A Clash of Civilizations

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A Clash of Civilizations?

• Thomas Abraham
• JMSC 0042

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What was this all about?
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After the Sept 11 attacks

• The clash of civilizations theory suddenly
  gained new prominence in the west
• Originally put forward by Bernard Lewis, an
  American historian of the Middle East in 1990.
• Expanded and given prominence by Samuel
  Huntington of Harvard University in an article in
  Foreign Affairs, later expanded into a book.

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Huntingtons thesis

• The fundamental source of conflict..will not be
  primarily ideological or economic. The great
  divisions among humankind will be cultural.
• The fault lines between civilizations will be
  the battle lines of the future.
• He divides the world into seven or eight major
  civilizations Western, Confucian, Japanese,
  Islamic, Hindu, Slavic-Orthodox, Latin American.
• Huntington saw the main source of conflict in the
  world as being between western and Islamic
  civilization

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• Bernard Lewis Islam an ancient rival against
  our Judeo-Christian heritage.
• Traces the rivalry back to the time of the
  Islamic invasion of Spain, the western Crusades,
  the Ottoman invasion of eastern and central
  Europe, and the European defeat of the Ottomans
  after WW1.
• The Muslim has suffered succesive stages of
  defeat.It was too much to endure, and the
  outbreak of rage against these alien, infidel and
  incomprehensible forces that subverted his
  dominance.was inevitable.

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• Bernard Lewis ideas have influenced important
  members of the Bush administration, including
  vice president Cheney
• Their assumptions
• Islamic societies are fundamentally anti
  democratic and repressive.
• Islamists are resentful and hate the freedom and
  liberty they see in the US, and want to destroy
  it.
• If Islam and the west are to live together,
  Islamic countries need to be democratized and
  modernised this is the project in Iraq.

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Islamic extremists too believe in a clash of
civilization

• The West and Islam will constantly be
  enemiesIslam must win and westerners will be
  destroyed. But we dont have to make then enemies
  if they allow Islam to continue to grow so that
  in the end they will probably agree to be under
  Islam. If they refuse to be under Islam there
  will be chaos. If they want to have peace, they
  have to accept to be governed by Islam. Abu-Bakr
  Bashir, head of Jemaah Islamiyah in Indonesia.

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Huntingtons and Lewis ideas have been
vigorously criticised

• Confuses the thinking of a small Islamic
  fundamentalist fringe, with the majority of
  Muslims
• Does not distinguish between Arab Muslims and non
  Arab Muslims
• Are civilizations that distinct and are they
  based on religion?

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Bin Ladens war the beginnings

• 1979-Soviet forces arrive in Afghanistan to
  support communist forces who had taken power in a
  coup a year earlier.
• Resistance against the Soviet forces soon became
  a jihad, a holy struggle to evict an atheist
  invader from a Muslim country
• Pakistan and Saudi Arabia were the largest
  backers of this jihad. The Saudis provided the
  funds, and Pakistan provided the training camps.
  Thousands of youth from across the Muslim world
  flocked to join this jihad

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• Among them was Osama Bin Laden, the son of a
  wealthy construction industry businessman.
• Bin Laden, born in 1957, was the 17th of his
  fathers 57 children. He studied business
  administration and then Islamic studies at King
  Abdul Aziz University in Jeddah.

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• Bin Ladens father was one of many who provided
  funds for the Afghan mujahideen, and Bin Laden
  began visiting the area in 1980.
• By 1982, he settled down in Peshawar, Pakistan,
  the main centre for the Afghan mujahideen. He
  brought in engineers from his company, and built
  roads and other buildings for the fighters

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The CIAs role

• By the early 1980, the CIA had begun funding and
  arming the mujahideen against the Soviet Union.
• The CIA, with the help of the Pakistani
  intelligence services and Saudi money, set up
  training camps, poured large amounts of money and
  weapons into the region.
• In 1986, his company built a huge CIA financed
  underground tunnel and storage complex for the
  mujahideen
• Between 1982 and 1992 an estimated 35,000 young
  Muslims from all over the world were trained in
  these camps.

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• I settled in Pakistan in the Afghan border
  region. There I received volunteers who came from
  the Saudi kingdom and all over the Arab and
  Muslim countries.
• I set up my first camp where these
  volunteers were trained by American and Pakistani
  officers. The weapons were supplied by the
  Americans, the money by the Saudis.
• Osama bin Laden in an interview to AFP, 27 August
  1998

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• 1989, Bin Laden forms his own group, known as Al
  Qaida, or the base. Using his own money,as well
  as money from Saudi Arabia, the organisation
  grows, and attracts Arab militants
• In 1990, after the Soviet withdrawal, Bin Laden
  returns to Saudi Arabia and works in the family
  business. He also sets up a welfare organisation
  for Arab veterans of the Afghan war

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• In 1991, after Iraqs invasion of Kuwait Bin
  Laden wanted the Saudi royal family to create a
  force of Afghan war veterans to fight Saddam.
  Instead, the Saudis allowed US forces to be based
  in Saudi Arabia
• Bin Laden was furious about US troops would be
  based so closed to the sacred sites of Mecca and
  Medina. He criticized the Saudi royal family for
  allowing non Muslims to be based in the country
• The Saudi royal family revokes Bin Ladens
  citizenship

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Bin Laden in Sudan and Afghanistan

• 1992, Bin Laden moves to Sudan, where he helps an
  Islamic revolution under Hassan Turabi.
• He uses his money to fund Islamic militants and
  gets together more Arab veterans from Afghanistan
  and runs construction projects
• By now, he has begun the attract the attention of
  the US as a financier of terrorist organisations
• Saudi Arabia and the US put pressure on Sudan to
  give Bin Laden up. He leaves for Afghanistan in
  1996, where he is welcomed by the Taliban
• 1998 Bin Laden issues a call for jihad against
  the US in the middle east

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Events leading to 9/11

• From 1993, terrorist attacks had begun against
  the US
• --A group led by Ramzi Yousef tries to blow up
  World Trade Centre in New York with a truck bomb
• --Ramzi Yousefs associates planned to blow up 11
  US bound aircraft an attack in 1995

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• Nov 1995 car bomb kills 5 Americans in Riyadh
• June 1996 truck bomb kills 19 US solidiers in
  Dharhan
• August 1998, Al Qaeda carries out truck bomb
  attacks at US embassies in Nairobi, and Dar es
  Salaam. 224 die, including 12 Americans, and
  thousand wounded
• December 1999, plot to attack Los Angeles
  International Airport foiled
• Oct 2000 Al Qaeda team in Yemen blows a hole in
  a US destroyer, USS Cole, killing 17 sailors and
  almost destroying the ship.
• September 11 2001

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• What drives Bin Laden and his followers?
• -In his own words, it is the US presence in the
  Middle East, in Saudi Arabia, the Gulf Countries,
  Israel
• -He sees this as part of a US plan to dominate
  the Muslim people, exploit their oil
• -Like Bernard Lewis and Huntington, Bin Laden too
  sees this as a war against the crusaders

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Is there a broader war between Islam and the west?

• The war in Iraq has convinced more and more
  people in the Middle East that the US seeks to
  dominate them, using Israel and Iraq as bases.
• Not a clash between Islam and the west, but US
  interests, and those of the people of the Middle
  East.

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Further reading

• On Osama Bin Laden and Al Qaeda
• PBS website in the US has a lot of basic
  documents and material
• http//www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/binl
  aden/
• BBChttp//news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/in_depth/world/2001
  /war_on_terror/default.stm
• The Taliban by Ahmed Rashid
• Ghost Wars by Steve Coll