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Clash of Barbarisms

"The process of civilization is described as a historical process of pacification of human relations, overcoming aggressivness and the rule of law. And what we are seeing in this kind of clash is not, therefore, a clash of civilizations or features of civilizations clashing, but a clash of those kinds of barbaric potentials that every civilization include, whether Islamic or Western. These are barbarian forms which are potentially included in every kind of civilization and which can take over in periods of crisis or some specific historical periods.
Gilbert Achcar, 2003

Achcar said in the aftermath of Charlie Hebdo attack in Paris: "The Western intervention, the Western action in the Middle East, has been creating the ground for all this. This is what I called previously the clash of barbarisms, with a major barbarism represented by Western intervention." 

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