الإسلام والغرب: نحو عالم أفضل

Islam and the West… for a better world @

everybody drink Coca Cola. But that does not necessarily affect what culture really is about: languages, historical memories, and religions. In fact, Huntington sees the world becoming not more cosmopolitan but more parochial, with ethnic pride on the rise everywhere. His thesis therefore is that the 'West is unique, but not universal ." Let me quote from his article under that title: Imperialism is the necessary, logical consequence of universalism...The belief that non-Western people should adopt Western values, institutions, and culture is, if taken seriously, immoral in its implications ... The project ... of an emerging homogeneous, universally Western world (is)…misguided, arrogant, false, and dangerous. 1 b) The second clarification, in line with the first, concerns the relationship between modernization and Westernization. Mustapha Kemal evidently believed that Turkey could not be modernized without becoming Westernized. Many governments since followed this dogma. There again, Huntington begs to differ by pointing out that neither traditional societies nor modern ones are necessarily alike. As proven by Japan, Singapore, and Saudi Arabia it is indeed possible to integrate modem ways of production and communication while maintaining one's culture. This is possible because, according to Talal Asad, son of Muhammad Asad, tradition and modernity "are not really two mutually exclusive states of a culture or society but different aspects of historicity." 2 Says Huntington: Also "the West .. was Western before it became modern." 3 He even observes that "much of the world is becoming more modern and less Western." 4

1 pp. 28,41. 2 p.97.

3 Same article, p. 30. 4 same article, p. 38.

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