The ‘clash of civilisations’
Been reading this (in)famous essay by Samuel P. Huntington as part of my course on U.S foreign Policy. It’s interesting stuff, the edition I have is this little blue book only sixty-seven pages long holding within its pages Huntington’s original essay, several of the responses to it and Huntington’s response to the responses.
It makes for interesting reading becuase in many ways the ideas discussed in the articles have become somewhat of a fait accompli - I doubt that most of you reading this will not have already heard the phrase ‘clash of civilisations’ before and the rhetoric he used in the essays are now being used by many of the current member’s of the U.S administration. But are the ideas he presents really accurate or usable?
Personally, I have to agree with the general consensus given by most academics and well-read people on the topic; Not really. His ideas are vaguely racist (’possible‘ African civilisation being the worst) and reductionist - he maintains that the Vietnamese and Chinese will coalesce into a single civilisation despite the fact that they’ve been fighting on and off for, oh a thousand or so years.
He also seems to have no real appreciation for the fact that many of these ‘civilisations’ have massive internal divisions - he dismisses this by saying that ‘when push comes to shove these people (whoever they are) will join with their ‘brothers’ and identify with them’, meaning I suppose that I will ‘naturally’ feel more connection with American/European/English-speaking/White tragedies in the world than I will with Pakistani/Indian/Buddhist/Chinese/Non-white/Etc. tragedies. Which is somewhat true - but thats mostly owing to shared lifestyles/beliefs/history and global proximity than ‘civilisation’ I suspect. He makes no real attempt to explain how the majority of the world’s conflict is intra-civilisational rather than between groups on borders of civilisations.
The dangerous thing about Huntington’s argument is that reading my last paragraph I have agreed with him somewhat, and that when one looks at the current conflict between the ‘West’ and ‘Islamism’ its hard not to think that he is somewhat correct. And thats the problem. Huntington’s argument is at its most reduced correct. The forces of the ‘West’ - broadly speaking democracy, free markets and human rights are in conflict with the forces of ‘Islamism’ - broadly speaking Allah, Muhammad and Sharia Law. But as that sentence shows you that means nothing. Are Russia, America and India - who are all democracies, the same with democracy, free markets and human rights? Of course not. The same applies to the ‘Islamist’s’ - the only way you can describe them is by using extremely vague terms - becuase most of the groups that make up Al-Qaeda are not even in agreement with each other!
In the end, it is worth reading the articles (the ISBN for the old edition is 0-87609-164-8) simply for the fact that it deals with many issues of relevance today - but it is definitely a shame and a problem that the best defense for Huntington’s arguments is one he came up with himself ‘If not civilisations, What?’. The fact that he has been able to develop a simplistic, reductionist theory that appeals to the worst in many is not something to be proud of but is the case at the moment becuase the alternative explanations are ‘too complex’ and don’t make for easy soundbytes on TV for many people…