From the desk of George Handlery on Thu, 2012-01-05 09:41 Incompatible ambitions hide behind the professed desire to create a “Europe”. Europe wobbles since about 1900. The attempts to structure the Continent have repeatedly turned the world upside down. Reacting to two world wars, the reluctant USA had to become a great power, Communism captured a major state and China was restored to her old global position. In a revolutionary restructuring of world affairs, the European era ended by the end of the colonial empires and by the modernization of the non-western world. Although typically, most Europeans do not worry about it and non-Europeans act as uninterested witnesses, our future is tied to the perennial crisis. As in 1914 and 1939, the calamity is homemade and it reflects a political collapse that expresses itself by misgovernment. From the desk of A. Millar on Sun, 2012-01-01 16:37 The words “The Clash of Ideas” are splashed across the cover of the special anniversary issue of Foreign Affairs this month. This is of course a play on the “clash of civilizations” narrative that we’ve heard countless times since 9/11, and a nod to the notion that this clash – between radical Islam and the West, or liberal democracy – is fundamentally a “war of ideas.” I have come to believe that this diagnosis is not only wrong, but a large part of the reason why we, who believe in freedom and the rights of the individual, appear to be losing ground. (For example, we are seeing more sharia in the West, despite us knowing that full sharia demands the execution of homosexuals, the stoning of women who commit adultery, and discrimination against religious minorities. And we are seeing our right to free speech eroded, especially across Europe.) The battle is not one of ideas. It is a spiritual battle, pure and simple.What “Europe?”
“Clash Of Civilizations”: Spiritual, Not Intellectual
Thursday 5 January 2012
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