ABSTRACT
After the suicide attacks of September 11 Americans were asking “Why do they (Muslims/Arabs) hate us?” The short answer is that the terrorist groups responsible for the crimes of 9-11 draw strength from “in-groups” whose values and beliefs legitimate the use of extreme and indiscriminate violence against the civilian populations of “out-groups.” As a consequence of globalization, the values and beliefs of “in-groups” in the Arab/Muslim world are increasingly clashing with the liberal values and beliefs of “out-groups” in market economies. These clashes, in turn, produce extreme socioeconomic disruption and intense antimarket rage that Muslim terrorist groups and their supporters have successfully exploited. They have succeeded, in part, because of the long standing belief in Muslim societies that it is truly evil for infidels to rule over true believers. This state of affairs is unnatural and even blasphemous, since it leads to the corruption of religion and morality in society, and to the flouting or even the abrogation of God’s law (Lewis, 1990: Part 2:2). Seen from this perspective, the “war on terror” is a mental war involving not so much a clash of civilizations but one of mental models.
