The Clash OF Civilizations

Impressions and Critique

In the post cold-war era, there have been numerous attempts at trying to straighten-out the state of world-politics • The End of History and The Last Man – Francis Fukuyama (Universalisation of Western Liberal Democracy) – 1992

• The Clash of Civilizations and Remaking of World-Order – Samuel Huntington (Perpetual Clash) – 1993

• Jihad vs. McWorld – Benjamin Barber (Struggle between Globalization and Tribalism)- 1995

Who is Samuel Huntington?

Political Scientist

White-House coordinator (Carter Administration)

Professor at Columbia And HarvardUniversities

Genesis of the idea of Clash • This notion of “Clash of Civilizations” is not original in Huntington

• In a sort of classic ‘orientalist’ gesture , he took it from a 1990 Atlantic Magazine article – The Roots of Muslim Rage by Bernard Lewis

• Its also suggested that Huntington’s proposition was an attempt to ‘academically’ validate the fictitious Islamic ‘Green Threat’ for the sustenance of Euro- American military-industrial complex

Huntington’s Clash of Civilizations

- First presented as a lecture in 1992 at American Enterprise Institute

- Foreign Policy Magazine carried it as a long-read in 1993

- Huntington later expanded it into a book in 1996

Basic Premises

Dividing the World into ‘Civilizations’

• Western• Confucian• Japanese• Islamic• Hindu• Slavic-Orthodox• Latin-American • African

The faultlines between civilizations will be the battle lines of future

- Misappropriating diversity into conflict

- Faultlines don’t necessarily devolve into battle lines

Civilization is the broadest concept of cultural identity

- Identities can traverse the boundaries civilization - People can, for example, be western-muslims, latin-american hindus, Japanese-muslims etc.

Increase inIntra-Civilization Consciousness due to increasing interactions within the civilization

- What about the inter-civilizational exchanges? - There is a healthy socio-cultural, economic and political exchange between civilizations, cutting across Huntington’s “battle lines”

West, at the peak of its power confronts NON-WESTS that increasingly have a desire, the will and the resources to shape the world into non-western ways

- Creating a “non-western” demon - A demon that “we” are in “confrontation” with

Economic Regionalism is increasing amongst civilizations. It can only succeed only when its rooted in common civilization- Inter-Civilizational trade organizations

- BRICS

- Trans-Pacific Partnership

- BRICS contains five different ‘civilizations’

First Arab Nationalism then Islamicfundamentalism manifested themselves-As if so called Islamic Fundamentalism is a successor of Arab Nationalism

- Arab Nationalism was mainly anti-colonial in nature

- Islam has bloody borders. Classic example of Islamophobic bigotry

Aggrandizing the west

West Versus the Rest Most of the attention is given to West

West propounds a “universal civilization”

Right-Wing Neocon Agenda

Alarmist Themes - The Islamic-Confucian alliance has emerged to challenge western interests, values and power

- Western countries are decreasing their military power while non-western ones are increasing it. Only west promotes non- proliferation

- Flow of weapons is generally from East-Asia to Middle-East?

Sounds more like policy-recommendation than a genuine academic research - To create a “western block”, by roping-in Latin-America, Europe, Russia and Japan, against “Confucian and Islamic States

- Maintain Western Military Superiority in East and South-West Asia - To “exploit” differences and conflicts among Confucian and Islamic States. To support, in other Civilizations, groups sympathetic to the West- Divide and Rule