The Clash of Civilizations 2.0

by Joan Frawley Desmond - May 3, 2008

Reprinted with permission.

Faith, Reason, and the War Against Jihadism: A Call to Action

George Weigel, Doubleday, $18.95, 208 pages

More than a decade ago, Samuel Huntington's seminal work The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order injected a note of pessimism into celebrations marking the Cold War's end. Countering predictions that Western-led globalization would advance an era of international peace and prosperity, Huntington shrugged off the Cold War as a "fleeting and superficial historical phenomenon compared to the continuing and deeply conflictual relation between Islam and Christianity."

At the time, many derided Huntington's stark perspective on Muslim alienation. Today, policymakers acknowledge his foresight, but most remain preoccupied with the military and intelligence issues raised by the War on Terror. Few experts are prepared to draw up a blueprint for a proactive Western engagement with contemporary Islam. And almost no one – certainly not the Bush administration – has addressed perhaps the most vexing issue of all: the theological roots of Islamic extremism.

George Weigel steps into the breach with his slim, practical volume Faith, Reason and the War Against Jihadism: A Call to Action. His primary objective is to set aside partisan wrangling over the war in Iraq and advance a broader and deeper discussion regarding the civilizational challenge that now confronts the West. He also advocates the isolation of regimes that condone terror, and encourages moves to end U.S. dependence on Middle Eastern oil, which now underwrites global jihadist violence and propaganda.

This book is not designed as an exhaustive study of Islam, and another of the author's recent works, The Cube and the Cathedral: Europe, America, and Politics Without God offers a more thorough description of Europe's predicament. Instead, Weigel attempts a synthesis of the most compelling analysis available that coincides with his own long-standing views on the culture-forming role of religion in the development of political and social institutions.

One general principle – "The great human questions… are ultimately theological" – informs his interpretation of events that surface in the news. His primary sources include leading European and American scholars and journalists: Pope Benedict XVI, Bernard Lewis, Lawrence Wright, Walter Laquer, Alain Besancon, and Fouad Ajami.

Weigel's practical policy suggestions are not new, nor are most of them controversial: Who would dispute his call for U.S. energy independence? But the scope of the discussion can be disorienting at times. Short chapters summarizing key "lessons" whiz by, and the reader scrambles to follow the connections between seemingly disparate arguments. There is a skeptical treatment of Islam's common bond with the globe's two other monotheistic faiths. Later, we are told that classic nuclear deterrence policy won't work in a world of would-be suicide bombers. And then this: "There is no escape from U.S. leadership."

Weigel is careful to acknowledge Islam's historic accomplishments, and he is precise about the terms he employs. For example, "Islamic fundamentalism" is not "jihadism." The author agrees with Rev. Richard John Neuhaus's definition of "jihadism" as a "religiously inspired ideology" that calls upon believers to "compel the world's submission to Islam."

Like Bernard Lewis, perhaps the leading Western scholar on Islam, Weigel identifies the rise of jihadist violence as a symptom of Islam's "struggle with modernity," a simmering conflict that has generated "a struggle within Islam, an intra-Islamic civil war." Weigel argues that the "Islamic encounter with modernity has been so wrenching – and so volatile – because it intensified even as it reflected certain problems built deep into the theological structure of Islam from the beginning."

Of course, Christianity continues to grapple with its own internal struggles, while its tug of war with modernity spanned more than a century. But there remains a crucial difference, which also explains the lasting confusion generated by the Church's dialogue with modernity, a conversation that intensified after the Second Vatican Council.

Christianity's convictions about the rationality built into the world by the world's creator were an important source of "modernity," if by that term we mean the scientific method, historical-critical study of ancient texts, and government by the arts of persuasion.

Weigel dares to ask whether Islam's historical development has generated similar "convictions about the rationality of the world, themes that could, over time, make Islam's encounter with modernity fruitf ul for both Islam and the modern world." The answer, he believes, will confirm whether "Islam can evolve into a religion capable of providing genuine pluralism."

In our post-9/11 world, an open debate on the relative merits of Christianity and Islam can turn deadly in an instant. But Weigel believes a hard-nosed dialogue based on mutual respect offers important advantages, too. At home, it will nurture a genuine political realism rather than a fatalistic acceptance of unfolding events as the inevitable March of Progress. For Weigel, "realism" means clarifying the difference between Islam and the West, not issuing bromides that obscure very real tensions.

Ultimately, the West will have to decide what it cherishes and what it will fight for. Then it must persuade every man and woman of good will, Muslims included, to get on board. The struggle against jihadist violence will not be limited to military and intelligence concerns. For example, the United States is only beginning to counter jihadist propaganda.

A war of ideas will become increasingly important in the coming decades, and the author acknowledges that the success of this engagement will depend on a resurgence of confidence in Western institutions. He hammers away at the internal contradictions buried in America's War on Terror. While U.S. military forces and intelligence experts struggle to check the advance of jihadist groups on the streets and the Web, Western elites often assume the moral equivalence of Western democracies and Middle Eastern autarchies.

A "spiritual exhaustion" spawned by secularism, and what Benedict calls "the dictatorship of moral relativism" have weakened the West's ability to make distinctions. Case in point: when the controversy erupted over the Danish cartoons depicting the Prophet, well-intentioned political leaders defended the principle of religious tolerance, yet many civil libertarians interpreted government actions as a craven acquiescence to intimidation by extremists.

Weigel's little book will help puzzled citizens sort out such conundrums and build a foundation for further research and action. Readers who are just beginning to grapple with these matters will find the author's analysis informative, provocative, and, upon occasion, dispiriting.

Joan Frawley Desmond has written for the Wall Street Journal, First Things, and the National Catholic Register, among other publications.