Cross-Pollinating

I have a short writing assignment due for my communications course tomorrow, but in it I get to engage in one of my favourite academic pasttimes, taking a dump on the head of Samuel Huntington, he of Clash of Civilizations fame. So, an excerpt from my assignment: (+10 points to me for lazy blogging.)

Huntington’s original thesis was that the world was organized in several ethnic and religious blocs, of which Islam was one, the West was another, and several others were included as well. Huntington’s thesis was that older tribal solidarities would supersede national and international solidarities, so that Christians in the west would unite against Muslims and Chinese, or some other combination. However, despite the fear of the Islamic hordes post 9/11, we can see that Huntington has been proven disastrously wrong, and basing our actions on his thought would lead to more disasters. Iraq is a perfect example – both the Muslim and Arab neighbours of Iraq allowed the invasion of their “brother” country with little interference. Indeed, in the case of Kuwait and Qatar, the assistance of those countries was crucial to the initial invasion. While there has been a ongoing insurgency using the language of Muslim brotherhood, many people would argue that the insurgency is more nationalistic than pan-Islamic in nature. Similarly, the “West” was essentially unified – against its most important member, the United States. To put it bluntly, rather than being proved correct by the events of 9/11, Huntington has been proved wrong on every point of substance to his thesis.

Now, +50 points to anyone who can tell me why I'm writing about this stuff in a Communications course, rather than a PoliSci or International Relations course.