Abstract

What’s termed the ‘new barbarism thesis’ has made an appearance in many contexts. Included in this are the apparent recidivism of sub-Saharan Africa’s domestic unrest and also the internecine enmities from the Balkans towards the rise of neo-Orientalism, the West’s retreat from multiculturalism and also the Malthusianism of ecological scarcity. 2 While frequently neither coherent nor especially sophisticated, its influence continues to be, and remains, profound. At its heart lies an overarching concern to create what Dag Tuastad calls ‘explanations of political violence that omit economic and political interests and contexts when describing violence, and presents violence because of traits baked into local cultures’. 3 For Mahmood Mamdani, it assumes, quite simply, ‘that every culture includes a tangible essence that defines it, also it then explains politics as a result of that essence’. It’s, he continues, ‘no longer the marketplace(capitalism), nor the condition (democracy), but culture (modernity) that’s stated is the dividing line between individuals towards a peaceful, social existence and individuals inclined to [take part in] terror’ and violence. 4

Nowadays the conflict between civilisation and barbarism has had an ominous turn. We face a conflict between civilisation and culture, which was once on a single side. Civilisation means rational reflection, material wellbeing, individual autonomy and ironic self-doubt culture means a kind of existence that’s customary, collective, passionate, spontaneous, unre-flective and arational. It is no wonder, then, to locate we have civilisation whereas they’ve culture. Culture may be the new barbarism. 1

Terry Eagleton, ‘Culture Conundrum’, 2008

Notes

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40. Reported in Sageman, Understanding Terror Systems. p. vii D. Prepare, ‘The Recovery of Radical Islam within the Wake from the Defeat from the Taliban’, Terrorism and Political Violence 15 (2003), p. 52. CrossRef

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