The Lamb and the Tiger by Stanley Barrett

Author:Stanley Barrett
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: University of Toronto Press

If the genetic and cultural frameworks are conceptually similar, and if the former overlaps significantly with the world view of Harper’s version of conservatism, it follows logically that the latter probably does as well. The implication is that every example in the previous chapter of the close fit between Genetic Seeds of Warfare and the ideology of the Conservative Party is equally applicable to The Clash of Civilizations.

Huntington expressed regret (309) that the Clinton administration had failed to appreciate that the clash of civilizations has invaded global politics; it was this same naivety, in the author’s opinion, that led to the acceptance of Turkey and then Bosnia as members of NATO. Yet surely the election of George W. Bush and 9/11 made all the difference. On the surface, not necessarily so. Certainly it would be surprising if the 2001 terrorist attack in New York was not interpreted by a great many Americans as undeniable evidence for the clash. Yet the fact is that President Bush repeatedly insisted that his fight was not with Islam, but only with those bad guys, the jihadists, whose actions had contaminated and diminished an otherwise admirable religion.

A Canadian political scientist, Mark Salter (2003), helps to clear up the confusion. There is no doubt in his mind that the Bush administration did adopt Huntington’s paradigm as a blueprint for its foreign policy. The reason why Bush praised Islam, he argues, was to discourage Muslim countries from banding together to pose a civilizational front against America’s aggression. Salter speculates that the American government launched the open-ended War on Terror and encouraged a sense of fear and danger in order to provide a green light for its attacks on foreign “barbarians” and to justify harnessing its foreign policy to its military might.6

Huntington pointed out (248–9) that Muslims had little doubt that the invasion of Iraq was at its core a war of civilizations. Quite possibly he interpreted 9/11 and Bush’s reaction as vindication for his thesis. He might even be forgiven in the circumstances if he overlooked his own advice about the necessity of avoiding military excursions in other civilizations, and the importance for America’s future of jettisoning its universalistic (civilizing?) inclinations.7

Former Canadian prime minister Joe Clark (2013, 37), while recognizing that cultural identity has become tangled in issues of international conflict, nevertheless expressed scepticism about the inevitability of the clash of civilizations. Clark did not explain why he was sceptical, but on purely logical grounds – the overlap between the works of Shaw-Wong and Huntington, the political resonance of the clash of civilizations paradigm in America, and Canada’s subordinate role within American hegemony – it follows that Canada too subscribed to Huntington’s model. Less abstract evidence is reflected at least faintly in Prime Minister Harper’s decision to re-attach “Royal” to the Canadian Forces, and even more revealingly in his creation of the Office of Religious Freedom in 2013; more revealingly, because of the critical role attributed by Huntington to religion for civilizational identity.

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