Clash of civilizations? Ever since the fiery collapse of the twin towers of the World Trade Center a lively debate has been going on about whether or not the terrorist attacks are part of a struggle between Christianity and Islam. (Terrorism - Comment).

Samuel P. Huntington stirred up a controversy in 1993. A professor of the Science of Government at Harvard University, Mr. Huntington predicted that the source of future world conflict would be culture. There would be no more ideological battles (communism and nazism against liberal democracy for example) he said. Economic struggles of rich against poor would be unimportant he thought. "The fault lines between civilizations will be the battle lines of the future," wrote Professor Huntington.

He defined civilizations as the highest cultural grouping of people. The culture of a village in southern Italy is different from that of a northern Italian village. However, both villages share a common Italian culture that is different from, say, a city in Denmark. But, all three communities share a European culture that is very different from those of Arabs or Japanese people. So, Westerners, Africans, Chinese, and Arabs can all be described as having separate civilizations. People identify themselves culturally with varying degrees of intensity; someone might say she is a Calgarian, an Albertan, a Presbytarian, a Christian, a Canadian, a North American, and a Westerner.

Mr. Huntington pointed out that while language, history, culture, and tradition are important unifying agents within a civilization, they all come second to religion in importance.

Today, the so-called Western civilization is at the pinnacle of its power; Western military strength is awesome, Western economic power is unchallenged, and Western popular culture is dominant. The world's other civilizations trail behind in all the measures that seem to count except one -- they still have their religious faith and the sure knowledge it is better than all others. This is where Professor Huntington stirred up a debate that continues to day. He wrote that the world's billion or so Muslims are "convinced of the superiority of their culture, and obsessed with the inferiority of their power."

Fearing their culture and civilization to be threatened, some Muslims are striking out just as a wounded animal might fight more fiercely than a whole one. A score of conflicts have broken out on Islam's borders -- Nigeria, Sudan, Bosnia, Chad, Uganda, Kashmir, Israel, Indonesia, the Philippines, Chechnya, and others.

There are some who say there is no pattern here, just a bunch of disconnected fights over local issues. Others support Samuel Huntington's view that these battles and the attacks of September 11 are part of a much larger clash of civilizations.

JIHAD 

A close translation for the word jihad, as used in Islam, in "struggle." For all Muslims it is a duty to perform jihad along with prayer, charity, fasting, and pilgrimage. Some Muslim scholars say the meaning of jihad is to engage in the struggle against temptation. For others it means to spread the word of Islam. For a tiny minority of Muslims, jihad means to wage war against non-Muslims. For the vast majority of Muslims jihad means to engage in a spiritual struggle against evil.