A Quote by Federica Mogherini
There is nothing more worrisome to ISIS than cooperation between 'the West' and the Muslim world, for it defies the narrative of a clash of civilisations the group is trying to revive.
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The Muslim world, with its history and cultures, and indeed its different interpretations of Islam, is still little known in the West. The two worlds, Muslim and non-Muslim, Eastern and Western, must, as a matter of urgency, make a real effort to get to know one another, for I fear that what we have is not a clash of civilisations, but a clash of ignorance on both sides.
About the idea of a clash between cultures, between civilisations, I don't believe in it. It's something some political leaders tried to use, and that the media tried and are still trying to sell us, in order to simplify the world and their work.
Many people in Europe and the U.S. dispute the thesis that we are living through a clash of civilisations between Islam and the west. But a radical minority of Muslims firmly believes that Islam is under siege, and is committed to winning the holy war it has declared against the West.
I want the vetting to be solid. But I also want to bring these people in because not bringing them in sends a message, right, to the Muslim world and plays into the ISIS narrative and the Al Qaeda narrative, right, that this is a war between religions. And we can't have that.
As a cultural product of both 'East' and 'West', I do not believe there is a fundamental basis for a clash of civilisations, or that the West is the cause of all problems.
We need to focus our energies there, not these broad, blanket, kind of statements that will make it harder for us to deal with ISIS. We need to deal with ISIS in the caliphate. We need a strategy to destroy ISIS there. You can't do that without the cooperation of the Muslim world because they're as threatened as we are.
We need a strategy to destroy ISIS there. You can't do that without the cooperation of the Muslim world because they're as threatened as we are.
The clash of civilizations or the clash between Islam and the West may be cliches. But there is an even bigger cliche around: that this clash actually goes on within Islam, between reformists and fanatics.
This is indeed a clash of civilisations, not between Islam and Christendom but between reason and superstition.
Muslim communities are the ones that going to see radicalization happening at a mosque or hear it in the community or even among their own family members. And the other part is that there is a narrative that ISIS and other jihadists pose that this is a war between Muslims and the rest of the world.
Think of ISIS as a pathogen that preys on weak hosts in the Muslim world. In fact, there is something of a political law: The weaker a Muslim state, the stronger will be the presence of ISIS or like-minded groups.
What we are witnessing now is a clash of civilisations, not just between states but within them.
They don't want to feed an ISIS narrative that there is a religious war between Islam and the Christian West, plus genocide is carefully defined under international law.
So here we have it. The equivocating distinction between civilisation and savagery, between the "massacre of innocent people" or, if you like, "a clash of civilisations" and "collateral damage". The sophistry and fastidious algebra of infinite justice.
I think subsuming political and economic conflicts into some grand 'clash of civilisations' theory or 'the West versus the rest' binary is a particularly insidious form of ideological deception.
We are going to be able to defeat ISIS on the ground there, as well as in this world, because of the Muslim Americans in our country and throughout the world who understand that this brutal and barbaric group is perverting the name of a great world religion.
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