Abstract

In one of his last interviews, Claude Levi-Strauss wrote: “I have recently begun to think, about how our culture attacks other cultures which, as a consequence, I have defended. Now I think that the trend has been reversed and our culture is on the defensive vis à vis external threats, especially the Islamic threat. Suddenly, I feel ethnologically and strongly defensive of my culture.” These words encapsulate the global conflict involving incompatible systems. The explosion of the means of communication has turned the world into a “global village” and has increasingly forced many cultures to interact and clash. This cultural war has many causes. In order to analyze it one must go back to the time of European colonial expansion.