The Clash of Civilizations?
Apr 28 2007 | Views 4376 |
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Tags: Rajiv Malhotra Samuel Phillips Huntington The Clash of Civilizations
Tags: Rajiv Malhotra Samuel Phillips Huntington The Clash of Civilizations
The Clash of Civilizations?
“Clash of Civilizations” is a controversial theory based on the premise that the primary source of conflict in the world comes out of the differences in cultural and religious identities among groups of people.
In recent times, it was Samuel Phillips Huntington, the controversial political scientist from the US, who popularized the theory through a book by the same name.
Huntington theorized that the age of ideology ended with the cold war, and that the world had since reverted to the "normal state" that is characterized by cultural and religious conflict – rather than by a conflict of economic interests or of competing ideas.
He went on to identify the “civilizations” that are in (irreconcilable?) conflict – Western, Sinic, Orthodox, Japanese, Latin American, Islamic, Hindu and African.
It was predictable – even as Huntington first proposed this idea in 1993 -- that various culture supremacist groups around the world would indeed find this theory “useful” as the justification for their politics and parochial agenda. The recent blog entry at Sulekha by Rajiv Malhotra, “Whiteness Studies and Implications for Indian-American Identity” would appear to be a confirmation of this prediction!
Let us analyze the concept of “Clash of Civilizations”, itself considered as an “idea”. This is one “idea” propounded by a person (who claims to represent the Western Civilization) that will not be denigrated by Rajiv Malhotra (or his equivalents in other “civilizations”) as “Western”! What is obvious is that this particular “idea” has a cross civilizational appeal!
The Clash of Ideas!
Rajiv would definitely not like to be included in the same company as those from other “civilizations” who also accept that the idea of “Clash of Civilizations” is a useful paradigm.
But the fact is that “acceptance of the idea of Clash of Civilizations” is one characteristic based on which (mutually hostile) people from across cultures can possibly be clubbed together into a single cross-cultural classification. May we say that this “homogenous” group consists of “all those who find Huntington’s idea useful and appealing”?
There are also other characteristics that allow cross-cultural classification of people based on the “ideas” (or economic interests) that they share in common:-
a) Those (from across cultures) who find Huntington’s idea to be politically distasteful – even a possible justification for parochial and fascist politics within various cultures.
b) Those (from across cultures) who accept the “idea” that most world conflicts emanate out of economic disparities that are the product of colonial exploitation.
c) Those (from across cultures) who accept universal ideas such as “vasudhaivaka kutumbakam” – or that all human beings, despite cultural and civilizational differences, belong to the same extended family.
d) Those (from across cultures) who accept that the methods of modern science (based on "reason" and "evidence") are a great unifying tool to resolve conflicting ideas, theories etc. That this tool is effective irrespective of the “identity” of the person who wields this.
Rajiv Malhotra may not like this – but there is no way that ALL “Hindus” can be made to rally behind a Golwalkar (or a Modi, or even a Shankaracharya) in defense of the “Hindu Civilization”. The good news is that this is not a “problem” that is unique among Hindus. There are a whole lot of people (within every civilizational group) who can never be made to rally behind those who have set out to defend (or fight for the supremacy of) so called civilizational values.
Personally, I prefer the universal paradigm of “clash of ideas” – rather than the parochial “clash of civilizations”.
I would gladly join cause along with those from across cultural and national identities – all those with liberal and universal values (such as Noam Chomsky of the US, Uri Avnery of Israel, Pervez Hoodbhoy of Pakistan etc etc) in a “conflict of ideas” against all those (including those from within my civilization) who seek to fight from the narrow perspective of defending this or that civilizational interests…
Anand Nair
© Anand Nair., all rights reserved.
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