The Clash of Civilizations
substantial attention to the questions such as
what causes international conflict and war, do either a clash of
“national interests” or divergent values, ideas,
cultures, identities, and civilizations primarily lead to conflict at
both regional and global levels, what is the likely future of
Islam-the West relations conflict-like or cooperative and many
others, the critics of Huntington have also extended the discussion
further. The debate, on the other hand, has returned to the world
agenda due to the consequences of September 11 attacks.
The September 11, which is a unique and most remarkable event after
the Cold War, has created many expectations about the shifting nature
of post-Cold War international system and global politics.
Ironically, it has demonstrated how the world's only
superpower is not protected from the threats and vulnerability of
current international system. On the other hand, the September 11 has
seriously endangered patterns of US foreign
policy and particularly its policy towards the Middle East region. It
is not surprisingly that Samuel P. Huntington's clash of
civilizations theory has regularly taken place in post-September 11
debates.
It is relevant to say that Huntington's
clash of civilizations thesis primarily attempts to offer a new
concept of world politics. We know now that Huntington principally
focuses on cultural-religious-civilizational factors. He calls to
understand the post-Cold War global politics. He
also argues that his “civilizational conflict
hypothesis” is superior to any of alternative models, which
have been developed after the Cold War.
Huntington has been criticized for his presentation of “new
paradigm”. He argues that the prevailing Cold War model of
state-centric realist model can no longer be useful to analyse the
post-Cold War era. He claims that civilizational dissimilarities will
be key source of regional and global conflicts (Huntington 1993, 22).
On the other hand critics suggests that Huntington's “civilizational
conflict theory” is deterministic since there are manifold
causes of conflict, in which civilizational factors do not play
considerable role. Others say that in particular “clash of
interests” rather than “clash of civilizations”
will continue to be real cause of conflict. For example, Shireen T.
Hunter opposes Huntington and say that relations between the West and
the Islamic World are hardly arise from civilizational discrepancy
but from structural-political and also from economic inequalities
between the two worlds.(Shireen, 19). In addition, there are critics
that Huntington overestimates cultural differences between
civilizations and at the same time underestimates the power of the
West in the hostile relations with the Muslim World. Many criticise
Huntington for paying too much attention to the West's technological
and military superiority. Overall, Huntington has received several
criticisms because of his “new paradigm”.
Another kind of criticisms is about Huntington's “monolithic”
conception of civilizations and disregarding of intra-civilizational
differences and home conflict. Some say that the idea of West has
undergone a considerable transformation in turn of the 21st century,
and the actual clash will happen not between the West and the rest,
as Huntington predicted, but it will arise between pro-Western
conservatives and post-Western liberal multiculturalists in the
US-West World. On the other hand, the critics assert that Huntington
take no notice of internal developments and complexities of Muslim
World. Critics say that there is no single Islamic culture as
Huntington meant, moreover, there are different types of political
Islam (Edward W. Said 2001, 20). Furthermore, there are numerous
conflicts within civilizations. Overall, second sort of criticisms
focuses on diversity and dynamics of each civilization and
intra-civilizational differences.
Huntington has met so many criticisms because of
the alleged inconsistencies, methodological flaws, and
overgeneralizations in his thesis. For example, Robert Marks points
that Huntington chiefly uses secondary sources in his book and his
research of Islam, China and Japan is rather weak (Reviewed
by Marks). He proposes that Huntington's
speculation is methodologically flawed because of his frequent
overgeneralizations in the examination of civilizations. Many have
also criticized the data, which Huntington uses to support his
thesis. For example for many of Huntington’s critics, the Gulf
War was a case for “clash of state interests’ and not a
case for “clash of civilizations”. Therefore, we may say
that in this respect, the critics have focused on vast
generalizations and inconsistencies.
Huntington is also very often is blamed for orientalist backdrop.
According to Huntington, Islam turns to be a problem and even a
threat to the West. He always privileges the West World and ignores
the other - Islam. It is possible to say that such clash thesis
distorts and de-humanizes the Muslims.
One more category of criticisms is about
Huntington's policy recommendations on the basis of his understanding
of post-Cold War global politics. Huntington looks for new enemies,
which replace the rival of the Cold War, the Soviet Union. There are
arguments that Huntington's theory is an ideological and strategic
theory that aims at influencing the US foreign and defence policy
(Edward W. Said 2001, 20). Huntington's scenario of World War III
that stems from clash of civilizations interestingly fits best into
military and representatives of arms industry. In this respect, it is
possible to claim that the “clash of civilizations” is
considered as determined thesis aiming at guiding the US foreign and
security policy. What is more, some scholars criticize
even Huntington's advice to pursue Atlantics policy, by means
of strengthening relations with Europe to counteract
Islamic-Confucian civilization.
There are some studies challenging the “clash
of civilization thesis. It is interesting to review few of them -
Pippa Norris and Ronald Inglehart's
studies. In their study they have compared political and social
values of the Muslim and Western societies. What is interesting, they
have found that Muslims have no less democratic ideals than the West
and the West is not so distinctive from Islam in terms of faith in
democracy (Pippa Norris 2002, 12).
In this regard, this study has significantly undermined Huntington's
theory that Islam and the West have poles apart political values
based upon leading religious cultures. These authors demonstrate the
availability of similar political attitudes in the Muslim World as
well as in the West World. What is more, many have criticized
Huntington for his pessimistic vision of future and unawareness of
the fact that collaboration and dialogue among civilizations are
possible and even useful.
As a little conclusion, I would like to present
some criticism that need no explanation and
clearly outline Huntington’s flaws. The
basic problem with Huntington's theory, however, is the conviction
that all cultures aspire to imperial power. Huntington
is not only inaccurate but his thesis has the potential to be
extremely dangerous if taken as a prescription for making policy.
Huntington's
thesis maximizes the significance of cultural factors and minimizes
the importance of nationalism. The problem is that most Islamic
countries do not see themselves to be in conflict with the United
States. Huntington
paints an aggressive picture of the non-Western civilizations, Islam
in particular, while ignoring the misdeeds of the Western
civilization whose dominance is being challenged.
Further, within the paper it
would be of use to mention some civilization clashes according to
Huntington. As an example we may take the Cold War and
9/11 attack on USA. These two
patterns are very similar and different at the same time. Both wars
can be easily named as clash of civilizations, for involved two
different civilizations and in its course endangered
the whole planet.
The Cold War was a “Clash” of two
different systems, for it is early to make a stress on cultural
differences. On the first stage, there were political
misunderstandings that have led to confrontation in all spheres of
life including cultural diversity. The Cold
War was putting on edge the whole world, for it
saw the largest conventional and the first nuclear arms race in
history.
Another significant event in our recent history is a
9/11 attack on the United States of America. It would be relevant to
say that Huntington predictions have been truthful. For, we could not
escape that great clash he forsaw between West and Muslim (or
Islamic) world. Al-Qaeda
(that is blamed to be responsible for 9/11 attack)
considers its terrorist campaign
against the United States to be part of a war between the
ummah—Arabic for the “Muslim community”—and
the Christian and Jewish West. Many experts therefore say the
September 11 attacks cannot be reduced to a “clash of
civilizations”.
As a little conclusion, it is significant to state
that it is impossible to say for sure whether Huntington was right in
his observations. Definitely, he could have mistaken in some aspects,
but we should not forget that some of his thoughts have real basis to
be believed in.
It is evident that world politics is entering a
new phase, in which the great divisions among humankind and the
dominating source of international conflicts will be cultural.
Civilizations that are the highest cultural groupings of people are
distinguished from each other by religion, history, language and
tradition. These divisions are deep and increasing in importance.
From Yugoslavia to the Middle East to Central Asia, the fault lines
of civilizations are supposed to be the clash lines of the future. In
this emerging era of cultural conflict, the United States must build
alliances with similar cultures and spread its values wherever
possible. With alien civilizations the West must be accommodating if
possible, but confrontational if necessary. In the final analysis,
however, all civilizations will have to learn to live in mutual
tolerance and respect with each other.
If Huntington is right that clashes between
civilizations are the greatest threat to world peace in the future,
if he is right about our arrogance and conceit in believing that
Western civilization is in the end of history; and if our leaders see
no need to plan for the inevitable rise of other civilizations, I
fear that the world map is due for another big change.
References:
Fox, Jonathon. Ethnic minorities and the clash of civilizations:
A quantitative analysis of Huntington's thesis. British Journal
of Political Science. 32(3). 415-435.
Herzfeld, Michael. 1997. Anthropology and the politics of
significance. Social Analysis. 4(3). 107-138.
Huntington. Samuel, 1993. The clash of civilizations. Foreign
Affairs, 72(3):22-49.
Graham, James. May,
2004. Samuel P.
Huntington's Clash of Civilisations. www.HistoryOrb
Samuel P. Huntington. The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking
of World Order (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1996), p. 43.
Clash of civilizations.
Online resourses from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Shireen T. Hunter, "The Future of Islam and the West: Clash of
Civilizations or Peaceful Coexistence?", Fouad Ajami, M.E
Ahrari, "The Clash of Civilizations: An Old Story or New
Truth?", Yuksel Sezgin, "Does Islam Pose A Threat to the
West?" Perceptions: Journal of International Affairs, Vol. 5,
No. 2, (June-August 2000)
Edward W. Said, "The Clash of Ignorance", The Nation,
October 22 2001 and Mahmood Monshipouri, "The West's Modern
Encounter With Islam: From Discourse to Reality".
Robert Marks, "The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of
World Order" (Book Review).
Pippa Norris and Ronald Inglehart, "Islam and the West; Testing
the Clash of Civilizations Thesis", John F. Kennedy School of
Government, Harvard University, Faculty Research Working Papers
Series (RWP02-015), April 2002, p.14
(ksgnotes1.harvard.edu/research/wpaper.nsf/rwp/RWP02-015/$File/rwp02_015_norris_rev1.pdf)
Part V of the book - The Future of
Civilizations - is the really interesting part. Huntington points out
that civilizations can reform and renew themselves. The central issue
for the West is whether it can meet the external challenge while
stopping and reversing the process of internal decay. He paints a
scenario for a major war of civilizations and points out that the
great beneficiaries will be those who abstain and closes by saying:
"If this scenario seems a wildly implausible fantasy to the
reader, that is all to the good. Let us hope that no other scenarios
of global civilizational war have greater plausibility."
. --This text refers to an out of print or
unavailable edition of this title.
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