Clash of civilizations- Muslim and Western societies.

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A new world order in the becoming.

After the fall of the Berlin wall, the cold war era was practically over. Until that point in history, the world was divided in three major blocks: the Western block as the NATO alliance, with the United States as the superpower leading it, the second block with Est Europe block as the Warsaw Pact, and the Soviet Union as the superpower leading it, and the last block which was composed by the so called "Non-Aligned Movement of Nations". The purpose of this organization was not to consider themselves aligned with or against any of the above superpowers.

Once the cold war was really over, a new world order would have established after it and consequently we all thought, a period of peace would have followed with not major conflicts around the corner.

But, the world without wars or enemies seemed that couldn't be maintained for very long periods of peace and tranquility. Even when, there are not apparent wars looming on top of our lives, it's like humanity can't live without them, we have to look for one even when there are none around. Apparently, Nations need to look for new enemies to maintain a precarious world balance, and some time by even inventing one. After 9/11, looked like some Nations had found their new enemies. At least that's the impression I got after reading some newspaper, or commentaries in some web pages or worst, from some politicians from Europe as well here in the States. Now some of them, are depicting a worrisome world which I didn't like at all. A possible future, where the Western Civilizations are in an hypothetical war against Arab/Muslim civilizations.

Clash of civilizations.

For example, I watched recently in the web videos, where reporters were talking about Arab fighting forces "jihadists" which were preparing themselves for a global Jihad against the Western civilization, and in the same time they were showing up pictures, where some Arabs fighters were training and preparing in hiding camps for a war of annihilation of the West civilizations or, ideologies and the West had no choices but, to fight them aggressively. They were not talking just about terrorists but, they were pointing out the menace was coming from the Arab world as an all.

I didn't agree with those provocative views of the Arab/Muslim world coming out from those videos. The thing that mostly alarmed me from all the rantings coming out from the above commentaries and videos was, the all Arab/Muslim world are hating us for what we are or, what we represent to them, a threat to their own culture and therefore, we needed to fight them back as a preventive measure.

Terrorists should be fought and defeated as well, the radical and violent faction of Islam but, terrorists or, radical Muslims are a small minority in the Arab world, not the entire Arab societies. Even though, these minorities are trying to push the Arab world in a holy war versus the West, doesn't mean we have to hate and prepare ourselves for a holy war against the entire Arab world. There is a need to eliminate the overlap between terrorism and Islam, this need is essential to start winning the real war against terrorism. Islam has been high jacked by the terrorists (as many Muslims keep telling us), making of it an excuse to fight for an holy war against West civilizations.

Some young Muslim men, which are joining terrorist forces to fight the infidels and a supposed Western hegemony in the world, those same young muslims alone don't represent the all Arab/Muslim world. The all Arab world doesn't hate us, there isn't any cultural clash between us and them but it will be if, we create the ground for it to flourish on.

The time of Crusades is gone, we don't need new ones.

Hysteria which has erupted after 9/11, it's leading us nowhere. We need to look closer for the real reasons of why and when, this crisis of cultures has come to be today. We don't need some scare-monkey tactics from some medias or politicians, about the danger of a raising fundamentalistic Islam. We need to understand the causes of it, and consequently find remedies to stop further unwanted consequences.

Muslim and Western societies.

I have so many Arabs friends and, none of them is preparing to fight us in a war of ideology and religion. They are good working people like us and like us, the peaceful Muslim communities are worried of all these dark forces pushing us and them, toward a point of no return. To be more clear, I will repeater what I'm trying to tell in a different way: "We all, should be concerned about all these nonsenses, stop them right now that we are in time, and not keep proceeding toward uncertain futures of fatal consequences for all of us."

There are, many Arabs of different nationality working and worrying every day in the United States, and most of them are not preparing to wage a war here or, in Europe as well.

Arabs are not all terrorists, they have their own culture and religion, we should respect them as they should respect us. To avoid further misconceptions, we should all meet in the middle to find ways of not killing each other for some ideologies but, to mitigate all the problems arising from this new world we need to dialogue now, if we want to live, work and get along together in peace.

If we look back in time, we will see that diversity of ideologies and multiculturalism can work together if, we really want too. By just checking the past history as I said, we will see indeed, there was a time when the Arabs were in Spain and in part of south Italy. In those ancient times, we could find different communities and religions in those parts of Europe, where people were living and working together harmoniously. So why shouldn't it happen again today?

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Muslim Spain and European Culture.

By the beginning of the ninth century, Moorish Spain was the gem of Europe with its capital city, Cordova.

When you think of European culture, one of the first things that may come to your mind is the renaissance. Many of the roots of European culture can be traced back to that glorious time of art, science, commerce and architecture. But did you know that long before the renaissance there was a place of humanistic beauty in Muslim Spain? Not only was it artistic, scientific and commercial, but it also exhibited incredible tolerance, imagination and poetry. Moors, as the Spaniards call the Muslims, populated Spain for nearly 700 years. As you'll see, it was their civilization that enlightened Europe and brought it out of the dark ages to usher in the renaissance. Many of their cultural and intellectual influences still live with us today.

For more: http://www.xmission.com/

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Are the Jihadists Losing the War? Gilles Kepel Thinks So

Despite car bombings, beheadings, and kidnappings, French scholar Gilles Kepel says the jihadists are losing their hold on the Muslim masses.

for more: http://www.international.ucla.edu/