Clash of Civilizations?

As a reporter who lived in the Middle East for three years I find Prof. Huntington's tract hollow at the core. What is happening is a clash of absolutism (across beliefs) with the global stumble toward democracy. Some of Charlie Hebdo's cartoons are repugnant to me, yet I still say ‪#‎JeSuisCharlie‬, while respecting too the view here of my former colleague Sandip Roy: #JeSuisCharlie? No, I'm Really Not Charlie Hebdo: Here's Why 
You can read the essay here:
http://newamericamedia.org/2015/01/jesuischarlie-no-im-really-not-charlie-hebdo-heres-why.php

I am Charlie Hebdo in San Francisco

Tonight hundreds of people in San Francisco joined millions all over the world in sadness, and commemoration of the journalists who died. 

We sang the Marseillaise, hummed the Ode to Joy, held pens in the air like the peaceful weapons they are. 

     Some faces twisted in what looked like an effort to keep back tears.

 

 At the moment it does not seem enough, but what else do we have?Except to rise again in the morning and write, and draw, again.

Questing the Sacred Book

In Chichicastenango, shunning the famous market, I embark on a quest...

Entering the nearby Indian municipal office, whose elders represented the Maya community, was like crossing into a world where straightforward questions were out of line. An ordinary calendar hung alongside a Maya calendar, its outside round made of glyphs to represent the year's twenty months, an inside circle turning within the first, carrying the bars and dots that numbered a Maya month's thirteen days. Thirteen, the Maya power number...

Now on Perceptive Travel -- Click here