Language is a commonality that binds people of all cultures together. Despite the boundaries of translation, all men rely on language to communicate. We depend on what we hear and read as a guide to understanding our fellow man, and we have placed a heavy burden upon spoken and written word by irrevocably linking declarations of language to a person’s ethos. We deem a speaker credible or trustworthy based on what he says, and how he says it. Words hold a powerful spell over us, but we continuously disregard their obvious importance in our day-to-day lives. Today, we find ourselves trapped by the idea of a “clash of civilizations” because of our inability to communicate cross-culturally. All sides of the clash are responsible for this failure. Osama Bin Laden’s declarations of warning and Middle Eastern peace talks now bear the same message of futility because we have disrespected the importance of these communication efforts by not honoring the weight of their words. We have stopped listening and are at standstill of differing political, religious and cultural beliefs that leave us wondering, what does it means to live in a world where we rely on language, but words mean nothing?
Mahmood Mamdani begins his work Good Muslim, Bad Muslim by highlighting the continuously growing connection between modernity and violence. He argues that we cannot express the conflict between Islam and the West as a cultural clash. He believes it must be understood as a series of political encounters that have deep historic roots, beginning with colonial imperialism and continuing into the present day (Tawil-Souri). If “the modern political sensibility sees most political violence as necessary to historical progress,” then there can only be one reason why we have been able to justify violence as a means of persuasion (Mamdani 3). Though the great colonial powers and conquistadores of the old world have supposedly progressed to a higher level of integrity since the times that Mamdani sites as the beginning of the conflict, we still turn to the age-old adage, “actions speak louder than words” to get through to the other side. Each side reverts to political violence, or what Israeli president Shimon Peres calls “rogue politics,” in order to get “their” message to the “other.” In today’s non-dialectic world, violence and action are on the way to becoming precursors to language and rational thought.
Those who support the “clash” argument, especially Samuel Huntington with his neatly drawn “fault lines between civilizations,” often fail to recognize that the discord is complicated further than just Islam versus the West. It is also a clash within civilizations, because people within each designated civilization have contrasting beliefs and opinions about the conflicts that have arisen. Huntington, his predecessor Bernard Lewis and their opponent on the other side of the “clash,” Osama Bin Laden, have all taken a multi-dimensional political, religious, cultural and historical debate and abstracted it so that it can be easily packaged into an apocalyptic message. J.K. Rowling’s summation of the conflict of good versus evil in the Harry Potter series is incredibly similar to what Huntington, Lewis and Bin Laden inevitably predict for the conflict of Islam versus the West: “...either must die at the hand of the other for neither can live while the other survives” (Rowling 841). It is an argument that has no positive outlook; these advocates of the clash see only a “collision” of “two approaches to the world, two opposed philosophies” as a result of the tensions (Ahmed 46). We can only hope that it is not a widely shared opinion throughout the rest of the world, or the future before us is grim indeed. Lewis suggests that the West “must strive to achieve a better appreciation of other religious and political cultures, through the study of their history, their literature and their achievements. At the same time, we may hope that they will try to achieve a better understanding of ours...” (Lewis 60). This laissez-faire solution is admirable in its peaceful approach, but would only be successful in a world where information is available to people of all statures, without bias—a feat nearly impossible in today’s media-centric world.
The media, especially through television and news programming, only further enhances the two-sided, black and white version of the fight between good and evil. Media is ethnocentric, and news broadcasts are seen through a lens that uses the values and standards of the host country or civilization to perpetuate a particular view. Censorship is the biggest obstacle to overcome when attempting to rationalize the solutions set forth by Lewis and Huntington. Censorship disrupts freedom of speech and inhibits the audience’s ability to make an informed decision, one that Lewis has deemed most important in assuaging the tensions of the clash. “We must remember that media consumption is often an active processing of information, not just a passive reception of ...words and images” (Crouteau 247). Censorship takes away the need for processing, and refutes any agency the audience once had by imposing a hegemonic view of the issue at hand upon them. It is the most biased format of the news and enhances cultural stereotypes of good and evil, driving us further away from coming to the understanding that Lewis hopes will reconcile this epic clash of civilizations.
In the United States, individuals and groups labeled as confirmed terrorists are denied First Amendment rights. By censoring their voices, the media creates an unequivocal binary of right and wrong. The most famous of those who have been silenced by censorship is Osama Bin Laden. In transcripts of his speeches, he speaks with impressive rhetoric, with a chillingly rational and clear message. This side of him is never seen or heard by the American people because of the strict laws that restrict the content and length of aired segments of his speeches (Tawil-Souri). Because he is censored by mainstream media Bin Laden is forced into the less accessible disruptive media, which reinforces our image of him as “evil” or as an “outlaw.” His words are not heard by the American people, the audience that he most wishes to reach, so he turns to Peres’ rogue politics to ensure that his message is heard loud and clear.
There is a growing trend of violence having a more powerful resonance than language, and all we have to do is turn on the television to see that actions are speaking much louder than words all across the globe. If we are truly trapped in a “clash of civilizations,” we are headed towards a violent collision and the Harry Potter prophecy is bound to come true. “Because the world is sick, it’s spinning out of control. But...with our help it can heal. With our love, with our compassion and with our strength we can heal. Let’s put aside our differences, embrace our common goals...let’s show them all exactly what we’re capable of” (Kring). This is the outlook we must adopt in order to pull ourselves out of the vortex that the “clash” idea has created. Though idealistic as a counter-solution, it is necessary to remember that we, as individuals, can choose not to perpetuate the myth of the “clash of civilizations.” We can empower language and make ourselves heard against the violence if future generations of leadership can remind people how to listen once again.
Works Cited
Croteau, David, and William Hoynes. Media/Society : Industries, Images, and Audiences. New York: Pine Forge P, 2002. 245-50.
Huntington, Samuel. “Clash of Civilizations?.” Foreign Affairs, 72(3), Summer 1993.
Kring, Tim. "How to Stop an Exploding Man." Heroes. NBC. New York. 21 May 2007.
Lewis, Bernard. "The Roots of Muslim Rage." Atlantic Monthly Sept. 1990.
Mamdani, Mahmood. Good Muslim, Bad Muslim : America, the Cold War, and the Roots of Terror. New York: Pantheon Books, 2004. 1-62.
Peres, Shimon. "Address to United Nations." United Nations General Assembly. New York. 24 Sept. 2008.
Rowling, J. K. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. New York: Scholastic Paperbacks, 2004. 841.
Tawil-Souri, Helga. "Lecture." Islam, Media and the West. New York University, New York. 3-24 Sept. 2008.