A Historian and a Picture

I've been reading a great book about the Middle East, by Bernard Lewis.  One of the most compelling arguments he has made thus far (I'm only about 80 pages in) is that the conflict in the Middle East is implacably rooted in the differences between those who want change and those who want to live in the past.  He wrote it much more beautifully than that.  Here's a bit of my favorite passage: "There are many, both conservative and radical, who wish to continue and extend this reversal [rolling back changes brought in by Europe and the West], and who see the impact of Western civilization as the greatest disaster ever to befall their region, greater even than the devastating Mongol invasions of the thirteenth century...a more accurate expression of how the Western impact is perceived by those who oppose it was given by Khomeini, when he spoke of the United States as 'the Great Satan'.  Satan is not an imperialist; he is a tempter.  He does not conquer, he seduces.  The battle is still going between those who hate and fear that seductive and, in their view destructive, power of the Western way of life, and those who see it as a new advance and a new opportunity in a continuing and fruitful interchange of cultures and civilizations" (17-8).

A picture I took this afternoon that encapsulates Lewis' thoughts:

Click to enlarge if you can't see this, but this is a group of Roman columns in the middle of construction in downtown Beirut.  Right through the columns is TGI Fridays.  And you can't see it, but down that same street is a new McDonalds under construction.  It's not quite the past and future Lewis is talking about, but I think it expresses the same general idea in a city that is trying to move forward but finds lots of value in its roots as well.