Introduction: ‘Clash of Cultures’?

After the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington, D.C., on 9/11, there was an increasing tendency to interpret our world in terms of a ‘clash of cultures’ or civilisations, more specifically between the ‘West’ and the world of Islam (Snel 2003). The notion of a ‘clash of civilisations’ (Huntington 1996) was, in its time, very innovative. Huntington understood that the world after the fall of socialism was not essentially peaceful, as observers of international politics thought, but stressed that the main contemporary political tensions and conflicts were of an ideological nature, related to cultural or religious identities. This was a far-sighted analysis. Ten years later, international politics is indeed dominated by conflicts between the Western world and the world of Islam. Moreover, this alleged cultural clash occurs not only in international politics but also within societies in the Western world. We increasingly understand our contemporary multicultural societies in terms of homogeneous, autonomous, competing or even conflicting cultural formations, between which processes of mutual adjustment seem to be impossible.

The so-called Danish cartoon controversy in early 2006 again immensely popularised this notion of a cultural clash, but also showed the limitations of the notion. The publication of cartoons that directly linked Islam to terrorism brought about a wave of (often violent) protests all over the Muslim world. In reaction, Western newspapers and television widely debated the assumed contradiction between the West and the world of Islam: human rights and freedom of expression versus religious orthodoxy and intolerance. However, as so often happens, a clear-cut dichotomous worldview conceals more than it makes clear. First, it masks the heterogeneity in both worlds. The US government, for instance, clearly distanced itself from the cartoons saying that freedom of expression has its limits when religious feelings of others are violated. But there were also great differences in the Muslim world; between the uncontrolled outbursts of violence in some Muslim countries and the essentially peaceful protests of Muslim communities in most European countries. Secondly, and more important, the notion of a ‘clash of cultures’ obscures the point that individuals do not coincide with (alleged) ‘communities’ and ‘cultures’. Portraying a contradiction between ‘Western’ values such as freedom of speech and ‘Islam’ denies the fact that individual Muslims may identify with both. As a Dutch member of parliament of Moroccan descent put it: ‘Muslims and immigrants are only seen as a collective.