num_pages: 192
description: The London bombings of 7 July 2005 revived the debates that raged after 11 September, 2001. What relation did they bear to the foreign and war policies of the UK and the US? Were they symptoms of a ‘cultural clash’ between deep-seated ‘values’ or signs of a social crisis at the root of the ongoing conflict? How should we analyse the present-day emergence of fanatical forms of Islamic fundamentalism?The title of the book refers to the famous thesis on the ‘Clash of Civilizations’. Achcar develops a counter-thesis, namely that the clashes we are witnessing do not oppose civilizations, but their dark sides. Each civilization produces a specific form of barbarism which tends to take over in periods of crisis. Accordingly, the Bush administration doesn’t embody the values of ‘Western civilization’ nor does Islamic fanaticism of the al-Qa‘ida type represent ‘Islamic civilization’. The clash between them is a ‘clash of barbarisms’ in which the main culprit remains the most powerful.The war of aggression and occupation in Iraq led to blatant manifestations of Western barbarism, most strikingly epitomized by the torture at Abu-Ghraib, and inevitably nurtured fanatical Islamic and other counter-barbarisms.Gilbert Achcar, who grew up in Beirut, is Professor at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London. His many books include The Arabs and the Holocaust, The 33-Day War: Israel’s War on Hezbollah in Lebanon and Its Aftermath (with Michel Warschawski, Saqi Books, 2007), and Perilous Power: The Middle East and U.S. Foreign Policy, a book of dialogues with Noam Chomsky.
language: English
title: Clash Of Barbarisms: The Making of the New World Disorder
titlecomplete: Clash Of Barbarisms: The Making of the New World Disorder
genres: History, Politics
ratings_count: 51
publisher: Saqi Books