Samuel P. Huntington’s controversial essay entitled “The Clash of Civilizations”[1] was intended to take on the immense task of predicting the next driving force behind the international system’s presumed new world order. After the end of the Cold War, the international political community was at a loss as to what conflict would be dividing them next, and what sides they were all to take. Huntington graciously rushed to inform the world that the “fundamental source of conflict in this new world”[2] would inevitably be the inherent cultural differences between civilizations. Huntington’s passionately argued thesis seems to be rather convincing at first, however, upon further inspection his sweeping arguments prove themselves to be seriously flawed and vastly oversimplified. Some critics of his self-proclaimed paradigm argue that it is also a self fulfilling prophecy: his hypothesis is highly flawed, but if the world’s policy makers are sufficiently convinced that it is true and that it really is inevitable, they will unwittingly create a ‘clash of civilizations’.
Huntington’s argument for the emerging clash of civilizations rests on six premises. The first is that civilizations are inherently different because their traditions, their histories and their religions have evolved separately for centuries, and have formed completely different and often contradictory value systems from one another that are not likely to change. According to Huntington, these fundamental, fixed differences have historically caused “the most prolonged and most violent conflicts”. Second, Huntington posits that the globalization effect of increasing interactions between cultures will heighten the awareness of the differences between civilizations, and likewise, the similarities within them. Huntington claims that this increased contact between people will revive and strengthen deep historical hostilities. Third, his theory proposes that local and national identities are being lost because of the social changes brought on by economic modernization. Many people are reviving religion in order to fill the void caused by the loss of local community membership and identity.Fourth, the West is experiencing the peak of its power militarily, ideologically and economically. The non-western civilizations feel threatened by overwhelming western cultural influence. In response they are calling for a return to non-western roots and traditions with the intent of shaping the world in non-western ways. Fifth, since cultural characteristics are inherited, they are harder to compromise or change because they are essential to a person’s identity, they are what one is, not what one believes. Thus there is no possibility of persuading or compelling someone to switch sides, as is possible with political ideology. Furthermore, Huntington says “Even more than ethnicity, religion discriminates sharply and exclusively among people.[12]” And finally, there is an increase in economic regionalism, which both strengthens identification with one’s own civilization, and which, Huntington argues, may only succeed if the parties belong to a common civilization. Thus Huntington arrives at the conclusion that civilizations will surely clash. He does not explicitly state that this cultural conflict will necessarily take a violent physical form, although he maintains that this has historically been the case.
In making his argument, Huntington remains squarely cemented in liberal ideology. He is proposing a post-Cold War paradigm which claims that the next prevailing world conflict will come out of cultural principles (which are not ideologies per se, but are ideological nonetheless) and that the world’s people will be willing to fight and die for the propagation of the civilization into which they were born. He adheres to the liberal notions that states are interconnected, but within the context that this interconnection arises out of a shared civilizational identity; and that groups of states are placed at odds with one another by virtue of their differing cultural and traditional values.
Huntington’s post-Cold War paradigm is riddled with anomalies and exceptions, and the most salient of these inconsistencies lies in the assumption of a single, consolidated culture within a given civilization. As Professor Edward Said points out in a video-taped lecture at the University of Massachusetts, “defining culture is always a major, ongoing struggle”[15]. Within any given society, there is an unending dialogue that occurs between the official and the unofficial counter cultures. Shireen T. Hunter echoes this observation in The Future of Islam and the West, by saying that cultures “are living organisms in a constant state of evolution, and they change in response to internal and external stimuli in the context of the dynamics of challenge and response.”[16] This constant challenge to the mainstream culture is a form of creative provocation that forces people to reassess their beliefs and behaviors constantly, urging them to adapt to their ever changing context.
Furthermore, there is as much conflict within a given culture as between cultures. It is foolhardy to believe that a civilization is not only homogeneous, but that it has no internal fissures or divisions. Major Alex Osborn of the British Army writes, “The clash of civilizations approach suggests that groups will come together in support, yet the coalition to defeat Iraq in 1991 included numerous Arab nations and Iran supported Christian Armenia in its conflict with Muslim Azerbaijan. Conversely, the genocide of Tutsis by Hutus in Rwanda took place within a single civilization, and wars within Western civilization have been the most numerous and bloody in history.”[17]
This is not to say that Huntington is wrong in his observation that there are growing resentments in the Third World towards the West, and particularly toward the U.S.A. Many developing countries are calling for reclamation of their cultural roots in reaction to the overwhelming invasion of mainstream Western culture throughout the non-Western world. The ravenous, well-oiled and well financed juggernaut of Western pop culture and the political and economical hegemony that the West wields internationally severely undermine the autonomy of developing nations. Is it any wonder that non-westerners are reacting negatively? Graham Fuller wrote in 1995 that “a civilizational clash is not so much over Jesus Christ, Confucius or the prophet Mohammad, as it is over the unequal distribution of world power, wealth and influence.”[18]
The international politics and economy dance to the West’s tune. The current economic system was set up by the West, to benefit itself at the cost of the well being of the developing world. Since Huntington first published his essay, it is possible that there has been an increase in tensions between the West and the ‘rest’, but this is not a religious or tradition-based clash, this is a clash between “the civilizations of the poor and the powerless, and that of the rich and the mighty. It is a conflict between those who have power and those that do not, those who control the world’s destiny and those who are subjects of control.”[19] By claiming that this new era will herald the advent of full participation by non-western countries in the game of world politics, Huntington is glaringly overlooking the fact that the developing world is persistently being exploited, and is still forced to submit to overpowering Western coercion. Shireen T. Hunter notes,
“This balance of power, which is heavily weighted in the West’s favor, gives tremendous influence over the fate of the Muslim states and its people. . . Western officials and experts have admitted, for example that the only group to have lost out in the Uruguay Round negotiations on the international trading system was the Third World.”[20]
There is one more factor to be considered, the Cold War’s end left America struggling for unity, and unable to come to consensus over certain policy changes. American policy makers realized that they needed another common enemy to rally against in order to unify the nation, and to guide American foreign policy. In his videotaped lecture, Edward Said points out that Huntington’s theory was just an attempt to continue the Cold War, and American foreign policy makers flocked toward it for this very reason.[21] Hans J. Morganthau once said, “All politics, including international politics, are about power and ideologies serve as disguises.”[22]
A clash of civilizations is not imminent, nor is it already occurring, but it can feed itself into existence only if the world’s heads of state begin to view the world through Huntington’s skewed lens and thus enact discriminatory policies that will create such a clash. Policy makers need to recognize that all societies and cultures are multifaceted and continuously evolving. By choosing to celebrate and respect the differences between people, both domestically and internationally, policy makers will never have to worry about Huntington’s impending civilizational conflict.
More reflection on the real world-wide consequences of the process of economic globalization is needed on this hypothetical clash based solely on civilizational differences. As Georg Sorenson states in his essay, ‘What Kind of World Order?: The International System in the New Millennium’, “. . . the question is whether the current order of the interregnum has enough to offer the less privileged half of the world’s population and what the reactions will be if that turns out not to be the case.”[23]
[1] First printed in the Foreign Affairs journal, full citation found in the References page at the end.
[2] From Pg 22, of Foreign Affairs, the first page of Huntington’s ‘The Clash of Civilizations”.
[15] The Myth of The clash of Civilizations, Prof. Edward Said in Lecture – Full reference to be found in bibliography.
[16] Hunter, Shireen T. The Future of Islam and the West, Clash of Civilizations or Peaceful Coexistence? Page 10.
[17] Major Alex Osborn. “The ‘Clash of Civilizations’ Thesis as a Tool for Explaining Conflict in the Contemporary World” Defence Studies, Vol. 5, no. 3 (2005): pg 396.
[18] Dialogues: Islamic – U.S. – The West. (conference organized on Oct. 28-31, 2002 in
Granada, Spain.) Clash of Civilizations or Clash of Perceptions? 2002 Report, The Nature of Civilizational Clash. New York University, 2006. http://islamuswest.org/publications_islam_and_the_West/Clash_of_Civilizations_or_Clash_of_Perceptions/clash_16.html (accessed Dec. 1, 2006) (accessed Dec. 1, 2006)
[19] Hunter, Shireen T. The Future of Islam and the West: Clash of Civilizations or Peaceful
Coexistence? Westport Connecticut: Praeger Publishers, 1998. Pg 21
[20] Ibid, pg 20
[21] Said, Edward. Edward Said in Lecture: ‘The Myth of the Clash of Civilizations.’ Produced by The Media Education Foundation. Directed by Sut Jhally. 55 min. Media Education Foundation, 1998. (videocassette)
[23] Sorenson, Geog. “What Kind of World Order?” Cooperation and Conflict: Journal of the Nordic International Studies Association. Vol. 41, no 4 (2006): 343-363. www.ps.au.dk/NISA (accessed Nov. 29, 2006) pg 359.
