RIYADH, 24 February 2005 — The cultural divide between the West and the Islamic world will persist despite efforts to bridge the gap, says a sociology professor who believes the main hurdle is the mindset of neoconservatives in the Bush administration.
“There is a power disequilibrium in which the US as the sole superpower is trying to impose its views and cultural values on the rest of the world. This is the starting point of the problem we have with the US,” Professor Mahmoud Dhaouadi, a Tunisian sociologist, told Arab News.
Dhaouadi, now in Riyadh, has been invited by the Saudi government to the two-week-long Janadriya Festival which started yesterday. He is among 250 official guests who will be attending the festival that features the Kingdom’s cultural variety as well as seminars and poetry recitations.
According to Dhaouadi, dialogue is the only way to break down the cultural barrier. An important element in this task, he points out, is to understand the cultural symbols of a society represented by its sets of religious belief, cultural values, thought pattern, knowledge of language, the arts and sciences.
“The ability to communicate with others in their own language is what I call visa. I do have a visa to communicate with the West in their own language, since I know English. But the Westerners don’t have a visa to communicate with us in our language — be it Arabic, Persian, Urdu or any other eastern language. That being the case, they cannot gauge our mindset or the driving force that inspires our conduct or behavior in a given way,” said Dhaouadi.
He is the author of three books in English — “Globalization of the Other Underdevelopment: Third World Cultural Identities,” “Toward an Islamic Sociology of Cultural Symbols” and “New Explorations Into the Making of Ibn Khaldun’s Mind”. They were all published in Kuala Lumpur, where he worked as a professor. Through these books he takes up the theme that even though a country may be advanced and highly developed in terms of science and technology, it may still be culturally underdeveloped if it cannot communicate on the same wavelength with the people of those countries without knowing their language and cultural values.
Dhaouadi said that ever since the induction of President George W. Bush into the White House, the neoconservatives around him have sought to impose their own norms and values on the Islamic world. “Since the US talks from a position of strength, it is not prepared to listen to the other country’s point of view.”
The problem is further compounded by its media which gives out only filtered news preventing the people at the grassroots level from gaining an insight into the real issues. “When I was in the US some years ago, I was shocked to find that the people there were having AM/FM radios and not the short-wave radio. That means they are only interested in knowing things concerning them and have no interest in the world beyond.”
The professor said countries that believe that might is right should have a second look at the UN Charter which says: “Since wars begin in the minds of men, it is in the minds of men that the defenses of peace must be constructed.”
Dhaouadi, who taught at King Saud University for several years in the past, said the Kingdom has been doing its best to reach out to the West through international forums and conferences. Whether this message is accepted by others who believe in talking from a position of strength remains to be seen.