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Anadolu News Agency - July 27, 2005
Italian Minister: Islam is not a civilization
Italian Reform Minister Roberto Calderoli said that Islam is a religion far from being defined as a civilization.
The discussion on Islam which started among political parties in Italy following the recent terrorist attacks on the UK and Egypt escalated into a verbal duel. After Minister of Interior Affairs Giuseppe Pisanu defended moderate Islam and dialogue in his statement to an Italian newspaper while Calderoli made strange statements regarding Islam.
Calderoli who said the thesis of the ''Clash of Civilizations'' is partially true also said, but Islam is not a civilization. It is true that there is a clash. But this is a clash between being civilized and uncivilized. Islam cannot be considered a civilization.
''Western civilization is higher than Islam. The West must defeat others, too, just as it defeated communism, even though this leads to a clash with Islam which became stuck in a time one thousand four hundred years ago," Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi had said in September 2001.
http://www.zaman.com/?bl=international&alt=&hn=22264
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