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December 12, 2004
I've often wondered where the conservative understanding of the clash of civilizations between the West and Islam comes from. The theoretical coherence of Islam as an enemy of the modern West has puzzled me.
After 9/11 the idea of the West holding the line was just slotted into place through coupling it with the idea that America is a target for Islamic extremism and a focus for rising frustration and anger in much of the Muslim world because of what it is. That is, it is America’s modernity (freedom, success and prosperity) that many Muslims are reacting against, not American policy in the Middle East and elsewhere.
I had thought that the intellectual oomp came from Daniel Pipes. However,
this article says that conservative America's understanding of the Arab world is based on Bernard Lewis' view of a secularized, Westernized Arab democracy that casts off the medieval shackles of Islam and enters modernity. Lewis' model is Kemal Ataturk's Turkey. The Bush/Howard stark clash-of-civilization conflict is fundamentally Lewisian.
Michael Hirsh say that:
"Lewis's basic premise, put forward in a series of articles, talks, and bestselling books, is that the West—what used to be known as Christendom—is now in the last stages of a centuries-old struggle for dominance and prestige with Islamic civilization....[After 9/11] America was taking on a sick civilization, one that it had to beat into submission."
A “show of strength” in Iraq was what was required. Hence the metaphor of 'draining the swamp' and replacing it with the fertile meadows of liberal democracy.
The Ataturk model is one achieving progress (modernity) in the Arab world by secularizing from above. Islam is seen as a barrier to democracy and modern progress. The assumption is that Islam is fundamentally anti-modern. You can't Islamicize democracy, and so Islam is simply standing in the way.
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