Will a "clash of civilizations" in the twenty-first century replace the old clash of empires and ideological competition that made up the twentieth century? Why or why not?

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

Answers will vary but correct responses should include: The clash of empires shaped the early twentieth century. When the empires failed, ideological competition refashioned the world into the blocs of the Cold War. In 1997, the political scientist Samuel Huntington predicted a "clash of civilizations," broadly understood as huge international communities with a common sense of identity based on religious traditions. Such an outcome seemed unlikely. Civilizations had a record of mutual sufferance, or even collaboration, only occasionally punctuated by conflict. Some of the conflicts, however, were conspicuous, and people tended to exaggerate their importance. Medieval confrontations between Christians and Muslims, for instance, were sporadic and, overall, long periods of coexistence greatly outweighed them. Peace, however, as the Victorian novelist Thomas Hardy remarked, "makes poor reading" whereas war is "rattling good history." The illusion that Christendom and Islam were longstanding, irreconcilable enemies fed expectations of revived conflict. George W. Bush, for instance, called his adventures in Iraq and Afghanistan a "crusade." Osama bin Laden, the terrorist leader of Saudi Arabian origin who masterminded the attack on New York´s World Trade Center in 2001, repeatedly referred to medieval episodes in urging fellow Muslims to take revenge. The misidentification of Islam as an inherently violent religion, which literally sanctified war and legitimated terror, became a vulgar error among poorly instructed people, including prominent politicians, in parts of Europe and the United States. Fear of Islam played a part in the dangerous diplomatic isolation of postrevolutionary Iran. In the early years of the twenty-first century, Western fears that Iran would acquire nuclear weapons, and that Pakistan, the existing nuclear power in the Islamic world, would desert Western allies, made entente impossible – even though the faltering of U.S. commitment in Iraq and Afghanistan, and Iranian investment in revolutionary movements throughout the Middle East, left Iran as the dominant power from the Mediterranean Levant to the fringes of Pakistan. The likelihood of a clash of civilizations was still remote. Most Muslims did not respond positively to extremists´ attempts to demonize the West. In most of Islam – conspicuously in Turkey and Indonesia – governments demonstrated the compatibility of their religious orientation with democracy and tolerance, little more compromised than in much of the Western world. Islam was, in any case, divided, and expended more energy on sectarian violence and internal conflicts between democratizing and authoritarian elements than on challenging the West. Still, the world could conjure a clash of civilizations into being by continuing to exaggerate its menace and stoking mutual fear.