Реферат: Islam in the eyes of the West
This priviliged relation with the U. S. explains how Israel was able in 1995 to escape international pressure in order to become a party to the Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty and to take part in 1996 to the creation of the strategic military axis between Israel and Turkey, under the American umbrella, with the aim to weaken Syria's position in the region. The U. S. also opposed the institutional setting up of multilateral groups that could have had a determinant role to play in the Arab-Isareli peace process.
The countries that belong to the Gulf Cooperation Council (Saudi Arabia and the Gulf oil producing countries) all signed bilateral defense agreements and armament contracts with the U. S., Great Britain and France after the Gulf war with the objective to protect themselves from future threats. Since they do not trust their Arab neighbours and because of the unquestionnable superiority of Western armies, the GCC members did not even consider regional security arrangements, and they even stressed further the importance of bilateral relations, since they did not conclude agreements among themselves either. Furthermore, the massive investments in military eqipment and defence, the enormous expenses resulting from financing Gulf war I (1980-88 between Iran and Irak), and Gulf war II (Iraki invasion of Koweit, 1990-91), and the end of the oil prices boom, gave rise to a growing socio-economic crisis that resulted in a very uncomfortable situation for governments. The most illustrative example is the case of Saudi Arabia with its demographic rate of 3,5%, which have had to reduce social benefits since the beginning of the 90s, while the middle class is growing in numbers and importance, and is more and more dissatisfied with the regime's political "tribalism" that does not represent them in any way, with the growing inadequacies in the fields of education, health, housing, etc... as well as with Western military presence in their country. The system based on oil revenues and the socio-political balance that existed thanks to such income undergoes a crisis that in turn increases the opposition to the regime.
These regional and international political developments have had consequences for the clientelist and clannish governments in place in this part of the Arab and Muslim world that are now in a situation of growing inner and regional weakness. As a consequence, these governements depend more and more on Western support in order to remain in power, and tend to act individually, which means that they no longer have any sort of political influence as regional geopolitical and economic group on the international scene. From a Western perspective, such a dependance turn these countries in faithful allies that are incapable to counteract in front of Western dominant policies. It also enables the West to control the sources of energy that are located in the area. (For example, recently, the Arab and Muslin oil producing countries proved incapable to use oil as a a weapon to put pressure on the international community in order to stop the brutal Israeli invasion in the Palestinian territories). The Western domination is exercised at the expense of the population governed by dictatorial regimes that impose anti-democratic practises to societies that are moreover submitted to the enormous socio-economic pressure of economic liberal reform and its structural adjustments.
What is truly appalling in this situation is that our societies are so obsessed by the "cultural clash between Islam and the West", so convinced that there is no democracy in the Muslim world because of Islam, that the inequality between men and women comes from inmutable constraints in the Muslim universe, that violence stems from an innate islamic cultural-religious fanaticism, that they are unable to see what are the deeply political causes for this lack of democracy, this inequality and this violence. And what is even worse no one asks the question of what the West does to feed such inadequacies and violence. It is true that there is no democracy, but that is not because they are Muslims, but because an alliance has been struck between the local despotic governing elites and the Western powers. It is true that there is no processs of social modernization, but that is not imposed by Islam, but comes about rather because of the complicity between dictatorial regimes and ultra-conservative religious circles that preserve the patriarchal and puritan social models (just as it occured in other dictatorships in Southern Europe or Latin America). The only way to open up the doors of social evolution would be to promote democratization and the Rule of Law. It is true that there is violence, but not because "they are Muslims" but because the State exerts its violence continuously and the feelings of humiliation, despair and neglect that prevail in these societies constitute a culture medium favorable to a social explosion and to extremism.
This is how we come to this paradox that caracterizes the approach of Western societies toward the Muslim world. The cultural perspective is supposedly used to fight fundamentalist islamic attitudes, but at political level, we support those who defend and impose obsolete interpretations of Islam and suppress the modernists. We proclaim ourselves to be the representatives of civilization and of the model to be followed by all the others, while our political action promotes at the same time depotism and assents to the violation of human rights. This political stand of ours favours in the Muslim world the players that give the most negative image of Islam in the West and who even tend to a monopoly of this image, used as an overall discrimination tool against a vast social majority that does not identify with them. Because if such an unfair contradiction, feelings of bitterness and anti-western resentment keep growing to-day in Muslim societies, that see how their cultural heritage is generally despised and looked upon, while the self - proclaimed supremacy of the West is used as an instrument of political and military domination.
[1] Gema Martín Muñoz (ed), Islam, Modernism and the West . London, IB Tauris; and Sophie Bessis, L'Occident et les Autres. Paris, La Découverte, 2001.
[2] Opinion on a matter where islamic lawfulness is concerned.
[3] Huntington published his theory in 1993 ((Foreign Affairs , no.3, pp. 22-49) and is certainly now the most well known on the question, but it is interesting to note that this kind of ideas started circulating just at the end of the Gulf war: Barry Buzan (1991) “New Patterns of Global security in the Twenty-First Century”, International Affairs , 67, no 3, pp. 431-451.