating Islam with ‘fundamentalist Islam’ and, hence, with a direct threat to the liberal-democratic West. In this context, Said notes, ‘there is a consensus on Islam as a kind of scapegoat for everything we do not happen to like about the world’s new political, social, and economic patterns’ [37]. Likewise, Esposito suggests that the selective presentation of facts and biased analysis have contributed to a negative perception of Islamic religion by mainstream Western society, reducing Islam and its revivalism to stereotypes of ‘Islam vs. the West’, ‘Islam vs. modernity’, ‘Muslim rage’, etc. [38] Similarly, Roberson argues that ‘the Islamic threat is essentially a counterfeit issue imbued with stereotypical misperceptions and a casual commitment to analysis ... in some cases, a conscious exercise in image creation for tactical political purposes’ [39]. With the majority of pre-liberal images being influenced by the pre-eminent role attached to a value-driven distinction between the individual and the collective, it was thanks to the legacy of the Enlightenment that certain notions of ‘civility’ were linked to a more normative political language. Such a legacy has largely survived the present era, with the West attempting to monopolise global discourse on the democratic functions of government and human rights. But much like those in the West, Muslims believe that their faith has a divine purpose too, motivating them to set the world straight. They believe to be the chosen people following the righteous path to ‘judgement day’. More than religion and polity, Islam is also a culture with a different perception of the relationship between church and state. Although the roots of this discourse can be traced to the revival of classic Greek ideas and the Renaissance, the coming of modernity clearly exposed the differences between the two cultures [40]. Most Arab societies were introduced to the logic of modernisation under the heavy pressure of colonial Europe. Modernisation was more successful in dismantling the traditional structures than in setting up their modern replacements [41]. The process of adaptation to modernity is still going on for Islamic countries. Although Gellner has argued that Islamic culture is endowed with a number of features that are congruent with requirements of modernity or modernisation [42], many Muslim leaders still fight for a line ‘back to the roots’. Arab governing elites are particularly eclectic in picking out those ‘values of modernisation’ that best fit their aims for maintaining power and control like modern weapons, surveillance technology and consumer goods. Such processes of ‘selective sorting out’ and ‘selective adaptation’ do not allow the Western value system to be accepted by these societies. Instead, modernisation is often reduced to a symbol of moral decay, with Western influence having to be controlled for it increases the technological, military, economic and scientific superiority and/or hegemony of the capitalist world.
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