Clash of Civilizations?

As probably everyone knows by now, one of the biggest news stories in the world for the last couple of weeks has been the great protest among Muslims across the globe over cartoons published in Denmark featuring the prophet Mohammed (whom it is always sacrilegious to depict, according Islam) and picturing him in a negative and mocking fashion.

The worldwide outcry has now turned violent in many places, including the burning of Danish embassies and Christian missions in Middle Eastern Countries. And all over a political cartoon published on the other side of the world that, without modern (Western?) telecommunication, no one in the Middle East would even be aware of.

The furor has some people raising the alarm over an inevitable Clash of Civilizations between the Western/Christian (or perhaps "Post-Christian") Civilization and the Muslim/Sharia Civilization. Others have brought up thorny questions about what to do when there seems to be a clash between “human rights” (whatever that phrase means these days) and freedom of speech or freedom of religion.

I certainly understand that people are upset when others blaspheme their God – my Lord and Savior’s name is used as a cuss word in most every movie I see – but at first I was a bit shocked by the viciousness of the protesting: “Can we not just live and let live – after all, it is on the other side of the world, why do they care so much?”

I am certain that those who published the cartoon may see the worldwide reaction as evidence that their own critiques (even mockery) of Mohammed and Islam were justified. I suspect, however, that they do not understand the particular iconoclastic sensitivity of the Muslim religion.

But to be honest, I doubt that all of this rage is entirely religiously motivated, religion is just a convenient way to differentiate the adversarial “teams.” Let me explain: what we have in the Muslim Middle East is a civilization that was once the most powerful empire the world had yet known. At its height in the Middle-Ages the undivided Ummah (Muslim political community) was larger than the Roman Empire had ever been. It was culturally, intellectually, religiously, and militarily vigorous; and though it failed in the 8th Century to conquer Western Europe, it was able to (eventually) re-conquer the Holy Land after a massive invasion and occupation by Latin Crusaders in the 11th -13th Centuries.

Now fast-forward a few hundred years. The Middle East is now among the poorest parts of the world with some of the highest birthrates and disease rates as well as some of the lowest levels of education. Much of the blame for the failure of Islam as a political power (and the Muslim religion puts an emphasis on political unity and strength in a way that is unknown in Christianity or even Judaism) is placed upon the colonial empires of Western European (Christian) nations and more recently the state of Israel – which is widely seen as a colonial project of the United States, the latest Western Christian Empire that threatens Islamic culture.

This weakness of their civilization has also caused a theological crisis: since the Muslim Ummah is the only people who are completely faithful to God ("Allah," in Arabic) and, as the Muslims say many times in their daily prayers "Allah akbar!" - God is greater, stronger than anything else, then it follows that the Ummah should also be strong. But it is weak. This has led to the rise of various forms of what we might call "puritanism" (purity movements) in Islam since the 19th century.

So, we have a large number of poor, angry, and defensive people who see a powerful (compared to them) Western European nation as mocking the thing that means the most to them as the source of their identity: their religion. And so all that resentment for the decline of a civilization comes pouring out. The reactions we see are not simply about anger over a political cartoon they are about anger over the last 200 years or so of Middle-Eastern History.

Now, this theory I have forwarded here does not really address the issues of whether Islam can hold the same values of freedom of expression that the Western Culture has produced or whether our Civilizations are fundamentally irreconcilable. I really don’t know how to address those questions (I am not even sure if “multi-cultural” Western nations are able any longer to hold the values that Western culture has produced).

The United States Supreme Court once ruled that “fighting words” were not protected as free speech. What do we do if all critiques of Islam are understood by huge numbers of people to be blasphemous and worthy of death? Would it even be possible for both Islamicist Muslims and people (such as myself) who are extremely critical of Islam to abide together in a country that promised to both of us freedom of speech and religion?

Some pretty smart people have said it is impossible. Other pretty smart people have said those first people were driven by anti-Islamic feelings to unwarranted conclusions.

Another VERY important question raised by this controversy is: At what point (if any) does free speech (or free religion??) become 'irresponsible'? And maybe more to the point: Who decides?

These may be some of THE questions for the 21st Century.

I can say two things for certain: 1) if a large number (say, 100%) of Middle Eastern Muslims would accept Jesus Christ as their divine Lord and Savior (whose teachings are inherently pacifist), many of our current problems would evaporate (though, no doubt, new problems would arise); and 2) if the United States were to cut its economic dependence on Middle Eastern oil, we would be much better off, and possibly even better-perceived by Middle Eastern Muslims.

I am really interested to see how all of this plays out. I also wonder what the ever increasing numbers of Muslims living in European countries (and, to a lesser extent, in the US) will mean for the future of these debates. I am hinting at a lot of really complex questions here that I am still trying to articulate at this point. What do you all think?

If you haven't heard about any of this, here are some links to learn a little more:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060205/ap_on_re_mi_ea/prophet_drawings
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,184043,00.html