September 20 1999 OPINION
Forecasts of worldwide conflict on the Islamic fault-line are chillingly
accurate
A prophet of doom
The Times of London
by William Rees-Mogg
The world is full of violence. There are the massacres in East Timor; the
murder of 300 Russians by terrorist bombs, probably related to Chech-nya;
the ethnic cleansing of the Albanians and then of the Serbs in Kosovo; the
Nato bombing itself, which has left Serbia devastated and Kosovo polluted
with unexploded cluster bombs; the grumbling confrontation in Kashmir
between India and Pakistan, both nuclear powers; Saddam Hussein's plans for
weapons of mass destruction; the Anglo-American response of sanctions and
bombs. However safe we may feel going about our usual business in one of the
West's great cities, this century of violence is ending with worldwide
violence, and the threat of worse to come.
Those episodes of violence which seem of more than local relevance, or have
resulted in intervention by the United Nations or the United States, all
have something in common that the world is very reluctant to recognise. In
one sense, East Timor, Chechnya, Kosovo, Iraq and Kashmir are all parts of a
single global problem - they are all conflicts between Islamic countries or
ethnic groups and other cultures.
They are not all confrontations between Islam and the West, though Iraq is
such a confrontation, and is recognised as such throughout the Islamic
world. Even the great Arab peacemaker, King Hussain of Jordan, said that the
Gulf War was "a war against all Arabs and all Muslims and not against Iraq
alone". The West is also deeply involved in the conflict in East Timor; the
East Timorese are Roman Catholics, and Australia is the leading peacekeeping
nation.
Yet the other three conflicts are not of Islam against the West, but of
Islam against other world cultures. Kashmir is a conflict between the
resurgent Islam of Pakistan and the resurgent Hinduism of India. Chechnya is
a conflict between Islam and Russia, the core nation of Slav Orthodoxy.
Kosovo is an even more extraordinary situation, a conflict between Islam and
Slav Orthodoxy, in which the West intervened on the side of Islam.
In 1993 Samuel Huntington, a Professor of International Studies at Harvard,
published an article in Foreign Affairs arguing that after the end of the
Cold War conflicts between civilisations would dominate the future of world
politics. He gave warning of the seriousness of "fault-line conflicts"
between civilisations, and was much criticised for his observation that
"Islam has bloody borders". East Timor, Chechnya, Kosovo, Iraq and Kashmir
seemed to confirm that observation, whether or not one thinks that Islam is
the more to blame in any particular case.
In 1996 Professor Huntington expanded his argument into a book, The Clash of
Civilisations and the Remaking of the World Order (Simon and Schuster,
£16.99), which was described by Henry Kissinger as presenting "a challenging
framework for understanding the realities of global politics in the next
century". To an alarming degree, Professor Huntington's analysis seems to be
proving accurate.
His thesis is that the people of the world have grouped into separate
civilisations which have been a powerful force of cohesion in early human
history. "Blood, language, religion, way of life, were what the (Ancient)
Greeks had in common . . . of all the elements which define civilisations,
however, the most important usually is religion." He identifies several
major contemporary civilisations: the Chinese, Japanese, Hindu, Islamic,
Orthodox, Western and Latin American, all more than 1,000 years old.
The four largest are the Chinese, Hindu, Islamic and Western, each with
about a billion people. Each has its founding religion, around which the
civilisation is formed: Confucianism, Hinduism, Islam and Christianity.
China and India are the core countries of their own civilisation; the West
is seen as double-headed between the United States and Europe; Islam has no
core country, which makes it more difficult to relate to from the outside.
Islam and the West, in different ways, present the world with the greatest
difficulties. The West is perceived as claiming a unique dominance; it
represents both a universal power, based on American technology, and a
universal ideology, based on liberalism, democracy and human rights. The
bombing of the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade was seen by the Chinese, and by
the other civilisations, as a symbolic exercise of Western arrogance.
The other civilisations perceive the West as alarmingly powerful in military
and economic terms, while being undermined by social indiscipline, the
break-up of the family, loss of religious belief, crime, drugs and the
underclass, as well as by ageing populations, low savings and unemployment. (why do they hate us?)
The West may see itself as the model for the next century; all the other
civilisations see as much to avoid as to emulate. "The West is
overwhelmingly dominant now and will remain number one in terms of power
well into the 21st century. Gradual, inexorable and fundamental changes,
however, are also occurring in the balances of power amongst civilisations,
and the power of the West . . . will continue to decline," Huntington says.
In the 75 years between 1920 and 1995, the West's share of political control
of territory declined by 50 per cent, of world population by 80 per cent, of
world manufacturing output by 35 per cent and of military manpower by 60 per
cent.
Islam is divided into some 45 independent states, but is united by the
strongest of the great world religions, in terms of its cultural hold on its
followers. It has one great economic advantage - control of much of the
world's oil reserves, which are predicted to run out some time in the next
century. It is still in a stage of rapid population growth and Muslims are
expected to make up about 30 per cent of the world's population by 2025.
Already, Islamic immigration has caused a strong political reaction in
Western Europe; half of the babies born in Brussels, the headquarters of the
European Union, are to Arab mothers. Young, unemployed and disaffected
Muslims are a threat both inside their own countries and to the West.
"The Islamic resurgence has given Muslims renewed confidence in the
distinctive character and worth of their civilisation and values compared to
that of the West. The West's simultaneous efforts to universalise its values
and institutions . . . and to intervene in conflicts in the Muslim world,
generate intense resentment among Muslims."
The danger lies in the reaction between this revival of Islamic confidence,
backed by a growing population, and the fears of the neighbouring
civilisations. All the neighbouring civilisations feel potentially under
threat. The West is concerned about oil, nuclear proliferation,
immigration,the survival of Israel and human rights. The threat to Russia is
even more direct, from the current wave of terrorism and claims for
independence. The Serbs fear a greater Albania. India fears Pakistan and
potentially the alienation of the 100 million Muslims in India itself. China
is concerned about Central Asia and about the Chinese in Indonesia. The
non-Muslim population of sub-Saharan Africa has anxieties as well.
It cannot be said that Professor Huntington's proposed remedies are as
convincing as his analysis. I am more optimistic than he seems to be about
the future relationships of three of the four largest civilisations. I
expect the West's relationships with China and India, and their relationship
with each other, to continue to improve.
Islam is the unresolved problem. Certainly the West needs to show much
greater insight into the Islamic revival, which will develop further.
Arrogance, cultural supremacism or downright hostility must be the worst
possible response. Yet, as in Serbia, the neighbours of Islam will find
their own populations reacting to Islamic revival. It was fear of the
Albanians in 1987 which brought Milosevic to power. The world is not going
to find it easy to bind up the "bloody borders" of Islam. |
