An Analysis Of Cultural Conflict Behind American Anti-terrorist War

In contemporary world, as globalization picks up its speed, cross-cultural communications, manifested in some form or others—interaction, aid, conflict, confrontation or war, are becoming increasingly frequent between different nations. Maintaining international peace has become the major concern of human race in the21st century, the pivot of which, of course, depends on how the intricate relationships are managed between different religions, nations and states of different cultural heritages.Samuel P. Huntington proposed "clash of civilizations" in1992. He explored human history and current trends of globalization from the perspective of culture and civilization, and revealed a world of multicultural interactions in his book. From the perspective of culture, theory of clash of civilization aims to approach the conflicts and wars on a global scale and serves as caution for the future world. Anti-terrorism has become an important topic of international community after9/11Terrorist Attack. In the post-cold war world, terrorism is regarded as a grave threat to world peace.9/11terrorist attack seems to have corroborated Huntington’s predictions, and marks the beginning of conflicts between Islamic culture and Christian culture in the21st century.According to Huntington, clash of civilization is in nature a conflict of cultures. The conflict between the Western world and Islamic world, from the perspective of culture, in essence is the conflict between Christianity and Islam. Conflicts are many and varied between Christianity and Islam in history. American anti-terrorist war is just an extreme manifestation of the conflicts between two different cultural religions.Based on the theory of clash of civilization, this paper aims to explore the evolution of conflict between Christianity and Islam, and analyze the causes of cultural conflict underlying American anti-terrorist war. Namely;1) Similarities and differences of religious origins;2) Differences of sacred scriptures;3) Essentialities of religions;4) Influences of Holy War and industrial evolution on modern Islamic and Christian relations;5) Differences of religious values and ideologies. According to the causes analyzed above and Huntington’s theory of "abstention rule, joint mediation rule and commonalities rule", the author proposes the following strategies to solve the clash of civilizations and promote cultural fusion:abstaining from intervention in conflicts in other civilizations; opening dialogues between different civilizations; seeking the commonalities between different civilizations.Analysis of cultural conflict behind American anti-terrorist war opens up a new understanding of religions, and further broadens people’s horizon in their analysis of international relations. It is to be understood that important international relations can not only be approached from the perspective of international politics but also from the perspective of culture and civilization. Countries, nations and religions of different cultural backgrounds can communicate with each other through cross-civilization dialogues to enhance understanding, conduct cooperation, and create a peaceful world.