LONDON, Nov. 30 (UPI) -- The Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on New York and Washington -- which Osama bin Laden is suspected of masterminding -- have made him the man who has done more damage to the West's image of Oriental and Islamic civilizations than any other.
This view has been propounded by most of the Arab world's intellectuals, particularly the secular ones who have no love for extremist groups and sects anyway.
But Arab intellectuals have been shocked at the way Western writers have used those terrorist crimes to settle accounts with another civilization -- denying its brilliant cultural and spiritual contributions. Nor do they understand how a number of Western politicians can so easily confuse terrorism and Islam.
Limiting the history of the Muslim Orient to the negative manifestations of extremist groups, terrorist organizations and dictatorships neglects the scientific, philosophical and spiritual contributions of this great historical movement.
Isn't this akin to limiting the history of the Christian West to mere negative manifestations such as the religious wars, the Nazi holocaust, the annihilation of Indians?
The idea that Western civilization is superior to that of the Orient is naïve at best. Western civilization remains indebted to the Middle East for many of its major achievements.
This is why statements by a number of conservative European figures such as Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi and former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher about the inferiority of Muslim civilizations are more than surprising: They're disgusting and unjust.
Such statements provoked angry reactions from Western as well as Oriental intellectuals -- at a time when many Muslims and Arabs were the targets of a wave of hatred in the United States and Europe.
Many Orientalists, scientists, religious leaders and politicians in the West condemned these attempts to humiliate Islamic civilization and to attack Islam -- whose followers exceed 1.2 billion people -- because of attacks carried out by a few Islamic terrorist groups.
Italy's great writer Umberto Eco criticized Berlusconi for his simplistic argument in claiming that the Christian European civilization is superior to the Islamic one. In a long article in the French Le Monde newspaper, Eco said "Western civilization has produced the good and bad guys," and pointed out that "Hitler and Mussolini were the sons of Western civilization."
Eco said, "It is important now for Westerners to present the good side of Western civilization to all religions and ethnic groups in order to avoid new bloody confrontations not only at present time but in the future."
In Rome, too, Christian organizations were quick to organize meetings to prevent hatred from replacing dialogue among the various religions faiths. The meetings were attended by religious leaders from the Orthodox, Catholic and Protestant churches as well as prominent Muslim religious leaders from Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Syria and Iran.
Other Italian writers besides Eco pointed out that Berlusconi's outburst was xenophobic, reflecting conservative opposition to other religions and cultures, especially Islam, which conservatives view as the most dangerous.
Berlusconi told Arnaud de Borchgrave last May that Islamic extremism and communism -- and not terrorism -- were the main dangers facing Europe today.
When President Bush used the word "crusade" in his calls for an international war on terror, the Bush administration quickly corrected the provocative description. Berlusconi waited days to express regret for his statements about Islamic civilization and went on accusing journalists for distorting his words.
In her first comment on the Sept. 11 attacks, Thatcher said she did "not hear enough condemnation of such actions from Muslim religious leaders" since "those who destroyed the twin towers of the World Trade Center are Muslims, and the Muslims should thus stand and say this is not Islam." But Thatcher completely ignored the condemnations coming from leading Muslims in her own country at that time.
Thatcher and Berlusconi, however, were more restrained than some European right-wing leaders who overnight dropped their declared enmity towards the United States and began to shed crocodile tears on the victims of the terror attacks in New York and Washington -- using this change to launch a large campaign against foreign immigrants and foment hatred against Arab.
One French right-wing leader declared: "Our main enemy is Islam" and described the nearly 4 million French of Arab and Muslim origins as the "fifth column which wants to destroy the French European society."
But why is this madness in igniting a war between civilizations after centuries of co-existence? As German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder said, "War on terror is a war for the sake of civilizations and not against them." This position would be affirmed by most leaders of Western countries and others in their call to resolve the causes of terrorism and uproot it."
For many Christian, Jewish, Muslim and secular intellectuals, reason should prevail over rumors. An effort needs to be made to understand others and their problems as well as to avoid imagined "conflicts" between civilizations.
To say that Eastern and Western minds differ is major mistake. The mind is one. We should also stop using "fundamentalism" in describing extremist Islamic, Christian or Jewish religious movements.
We should look for the root causes of terror in the Arab world -- not in religion or civilization -- but in the absence of democracy and freedom, the high percentage of illiteracy and poverty in the rich region.
Most importantly the major role of colonialism in most Arab countries -- which only gained independence recently from Britain and France -- should be understood. Britain withdrew from the Gulf region in the early 1970s while France was forced to leave Northern Africa in 1962.
Washington is also to be blamed for its many wrong-headed policies in the region -- and not only regarding the Palestinian problem. These are mistakes that a great number of U.S. and Western writers referred to.
Those who link the name of bin Laden or hard-line groups to Islam or the Arabs are simply settling old historical accounts with the Islamic civilization and Arab culture by concluding that Western civilization and European culture are superior.
They are committing harmful mistakes at the same time. They are revealing a terrible ignorance which is worsened by segregating cultural groups that are only vital in their inter-actions.
Finally, they are wrong to think they are creating new positions and ideas when they are only reviving old views -- some dating back to the Middle Ages.
Linking Islam to fanaticism, Arabs to violence and the East to despotism were famous cliches in the West's view of the Orient, especially Oriental Islam, before they were overturned by intellectuals during the enlightenment.
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(Hussain Hindawi is the editor of United Press International's Arab News Service in London. The views he expresses here are not necessarily those of UPI.)
