Cultural conflicts in the Middle East

¶ … Samuel Huntington defines culture as something very personal within each society. Culture is not shared amongst many countries nor can it generalized equally; 'villages, regions, ethnic groups, nationalities, religious groups,' (p.23-24) are all different cultural groups. He continues to state that culture is of the utmost importance to an individual, it reflects who they are, where they are from, and what they believe in.

His definition of culture is limiting because even though culture divides us and would be the main reason for any divide or conflict that comes our way, the communities are more diverse than ever, and that culture in itself is involving daily. We need not to look at our differences or how our cultures can separate us but what can make us live side by side in the society. His theory cannot be taken as a prescription for making policy because it has the potential to be extremely dangerous. If the leadership of a major power- particularly of the United States, were to accept this view and systematically adopt and implement policies based upon it, countries belonging to other civilization spheres would be forced to take counter and this would in turn cause a series of interactions that would turn Huntington's propositions into self-fulfilled realities.

Huntington's theory cannot be easily subscribed into simply because after the cold war, the dominant economic and political nature of globalization coupled with the rapid advances in communication are driving the world to be a global village with one civilization and different cultures. 'The only difference is in his definitions of the terms and how he interrelates these terms which are civilization, culture, religion and ideology.' (Said, 2010) Huntington message only points out Islam as the new enemy of the western civilization after the cold war. This would thus mistakenly exclude Islam who lives or who are the citizen of the western societies and make them enemies too. International clashes, are mostly politically and economically oriented and the cultural aspect are only introduced as tools for mobilization. 'The world is politically divided along the west- east lines; economically it is between the poor and rich. This is what makes a global civilization with different cultures, religions, and ideologies.' (Said, 2010)

Poverty creates the conditions for conflict, and conflict creates poverty. 73% of the poorest billion people in the world have lived thorough a conflict. Research shows that the higher the poverty rate and the longer the economic stagnation persists in a country, the more prone it is to conflict. Poverty breeds hopelessness and frustrations among people and makes them, especially the unemployed more vulnerable to calls for violence. (Hardcover, 2004)Certain types of inequality, in particular, will be seen to be particularly fertile ground for conflict; other types maybe more benign. And if the attempt to reduce poverty through economic growth lead to initial increases in the 'wrong' type of inequality, the conflicts this engenders may dissipate beneficial effects of poverty reduction on conflict.

However, each situation will have fundamentally particular features that differ from country to country which relates to structural and historical factors. While designing country specific policies and interventions there is need to apply the general principles careful. This thesis is contrary to Huntington way of thinking. It clearly emphasizes why conflicts is mostly economically and politically oriented rather the culturally oriented. In fact the cultural aspect that is advocated by Huntington only comes in as a tool for mobilization later on when people have already severed economic and political imbalances or abuse.

The theory that poverty is the cause of conflicts disagree with Huntington theory as it mainly looks at the world economic aspects of those who have and those that does not have and how this inequality can contribute to conflicts, it does not look at any of the people's culture by classifying them into group according to their villages, regions, ethnic groups, nationalities, religious groups. The division is just between two groups unlike Huntington theory that involve classification of the many cultures that exist. This theory therefore competes with Huntington theory by offering a better look at cause of conflicts in the world

Jihad is the obligation of each Muslim, within his abilities, to spread Islam in the world until all non-Muslim human recognizes Muslim as the true faith. It was generally a peaceful method of setting personal and social example of moral and caring behavior so others will join Islam because of its clear advantage for human desire for better, honest and non-violent life. But during history especially in the early days of Islam, Jihad by sword was an acceptable method, although never the only option. By its definition Jihad is therefore, global.

Yes there is a global Jihad that wishes to establish Islam every where in the world through acts of terrorism and religion imposition. The war is best understood as a global insurgency, initiated by a diffuse grouping of Islamist movements that seek to remake Islam role in the world order. They use terrorism as their primary but not as their sole tactic. Therefore they offer the best approach to defeating global jihad but in a single country.

David J. Kilcullen theory is devoted to counterinsurgency (COIN). He focuses on the human and his security. The theory disregards what may sound right in favor of what actually works in the face of terrorism. Instead of attacking terrorists and in thus killing people Kilcullen focuses on providing security instead. The theory advocates that America ought not to wage its war on terror by targeting the enemy directly but by using all means, military and civilian, to protect indigenous locals from the enemy living among them, thereby drawing the locals to their safe side.

Therefore question would be answered through establishing what is the role of Jihad and what cultural conflicts it is imposing on the world and how it needs to be solved by providing security to other people who sometime maybe Islam but are not propagating the terrorism ideologies. The way to go here is to provide security to the whole world where global jihad is rooted instead of using violence which is likely to kill other innocent people in the world. (Kilcullen, 2009)

The death of Osama bin Laden over the weekend symbolizes a war against terrorism that was global. However something to note is that this is not a war against the Islam world initiated by the west. Islam is not the new enemy as propagated by Huntington. The celebration of Osama's death across the board signifies that the world and not only America is no longer divided by cultural factors.