June 12 , 2009

‘The Clash of Civilizations’ - A Questionable Thesis

 

The validity of the thesis of Harvard professor, Samuel Huntington, on the inevitability of a clash between the Muslim civilization of the East and the Christian civilization of the West has been questioned by many in academic circles, but the tragedy of 9/11, the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and Lebanon appear ostensibly to lend support to what the respected professor had contended.

President Obama too has, in his June 4 address to the Muslim world from Cairo, countered the contention that such a clash is inevitable. He foresees cooperation among various faiths trumping the forces promoting conflicts.

The call of Al Qaeda chief, Osama Bin Ladin, to Muslim countries to rise in a holy war (Jihad) against the USA, following the catastrophe of 9/11, appeared to have invited such a clash and provided substance to Huntington’s contention. The hawks, jingoists, pro-Israel lobbyists and tendentious media- men started quoting like scripture his 1996 book on the subject, betraying an underlying wish for the fulfillment of his prediction. But that was not to be. For, Huntington’s thesis was vastly flawed. Bin Laden is hiding in some cave on the Pak-Afghan border, and the fanatic guerrillas called Taliban are under severe attacks on both sides of the border.

Developments on the ground have certainly negated a confrontation between the Muslim and Christian civilizations. Almost all Muslim countries have condemned the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, joined the US-led coalition and offered assistance to the campaign. The Organization of Islamic Countries (OIC) and the Arab League, the two premier Muslim organizations, have fully endorsed the campaign against terrorism.

Osama’s call for a Jihad has been ignored with contempt. It did however stir emotionally some bigots belonging to the lunatic fringe. These scalawag foot soldiers swelled the rag-tag Taliban assemblage to commit aimless suicide.

Let us have a look at Huntington’s thesis.

“It is my hypothesis”, he writes, “that the fundamental source of conflict in this new world will not be primarily ideological or primarily economic. The great divisions among humankind and the dominating source of conflict will be cultural. Nation states will remain the most powerful actors in world affairs, but the principal conflicts of global politics will occur between nations and groups of different civilizations. The clash of civilizations will be the battle lines of the future.”

Almost all prominent world historians have sought cogent patterns in the rise and fall of nations and in international relations. The first such study was made by Ibn-e-Khaldun in his Maqaddama – an ‘Introduction’ to his work on history. He found the inherent cohesion and strength of a nation, which he called ‘asbeyat’, to be the deciding factor. The rise and fall of a nation is conditioned by the curve of its ‘asbeyat’

Numerous Arab, Persian and Western historians have viewed the phenomenon from various angles. Among the latest, Francis Fukuyama thought that with the demise of the Soviet Union, history itself had come to an end as ideological conflict had ended. Samuel Huntington disagreed contending that a conflict between the Western and Islamic civilizations was building up. Civilizations, he maintains, are differentiated from each other by history, language, culture, tradition and, most important, religion.

Interactions of peoples of different civilizations enhance and not decrease the differences. The victory of liberal democracy over communism ended ideology-based conflict; civilization-based groupings of states are filling the vacuum.

Huntington ’s thesis is, as already mentioned earlier, vastly flawed. Conflicts are rarely rooted in civilizational differences. Contacts between two different civilizations have not always embittered their relations. They have often contributed to positive developments and a cross-fertilization of ideas and knowledge.

The advent of information technology, the Internet in particular, and the formation of the World Trade Organization leading to globalization of world economy and the lowering of customs’ barriers, have set in fast motion the development of a world civilization. Cultural differences are conceding space to uniform cultural values.

Over the past few years, I have traveled to India, Pakistan, Malaysia, Arabia, Turkey, and Mexico. I found everywhere the same blue jeans, T-shirts, joggers, and fast foods – burgers, fried chickens, French-fries, and pizzas. In urban areas you find a lot of men and women using mobile phones. Internet cafes are available within walking distance of each other. Currency changers are similarly available in all countries and you can receive or remit money anywhere within minutes. Your credit card works in most foreign countries. More and more people speak English as a secondary language, and the American dollar serves as the world currency. The world cultural scene has thus undergone a change over the past decade or two in a fundamental way. The world has shrunk into a global village.

The clashes of civilizations ended with the end of imperialism in the mid-twentieth century. The modern industrial civilization puts a premium on rationality, control of environment, sharing of knowledge and innovations. It is informed by a different scale of values including a high degree of tolerance for an individual’s religious beliefs.

Empires and nation states have in the past too used religious sentiments to promote their temporal interests. Some historians have even found the economic need for cheaper access to the spices of Asia, to serve as preservatives in food products of Europe, behind the crusades.

Vasco de Gamma’s voyage to India via the circuitous route of Cape of Good Hope, and Columbus’ voyages to America in search of India, were certainly meant to finesse the Ottoman’s control over the Mediterranean as a Turkish lake. These ventures had little to do with Islam or Christianity. The discoveries of the new trade routes marked the beginning of the end of the Ottoman Empire, by gradually shrinking its revenues from the Mediterranean trade, particularly from the customs and transportation charges at Suez.

Similarly, WW1 and WW2 were both fought for overseas markets by Germany and its allies who had been left behind in the scramble for colonies. Religion had no role in either of these two great wars.

In the 1850s when Christianity had deeper roots in the hearts of Europe, temporal interests dictated France and Britain to support the Muslim Turkish empire against the Christian Russia. At the present time, the orthodox Christian Georgia state of the Caucasus finds it easier to have meaningful relations with its Muslim neighbor, Azerbaijan, than with its co-religionist Armenia. Turkey has firmer relations with Israel than with some of its Muslim neighbors.

Islam urges its followers to not only respect the followers of the other two revealed religions, Christianity and Judaism, but also to protect their followers like their own kith and kin. The Jews of the days gone by thrived in the Muslim rule of Spain, Ottoman rule in Turkey and Safavid Empire of Iran.

The territorial conflict between Israel and Palestine has been given a religious twist to gain political and material support. Osama took advantage of the conflict to build his cult of terrorists. Huntington’s erudition has unfortunately misled him to his thesis on the clash of Muslim and Christian civilizations. Both, Osama and Huntington are wrong. Events have proved Osama’s call unsupportable. Huntington’s thesis has been countered by many of his academic community.

Perhaps, Prof. Northcote Parkinson has made a more rational assessment of world trends in his book ‘East & West’ in which he presents the cyclical theory of world dominance and contends that the next clash will likely be between the West led by the US and the East by China. His book was published decades before the collapse of the Soviet Union when it was still referred to as the East.