Latest Samuel P. Huntington Quotes from Interviews

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• I've been to Egypt, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, and Kuwait for brief visits at conferences, and they are very interesting countries.

  Samuel P. Huntington

  Country, Egypt, Kuwait

  Interview with Amina Chaudary, www.theislamicmonthly.com. 2006.

• A lot of people tend to think I'm a dogmatic ideologue, which I'm not.

  Samuel P. Huntington

  Thinking, People, Ideologues

  Interview with Amina Chaudary, www.theislamicmonthly.com. 2006.

• When I think of countries that I enjoyed visiting, that I would want to go back to, Italy would be one, Japan would be another. I've only been to Indonesia once or twice and it seems like such a fascinating country. I guess India certainly.

  Samuel P. Huntington

  Country, Thinking, Japan

  Interview with Amina Chaudary, www.theislamicmonthly.com. 2006.

• The major difference for us in America with respect to Hispanic immigration is that it is so large and that it is coming from neighboring countries rather than those countries off the Atlantic or Pacific. That creates different issues and different problems for us as compared to the past. It is still very different, however, from the situation in Europe where we see people with a very different non-European religion coming from neighboring countries.

  Samuel P. Huntington

  Country, Past, Europe

• Except under rare circumstances, I don't write responses to criticism.

  Samuel P. Huntington

  Writing, Criticism, Circumstances

  Interview with Amina Chaudary, www.theislamicmonthly.com. 2006.

• The United States has been an immigrant country. The Hispanics who come here are largely from Mexico and South America. They are Catholics, but that is an American religion. One-third of our population is Catholic so that does not have the same impact as Muslims coming into Europe.

  Samuel P. Huntington

  Country, Impact, Europe

  Interview with Amina Chaudary, www.theislamicmonthly.com. 2006.

• Hispanics speak Spanish or Portuguese, which are languages we Americans are familiar with, so it doesn't seem to pose the same types of problems as Arabic-speaking Muslims do in Europe.

  Samuel P. Huntington

  Europe, Language, Problem

• The biggest difference as far as Muslims in Europe and America are concerned is that the number of Muslims in America is small compared to the number in Europe.

  Samuel P. Huntington

  Europe And America, Differences, Numbers

  Interview with Amina Chaudary, www.theislamicmonthly.com. 2006.

• America doesn't border on Muslim countries. European countries do and that seems to be a fundamental difference.

  Samuel P. Huntington

  Country, Differences, America

• Certainly here in the U.S., we've had fundamentalist movements that have taken very critical and hostile attitudes toward immigration and the assimilation of immigrants into our society and culture. So these tendencies are fairly universal. The problem is what if they get out of hand and become the dominant factor in a society, which can only lead to the oppression of minorities or even to war with neighboring societies with differing cultures. That's why it seems to me it's important to try to keep these tendencies toward extremism under control.

  Samuel P. Huntington

  Attitude, War, Taken

  Interview with Amina Chaudary, www.theislamicmonthly.com. 2006.

• I think fundamentalism is this radical attitude toward one's own identity and civilization as compared to other people's identities and cultures.

  Samuel P. Huntington

  Attitude, Thinking, Civilization

• Fundamentalist tendencies and movements existed, so far as I know, in all societies and civilizations.

  Samuel P. Huntington

  Civilization, Movement, Tendencies

  Interview with Amina Chaudary, www.theislamicmonthly.com. 2006.

• Many of the most difficult questions concerning the role of ethnic minorities centers on language.

  Samuel P. Huntington

  Difficult Questions, Roles, Minorities

  Interview with Amina Chaudary, www.theislamicmonthly.com. 2006.

• The larger society has to recognize some degree of autonomy for the minority: the right to practice their own religion and way of life and to some extent their language.

  Samuel P. Huntington

  Practice, Degrees, Minorities

  Interview with Amina Chaudary, www.theislamicmonthly.com. 2006.

• In the coming decades, questions of identity, meaning cultural heritage, language, and religion will play a central role in politics.

  Samuel P. Huntington

  Play, Identity, Roles

  Interview with Amina Chaudary, www.theislamicmonthly.com. 2006.

• When you have increased migration of peoples and ethnic and religious minorities, you develop a set of rules and language the larger society can accept and the minority community can accept.

  Samuel P. Huntington

  Religious, Community, Minorities

  Interview with Amina Chaudary, www.theislamicmonthly.com. 2006.

• The basis of association and antagonism among countries has changed over time.

  Samuel P. Huntington

  Country, Association, Antagonism

  Interview with Amina Chaudary, www.theislamicmonthly.com. 2006.

• People have multiple identities.

  Samuel P. Huntington

  People, Identity, Multiple

  Interview with Amina Chaudary, www.theislamicmonthly.com. 2006.

• I think in theory, the United States finds it much easier to deal with situations where there is a leading country. You can go to the leaders of that country and say, for example, to India, "There are all these problems in Bangladesh, we really have to do something about it, what do you suggest we can do to work out a common policy?" But when you don't have the equivalent of India, you have to go capital to capital trying to put together a coalition, which is extraordinarily difficult, especially in the Arab world, because of the historic rivalries and branches of Islam.

  Samuel P. Huntington

  Country, Thinking, Work Out

  Interview with Amina Chaudary, www.theislamicmonthly.com. 2006.

• I don't know what will happen 100 years from now.

  Samuel P. Huntington

  Years, Happens, Knows

  Interview with Amina Chaudary, www.theislamicmonthly.com. 2006.

• Turkey has its own interests and historically, Turkey conquered most of the Arab world, and the Arabs had to fight wars of liberation to free themselves from the Turks. That's in the past and that doesn't necessarily shape what is going on but it's there and it's there in people's memories.

  Samuel P. Huntington

  Memories, War, Fighting

  Interview with Amina Chaudary, www.theislamicmonthly.com. 2006.

• What are the prospects for an Arab state serving a leading role comparable to the role that other states place in other regions? There is no obvious candidate. Saudi Arabia has the money but a relatively small population. Iraq was a great potential leader, as a sizable country with great oil resources and a highly educated population, but it went off in the wrong direction.

  Samuel P. Huntington

  Country, Oil, Iraq

  Interview with Amina Chaudary, www.theislamicmonthly.com. 2006.

• Maybe Iraq will come back and become the dominant power among Arab countries. That seems to me as conceivable.

  Samuel P. Huntington

  Country, Iraq, Seems

  Interview with Amina Chaudary, www.theislamicmonthly.com. 2006.

• Iran of course is Shiite, while the bulk of the Arabs are Sunni, that is a problem or could be a problem. Also, there is the simple fact that Iran is non-Arab and most of the Muslims in the Middle East are Arab.

  Samuel P. Huntington

  Simple, Iran, Middle East

  Interview with Amina Chaudary, www.theislamicmonthly.com. 2006.

• Israel has military capabilities including nuclear weapons, far surpassing any other power in the Middle East, but it's a small country. The rest of the Middle Eastern peoples are Muslim and Israelis are not, so it is hardly in any position to become the leading power.

  Samuel P. Huntington

  Country, Military, Israel

  Interview with Amina Chaudary, www.theislamicmonthly.com. 2006.