The second-biggest Shia spiritual leader (who, perfectly enough, I’ve never heard of) was quoted on NPR today from something he said last Friday (2006 – 09-22) as saying that there is no “conflict of civilizations”, only a “conflict of ignorance”.
Which is as near to correct as any statement yet on the current West vs. Mid-East “blow each other up” gestalt. This phrase also appeared three years ago, by a Harvard Middle-Eastern studies professor who was working with a relative of a 9/11 victim:
“I saw this conflict not as a clash of civilizations — there are value systems that extremists on both sides share — I saw this as a conflict of ignorance of the other,” Asani said. “With Elinor, I think her ambition and goal is to remove that ignorance and create a better human-to-human understanding.” Ali Asani, quoted in “For bereaved mother, world is a bigger place”
Even as I write this, I know there’s some right-winger out there (e.g. Ann Coulter) who’s feverishly imagining this demonstrates how ivy league intellectuals who say things they don’t agree with are secretly in cahoots with the Islatermexunist menace — because the whole world must be one giant monolithic conspiracy of everyone you don’t like, and “commie Jews” just doesn’t generate genocidal mania they think is needed these days.