Here, says Mr. Huntington, is the heart of the matter:
The underlying problem for the West is not Islamic fundamentalism. It is Islam, a different civilization whose people are convinced of the superiority of their culture and are obsessed with the inferiority of their power. The problem for Islam is not the CIA or the U.S. Department of Defense. It is the West, a different civilization whose people are convinced of the universality of their culture and believe that their superior, if declining, power imposes on them the obligation to extend that culture through the world.
Americans have a problem accepting this, I think, for a couple of reasons. For one, it violates the deeply held belief that inside every human being is an American, waiting to come out. For another, it seems to imply that reconciliation across civilizations is impossible.
Both are false conclusions. All Mr. Huntington asks us Americans to do is to recognize that our values might be universally true, but they aren't universally shared. There will always be conflict between civilizations, given mutually exclusive values and interests, but conflicts can be managed through diplomacy, imagination and, yes, humility.
While the U.S. must never shrink from defending itself and its legitimate interests, we have to understand that American power is not unlimited. As the shattering Iraq experience proves, we cannot make people what they are not and what they do not wish to be. Many Muslims in Iraq and elsewhere in the Middle East wish to be Islamic. Embracing Western cultural forms and ideals would make them something other than Islamic. They get this. Why don't we?
That prompted a reader who describes herself as "a true crunchy conservative" to write:
Would you agree with this statement:
"Inside every human being is a free person waiting to come out."?
The purpose of Bush's foreign policy is to make sure people can get freedom if they want it. The Iraqis demonstrated twice that they were hungry to control their own lives. They risked their lives to go out and vote. They stood in long lines in some cases.
Why do you say, in effect, that embracing freedom ("Western cultural forms") makes them something other than Islamic? It is the terrorists, the ones who want to be in charge through force, not the ordinary Iraqis who are causing the problems. Why do you ignore the majority and use the minority usurpers as the examples of rejection of Western values?
I can remember when people used to say that the Latin Americans just couldn't govern themselves either. They needed strong men to rule them—I heard this from university profs who traveled there!
Again I feel sad, since I have followed your career for some years, ever since you were at NRO. I am sad that you have turned away from the most important endowments by our Creator: life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
The reader assumes that all people around the world mean the same thing by the words "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness." To a pious Muslim, "freedom" means the freedom to worship Allah and observe his laws. "Freedom" to a Muslim might look like slavery to a non-Muslim, and vice versa. I invite the reader to consider that the secularist parties in the Iraq election -- that is, the parties whose platforms most closely resembled American-style liberal democracy -- polled only something like two percent of the electorate. Most Iraqis voted for their theocratic/sectarian parties.
Anyway, I do not believe it is America's business to expend blood and treasure to make the world safe for people to "get freedom if they want it." If the Egyptian people were truly free, they would elect the Muslim Brotherhood and the country would be turned into an Islamic Republic. That would not be in America's interest, and it surely wouldn't be in the interests of the Coptic Christian minority. Why, exactly, is it America's obligation to support free elections in Egypt, given how well they've worked out in Iraq and the Palestinian territories.
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It is likely because of, not despite, Christian influence that the idea of separation between church and state ever came about.
Hello Rod, To your reader I would make the observation which I have made on several occasions in regards to what we have seen in Iraq, to wit: President Bush extols the idea that men everywhere desire freedom. The problem is that while they desire freedom for themselves, they very frequently do not desire it for their neighbors. And that's especially true for much of the Islamc world, I'm afraid.
Hello Harvey, You have something of a point about the desirability of a vibrant middle class, but I think you're missing Rod's point about ISlam. Islam's self-understanding is quite different from that of Christianity - particularly its anthropology. Its scriptures are not written by men inspired by God, but presumed to be written by God Himself. And as such it offers a complete vision of society and its ordering - a legal code unto itself. That is simply not the case with the New Testament.
Christianity has never offered one political model for the proper ordering society - at most it will say that some are better than others. And even in the most theocratic points of the middle ages, there was always clear understanding on the Church's part of a distinction of some kind between the state and the Church - fuzzier, admittedly, in the Orthodox East, but still present in a way that it cannot be in Islam.
Richard, there are a lot of differences between Islam and Christianity, that I've never denied. But when we get down to where rubber contacts the road they're same thing. They're vehicles for controlling a group and are only truly effective when supported by legislation. As I look out over cyberville I see a bunch of folks scrambling to rise from behind their computer desks ready to contest that statement. They're Christians who don't believe their faith is the law of the land. We only have to look at Rod's mostest favoritest God topic, abortion, to see my statement proven true. Without legislative support Christian opposition to abortion would be a personal decision. With legislative support it's about governmental restrictions on a very personal decision. But the Christian position against abortion can't stand on it's own as a moral position. It's not that the rest of the Americans are immoral as much as it's only a moral standard to some while for others it isn't. So Christians like Rod seek to impose their religious precepts upon everyone through legislation. Is that any different from Saudi Arabia enforcing Sharia upon it's citizens? Isn't a woman's right to choose an abortion based upon her faith or lack thereof similar to a woman's right to choose a fashion statement based upon her faith or lack thereof? Limiting her right to choose either of these, keeping mind there is considerable difference between having an abortion and wearing a thong in public, based solely upon the faith of the observer similar if not alike? If we go back to the metaphor of football versus soccer your argument is comparable to them not being the same because the balls are not shaped the same. Minor detail.
Harvey, the sheer absurdity of your statement compels me to respond, even though the conversation is dying. First, neither Christianity nor Islam is "a vehicle for controlling a group." Each is a system of belief attempting to to organize and give structure to the believers' relationship with God. From that, it follows unsurprisingly that there is a social component of that belief--both groups of believers feel that their obligations to God include obligations to their fellow men. For Christians, that includes an obligation to defend the weakest in society. Yes, there is a clear religious basis for that belief. But we kid ourselves if we think that everything Christians do is because of teaching in scripture and tradition. Although our faith gives us numerous principles, many of these can be grasped through the exercise of reason as well. For example, I'm sure that you will concede the validity of many of the ten commandments' injunctions, despite your lack of belief in the God of Moses. Anti-abortion Christians maintain that our political advocacy against abortion is no different than opposition to theft or murder. That the consensus against abortion has disappeared (in no small part as a result of a poorly reasoned Supreme Court ruling that was not representative of the overall views of Americans at the time) in no way delegitimizes our continuing defense of unborn life. Abortion is no more a decision that should be between a woman and her God than infanticide is. Many Christian moral principles are shared by non-Christians because they are universally accessible via reason. At the same time, reason is rarely as powerful or unbiased a tool as some seem to believe, and many non-Christians share Christian moral principles because they maintain the vestiges of a Christian moral philosophy without crediting that philosophy. Try arguing for human rights from first principles and you will see how difficult it is to fully drive out the Holy Spirit completely. I understand that I will probably not persuade you, but I ask you to consider the possibility that, as imperfect as Christians are, maybe Christianity really does have something worth paying attention to.
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