“It's nonsense to talk about the war on Islamic terrorism as a clash of civilisations. The distinction is between civilisation and chaos. Whatever people may claim - and the desire to cut through the political processes can be very powerful - there is never any justification for violence.”

—  Michael Burleigh

As quoted in “Michael Burleigh: The reluctant guru,” John Crace, The Guardian, March 10, 2008 https://www.theguardian.com/education/2008/mar/11/academicexperts.highereducationprofile

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "It's nonsense to talk about the war on Islamic terrorism as a clash of civilisations. The distinction is between civili…" by Michael Burleigh?
Michael Burleigh photo
Michael Burleigh 17
American historian and writer 1955

Related quotes

Tony Blair photo

“This is not a clash between civilisations. It is a clash about civilisation.”

Tony Blair (1953) former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

"Clash about civilisations" speech http://web.archive.org/20060411042815/www.number10.gov.uk/output/Page9224.asp, Prime Minister's website.
Foreign Policy speech at Reuters Headquarters, London, on 21 March 2006.
2000s

Jane Roberts photo

“There is never any justification for violence. There is no any justification for hatred. There is no any justification for murder. Those who indulge in violence for whatever reason are themselves changed, and the purity of their purpose adulterated.”

Jane Roberts (1929–1984) American Writer

Source: The Seth Material (1970), p. 273

Hannah Arendt photo

“In a head-on clash between violence and power, the outcome is hardly in doubt. Nowhere is the self-defeating factor in the victory of violence over power more evident than in the use of terror to maintain domination, about whose weird successes and eventual failures we know perhaps more than any generation before us. Violence can destroy power; it is utterly incapable of creating it.”

Hannah Arendt book On Violence

On the subject violence and power. Source: On Violence, published in 1970. As quoted by Scroll Staff (December 04, 2017): Ideas in literature: Ten things Hannah Arendt said that are eerily relevant in today’s political times https://web.archive.org/web/20191001213756/https://scroll.in/article/856549/ten-things-hannah-arendt-said-that-are-eerily-relevant-in-todays-political-times. In: Scroll.in. Archived from the original https://scroll.in/article/856549/ten-things-hannah-arendt-said-that-are-eerily-relevant-in-todays-political-times on October 1, 2019.

Wendell Berry photo

“The distinction between the intention to perpetrate violence against innocents, as in "terrorism," and the willingness to do so, as in "war," is not a source of comfort.”

Wendell Berry (1934) author

Citizenship Papers (2003), A Citizen's Response
Context: To imply by the word "terrorism" that this sort of terror is the work exclusively of "terrorists" is misleading. The "legitimate" warfare of technologically advanced nations likewise is premeditated, politically motivated violence perpetrated against innocents. The distinction between the intention to perpetrate violence against innocents, as in "terrorism," and the willingness to do so, as in "war," is not a source of comfort.

Pim Fortuyn photo

“Muslims have a very bad attitude to homosexuality, they're very intolerant … And women. For them women are second class citizens. What we are witnessing now is a clash of civilisations, not just between states but within them.”

Pim Fortuyn (1948–2002) Dutch politician

Interview http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/from_our_own_correspondent/1966979.stm with BBC reporter Kirsty Lang (4 May 2002)

Éric Zemmour photo

“Islam is a civilisation incompatible with the principles of France.”

Éric Zemmour (1958) French essayist

Eric Zemmour: Meet the right-wing TV pundit set to shake up France's presidential race. https://www.euronews.com/2021/10/13/eric-zemmour-meet-the-right-wing-tv-pundit-set-to-shake-up-france-s-presidential-race Antoine Diers, a spokesman for the Association of Eric Zemmour's Friends.

Ali Shariati photo

“Modernity is one of the most delicate and vital issues confronting us, the people of non-European countries and Islamic societies. A more important issue is the relationship between an imposed modernization and genuine civilization. We must discover if modernity as is claimed is a synonym for being civilised, or if it is an altogether different issue and social phenomenon having no relation to civilisation at all. Unfortunately modernity has been imposed on us, the non-European nations, in the guise of civilization.”

Ali Shariati (1933–1977) Iranian academic and activist

Source: Reflections of Humanity, (1984), p. 17: Second paragraph.

George Orwell photo

“For the dreadful thing about the kind of brutalities here described, is that they are quite unavoidable. When a subject population rises in revolt you have got to suppress it, and you can only do so by methods which make nonsense of any claim for the superiority of western civilisation. In order to rule over barbarians, you have got to become a barbarian yourself.”

George Orwell (1903–1950) English author and journalist

Source: Review of Zest for Life by Johann Wöller, in Time and Tide (17 October 1936)

José Ortega Y Gasset photo

“[T]he direction of society has been taken over by a type of man who is not interested in the principles of civilisation. Not of this or that civilisation but — from what we can judge to-day — of any civilisation. …[T]he type of man dominant to-day is a primitive one, a Naturmensch rising up in the midst of a civilised world.”

José Ortega Y Gasset book The Revolt of the Masses

Chap.IX: The Primitive and the Technical
The Revolt of the Masses (1929)

“"Ultra-nationalism" stands naked as nothing but a euphemism for the worship of violence in service of autocratic goals - be they the terrorism and holy war of Islamic fundamentalists or the refusal of dictatorial systems to accept political democracy.”

Liu Xiaobo (1955–2017) Chinese literary critic, writer, professor, and human rights activist

"Bellicose and Thuggish: The Roots of Chinese "Patriotism" at the Dawn of the Twenty-First Century" (2002)
No Enemies, No Hate: Selected Essays and Poems

Related topics