BRUSSELS, Feb. 15 (UPI) -- Maybe Samuel Huntington was right after all. In 1993, the Harvard professor published a seminal essay in "Foreign Affairs" in which he predicted that a "clash of civilizations" would dominate global politics for the foreseeable future. Ever since, it has become something of a ritual for world leaders to rubbish Huntington's thesis and play down the differences between a largely free, secular and democratic Western world and a Muslim world characterized by authoritarian governments, closed markets and the creeping encroachment of Islamic law.
But after the publication of a dozen caricatures of the prophet Mohammed in the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten -- and the violent reaction to them in many countries -- Huntington's thesis has gained credibility. In the last fortnight, in particular, it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that at the very least we are witnessing a clash of cultures and at the very worst a clash of civilizations between the Western and Muslim worlds.
New footage of prisoner abuse by British and American troops in Iraq is only likely to increase resentment in Muslim countries, just as comments by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad vowing to wipe Israel off the map have done in the West.
In Tehran Tuesday protestors hurled firecrackers, Molotov cocktails and rocks at the British embassy and marchers led five donkeys draped in American, British, German, Danish and French flags, along with a dog clad in an Israeli flag. "Death to Britain," "Death to America" and "Death to Israel" they chanted, according to wire reports.
In the Pakistani cities of Lahore and Islamabad demonstrators showed their respect for tolerance and free speech by burning down a KFC outlet and hurling stones through the windows of a Holiday Inn and Pizza Hut. Five marchers died in the disturbances, bringing the number of deaths directly related to the publication of the cartoons to 17.
Some European politicians have called for calm, inter-cultural dialogue and respect for religious beliefs. "We must not respond to polemic with polemic, to aggression with aggression nor to insensitivity with insensitivity," said Hans-Gert Poettering, the center-right leader of the European Parliament's largest political grouping, in a debate Wednesday. European Union foreign affairs chief Javier Solana is currently touring Middle East capitals to placate Muslim anger over the caricatures, while several European leaders have confessed to being offended by the drawings.
Others, however, seem intent on pouring fuel on the flames. Roberto Calderoli, a member of the populist Northern League party and a minister in the Italian government, has distributed T-shirts displaying the Danish cartoons of the prophet. "It is time to put an end to this story that we need to dialogue with these people," the minister told the ANSA news agency, adding: "What have we become, the civilization of melted butter?"
At the beginning of the stand-off, some European governments hesitated about whether to stand by Denmark. Most have since rallied to Copenhagen's defense, as has the United States. With Danish firms losing millions of dollars a day as a result of goods boycotts in several Muslim countries, Czech Foreign Minister Cyril Svoboda has proposed channeling special European Union funds to compensate Denmark for revenue losses incurred by the backlash. Svoboda pledged to raise the issue at a Feb. 27 meeting of European foreign ministers.
In a debate on the cartoon row in the EU parliament Wednesday, European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso expressed his solidarity with the Danish government and people. "Let us be clear; a boycott of Danish goods is by definition a boycott of European goods," he told lawmakers, describing Danes as a "people who rightly enjoy the reputation as being among the most open and tolerant not just in Europe but in the world."
European newspapers, many of which republished the cartoons a fortnight ago, are also in an unrepentant mood. Germany's Der Tagesspiegel last week ran a cartoon of four Iranian footballers with explosives packed around their waists. A caption read: "Why the German army should definitely be used during the football World Cup."
After Tehran called for an apology, the Berliner Zeitung ran an op-ed proclaiming: "We journalists comply with the law and court decisions. But we do not comply with the prejudices of a humor-resistant Islamic taste-police which believes that whatever is Western is decadent, and whoever is not a believer is immoral."
In a sign of the tit-for-tat nature of the clash, Iran's best-selling newspaper plans to publish cartoons of the Holocaust, while on Tuesday protestors threw stones at Germany's embassy in Tehran, shouting: "Germany, you are fascists and servants of Zionism."
In his seminal essay, Huntington wrote: "The fault lines between civilizations are replacing the political and ideological boundaries of the Cold War as the flash points for crisis and bloodshed." Most would be appalled at the thought of violence erupting between great civilizations or religions. Yet this is exactly what appears to be happening on the streets of Islamabad, Tehran, Damascus and Kabul.
The targets are no longer Danish, they are Western -- in Tank, a town in north-western Pakistan, 20 shops selling CDs and videos were set ablaze, while in Peshawar the offices of a Norwegian cell-phone company were attacked. And the issue is no longer just about the publication of drawings of Mohammed, it is about the principles of free speech, the primacy of national laws over Sharia law and the right to poke fun at other people's beliefs without provoking a fatwa.
