Culture Clash: West vs. East. Christianity vs. Islam Can the West win?

gettinbranded · Dec 10, 2001

With the ouster of the Taliban and eradication of the al-Qaida in Afghanistan, Islamic extremism has sustained a crushing defeat. But what continues to unsettle Americans is that film of Arab and Islamic people, wildly cheering the barbaric atrocities of Sept. 11.

Is a war of civilizations coming?

Clearly, not a few in the Islamic world and the West so believe, and ardently desire. And, with the War Party cawing for an attack on Iraq, with Sharon unleashed after the atrocities in Jerusalem and Haifa, with the U.S. press calling for a reappraisal of our ties to Saudi Arabia and Egypt, a clash of civilizations has moved from the possible to the probable.

President Bush, however, seems instinctively aware such a war would be a disaster. For no matter how many deaths or defeats we inflict, we cannot kill Islam as we did Nazism, fascism, Japanese militarism and Soviet Bolshevism. Islam has survived for nearly 1,600 years; it is the predominant faith in 57 countries; it is indestructible.

Astonishingly, 63 years ago, when Islam lay dormant under the heel of Western empires, a famous Catholic writer predicted Islam would rise again. Wrote Hillaire Belloc: "It has always seemed to me ... probable, that there would be a resurrection of Islam and that our sons or our grandsons would see the renewal of that tremendous struggle between the Christian culture and what has been for more than a thousand years its greatest opponent."

Islam was a Christian heresy, Belloc believed, whose strength lay in its "insistence on personal immortality, the Unity and Infinite Majesty of God, on his Justice and Mercy [and] ... its insistence on the equality of human souls in the sight of their Creator."

While The Prophet "gave to our Lord the highest reverence, and the Mother of God was ever for him the first of womankind," he rejected the Incarnation. Mohammed "taught that our Lord was the greatest of all Prophets, but still only a prophet, a man like other men." Belloc believed Islam to be a "Reformation" movement with parallels to "the Protestant Reformers – on Images, the Mass and Celibacy."

When Christians were illiterate, Islam spread "for 700 years, until it had mastered the Balkans and the Hungarian plain, and all but occupied Western Europe itself," almost destroying Christendom "through its early material and intellectual superiority."

Three heroes saved the West. In 732, at Poitiers, Charles Martel, the Hammer of the Franks, stopped Islam's invasion in France. In 1571, the Christian fleets of Don Juan of Austria, an illegitimate son of Charles V, destroyed the Mohammedan armada in an epic battle immortalized in Chesterton's "The Ballad of Lepanto." And Polish Catholic King John Sobieski stopped the Turks at Vienna "on a date that ought to be famous in history, September 11, 1683."

One of history's great questions is why the Islamic world collapsed. A century before Yorktown, Constantinople was superior in arms. But in the 18th and 19th centuries, the Islamic world was not only superseded by the West, it fell backward – in technology, industry, communications, arms and governance. The Ottoman Empire became "the sick man of Europe."

Colonization by the West followed. In the 20th century, only at Gallipoli – the 1915 battle that cost its architect, First Lord of the Admiralty Winston Churchill, his post – can one recall an Islamic victory over a Western army.

But if a clash of civilizations is coming, how stands the balance of power? In wealth and might, the West is supreme – though wealth did not prevent the collapse of the Western empires and did not prevent the collapse of the Soviet empire. Rome was mighty, and early Christianity pathetically weak. Yet, Christianity triumphed.

If belief is decisive, Islam is militant, Christianity milquetoast. In population, Islam is exploding, the West dying. Islamic warriors are willing to suffer defeat and death, the West recoils at casualties. They are full of grievance; we, full of guilt. Where Islam prevails, it asserts a right to impose its dogma, while the West preaches equality. Islam is assertive, the West apologetic – about its crusaders, conquerors and empires.

Don't count Islam out. It is the fastest growing faith in Europe and has surpassed Catholicism worldwide. And as Christianity expires in the West and the churches empty out, the mosques are going up.

To defeat a faith, you need a faith. What is ours? Individualism, democracy, pluralism, la dolce vita? Can they overcome a fighting faith, 16 centuries old, and rising again?
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Thoughts?

gettinbranded · Dec 10, 2001

Here's a response to that article that I found interesting:

On the surface, the West has it all over Islam, economically and militarily. Does any Islamic nation (other than Turkey) have the industrial/technical capacity to manufacture its own weapons? If so, in what quantities and level of technical sophistication. I am under the impression that this capacity is very limited and dependant on the West. Economically, despite the vast income earned from oil exports, the Islamic world is mostly characterized by ignorance and poverty.
By every traditional measure strength, the West should win in a cake walk. But will it? We are not faced with a conventional war; or even the type of "unconventional" war with which we are familiar. Instead, we are faced with a conflict of cultures - a combination of traditional customs integrated with religion, that is inimical to the traditions and religion (primarily Christian) of the West.

In this conflict, the very dominance of the West may be its greatest threat. In the West, war is an aberation; life is comfortable and secure; life is held dear. Christianity, the philosophical basis of Western culture, is essentially pacifist and charitible (at least in the ideal). The shock of the horrors of war in the 20th century, still within living memory, are too recent for the West to contemplate war on a mass scale. Witness the reluctance to suffer even *one* casualty, much less the tens of thousands of Vietnam or the hundreds of thousands of WWII.

In contrast, Islamic nations were only marginally involved in WWII, and show little reluctance to suffer for their faith/culture. This disparity permits a military/political strategy of inflicting casualties/threats/disorder to achieve their political ends. The success of this strategy is shown by our reluctance to take out Saddam and Arafat.

This brings me to the second point. What *is* our faith? I would say liberty. This is the wellspring of all that is good and successful in the West. The four freedoms enunciated by FDR, while not perfect, could serve as the foundation of shared beliefs in the West and fitting moral touchstones for the rest of the world. What, however, have our leaders enunciated - consumerism and secret military tribunals. This, IMHO, is exactly the wrong approach in developing the will to victory in a war of cultural beliefs. As Jerry Brown (Jesuit scholar) once said: "Rome didn't fall because it had bad armies."
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Cohen · Dec 10, 2001

Where is the first quote from? Sounds ridiculously alarmist and simplistic.

Rocket104 · Dec 10, 2001

Exactly. Sounds right-wing to me simply because of the use of the term "Mohammedan". It's not correct in any way. It's usually used to parallel with "Christian", i.e., religions named after a figure. Islam is NOT such a religion.

Furthermore, keep in mind that tons of groups live here in the States with little problem, so a massive war doesn't necessarily need to be probable. Understanding and tolerance (taught by both Islam and Christianity, as well as most other major religions when read correctly) are all that are needed.

Dr of Dunk · Dec 10, 2001

That first post seems like it's saying "Islam will not be easy to crush". Who the hell is trying to crush Islam? We're trying to beat back a few moron terrorists. I don't think the average Christian/Westerner gives a flip if you're Muslim or not.

haven · Dec 10, 2001

Sounds like a simplified version of Huntington's Clash of the Civilians turned slightly more paranoid and exclusive to Islam.

This isn't accurate. States don't operate on the basis of culture or religion, but rather according to security interests. Indeed, most wars are intercultural.

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Culture Clash: West vs. East. Christianity vs. Islam Can the West win?

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