Us versus Them and Beyond

Trying to make sense of the whole debate surrounding Samuel Huntington’s controversial thesis, Maryam Sakeenah gives a background to the theory and the historical forces behind its development, discussing the various critique and responses to Huntington’s theory. She writes that while it has become a convenient discourse on both the Western and non-Western worlds, the Clash theory serves to encourage the ‘us versus them’ rhetoric to increase hostilities and militant tendencies. In the end, the elites of the two powerful opposing structures today—the West’s military-industrial complex and Al Qaeda’s militancy, are the ones who stand to gain by presenting real-world socio-political dynamics as a simplified clash between opposing cultures.