Clash of Civilizations? Cultural Understanding and US-Arab Relations

Middle East Institute

And Mid Amr Group

Invite you to a luncheon discussion on

Much has been written about the supposed “Clash of Civilizations” theory that portrays the struggle between the West and the Islamic world as inevitable.  Our discussion will explore a variety of issues pertaining to that debate, such as the history of the complex US-Saudi relationship, how the US stands in the Arab world today, and what recent public opinion/values surveys from the Middle East tell us about today and tomorrow’s Islamic world.

US –Saudi Relations, 1930-Present

Thomas Lippman

Adjunct Scholar, Middle East Institute

National Values in Middle Eastern Countries

 Mansoor Moaddel

Professor, Eastern Michigan University

Cultural Misunderstandings Between the West and East

Mazin Mutabbakani

Professor of Islamic Studies

Mohammed Ben Saud University (Riyadh, Saudi Arabia)

12 – 2 pm 

 Tuesday, May 18

Rayburn House Office Building, Room 2200

RSVP is requested. Lunch will be served. Please send your acceptances to rsvp@mideasti.org

THE MIDDLE EAST INSTITUTE

Founded in 1946, the Middle East Institute’s principal objective is to increase Americans’ knowledge and understanding of the region.  In support of this mission, MEI offers program activities, language courses, scholars-in-residence, and an academic journal.  With these resources, MEI offers members, the media, and policymakers in-depth analysis of breaking events as well as an expert perspective on their genesis. In addition, through congressional briefings, regular media appearances, Policy Perspectives on critical issues facing the Middle East, and a column in the most widely read Arabic daily, Al Hayat, MEI is stimulating dialogue and advancing the case for real understanding between Americans and the peoples of the Middle East.  MEI’s current president is Ambassador Edward S. Walker, Jr., former Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs; the current chairman is Wyche Fowler, Jr., former senator and former US ambassador to Saudi Arabia.

Thomas Lippman is an adjunct scholar at the Middle East Institute and author of a new book on the US relationship with Saudi Arabia, Inside the Mirage.  In four years as the Washington Post’s Middle East bureau chief, three years as the Post’s energy reporter, and a decade as the newspaper’s national security and diplomatic correspondent, he has traveled and worked extensively in the Middle East.  He is the author of Madeleine Albright and the New American Diplomacy, Understanding Islam,  Egypt After Nasser and Inside the Mirage, America’s Fragile Partnership with Saudi Arabia.”

Dr. Mansoor Moaddel is professor in the Department of Sociology at Eastern Michigan University.  Dr. Moaddel's areas of teaching and research include political sociology, social change, culture and ideology, and mathematical and statistical applications in social-scientific research.  Dr. Moaddel has carried out national value surveys in Egypt, Iran, Jordan, Morocco, and most recently Saudi Arabia funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF), the Rockefeller Foundation, and the Ford Foundation.  Moaddel has also been involved in a comparative historical project on the determinants of ideological production in the Islamic world.  In this project, he has analyzed Islamic modernism in India, Egypt, and Iran; liberal-nationalism in Egypt, Syria, and Iran; and Islamic fundamentalism in Algeria, Egypt, Iran, Jordan, and Syria from 1930s to 1980s.  He has authored several books, including Contemporary Debates in Islam, Jordanian Exceptionalism: A Comparative Analysis of State-Religion Relationships in Egypt, Iran, Jordan, and Syria, and Class, Politics, and Ideology in the Iranian Revolution.

Dr. Mazin Mutabbakani -- an expert on Orientalism and the West‘s relationship to the Islamic world -- is a widely published scholar and commentator in Saudi Arabia and throughout the Persian Gulf region.  Mutabbakani, who has a PhD in Islamic Studies, writes a weekly column for Al-Madina newspaper, and also writes regularly in Al- Turath, Al-Muslimun, Al-Mujtama’ (Kuwait), Al-Islah (United Arab Emirates), and Hayati.  He has numerous published works, including Orientalism and the Intellectual Aspects of Islamic History-a study of the works of Bernard Lewis, From the Horizons of American Orientalism, and The West Confronting Islam.