Response (composed during the weekend from the 18th of October to the 20th of October’2001).Zachary Latif
“The Clash of Civilizations” by Samuel Huntington is considered by most to be an outdated text and one that is dismissed outright in most discussions about world politics. The reasons are simple, first of all Samuel Huntington sweepingly generalised about cultures, nations and religions. He assumes civilisations to be “a culture writ large” and bases his notions that kinship and religious fellowship will take precedence in the 21st century. Such statements as “in civilizational conflicts, unlike ideological ones, kin stand by kin” are blatantly wrong and do not hold true in a world of nations.
The civil war in Afghanistan is a poignant example. All neighbouring countries were dragged into it, and “civilisation” affinities were rejected outright. Hindu India and theocratic Iran backed the same rebels, which in turn cemented their diplomatic relationship. In fact before the September 11 attack, Iran and India were enjoying peak relations due to their mutual distrust and suspicion for Pakistan and the Taleban. Samuel Huntington had predicted in his doomsday scenario at the end of the book that Iran and Pakistan, based on their common religion, would have allied with each other and revamp their respective geopolitical strategies so as to counter India.
A cursory glance at Caucasus (a region highlighted in “The Clash of Civilisations”), Central Asia and Middle East shows that nations work to further their own interests not that of their civilisation. With the conflict raging in Nagorno-Karabakh between Armenia and Azerbaijan, Iran lent its support to Orthodox Armenia since it wished to sideline Muslim Azerbaijan and consequently its own Azeri minority. Turkey and Israel have strengthened their diplomatic relationships and are becoming swift allies, despite the fact that the Turkish population is increasingly adopting Islamist mores and foregoing its secular heritage. Even Greece and Syria have engaged in joint military exercises in order to counter the influence of Turkey. In Central Asia each of the “Stans” form closer pacts with their former overlord, Russia despite the “civilizational” differences. National interests supersede "civilizational" ones as demonstrated all too often by countless states.
Pan-Islamism enjoys a phenomenal popularity amongst Muslims everywhere however it has never dictated the actions of any Islamic nation and even theocracies are known act solely in their own national interests, at the expense of their “civilization”. There is one thing to note that nowhere within the Islamic world has there been a successful revolution without crucial support of the army, in Iran the Shah was only overthrown because the military decided to back the revolutionaries. Many of the Arab and Islamic nations are stable to a certain extent under the hereditary dictatorships and dynasties and no bolt from the blue is going to change their long term strategic policy.
<Thus, Muslims in the West lack a need to find identity and meaning in extremist attitudes and theology. Lacking this need, they fail to see why other Muslims would need it also. Socially and politically, however, fundamentalist Islam in the Middle East is probably unavoidable for the time being. >
In fact immigrant Muslims in the West are far more likely to be alienated than those who remained behind. Since they comprise the isolated component in many European societies, they embrace Islamic ideology to an extreme and form a significant percentage of the cohorts of Islamic terrorists.
A couple of peculiar things about the horrendous attacks was that firstly all of the perpetrators were Arabs. Second of all that they exploited a loophole in airline security checks thus allowing them to commit their heinous act. That would indicate that the success of a similar incident would be very low indeed. It’s a stillborn “civilizational” war since it isn’t between Islam and the West; it is between America and far-flung macabre terrorists operating from Afghanistan. Muslims in the Middle East are not inherently inimical to the West; any dislike they may harbour is usually towards America and Israel. They think that America pays too much attention to Israel at the expense of the Arabs; although I disagree with the reasoning however this is the prevalent wisdom in the Middle East. Decades ago their anger was directed to Britain and France for the way they drew the boundaries and maps in the Muslim world (creating artificial national entities and in the eyes of some Arabs, a deliberate attempt to prevent the formation of a pan-Arab state), however the incessant conflict in the Levant and democratic America’s continued support for Israel stokes Arab envy and rage.
< As long as the concept of ummah plays a critical role, Western "allies" will never be as closely affiliated as Muslim neighbours. >
As said earlier America’s special relationship with Israel arouses envy since every Arabic nation desires more attention from America and most of these Arab dynasties wouldn’t survive without American aid and goodwill. If there is a “civilizational clash” and America withdraws its crucial support from these governments, they will fall. Most of the Islamic governments depend on their Western allies for support; I doubt that the belief in the concept of the ummah is strong enough within the dictators and kings to give up their secure relationships with the West for rapprochement with their Muslim neighbours. Kuwait and America enjoy an extraordinarily close relationship, would the former give it up for an affiliation with Syria and Iraq. The chances are that instead an intra-civilisation clash will occur within the Muslim world, sidestepping any conflict there may be between the Islamic nations and the West. After all the Iran-Iraq war has been the deadliest one so far in the post-WW2 world.
Having said this, it is necessary to stress that Arabs are themselves a minority in the Muslim world and their sentiments do not necessarily reflect that of all Muslims. For example Pakistan has sacrificed immensely to accommodate America and has cut off all ties with the Taleban, the exact opposite should have occurred if “civilizational” interests were followed.
The problem with Islamic nations and Muslim minorities is that apart from three nations, the rest were colonised and the others were under mandate during the Imperial era. When independence came, these countries were drawn up with no regard to ethno-racial & linguistic divides. That is why racially heterogeneous nations like Afghanistan and Iraq (Saddam Hussein and his Baath party is the only thing that holds Iraq together, if he were to be deposed tomorrow, Iraq would not exist, since the minorities would opt to form their own states) are inherently unstable, while homogeneous states like Egypt (though Egypt has a significant Copt population, they consider themselves Egyptian and unlike other minorities refuse to emigrate) and Tunisia which have millennia worth of history as national entities are faring much better. While Europe under the treaty of Versailles was segregated along linguistic lines, the Muslim states did not have this vital benefit.
With the advent of the nation state and the resurgent authority of non-Muslims in the regions previously controlled by Muslims, such as the Balkans, Caucasus and the Subcontinent, the power play was irrevocably altered. Since the jizya tax imposed on religious minorities made Muslim rulers reluctant to convert the rural population en masses (the urban areas were in most cases overwhelmingly Muslim anyway), when the nation states were formed it resulted in deposed Muslim ruling elites contending with a hostile non-Muslim majority. That is why the tensions exist between Muslim minorities and the host countries in which they reside in. As to why Muslim countries lack tolerance towards their own minorities, well that is an intriguing question. While the treatment of religious minorities vary from country to country, for example Iraq has a Christian foreign minister and Pakistan’s chief justice for nearly a decade was a Protestant Christian, the fact is that most Muslim nations have not been able to integrate their minorities successfully for the simple reason that many Arab and Islamic nations are anyway controlled by one ethnicity and there is a general loathing amongst the ruling elite to distribute power equally amongst other ethno-religious groups.
Samuel Huntington constructed his thesis before the Asian crash and fell victim to the illusion that East Asia would be a focal point in future world relations. He assumed that capitalism and prosperity would successfully be implemented without the necessary prerequisites; amplified materialism, “decronyism”, democracy, political stability with a sufficient degree of liberalism, transparency in financial transactions. For a nation and a region to have sustained economic growth and evolve into a diversified economy with a strong tertiary sector, it needs to incorporate elements that have been imbedded in the West for centuries. One could argue that these are the products of Western civilisation however it is the necessary development of a civilisation that has reached a certain level of prosperity. Japan with a per capita GDP of 24000 dollars is a nation that has experienced a severe economic downturn. The Japanese have now abandoned their cultural work ethics and corporate hierarchy, which focussed on harmony between the employee and employer (jobs from cradle to grave) and gave emphasis on seniority rather then merit. These policies had driven Japanese workers to the arms of American companies recruiting in Japan, which as a matter of course empowered individual employees and recognised talent. This “brain drain” in turn forced Japanese companies to adapt the “Anglo-Saxon” corporate structures and work ethics. In fact Japan’s economic downturn also has to do with the fact that its population, unlike Western consumers, aren’t particularly materialistic. While this cultural trait was particularly useful during the Meiji Restoration and Japan’s post-war reconstruction and era of economic scarcity, however now in order to sustain their levels of demand the Japanese consumer will have to spend more.
During the medieval ages, Greek democracy and Roman republicanism was a lofty and unreachable ideal nonetheless with the advent of the industrial revolution and increase in literacy and living conditions these powerful remnants of the ancients became the standard bearers for all European revolutionary movements. China may experience extraordinary growth (however with the advent of the recent disaster and the global slowdown, the Chinese economy is suffering from a lack of global demand) however as a nation it cannot progress until it allows its citizens to express their dissent with the state and afford individual rights in order to facilitate increased liberated access to the Internet and consequently to the world around them. All regions and societies, bar that of America, Europe, Japan and the former Anglo-Saxon dominions, do not have high per capita GDPs. They are still in a transitional stage and are engaged in catching up with the West for economic prosperity. Thus their cultures will have to adapt in order to evolve towards a fairly equitable level of prosperity among its citizens and generate a sustainable economic growth. “Civilisations” will otherwise never prosper and that is what Samuel Huntington failed to realise, one cannot be rich and indigenise at the same time. To achieve the West’s standard of living nations will have to acclimatize and indigenise cultural mores associated with reaching such a level of affluence. |
