- As Western civilization's weaknesses become more pronounced, awareness of the existence of other civilizations is growing, Nasr says in an interview with Anadolu
- Nasr warns that despite many countries gaining political independence of the West decades ago, 'cultural dependence' has been on the rise
ISTANBUL
While Israeli attacks continue to batter the Gaza Strip in an offensive now nearing its ninth month, countries across the world, including the US and the Arab nations, are in a state of “tremendous hypocrisy,” according to Seyyed Hossein Nasr, an Iranian philosopher, theologian, and Islamic scholar.
Such a massacre had not taken place since World War II, Nasr said in an interview with Anadolu, pointing to the mounting death toll, now in the tens of thousands, in the Palestinian enclave of just 2 million people.
“It cannot go on like this — 30,000 people out of a population of 2 million, compared to the loss of the Second World War, where the population of the world fighting was over a billion. Since the Second World War, there has never been such a massacre,” he said.
“Most importantly, women and children have been killed in Gaza,” added Nasr, lamenting the apathy towards the Palestinian issue, especially in the Arab world, despite the ongoing “catastrophe.”
“Where are the Arab countries?” he asked, warning that “what is happening is now devastating, devastating for the Arab world.”
In contrast, Türkiye and Iran are both helping the cause of Palestinian Arabs, despite neither of them being Arab, he quipped, adding that things are changing in other parts of the world, too.
“Even in the United States, nine-tenths of all the students are on the side of the Palestinians, while the administration of all the universities are pro-Zionist,” he said
“We're in a very big crisis and this crisis spilled over from our own part of the world, the Middle East, now into America without doubt and things are not going to be the same again.”
Growing Western intellectual chaos
Nasr also asserted that the idea that the West produced the only “civilization” in the world is on the decline.
“The absoluteness of Western civilization as ‘the civilization’ — la civilization in French — is finished … fortunately,” he said, adding: “You have different societies, different cultures, different civilizations and you cannot impose your values in order to evaluate other civilizations.”
Mentioning the connection between Western civilization and globalism, he said pushback against this trend has coincided with “more assertions of the importance of regional cultures” from Japan to Myanmar, Malaysia, and Morocco.
“From the Pacific to the Atlantic, including African countries and Muslim countries, not only Islamic countries but also non-Islamic Eastern countries, there’s now a much larger movement to realize that you don’t have only one civilization,” explained Nasr.
Nasr said that one of the greatest weaknesses of the West was the “destruction of the environment” that it wrought.
“If the West continues to dominate the world or the world begins to live like the West … 40-50 years from now, the Earth would be unlivable.”
Cultural dependence
Nasr noted that the first major Western intervention against the Islamic world was Napoleon's invasion of Egypt. He stated that although the West was gaining control over the Indian Ocean and Mediterranean Sea, the Muslim world, which was in a central position in terms of land power, did not perceive a threat.
Nasr highlighted that the capture of Egypt, an Islamic country, made the Islamic geography realize the power attained by the West and the difficulties that this situation posed. He said, "Several different challenge responses were provided. There were those who wanted to simply follow the West."
Nasr emphasized that during the struggle for independence, Islamic countries such as Pakistan and Nigeria, which were directly colonized, as well as Afghanistan, Iran, Yemen, and Arabia, which were indirectly affected, were striving for independence. Finally, after World War II, all Islamic countries became independent, except those in the Soviet Union. Algeria, a French colony, gained independence in 1964.
Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, countries such as Uzbekistan and Tajikistan also gained independence. However, Nasr described this as "nominal independence."
"A greater problem that the Islamic world faces is that, in fact, as political independence came about, cultural dependence even increased," he added.
Copying the West
Nasr pointed out that the West is fundamentally based on secularism and humanism, leading to a cultural and intellectual recolonization of the Islamic world.
He emphasized that people often succumb to science without truly understanding what it is saying.
As a result, "Today, the Islamic world is aping and copying the West more than many people in the West itself," he stressed.
Meanwhile, the greatest critics of modern Western civilization are found in New York and London, he added.
"Independence is not just raising a flag up there and saluting. It is intellectual and spiritual independence," Nasr said.
He further stated that universities are imitating the West. "Everything I teach is based on the humanities and philosophy of the West."
"Even in our own country, we teach Western philosophy. There were many great philosophers in the Islamic world," underlining the need for firm roots in one's own identity, rather than "painting ourselves one day like the French, one day like the Germans, one day like the Americans, as we've been doing for the last century."
Nasr underlined that there has also been an awakening in reaction to what is happening in the world, and he finds this to be a "very interesting situation."
Young children, in particular, are more environmentally conscious than their parents. In many families, there is a "great tension between parents and children," he said.
Children realize the importance of protecting nature and not wasting, while their parents are "less sensitive," he stressed.
Nasr added: "So, I am not one of the hopeless ones, but I think we really need a shock to wake up."
