Samuel Huntington

Samuel Huntington's thesis that future geopolitical instability and insecurity would be more cultural than ideological or economic was met with derision when it appeared in 1993. From the right, Fukuyama (58 et passim) made the case that the West's Cold War victory was permanent. From the left, it was said that the West had only itself to blame for future conflict (Picco 28). Islamic fundamentalism was not the fault line of the future (Huntington 33) but a fragmentary nonthreat "that cannot be reassembled" (Joffe 24). Another critic accused Huntington of just calling traditional power politics by a different name. Besides, or so the reasoning went, economic globalization meant convergence, not clash (Kurtz). But by mid-2002, with the Taliban on the run, Stanley Kurtz noted: "This is Samuel P. Huntington's moment" (Kurtz).

Huntington's moment belongs to geopolitical discourse in the wake of 9/11, but the world-historical moment, as the years since 9/11 have demonstrated, belongs to the culture of Islamist militias. Contemporary militant Islam is not a political or religious singularity, and its narrative is an evolving one. However, in its various organizational configurations around the world--al Qaeda, Hezbollah, Jamaah Islam (Jemaiah Islamiyah), etc.--it has proven to be far more cohesive than fractured. Its number of highly motivated adherents is growing, not weakening, and they have been undeniably effective in altering political discourse and behavior by way of what the

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. from nuclear winter to global warming" (End d 3-4). Notably not on the list is Islamic fundamentalism, though it is cited in the text. Further, in answer to critics of his end-of-history thesis, Fukuyama made a project of explaining Islamic fundamentalism in what must be now seen as a markedly unprescient way: Islamic fundamentalism is not only a competitor to liberalism in the Islamic world, it has won a clear-cut victory over liberalism in many countries. And yet, for all of Islam's pretensions of being a universal religion, fundamentalism has had virtually no appeal outside of communities that were not Muslim to begin with. It threatens the liberalism of the West only insofar as countries like France and West Germany have to deal with difficult-to-assimilate immigrant populations, or when those countries clash with Islamic groups on a national or subnational level (i.e., terrorism) (Fukuyama 99). In that answering essay, Fukuyama goes on to say that Islamic fundamentalism (he appears to be thinking of Iran's regime) is bound to fail because it cannot find Western adherents and therefore is no match for Western liberalism. That logic fails to capture that madrasas ideology finds Western liberalism irrelevant to pursuit of

Category: Philosophy - S