文明冲突再度来袭

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　　塞缪尔·亨廷顿备受抨击的著作《文明的冲突》的学术影响早已式微，但却在普通民众中拥有越来越大的影响力──“文明的冲突”一说被重新解读，用以诠释日渐壮大的“伊斯兰恐惧症”。
　　十五年前，亨廷顿的《文明的冲突》一书在西方舆论界掀起了不小的影响，但“文明的冲突”很快沦为了一个包治百病的热门词汇，而且这一概念的内涵逐渐变得模糊，在一定程度上已经不足为信。然而，在草根阶层，这一理念则呈现出令人担心的一面，即日益壮大的、似乎无法治愈的“伊斯兰恐惧症”。
　　亨廷顿这本书的标题比内容更具影响力，“文明的冲突”这一术语本身也时常被那些根本没读过此书的人滥用。
　　许多著名学者和知识分子，也许是出于“政治正确”的原因，开始攻击这一概念，并将其不恰当地与福山《历史的终结》对未来所做出的更为乐观的预测作比较：有些人指出美国和沙特阿拉伯之间的“友谊”无疑是“文明冲突”的一个反证──我相信这反讽不会白费。
　　2001年的911事件彻底否定了这种文明冲突的观点，人们的注意力完全转到了“反恐战争”上来，而“文明的战争”则只在好战寻衅的论调中有所涉及，而这种论调无论是在字面上还是在内涵上都和《文明的冲突》并不相符。
　　2002年初我对此有过一些体验。在与一位北欧外交官交谈时，他对我说，我们──也就是“西方人”──不仅应当认识到“文明的冲突”（他用得就是这个词），还应当对此表示欢迎，并且应当为消灭伊斯兰之战做准备，在这场战争中，他说，“数以亿计”的印度教和佛教教徒将站在我们一边，帮我们击败敌人。
　　当时，我对此不以为意，觉得这不过是一位微带醉意的老同事的酒话，不必认真。
　　然而，从那时起，无论是欧洲还是美国发生的一系列事件都显示出人们对穆斯林根深蒂固的敌意。有些事件本应引起人们对这种敌意的警觉，但似乎人们却认为这是一小撮孤立、极端的少数族裔的做为，是和主导西方民主的宽恕精神相悖的。
　　然而，最近这些事件显示出了惊人的累积效应，“伊斯兰恐惧症”正在盛行，而且往往是由那些非常具有政治色彩的机构煽动的，事实上这些机构本应该是着力防范这种有潜在危险的发展趋势的。
　　现在似乎出现了一种令人费解的矛盾现象。一方面，在大多数国家，虽然政治和文化领袖都以西方大国对抗伊斯兰组织，但他们都力图让人们相信眼下的军事斗争不是直接针对伊斯兰教的。但另一方面，这些国家的普通民众则越来越热衷于用更为激进的语言把伊斯兰教描绘成一种暴力的宗教、一个西方文明固有的危险敌人。
　　有时，这种对敌视伊斯兰的热潮让政治领袖们也丧失了警惕，比如最近在瑞士发生了公民投票反对建造伊斯兰宣礼塔的事件。更多的民粹主义政治家们却似乎想要利用这种反应普遍恐惧心理的事例，他们通过被许多人认为是不负责任的言行来加重这种紧张情绪。
　　在荷兰，让人想起的第一个例子就是议员Geert Wilders [Wilders被称为欧洲大陆对抗伊斯兰挑战的最佳选手──译者注]。他的风靡令人惊讶，因为一般来说荷兰给人们的印象是一个对异国理念和宗教相当宽容的国家。Wilders现在正将他的理念传播至全世界。
　　在意大利，支持北方联盟[意大利的一个党派──译者注]的许多地区有一条政治标语“白人和基督徒”。意大利有超过100万的穆斯林，但穆斯林社区建造清真寺的要求遭到了否决，有时这种拒绝还算是礼貌，但大多数时候则遭到了粗暴的敌意和讥讽（“你们这些人祈祷只要一块小垫子就够了！”）自从意大利前外交部长主持了罗马大清真寺（欧洲最大的清真寺）的落成典礼以来，情况已经发生了很大的变化。
　　甚至在美国这个宗教自由被看作是核心理念的国度，关于在911遗址旁建清真寺的争论也引起了全国范围内对建立新清真寺的广泛敌对情绪。奥巴马总统又一次被“指控”为穆斯林，虽然在民主社会做一名穆斯林并不违法，而且领导人的宗教信仰也不应造成这么大的影响。
　　亨廷顿描绘了一个在他看来应被充分重视的国际政治发展趋向。也许这一趋向被夸大了，因为即使伊朗总统哈塔米也曾公开说过他不认为这种“文明的冲突”会必然发生。如今，我们不安地发现“文明的冲突”正成为战斗的号角，刺激着西方舆论，它从历史和哲学的角度为美欧社会成长中的 “伊斯兰恐惧症”正名。这种“冲突”似乎正变成一种令人称心的发展趋势，就像我那醉醺醺的同事多年前所设想过的那样。
　　我曾在伊斯兰国家生活过超过四分之一个世纪。在那段时间里，我遇见过反美和反西方情绪，特别是在阿富汗和伊拉克战争以后。但是，即使是在近些年，在普通民众中我还没看到过有广泛的反基督教的敌对情绪，这和西方舆论对伊斯兰教日益增长的、非理性的、被误导的敌对情绪。
　　因此，不能低估这种趋势，应当理性、全面地进行应对。否则这种趋势最终会激起一些伊斯兰国家对基督教同样的敌对情绪。如果真如此，“文明的冲突”便要真的成为现实了。

英文原文：
The Clash of Civilizations revisited
Author: Carlo Ungaro
Summary:
Samuel P. Huntington’s oft-pilloried work, “The Clash of Civilizations”, has long lost its original academic potency. However it has growing leverage at the grass-roots level where the clash has been reinterpreted to justify growing islamophobia.
A decade and a half ago Samuel P. Huntington’s “The Clash of Civilizations” made a considerable impact on Western public opinion, but was soon relegated to an all-purpose catch-phrase, with the result that the message itself became confused and, to a certain extent, discredited. At a grass-roots level, however, the concept has taken on a rather disturbing aspect in the form of growing, seemingly irreversible Islamophobia.
The impact of Huntington’s book appeared to reside more in the title than in the content, and the term itself was more often than not trivialised and misused by those who had not read the original work.
Many famed pundits and intellectuals, perhaps in the name of “political correctness”, took to attacking the concept and comparing it unfavourably to the much more optimistic future promised by Fukuyama (“The End of History”): some – and I trust that the irony of this will not be lost – indicated the “friendship” between the United States and Saudi Arabia as a sure sign that the Clash of Civilizations would not occur.
The events of September 11th 2001 radically changed the general perspective, with the “War on Terror” monopolizing the attention, while the “Clash of Civilizations” was seldom brought up if not in a bellicose, truculent tone very far indeed from the letter and the spirit of the original text.
I had a taste of this early in 2002, talking to a Northern European Diplomat from whom I heard, for the first time, that we – i.e. “The West” – should not only recognize but actually welcome the existence of the “Clash of Civilizations” (he actually used the term) and prepare for a war of annihilation against Islam, in which, he assured me, “hundreds of millions” of Hindus and Buddhists would be on our side and help defeat the enemy.
At the time, I dismissed these ideas as merely the delirious rant from a slightly tipsy older colleague, and thus much too far-fetched to be taken seriously.
Since then, however, events both in Europe and in the United States have been indicating the existence of an ingrained and deepening hostility to Islam. Some episodes should have sounded a warning but they seemed the work of small, isolated, extremist minorities, and irreconcilable with the spirit of tolerance which was thought to reign in Western democracies.
Such episodes and events, however, have recently shown an alarming cumulative effect and Islamophobia is gaining ground, more often than not abetted by those very political institutions which should normally guard against such potentially dangerous developments.
A perplexing dichotomy seems to have emerged. On the one hand, in most countries, the political and cultural leadership seem intent to show that current military struggles, though they oppose the Western Powers to Islamic organizations, are in no way directed against Islam. Concurrently, however, and with growing vigour and ever shriller language, in the same countries grass-roots movements are growing which portray Islam as a philosophy of violence and a traditional and dangerous enemy of Western civilisation.
At times, this wave of hostility has caught political leaders off guard, as happened recently in Switzerland when a referendum banned the construction of minarets. Often, however, more populist political leaders seem rather inclined to seize upon this prime example of generalised fear and to increase tensions through statements and actions which many consider irresponsible.
Geert Wilders, in the Netherlands is the first example which springs to mind. His popular success is all the more surprising in that it takes place in a country generally known for its tolerance of foreign ideals and religions. He is also spreading the message on an international level.
In Italy, in much of the “Northern League’s” territory, one of the political slogans is “White and Christian”. Requests by Muslim communities (there are over a million Muslims in Italy) for Mosques are met with refusal, sometimes expressed with civility, most often with violent hostility and sarcasm (“All you people need to pray is a mat!”). Times have really changed since the Rome Mosque – the largest in Europe – was inaugurated by the Foreign Minister, Susanna Agnelli.
Even in the United States, where the concept of religious freedom has always constituted one of the mainstays, the polemic around the Ground Zero Mosque has brought to light widespread hostility, throughout the country, to the opening of new Mosques. President Barack Obama is again being “accused” of being a Muslim, although being a Muslim is not a crime, and a leader’s religious beliefs should not have that great an impact in a democratic context.
Huntington depicted a situation which, in his view,  had to be taken into consideration  for a valid analysis of  international political developments. Perhaps the case was overstated, for even the Iranian president Khatami was on record stating that he did not believe in the inevitability of such a clash. At present, it is disturbing to note that concept is becoming a battle-cry, used to inflame western opinion by giving an historical and philosophical justification to the   budding and growing islamophobia visible in the U.S. and in so many European societies. The “Clash”, from a situation to be feared and neutralised, seems to be evolving into a desirable development, as  envisaged, many years ago, by my tipsy colleague.

In over a quarter of a century spent in Muslim countries, I have come across anti-American and anti-Western feelings, especially after the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, but, even in recent years, I have not noted a basic widespread revulsion against Christianity and its Faithful, comparable to the growing, often irrational and misinformed animosity of western public opinion against Islam.
These tendencies must therefore not be underestimated, and need to be addressed rationally and comprehensively. Otherwise they could end up fomenting a similar, mirror image, hostility to Christianity in a number of Muslim countries. The “Clash of Civilizations” could then become a reality.
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