Islam and War

The author graduated from the University of Strasbourg III.
He practiced for nearly twenty years as an academic teacher in public law and international relations.
He is also specialist in Islamic Studies.
«.. Thus, there has become established in the collective mentality of the West, accustomed as it is to anxiety and adversity, the idea that « We have an appointment with Islam. This appointment is daily in the towns of Europe, but also in Karachi, in New York, in Teheran and Istanbul.
Since the 11th of September 2001, since the attacks in Madrid, London and Charm el Sheik, few in the West have any doubt that we have entered a phase of confrontation with that civilization. ».
However, serious and acute observers have put forward a different way of understanding the outbreaks of violence which have occurred in different places; they hold that «the logic, the motives and the manifestations are different. Each outbreak may certainly give rise to intolerable acts and deeds, which should be opposed, but without seeing them as one and the same and without lumping them together.
Which is something which certain merchants of fear, keen to create an apocalyptic view of the world to serve their economic and political interests, are in no hurry to do. ».
In the context of this view of the matter, the arguments based on the well-known theory of the clash of civilizations are no more than explanations which « create a simplified image of a conquering, homogenous and warlike religion, inflated by certain groups of strategists into a global evil enemy after the fall of the Soviet Union. ».
In any case, and whatever the conceptual schema adopted, it is a fact that « Long relegated as a subliminal folk memory of our collective imagination, Islam has returned to the stage of history as a question, and as a mirror held out towards us. We must renounce our ready-made images and our fears. We must push open the door of our understanding which, once open, will never be shut again. ».
Let us then, take the author of this quotation at his word and let us push open the door of our understanding of this world, which, let it be said in passing, contains nothing « new »…»