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OTHER
Islam and Militarism
As we read Samuel P.
Huntington's classic "The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking
of World Order" we noted with some interest the studies of
military conflicts involving Islamic peoples or states, given the post
9/11 situation in the world today. Although Huntington's book was
published in 1996, we believe many of the findings reported by him are
relevant to today's global scenario. In
the following we essentially reproduce information from a portion of
his book (pages
256-265, Touchstone Ed. 1997).
| CAUTION!
We caution the
reader that the conclusions from Huntington's book, cited
below, are controversial
and we are merely stating here what Huntington has reported
because the facts are interesting!
If you have counterpoints or
other data that would challenge Huntington's findings,
please
let us know and we will be happy to provide links to
it. We reserve the right to publish
what we deem is appropriate, and
we cannot publish mere assertions or beliefs -
we would like to
emphasize data.
Our own view is that each individual should
be treated as an individual and not
with a religious bias. That does not mean, however, that one
should ignore factual information
of a historical nature.
For your information, a
random sampling of comments on and critiques of Huntington's
book are
available from reviews
of this book posted by customers in Amazon.com. |
Huntington notes that "....Muslims
make up about one-fifth of the world's population but in the 1990s
they have been far more involved in intergroup violence than the
people of any other civilization [includes
Catholic, Protestant, Orthodox, Hindu, Chinese, Buddhist, Jewish]. The
evidence is overwhelming...".
Huntington cites the data provided below in support of his
contention that at least in the 1990s (and likely in the greater part
of the 20th century) Muslim countries or people have shown the highest
propensity for violence in relation to the conflicts they have engaged
in. At least in later part of the 20th century, he cites data (below)
indicating that Muslim countries have also shown the highest military
force ratios in relationship to their population and wealth. He
clarifies that the data does not mean that other civilizations do not
indulge in violence (for instance he points out that "...In
the past Christians killed fellow Christians and other people in
massive numbers..."), but just that
Muslim groups and countries engage in disproportionately higher
violence.
1.
Ethnopolitical Conflicts, 1993-1994
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Source:
Ted Robert Gurr, "Peoples Against States: Ethnopolitical
Conflict and the Changing World System," International
Studies Quarterly, Vol. 38 (Sep. 1994), pp. 347-378.
Note: one item in the table below shifted by Huntington to
Inter from Intra - the Tibetian-Chinese conflict
- Comments:
- 3X inter-civilizational
conflicts involving Muslims compared to other civilizations
- Conflicts within Islam also
higher than within other civilizations
- West involved in only two
inter- and intra-civilizational conflicts at this time
- Conflicts involving Muslims
tended to have heavier casualties. Six wars had estimated
casualties >= 200,000 : three were inter-civilizational
involving Muslims (Sudan, Bosnia, East Timor), two were
intra-civilizational involving Muslims (Somalia, Iraq-Kurds),
and one conflict had only non-Muslims (Angola).
| Civilization |
Intra-civilization
conflict |
Inter-civilization
conflict |
Total |
| Islam |
11 |
15 |
26 |
| Other |
19* |
5 |
24 |
| Total |
30 |
20 |
50 |
* Of which 10
were tribal conflicts in Africa
2. Ethnic Conflicts,
1993
-
Source: New York
Times, Feb. 7, 1993, pp. 1, 14
- Comments:
- Nearly 50% of conflicts involved Muslims
- Two-thirds of inter-civilizational conflicts
involved Muslims
| Civilization |
Intra-civilization
conflict |
Inter-civilization
conflict |
Total |
| Islam |
7 |
21 |
28 |
| Other |
21* |
10 |
31 |
| Total |
28 |
31 |
59 |
* Of which 10
were tribal conflicts in Africa
3. Wars, 1992
-
Source: Ruth Leger
Sivard, World Military and Social Expenditures 1993 (Washington,
D.C.: World Priorities, Inc., 1993) pp. 20-22
- Comments:
- 29 wars (defined as conflicts involving >=
1000 deaths/year) identified in 1992
- 9 out of 12 inter-civilizational conflicts
involved Muslims
- Muslims were fighting more wars than people
from any other civilization
4. Militarism of Muslim
and Christian countries
-
Source: James L.
Payne, Why Nations Arm (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1989), pp.
125, 138-139. Muslim and Christian countries are defined here as
those in which more than 80% of the population adhere to the
defining religion.
-
Definitions:
-
Comments:
-
Muslim countries had
much higher military force ratios and effort indices than
other countries (rows 2 and 3 below), and ratios were about 2X
those of Christian countries.
-
Christian countries
had significantly lower military force ratios and effort
indices than other countries (rows 4 and 5 below)
| Countries |
Average
Force Ratio |
Average
Military Effort |
| Muslim
countries (n=25) |
11.8 |
17.7 |
| Other
countries (n=112) |
7.1 |
12.3 |
| Christian
countries (n=57) |
5.8 |
8.2 |
| Other
countries (n=80) |
9.5 |
16.9 |
5. Use of violence to
resolve conflicts, 1928-1979
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Sources:
-
Samuel P. Huntington's
book referenced above, page 258
-
Christopher B. Stone,
"Westphalia and Hudaybiyya: A Survey of Islamic
Perspectives on the Use of Force as Conflict Management
Technique" (unpublished paper, Harvard University), pp.
27-31
-
Jonathan Wilkenfield,
Michael Brecher, and Sheila Moser, eds. Crises in the
Twentieth Century (Oxford: Pergamon Press, 1988-89), II, 15,
161.
-
Comments:
| Countries |
Total
# of crises
involved in
(1928-1979) |
#
Crises where
violence was used
in part or whole |
%
Crises where
violence was used
in part or whole |
Other
comments |
| China |
Data not
provided |
Data not
provided |
76.9 % |
- |
Muslim
countries |
142 |
76 |
53.5
% |
High-intensity
violence
used in ~80% of the
cases where violence
was used |
| Soviet
Union |
Data not
provided |
Data not
provided |
28.5 % |
|
| U. S. |
Data not
provided |
Data not
provided |
17.9 % |
|
| U. K. |
Data not
provided |
Data not
provided |
11.5 % |
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Root causes of
violence in Islam?
Although Huntington does not
conclusively show the causes leading to the higher propensity for
violence in Islamic countries, he lists
some possibilities:
(a)
Propensity towards violence:
Huntington's view is that the Koran and other statements of Muslim
beliefs contain few prohibitions on violence, and that the concept of
nonviolence is absent from Muslim doctrine and practice.
(b)
Demographic shift, i.e., due
to a significant growth in population of Muslim youth in a region,
exceeding a certain threshold or next nearest demographic group.
Huntington links such trends to many conflicts, and clarifies that a
large number of unemployed Muslim males in the age group of
15-30 goes a long way in explaining Muslim conflicts and violence in
the 1980s and 1990s.
(c)
Difficulty living with(in) other cultures:
Huntington says that of the major religions/civilizations, Islam is
essentially alone in not separating religion and politics, and as a
result, "...Confucians, Buddhists, Hindus,
Western Christians, and Orthodox Christians have less difficulty
adapting to and living with each other than any one of them has in
adapting to and living with Muslims..." The example he
cites is how Chinese live as an economically dominant minority in most
Southeast Asian nations, and assimilated well into Buddhist Thailand
and Catholic Philippines, but are more subject to anti-Chinese riots
and/or violence in Muslim Indonesia and Muslim Malaysia.
(d) Absence
of a "core" state in Islam:
Islam lacks a "dominant center" or state that could play a
leading role in moderating or managing conflicts involving Muslims,
and one that could act on behalf of Islam.
Finally, he
states that the arguments offered by some Muslim supporters that
Muslims have been victimized by "anti-Muslim prejudice" and
"trapped on reservations converted from their ancestral
lands" does not explain conflicts between Muslim majorities and
non-Muslim minorities in countries such as Sudan, Egypt, Iran and
Indonesia.
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