The War on Terror is Not a Clash of Cultures

Following the violence of September 11th and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, it has become common to hear that Samuel Huntington's "The Clash of Civilizations" thesis (presented over a decade ago in a Foreign Affairs article) has come to pass. Australian Minister for Foreign Affairs Alexander Downer is not so quick to agree. Rather than see the war on terror as a vindication of Huntington's thesis, Downer argues that Huntington and his followers fail by only looking to Islamic extremists like Osama Bin Laden and taking their rhetoric and actions to represent the sentiments of all Muslims. This oversimplification ignores the vast majority of Muslims, who are moderate and just as eager to fight terrorists as the "Western civilization" of Huntington's imagination, says Downer. Though Islam may be becoming more prevalent in Southeast Asia, he concludes, this does not mean that there is a growing rift between the Western and Islamic worlds. – YaleGlobal