By Virag Gulyas, JNS
The Islamic world doesn’t see the world through a Western lens. And the West struggles to understand an entirely different worldview.
I remember the first time I read Samuel P. Huntington’s The Clash of Civilizations while pursuing my degree in international business relations. I was 23 and living in a country that had just broken free from communism and struggling to find its way out of the Cold War’s shadow.
We were desperately seeking our place in the world, longing to belong to the Western civilization. Huntington’s argument hit me, and I connected deeply with his work. It offered something deeper than the explanations of how the Cold War was “created” as he spoke of culture, identity and the inevitable friction between civilizations.
This other day, I woke up with an aha moment. Everything happening in the United States today—every cultural battle, every religious and ideological split—ultimately boils down to the clash of civilizations.
Take a look around. When Latinos burn the American flag on camera, it’s not just about immigration policy. It’s a cultural clash. When masked Muslim students torch Israeli and American flags in New York or Los Angeles, it’s not about “Free Palestine.” It’s the clash of civilizations.
Huntington’s work, published in 1993, was a direct counterargument to Francis Fukuyama’s The End of History and the Last Man (1992), which argued that the Cold War’s end meant ideological conflicts would fade. Liberal democracy, Fukuyama believed, had won and the world would settle into a peaceful, Western-led order.
A political scientist and Harvard University professor, Huntington thought otherwise. He predicted that conflicts wouldn’t disappear; they’d just evolve. The next great battles wouldn’t be fought over political ideologies like capitalism versus communism; they would be fought over culture, religion and civilization itself.
He identified nine major civilizations, saying that the most significant conflicts would emerge from these civilizations clashing with each other.
Huntington made some bold predictions: the Western world would decline, China and the Islamic world would gain power and religion would become the dominant factor shaping global conflicts. Do these sound familiar?
Critics rebuked him for overgeneralizing cultures and ignoring economic and political divisions within civilizations. And sure, they had and have a point. But let’s look at what’s happening today. Why is it that when we talk about Hamas, people can’t agree on whether they’re terrorists or “freedom fighters?” Why do some ignore the child soldiers in Gaza, the glorification of jihad or the use of human shields?
Because it’s not just about politics, it’s a civilizational clash.
The Islamic world doesn’t see the world through a Western lens. And the West struggles to understand an entirely different worldview shaped by centuries of history, religion and identity.
The same thing is happening in Mexico. They, as a civilization, are part of Latin America, but they are deeply connected to North America. That internal identity crisis plays out in its politics, economy and social struggles. That’s why many of them look at the American civilization as something to fight against. A civilization at war with itself.
What about the United States? It keeps exporting democracy and human rights, believing that these are universal ideals. But over and over again, we see what happens when Western ideals clash with civilizations that don’t share the same historical evolution. Pushback. Resistance. Resentment.
Because civilizations aren’t just collections of people. They’re systems of belief, identity and values that don’t change overnight. Huntington was especially clear about the growing clash between the Islamic world and the West. He argued that this conflict would define the coming decades.
Look at the United States and Western Europe. Look at the conflict around Israel. These aren’t Cold War-style standstills where ideologies squared off in neatly defined camps. It’s the clash of civilizations, where culture and religion shape alliances and enmities in ways that transcend traditional politics.
While pushback on Huntington’s theories exists, such as his overstating cultural identity and ignoring economic and political interests, we cannot ignore the rising nationalism worldwide. We also cannot ignore the undeniable decline of Western influence and the escalating tensions between the Islamic world and the West.
The more the world globalizes, the more civilizations resist outside influence. The more interconnected we become, the more we emphasize our differences. The more we mix, the more fault lines emerge. This is why, sometimes, no amount of discussion can bridge the gap. Because it’s not just a disagreement. It’s a civilizational clash playing out right before our eyes.
