Samuel P. Huntington
Samuel P. Huntington
Samuel Phillips Huntingtonwas an American political scientist, adviser and academic. He spent more than half a century at Harvard University, where he was director of Harvard's Center for International Affairs and the Albert J. Weatherhead III University Professor. During the Carter administration, Huntington was the White House Coordinator of Security Planning for the National Security Council. He is most well known by his 1993 theory, "The Clash of Civilizations", of a post-Cold War new world order. He argued that future...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionSociologist
Date of Birth18 April 1927
CountryUnited States of America
Samuel P. Huntington quotes about
Both sides are divided and Western countries collaborate with Muslim countries and vice versa.
Maybe Iraq will come back and become the dominant power among Arab countries. That seems to me as conceivable.
The major difference for us in America with respect to Hispanic immigration is that it is so large and that it is coming from neighboring countries rather than those countries off the Atlantic or Pacific. That creates different issues and different problems for us as compared to the past. It is still very different, however, from the situation in Europe where we see people with a very different non-European religion coming from neighboring countries.
I wouldn't rule out the possibility of Muslim or at least Arab countries developing some form of organization comparable to the European Union. I don't think that's very likely, but it conceivably could happen.
America doesn't border on Muslim countries. European countries do and that seems to be a fundamental difference.
The United States has been an immigrant country. The Hispanics who come here are largely from Mexico and South America. They are Catholics, but that is an American religion. One-third of our population is Catholic so that does not have the same impact as Muslims coming into Europe.
Obviously Pakistan and the U.S. are very different countries, but we have common geopolitical interests in preventing communist take over in Afghanistan and hence, now that Pakistan has a government that we can cooperate with, even though it is a military government, we are working together with them in order to promote our common interests. But obviously we also differ with Pakistan on a number of issues.
I think in theory, the United States finds it much easier to deal with situations where there is a leading country. You can go to the leaders of that country and say, for example, to India, "There are all these problems in Bangladesh, we really have to do something about it, what do you suggest we can do to work out a common policy?" But when you don't have the equivalent of India, you have to go capital to capital trying to put together a coalition, which is extraordinarily difficult, especially in the Arab world, because of the historic rivalries and branches of Islam.
When I think of countries that I enjoyed visiting, that I would want to go back to, Italy would be one, Japan would be another. I've only been to Indonesia once or twice and it seems like such a fascinating country. I guess India certainly.
Obviously there are divisions within the West and divisions within Islam - there are different sects, different communities, different countries. So neither one is homogenous at all. But they do have things in common.
The biggest difference as far as Muslims in Europe and America are concerned is that the number of Muslims in America is small compared to the number in Europe.
The larger society has to recognize some degree of autonomy for the minority: the right to practice their own religion and way of life and to some extent their language.
Hispanics speak Spanish or Portuguese, which are languages we Americans are familiar with, so it doesn't seem to pose the same types of problems as Arabic-speaking Muslims do in Europe.
Global politics remains extremely complex and countries have different interests, which will also lead them to make what might seem as rather bizarre friends and allies.