Islam, Violence and the New Barbarism

Abstract

What is termed the ‘new barbarism thesis’ has appeared in a number of contexts. These include the apparent recidivism of sub-Saharan Africa’s domestic unrest and the internecine enmities of the Balkans to the rise of neo-Orientalism, the West’s retreat from multiculturalism and the Malthusianism of environmental scarcity.² While frequently neither coherent nor especially sophisticated, its influence has been, and continues to be, profound. At its heart lies an overarching concern to construct what Dag Tuastad calls ‘explanations of political violence that omit political and economic interests and contexts when describing violence, and presents violence as a result of traits embedded in local cultures’.³ For Mahmood Mamdani, it assumes, in other words, ‘that every culture has a tangible essence that defines it, and it then explains politics as a consequence of that essence’. It is, he continues, ‘no longer the market(capitalism), nor the state (democracy), but culture (modernity) that is said to be the dividing line between those in favour of a peaceful, civic existence and those inclined to [participate in] terror’ and violence.⁴

These days the conflict between civilisation and barbarism has taken an ominous turn. We face a conflict between civilisation and culture, which used to be on the same side. Civilisation means rational reflection, material wellbeing, individual autonomy and ironic self-doubt; culture means a form of life that is customary, collective, passionate, spontaneous, unre-flective and arational. It is no surprise, then, to find that we have civilisation whereas they have culture. Culture is the new barbarism.¹

Terry Eagleton, ‘Culture Conundrum’, 2008