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Clash of Civilizations
The Clash of Civilizations (COC) is a hypothesis that it means that people's
cultural and religious identities will be the primary source of conflict in the post-
Cold War world. It was proposed by political scientist Samuel P. Huntington in a
1992 lecture at the American Enterprise Institute, which was then developed in a
article titled " The Clash of Civilizations " in 1993. This hypothesis is proposed in
response to his former student Francis Fukuyama's book titled, “ The End of History
and the Last Man” in 1992. Huntington later expanded his thesis in a 1996
book “ The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order”.
Huntington began his thinking by surveying the diverse theories about the nature
of global politics in the post-Cold War period (An era ended when the Soviet
Union collapsed on Dec. 31, 1991. The confrontation between the United States
and the Soviet Union defined the Cold War period).
According to this hypothesis 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 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 will be along cultural lines.
In addition, the clash of civilizations, for Huntington, represents a development of
history. In the past, world history was mainly about the struggles between
monarchs (Kingship), nations and ideologies, such as seen within Western
civilization. But after the end of the Cold War, world politics moved into a new
phase, in which non-Western civilizations are no longer the exploited recipients of
Western civilization but have become additional important actors joining the West
to shape and move world history.
Huntington divided the world into the "major civilizations" in his thesis as such:
- (^) Western civilization. It comprising the United States and Canada, Western
and Central Europe, Australia and Oceania. 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 traditional Western viewpoint
identified Western Civilization with the Western Christian (Catholic-
Protestant) countries and culture.
The Orthodox world of the former Soviet Union, the former Yugoslavia
(except Croatia and Slovenia), Bulgaria, Cyprus, Greece and Romania.
- Countries with a non-Orthodox majority are usually excluded (Shia
Muslim Azerbaijan, Sunni Muslim Albania and most of Central Asia,
as well as majority Muslim regions in the Balkans, Caucasus and
central Russian regions such as Tataristan and Bashkortostan, Roman
Catholic Slovenia and Croatia, Protestant and Catholic Baltic states).
However, Armenia is included, despite its dominant faith, the
Armenian Apostolic Church, being a part of Oriental Orthodoxy rather
than the Eastern Orthodox Church, and Kazakhstan is also included,
despite its dominant faith being Sunni Islam.
- The Eastern world is the mix of the Buddhist, Chinese, Hindu, and Japonic
civilizations.
- The Buddhist areas of Bhutan, Cambodia, Laos, Mongolia, Myanmar,
Sri Lanka, and Thailand are identified as separate from other
civilizations, but Huntington believes that they do not constitute a
major civilization in the sense of international affairs.
- (^) The Confucian civilization of China, the Koreas, Singapore, Taiwan,
and Vietnam. This group also includes the Chinese diaspora,
especially in relation to Southeast Asia.
- Hindu civilization, located chiefly in India, Bhutan and Nepal, and
culturally adhered to by the global Indian diaspora.
- Japan, considered as a society and civilization unique to itself.
- The Muslim world of the Greater Middle East (excluding Armenia, Cyprus,
Ethiopia, Georgia, Israel, Malta and South Sudan), northern West Africa,
Albania, Bangladesh, parts of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Brunei, Comoros,
Indonesia, Malaysia, Pakistan, and Maldives.
- The civilization of Sub-Saharan Africa located in Southern Africa, Middle
Africa (excluding Chad), East Africa (excluding Ethiopia, the Comoros,
Mauritius, and the Swahili coast of Kenya and Tanzania), Cape Verde,
Ghana, the Ivory Coast, Liberia, and Sierra Leone. Considered as a possible
8th civilization by Huntington.
- Instead of belonging to one of the "major" civilizations, Ethiopia and Haiti
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 the Anglophone Caribbean
, former British colonies in the Caribbean, constitutes a distinct entity.
- (^) There are also others which are considered "cleft countries" because they
contain very large groups of people identifying with separate civilizations.
Examples include India ("cleft" between its Hindu majority and large
Muslim minority), Ukraine ("cleft" between its Eastern Rite Catholic-
dominated western section and its Orthodox-dominated east), France (cleft
between Latin America, in the case of French Guiana; and the West), Benin,
Chad, Kenya, Nigeria, Tanzania, and Togo (all cleft between Islam and Sub-
Saharan Africa), Guyana and Suriname (cleft between Hindu and Sub-
Saharan African), Sri Lanka (cleft between Hindu and Buddhist), China
(cleft between Sinic and Buddhist, in the case of Tibet; and the West, in the
case of Hong Kong and Macau), and the Philippines (cleft between Islam, in
the case of Mindanao; Sinic, and the West). Sudan was also included as
"cleft" between Islam and Sub-Saharan Africa; this division became a formal
split in July 2011 following an overwhelming vote for independence by
South Sudan in a January 2011 referendum.
Samuel Huntington was one of America’s greatest political scientists. In 1993, he published a sensational essay in Foreign Affairs called “The Clash of Civilizations?” The essay, which became a book, argued that the post-cold war would be marked by civilizational conflict.
Human beings, Huntington wrote, are divided along cultural lines — Western, Islamic, Hindu and so on. There is no universal civilization.
Finally, I’d say Huntington misunderstood the nature of historical change. In his book, he describes transformations that move along linear, projectable trajectories. But that’s not how things work in times of tumult. Instead, one person moves a step. Then the next person moves a step. Pretty soon, millions are caught up in a contagion, activating passions they had but dimly perceived just weeks before. They get swept up in momentums that have no central authority and that, nonetheless, exercise a sweeping influence on those caught up in their tides.
I write all this not to denigrate the great Huntington. He may still be proved right. The Arab world may modernize on its own separate path. But his mistakes illuminate useful truths: that all people share certain aspirations and that history is wide open. The tumult of events can transform the traits and qualities that seemed, even to great experts, etched in stone.
The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order is an expansion of the 1993 Foreign Affairs article written by Samuel Huntington that hypothesized a new post-Cold War world order. Prior to the end of the Cold War, societies were divided by ideological differences, such as the struggle between democracy and communism. Huntington's main thesis argues, "The most important distinctions among peoples are [no longer] ideological, political, or economic. They are cultural" (21). New patterns of conflict will occur along the boundaries of different cultures and patterns of cohesion will be found within the cultural boundaries.
Part One: A World of Civilizations
To begin his argument, Huntington refutes past paradigms that have been ineffective in explaining or predicting the reality of the global political order. "We need a map," Huntington says, "that both portrays reality and simplifies reality in a way that best serves our purposes" (31). Huntington develops a new "Civilization paradigm" to create a new understanding of the post-Cold War order, and to fill the gaps of the already existing paradigms. To begin with, Huntington divides the world into eight "major" civilizations:
- Sinic: the common culture of China and Chinese communities in Southeast Asia. Includes Vietnam and Korea.
- Japanese: Japanese culture as distinctively different from the rest of Asia.
- Hindu: identified as the core Indian civilization.
- Islamic: Originating on the Arabian Peninsula, spread across North Africa, Iberian Peninsula and Central Asia. Arab, Turkic, Persian and Malay are among the many distinct subdivisions within Islam.
- Orthodox: centered in Russia. Separate from Western Christendom.
- Western: centered in Europe and North America.
- Latin American: Central and South American countries with a past of a corporatist, authoritarian culture. Majority of countries are of a Catholic majority.
- Africa: while the continent lacks a sense of a pan-African identity, Huntington claims that Africans are also increasingly developing a sense of African Identity.
Following the explanations of the separate civilizations in the new paradigm, Huntington describes the relations among civilizations. Before 1500 A.D., civilizations were separated geographically and the spread of
ideas and technology took centuries. Huntington argues that research and technology are the catalyst for civilization creation and development. By 1500 A.D., evolution in ocean navigation by Western cultures led to rapid expansion and eventual domination of ideas, values, and religion.
Twentieth century relations among civilizations have moved beyond the unidirectional influence of the west on the rest. Instead, "multidirectional interactions among all civilization" has been maintained (53). In other words, cultural influence is interdependent; western civilizations influence and are influenced by smaller, less powerful civilizations around the world.
Huntington then refutes the idea of a Western cultural hegemony and the concept of an established universal civilization. He states that "global communications are dominated by the West" and is "a major source of the resentment and hostility of non-Western peoples against the West" (59). The notion of a single, universal culture is not helpful creating an explanation or a description of global political order. However, Huntington also argues that as modernization increases cross-cultural communication, the similarities among cultures also increase. The key to this chapter is Huntington's severance of modernization from Westernization. While the world is becoming more modern, it is simultaneously becoming less Western, an idea he expands upon in part two of the book.
Part Two: The Shifting Balance of Civilizations
Huntington starts this section by arguing that Western power and influence is fading. There are contrasting views on the West's hold on power. One side argues that the West sill has a monopoly on technological research and development, military strength, and economic consumption. The other side argues that the relative power and influence of Western countries is declining. Huntington adopts the latter view and describes three characteristics of the Western decline:
- The current Western decline is a very slow process and is not an immediate threat to World powers today.
- Decline of power does not occur in a straight line; it may reverse, speed up, or pause.
- The power of a state is controlled and influenced by the behavior and decisions of those holding power.
Also in this section, Huntington asserts the increased role and importance of religion in world politics. Religion is the societal factor that has filled the vacuum created by a loss of political ideology. Major religions around the world "experienced new surges in commitment, relevance and practice by erstwhile casual believers" (96). Huntington goes on to say that replacing politics with religion was also the result of increased communication among societies and cultures. People "need new sources of identity, new forms of stable community, and new sets of moral precepts to provide them with a sense of meaning and purpose" (97). Religion is able to meet these needs.
Chapter five, Economics, Demography and the Challenger Civilizations , discusses the relative rise in power and influence of non-Western countries. Huntington specifically focuses on Japan, the Four Tigers (Hong Kong, Taiwan, South Korea, Singapore), and China as countries, which asserted cultural relevance through economic successes. "Asian societies are decreasingly responsive to United States demands and interests and [are] increasingly able to resist pressure from the U.S. or other Western countries" (104). The ability of Asian countries to successfully modernize and develop economically without adopting western values supports
Islam and the West
Huntington goes into a brief historical explanation of the conflictual nature of Islam and Christianity and then lists five factors that have exacerbated conflict between the two religions in the late twentieth century. These factors are:
- the Muslim population growth has generated large numbers of unemployed and dissatisfied youth that become recruits to Islamic causes,
- the recent resurgence of Islam has given Muslims a reaffirmation of the relevance of Islam compared to other religions,
- the West's attempt to universalize values and institutions, and maintain military superiority has generated intense resentment within Muslim communities,
- without the common threat of communism, the West and Islam now perceive each other as enemies, and
- increased communication and interaction between Islam and the West has exaggerated the perceived differences between the two societies (211). Asia, China, and America
Economic development in Asia and China has resulted in an antagonistic relationship with America. As discussed in previous sections, economic success in Asia and China has created an increased sense of cultural relevancy. Huntington predicts that the combination of economic success of the East Asian countries and the heightened military power of China could result in a major world conflict. This conflict would be intensified even more by alignments between Islamic and Sinic civilizations. The end of chapter nine provides a detailed diagram (The Global Politics of Civilizations: Emerging Alliances) which helps explain the complexity of the political relationships in the post-Cold War era (245).
Huntington defines the Soviet-Afghan war and the First Gulf War as the emergence of civilization wars. Huntington interprets the Afghan War as a civilization war because it was seen as the first successful resistance to a foreign power, which boosted the self-confidence, and power of many fighters in the Islamic world. The war also "left behind an uneasy coalition of Islamic organizations intent on promoting Islam against all non-Muslim forces" (247). In other words, the war created a generation of fighters that perceived the West to be a major threat to their way of life.
The First Gulf War was a Muslim conflict in which the West intervened; the war was widely opposed by non-Westerners and widely supported by Westerners. Huntington states that "Islamic fundamentalist groupsâÃâ €šÃ¢â€šÂ¬¦denounced [the war] as a war against 'Islam and its civilization' by an alliance of 'Crusaders and Zionists' and proclaimed their backing of Iraq in the face of 'military and economic aggression against its people" (249). The war was interpreted as a war of us vs. them; Islam v. Christianity.
To better understand the definition of the fault line between civilizations, Huntington provides a description of characteristics and dynamics of fault line conflicts. They can be described by the following:
- Communal conflicts between states or groups from different civilizations
- Almost always between people of different religions
- Prolonged duration
- Violent in nature
- Identity wars (us vs. them), eventually breaks down to religious identity
- Encouraged and financed by Diaspora communities
- Violence rarely ends permanently
- Propensity for peace is increased with third party intervention
Part V: The Future of Civilizations
In the concluding sections of his book, Huntington discusses the challengers of the West, and whether or not external and internal challenges will erode the West's power. External challenges include the emerging cultural identities in the non-Western world. Internal challenges include the erosion of principle values, morals, and beliefs within Western culture. He also contributes to the debate between multiculturalists and monoculturalists and states that, "A multicultural world is unavoidable because global empire is impossible. The preservation of the United States and the West requires the renewal of Western identity" (318). The ability for the West to remain a global political power, it needs to adapt to increasing power and influence of different civilizations. Without adapting, the West is destined to decline in power and influence, or it will clash with other powerful civilizations. According to Huntington, the West clashing with another civilization is "the greatest threat to world peace, and an international order" (321).
