Islam and the myth of confrontation - Fred Halliday

The collapse of communism, and the rise of militant Islamic movements in the Middle East, have raised the spectre of a future dominated by the conflict between "Islam" and "the West". From theories such as Samuel Huntingdon's "Clash of Civilizations" to the anti-Western rhetoric of many Muslim militants themselves, this image of confrontation has come to be widely accepted. At the same time, the many issues afflicting the Middle East itself - from the Arab-Israeli conflict and the Gulf War, to the arguments on Salman Rushdie and human rights - are widely seen as reflecting the influence of Islam on politics and society of this region.;Fred Halliday sets out to reject these interpretations. Considering the sources of Islamic militancy and analyzing the confrontational rhetoric of both Islamic and anti-Muslim demagogues, he provides an alternative, critical but cautious, reassessment. The Middle East, he argues, can be treated neither as a distinct nor as a unified region, but must be seen as a set of variant societies, facing, like much of the rest of the Third World, the problems of economic development and political change.