Clash of Civilizations

Cover of The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order

The Clash of Civilizations is a theory, proposed by political scientist Samuel P. Huntington, that people's cultural and religious identities will be the primary source of conflict in the post-Cold War world. The theory was originally formulated in 1993 in a Foreign Affairs article titled "The Clash of Civilizations?", as a reaction to Francis Fukuyama's 1992 book, The End of History and the Last Man. Huntington later expanded his thesis in a 1996 book The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order. The term itself was first used by Bernard Lewis in an article in the September 1990 issue of The Atlantic Monthly titled The Roots of Muslim Rage.

Overview

Huntington began his thinking_X2 by surveying the diverse theories about the nature of global politics in the post-Cold War period. Some theorists and writers argued that human rights, liberal democracy and capitalist free market economy had become the only remaining ideological alternative for nations in the post-Cold War world. Specifically, Francis Fukuyama argued that the world had reached the 'end of history' in a Hegelian sense.

Huntington believed that while the age of ideology had ended, the world had only reverted to a normal state of affairs characterized by cultural conflict. In his thesis, he argued that the primary axis of conflict in the future would be along cultural and religious lines. As an extension, he posits that the concept of different civilizations, as the highest rank of cultural identity, will become increasingly useful in analyzing the potential for conflict. In the 1993 Foreign Affairs article, Huntington writes:

It is my hypothesis 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 dominate global politics. The fault lines between civilizations will be the battle lines of the future.

Huntington seems to fall in the primordialist school, believing that culturally defined groups are ancient and natural, however his early work would suggest he is a Structural Functionalist. His view that nation states would remain the most powerful actors is in line with realism. Finally, his warning that the Western civilization may decline is inspired by Arnold J. Toynbee, Carroll Quigley, and Oswald Spengler.

Due to an enormous response and the solidification of his views, Huntington later expanded the thesis in his 1996 book The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order.

List of civilizations

Huntington's map of major civilizations, which did not attempt to identify "lone countries" and certain exceptional cases. Represents Huntington's overall view as of the publication of Clash of Civilizations in 1996.

The definition, nomenclature, and even the number of civilizations are somewhat ambiguous in Huntington's works. Civilizations may consist of states and social groups (such as ethnic and religious minorities). Predominant religion seems to be the main criterion of his classification, but in some cases geographical proximity and linguistic similarity are important as well. Using various studies of history, Huntington divided the world into the "major" civilizations in his thesis as such:

• Western civilization, centered on Western Europe (particularly the European Union) and North America, but also including other European-derived countries such as Australia and New Zealand. Huntington also includes the Pacific Islands, East Timor, Suriname, French Guiana, and northern and central Philippines. Whether Latin America and the former member states of the Soviet Union are included, or are instead their own separate civilizations, will be an important future consideration for those regions, according to Huntington.
• The Orthodox world of Armenia, Belarus, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Georgia, Greece, Moldova, Montenegro, Republic of Macedonia, Romania, Russia, Serbia and Ukraine.
• Latin America. It's a hybrid of the western world and the local indigenous people. May be considered a part of Western civilization, though it has slightly distinct social and political structures from Europe and North America. Many people of the Southern Cone, however, regard themselves as full members of the Western civilization.
• The Muslim world of Central Asia, North Africa, Southwest Asia, Afghanistan, Albania, Azerbaijan, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Malaysia, Maldives, Pakistan, Somalia, Mindanao, and parts of India.
• Hindu civilization, located chiefly in India, Nepal, and culturally adhered to by the global Non-resident Indians and People of Indian Origin, the diaspora.
• The Sinic civilization of China, Korea, Singapore, Taiwan, and Vietnam. This group also includes the Chinese diaspora, especially in relation to Southeast Asia.
• Japan, considered a hybrid of Chinese civilization and older Altaic patterns.
• The civilization of Sub-Saharan Africa is considered as a possible 8th civilization by Huntington.
• The Buddhist areas of Bhutan, Cambodia, Laos, Mongolia, Myanmar, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Arunachal Pradesh, Kalmykia, parts of Nepal, parts of Siberia, and the Tibetan government-in-exile are identified as separate from other civilizations, but Huntington believes that they do not constitute a major civilization in the sense of international affairs.
• Instead of belonging to one of the "major" civilizations, Ethiopia, Haiti, and Turkey are labeled as "Lone" countries. Israel could be considered a unique state with its own civilization, Huntington writes, but one which is extremely similar to the West. Huntington also believes that former British colonies in the Caribbean constitute a distinct entity.
• In some cases, the Sinic, Hindu, Buddhist and Japonic civilizations are merged into a single civilization called Eastern World.

Huntington's thesis of civilizational clash

Emerging alignments as predicted by Huntington in 1996. Thicker lines represent more conflictual relationships.

Huntington argues that the trends of global conflict after the end of the Cold War are increasingly appearing at these civilizational divisions. Wars such as those following the break up of Yugoslavia, in Chechnya, and between India and Pakistan were cited as evidence of inter-civilizational conflict.

Huntington also argues that the widespread Western belief in the universality of the West's values and political systems is naïve and that continued insistence on democratization and such "universal" norms will only further antagonize other civilizations. Huntington sees the West as reluctant to accept this because it built the international system, wrote its laws, and gave it substance in the form of the United Nations. Huntington identifies a major shift of economic, military, and political power from the West to the other civilizations of the world, most significantly to what he identifies as the two "challenger civilizations", Sinic and Islam.

In Huntington's view, East Asian Sinic civilization is culturally asserting itself and its values relative to the West due to its rapid economic growth. Specifically, he believes that China's goals are to reassert itself as the regional hegemon, and that other countries in the region will 'bandwagon' with China due to the history of hierarchical command structures implicit in the Confucian Sinic civilization, as opposed to the individualism and pluralism valued in the West. In other words, regional powers such as the two Koreas and Vietnam will acquiesce to Chinese demands and become more supportive of China rather than attempting to oppose it. Huntington therefore believes that the rise of China poses one of the most significant problems and the most powerful long-term threat to the West, as Chinese cultural assertion clashes with the American desire for the lack of a regional hegemony in East Asia.

Huntington argues that the Islamic civilization has experienced a massive population explosion which is fueling instability both on the borders of Islam and in its interior, where fundamentalist movements are becoming increasingly popular. Manifestations of what he terms the "Islamic Resurgence" include the 1979 Iranian revolution and the first Gulf war. Perhaps the most controversial statement Huntington made in the Foreign Affairs article was that "Islam has bloody borders". Huntington believes this to be a real consequence of several factors, including the previously mentioned Muslim youth bulge and population growth and Islamic proximity to many civilizations including Sinic, Orthodox, Western, and African.

Huntington sees Islamic civilization as a potential ally to China, both having more revisionist goals and sharing common conflicts with other civilizations, especially the West. Specifically, he identifies common Chinese and Islamic interests in the areas of weapons proliferation, human rights, and democracy that conflict with those of the West, and feels that these are areas in which the two civilizations will cooperate. Russia, Japan, and India are what Huntington terms 'swing civilizations' and may favor either side. Russia, for example, clashes with the many Muslim ethnic groups on its southern border (such as Chechnya) but cooperates with Iran in order to avoid further Muslim-Orthodox violence in Southern Russia and in an attempt to continue the flow of oil. Huntington argues that a "Sino-Islamic connection" is emerging in which China will cooperate more closely with Iran, Pakistan, and other states to augment its international position.

Huntington also argues that civilizational conflicts are "particularly prevalent between Muslims and non-Muslims", identifying the "bloody borders" between Islamic and non-Islamic civilizations. This conflict dates back as far as the initial thrust of Islam into Europe, its eventual expulsion in the iberian reconquest, the attacks of the Ottoman Turks on Eastern Europe and Vienna, and the European imperial division of the Islamic nations in the 1800s and 1900s. He believes that some of the factors contributing to this conflict are that both Christianity (upon which Western civilization is based) and Islam are:

• Missionary religions, seeking conversion by others
• Universal, "all-or-nothing" religions, in the sense that it is believed by both sides that only their faith is the correct one
• Teleological religions, that is, that their values and beliefs represent the goals of existence and purpose in human existence.

More recent factors contributing to a Western-Islamic clash, Huntington wrote, are the Islamic Resurgence and demographic explosion in Islam, coupled with the values of Western universalism - that is, the view that all civilizations should adopt Western values - that infuriate Islamic fundamentalists.

All these historical and modern factors combined, Huntington wrote briefly in his Foreign Affairs article and in much more detail in his 1996 book, would lead to a bloody clash between the Islamic and Western civilizations. Along with Sinic-Western conflict, he believed, the Western-Islamic clash would represent the bloodiest conflicts of the early 21st century. Thus, the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks and subsequent events including the Afghanistan and Iraq wars have been widely viewed as a vindication of the Clash theory.

Core state and fault line conflicts

In Huntington's view, intercivilizational conflict manifests itself in two forms: fault line conflicts and core state conflicts. Fault line conflicts are on a local level and occur between adjacent states belonging to different civilizations or within states that are home to populations from different civilizations. Core state conflicts are on a global level between the major states of different civilizations. Core state conflicts can arise out of fault line conflicts when core states become involved.

These conflicts may result from a number of causes, such as: relative influence or power (military or economic), discrimination against people from a different civilization, intervention to protect kinsmen in a different civilization, or different values and culture, particularly when one civilization attempts to impose its values on people of a different civilization.

Modernization, westernization, and "torn countries"

Critics of Huntington's ideas often extend their criticisms to traditional cultures and internal reformers who wish to modernize without adopting the values and attitudes of Western culture. These critics sometimes claim that to modernize is necessarily to become Westernized to a very large extent. In reply, those who consider the Clash of Civilizations thesis accurate often point to the example of Japan, claiming that it is not a Western state at its core. They argue that it adopted much Western technology (also inventing much technology of its own in recent times), parliamentary democracy, and free enterprise, but has remained culturally very distinct from the West. China is also cited by some as a rising non-Western economy. Many also point out the East Asian Tigers or neighboring states as having adapted western economics, while maintaining traditional or totalitarian social government.

Perhaps the ultimate example of non-Western modernization is Russia, the core state of the Orthodox civilization. The variant of this argument that uses Russia as an example relies on the acceptance of a unique non-Western civilization headed by an Orthodox state such as Russia or perhaps an Eastern European country. Huntington argues that Russia is primarily a non-Western state although he seems to agree that it shares a considerable amount of cultural ancestry with the modern West. Russia was one of the great powers during World War I. It also happened to be a non-Western power. According to Huntington, the West is distinguished from Orthodox Christian countries by the experience of the Renaissance, Reformation, the Enlightenment, overseas colonialism rather than contiguous expansion and colonialism, and a recent re-infusion of Classical culture through Rome rather than through the continuous trajectory of the Byzantine Empire. The differences among the modern Slavic states can still be seen today. This issue is also linked to the "universalizing factor" exhibited in some civilizations.

Huntington refers to countries that are seeking to affiliate with another civilization as "torn countries." Turkey, whose political leadership has systematically tried to Westernize the country since the 1920s, is his chief example. Turkey's history, culture, and traditions are derived from Islamic civilization, but Turkey's Western-oriented elite imposed western institutions and dress, embraced the Latin alphabet, joined NATO, and is seeking to join the European Union. Mexico and Russia are also considered to be torn by Huntington. He also gives the example of Australia as a country torn between its Western civilizational heritage and its growing economic engagement with Asia.

According to Huntington, a torn country must meet three requirements in order to redefine its civilizational identity. Its political and economic elite must support the move. Second, the public must be willing to accept the redefinition. Third, the elites of the civilization that the torn country is trying to join must accept the country.

As noted in the book, to date no torn country has successfully redefined its civilizational identity, this mostly due to the elites of the 'host' civilization refusing to accept the torn country.

Criticism

Huntington's piece in Foreign Affairs created more responses than almost any other essay ever published in that journal. The thesis has received much criticism from wildly different paradigms, with implications, methodology, and even the basic concepts as frequent targets. In his book, Huntington relies mostly on anecdotal evidence. Despite his expectations, more rigorous empirical studies have not shown any particular increase in the frequency of intercivilizational conflicts in the post-Cold War period. In fact, regional war and conflict spiked immediately after the end of Cold War, then it has declined slowly and steady since then. However, what proportion of existing conflict can be attributed to "intercivilizational conflict" and whether such conflict increase in proportion to the overall conflict would remain to be seen.

Some have argued that his identified civilizations are fractured and show little internal unity. The Muslim world is severely fractured along ethnic lines with Arabs, Persians, Turks, Pakistanis, and Indonesians all having very different world views. Moreover, the criteria of the proposed delineation are not clear. One can argue, for instance, that cultural differences between China and Japan are not more important than between China and Vietnam. However, Vietnam is put together with China under the label of the Sinic civilization while Japan is supposed to form a separate civilization. Whereas, Western civilization includes both Protestant and Catholic branches; and the Germanic (which would include Anglo Saxon) and Romance cultural differences in Western Europe are also disregarded, as well as Anglo Saxon countries (Britain, U.S., Canada, Australia, etc.) and Continental Europe. The distinction between the Western and Orthodox civilizations excludes non-religious factors, such as the post-Communist legacy or the level of economic development. It also ignores differences within Muslim communities.

Amartya Sen wrote a book called "Identity and Violence: The illusion of destiny" in critique of Huntington's main concept of an inevitable clash along civilizational lines. In this book he argues that a root cause of violence is when people see each other as having a singular affiliation ie: Hindu or Muslim, as opposed to multiple affiliations: Hindu, woman, housewife, mother, artist, daughter, member of a particular socio-economic class...etc. all of which can be a source of a person's identity.

In his book Terror and Liberalism, Paul Berman proposes another criticism of the civilization clash hypothesis. According to Berman, distinct cultural boundaries do not exist in the present day. He argues there is no "Islamic civilization" nor a "Western civilization", and that the evidence for a civilization clash is not convincing, especially when considering relationships such as that between the United States and Saudi Arabia. In addition, he cites the fact that many Islamic extremists spent a significant amount of time living and/or studying in the western world. According to Berman conflict arises because of philosophical beliefs between groups, regardless of cultural or religious identity.

In the case of Islamic societies, the "clash" may be with notions of "modernity" rather than with other comparable, religiously based societies or groups. Conflict arises between the values of traditional religion and those of consumerism and the entertainment world.

It has been claimed that values are more easily transmitted and altered than Huntington proposes. Nations such as India, Turkey, Japan, Taiwan as well as most Eastern European countries and Latin American countries have become successful democracies in recent period, and the West itself was rife with despotism and fundamentalism for most of its history. Some also see Huntington's thesis as creating a self-fulfilling prophecy and reasserting differences between civilizations. Edward Said issued a response to Huntington's thesis in his own essay entitled "The Clash of Ignorance." Said argues that Huntington's categorization of the world's fixed "civilizations" omits the dynamic interdependency and interaction of culture. All his ideas are based not on harmony but on the clash or conflict between worlds. The theory that each world is “self-enclosed” is applied to the world map, to the structure of civilizations, to the notion that each race has a special destiny and psychology. According to Said, it is an example of an imagined geography, where the presentation of the world in a certain way legitimates certain politics. Interventionist and aggressive, the concept of civilizational clash is aimed at maintaining a war time status in the minds of the Americans. Thus, it continues to expand the Cold War by other means rather than advancing ideas that might help us understand the current scene or that could reconcile the two cultures.

As a genuine advocate of the often-elusive dialogue of religions and cultures, Pope John Paul II once observed: “A clash ensues only when Islam or Christianity is misconstrued or manipulated for political or ideological ends.” This insight – most applicable to the current crisis – perfectly mirrors that of Edward Said dispelling the myth of the Clash of Civilizations as a mere clash of ignorance.

— Hatim Salih

Related concepts

Also, in recent years the theory of Dialogue Among Civilizations, a response to Huntington's Clash of Civilizations, has become the center of some international attention. The concept, which was introduced by former Iranian president Mohammad Khatami, was the basis for United Nation's resolution to name the year 2001 as the Year of Dialogue among Civilizations..

The Alliance of Civilizations (AOC) initiative was proposed by the President of the Spanish Government, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero at the 59th General Assembly of the United Nations (UN) in 2005. It was co-sponsored by the Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. The initiative is intended to galvanize collective action across diverse societies in order to combat extremism, to overcome cultural and social barriers between mainly the Western and predominantly Muslim worlds, and to reduce the tensions and polarization between societies which differ in religious and cultural values.

The theme interfaith dialogue was significantly taken into action by a Turkish religious leader Fethullah Gülen and his followers in the late 1990s. In order to address the question of "How can citizens of the world live in peace and harmony?", Gulen's followers, who are mostly well-educated section of Turkish population, organize numerous events internationally. A newspaper, Zaman belonging to Gulen supporters, is the first place in Turkey with more than 800.000 daily circulation rate.

Huntington's predictions: analysis and retrospect

After the September 11, 2001 attacks, Huntington is increasingly regarded as having been prescient as the United States invasion of Afghanistan, 2002 Bali Bombings, 2003 Invasion of Iraq, the 2004 Madrid train bombings,the 2006 cartoon crisis, the 2005 London bombings, the ongoing Iranian nuclear crisis and the 2006 Israel-Lebanon conflict fueled the perception that Huntington's Clash is well underway.

Some maintained that the 1995 and 2004 enlargements of the European Union brought the EU's eastern border up to the boundary between Huntington's Western and Orthodox civilizations; most of Europe's historically Protestant and Roman Catholic countries (with the exception of Croatia and countries like Switzerland and Norway who voluntarily opted out of EU membership) were now EU members, while a number of Europe's historically Orthodox countries (with exceptions such as longtime EU member Greece and newly accepted Cyprus) were outside the EU. As others have noted, however, the NATO and EU membership of Romania and Bulgaria (since 2004 and 2007, correspondingly) present a challenge to some of Huntington's analysis and the line he drew throughout Romania failed to materialize. The recent tidal movements in Ukraine and Republic of Moldova show that there is no obvious limit between CIS and NATO either.

German geographers have pointed out that Huntington's regions of "civilizations" are affected by the concept of the "Kulturerdteile" (culture-continents) of the geographer Albert Kolb - a deprecated theory from 1962. In this theory, the effect of religious aspects was less important than historical and social aspects. Huntington notes in his book that German scholars hold a separate concept of civilization than presented in his analysis.

The Clash of Civilizations thesis may also be regarded as an example of a self-fulfilling prophecy. The ideas of Huntington and Bernard Lewis were already influential among American neoconservative figures such as Vice President Dick Cheney prior to September 11, 2001; Middle East scholar Gilles Kepel (2003) reports that many radical Islamists in the Middle East likewise viewed Huntington's thesis approvingly.

See also

• Alliance of Civilizations
• Arnold J. Toynbee’s A Study of History
• Dialogue Among Civilizations
• Francis Fukuyama, an American political economist and author of The End of History and the Last Man.
• Multiculturalism
• Niall Ferguson, Professor of History at Harvard University.
• Oswald Spengler's The Decline of the West
• Religious Pluralism
• The West's Last Chance: Will We Win the Clash of Civilizations?

Bibliography

• Ankerl, Guy. Global communication without universal civilization. INU societal research. Vol. Vol.1: Coexisting contemporary civilizations : Arabo-Muslim, Bharati, Chinese, and Western. Geneva: INU Press. ISBN 2-88155-004-5. {{cite book}}: |volume= has extra text (help)
• Barber, Benjamin R., Jihad vs. McWorld, Hardcover: Crown, 1995, ISBN 0812923502; Paperback: Ballantine Books, 1996, ISBN 0345383044
• Blankley, Tony, The West's Last Chance: Will We Win the Clash of Civilizations?, Washington, D.C., Regnery Publishing, Inc., 2005 ISBN 0-89526-015-8
• Harris, Lee, Civilization and Its Enemies: The Next Stage of History, New York, The Free Press, 2004 ISBN 0-7432-5749-9
• Harrison, Lawrence E. and Samuel P. Huntington (eds.), Culture Matters: How Values Shape Human Progress, New York, Basic Books, 2001 ISBN 0-465-03176-5
• Huntington, Samuel P., The Clash of Civilizations?, in "Foreign Affairs", vol. 72, no. 3, Summer 1993, pp. 22-49
• Huntington, Samuel P., The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order, New York, Simon & Schuster, 1996 ISBN 0-684-84441-9
• Huntington, Samuel P. (ed.), The Clash of Civilizations?: The Debate, New York, Foreign Affairs, 1996 ISBN 0-87609-164-8
• Kepel, Gilles, Bad Moon Rising: a chronicle of the Middle East today, London, Saqi, 2003 ISBN 0-863-56303-1
• Köchler, Hans (ed.), Civilizations: Conflict or Dialogue?, Vienna, International Progress Organization, 1999 ISBN 3-900704-18-X (Google Print)
• Köchler, Hans, The "Clash of Civilizations": Perception and Reality in the Context of Globalization and International Power Politics, Tbilisi (Georgia), 2004
• Pera, Marcello and Joseph Ratzinger (Pope Benedict XVI), Senza radici: Europa, Relativismo, Cristianesimo, Islam [transl.: Without Roots: The West, Relativism, Christianity, Islam, Philadelphia, PA, Perseus Books Group, 2006 ISBN 0-465-00634-5], Milano, Mondadori, 2004 ISBN 88-04-54474-0
• Peters, Ralph, Fighting for the Future: Will America Triumph?, Mechanicsburg, PA, Stackpole Books, 1999 ISBN 0-8117-0651-6
• Sacks, Jonathan, The Dignity of Difference: How to Avoid the Clash of Civilizations, London, Continuum, 2002 ISBN 0-826-46397-5
• Toft, Monica Duffy, The Geography of Ethnic Violence: Identity, Interests, and the Indivisibility of Territory, Princeton, NJ, Princeton University Press, 2003 ISBN 0-691-11354-8
• Tusicisny, Andrej, Civilizational Conflicts: More Frequent, Longer, and Bloodier?, in "Journal of Peace Research", vol. 41, no. 4, 2004, pp. 485–498 (available online)
• Van Creveld, Martin, The Transformation of War, New York & London, The Free Press, 1991 ISBN 0-02-933155-2

External links

• "The Clash of Civilizations?" -- text of the original essay from the Foreign Affairs Web site. The site offers a 500-word preview only. Visitors may purchase a .pdf reprint of the entire 9,176-word piece.
• "If Not Civilizations, What? Samuel Huntington Responds to His Critics", Foreign Affairs, November/December 1993 (full text)
• The Slow suicide of the West by Jorge Majfud
• Sam Huntington discusses the "clash" with Jenny Attiyeh on Thoughtcast
• "The 'Clash of Civilizations': Revisited after September 11", a critical article on Huntington's thesis
• "Five Years After 9/11, The Clash of Civilizations Revisited", an interview of Huntington by Mark O'Keefe, Associate Director, Editorial, Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life August 18, 2006.
• "The global clash of emotions", International Herald Tribune," Dominique Moïsi, December 14, 2006.
• "The Clash of Civilizations Revisited", New Perspectives Quarterly," Winter 2007. An interview of Huntington by Amina R. Chaudary of Islamica Magazine.
• "The Clash of Civilizations?", Interview with Samuel Huntington, The Guardian, October 21, 2001.
• "The True Clash of Civilizations", by Ronald Inglehart and Pippa Norris, Foreign Policy 2003. This article discusses recent surveys of opinions in predominantly Islamic nations and claims that the real rift between civilizations does not concern the question of democracy (which is generally approved) but rather the attitudes towards sexuality and gender equality. Those societies that do not tolerate self-expression, it argues, are unlikely to become stable democracies.
• Islam and Europe: clash and mash Khaled Diab and Katleen Maes examine the myths driving anti-Islamic fervour in the EU and argue that, although the two civilizations have occasionally clashed, they have more often simply mashed. Published in the European Voice, 31 March-6 April 2005
• Clash of Ignorance Edward Said's critical review of the "Clash of Civilizations"
• The Aga Khan on the Clash of Ignorance An acceptance speech made by the Aga Khan at the "Tolerance Awards".
• Beyond the Clash of Ignorance An article published by the Rome-based online magazine Reset Dialogues on Civilizations
• Online Interview: One Global Family or the Clash of Civilizations?
• The Myth of Culture Clash, a lecture by Edward Said
• Clash of Civilizations - an electronic music project