THE “CLASH OF CIVILIZATIONS” PARADIGM AND ITS CRITICS: A FINAL APPRAISAL
by Professor Michael C. Geokas
Hellenic News of America
Sept 27 2005
April 1, 1995 [PUBLISHED IN: Balkan News (Athens) May7-13, 1995]
>>From Samuel Huntington, one of the most distinguished and well-known
authorities on the State and its interests, we have seen “The Clash
of Civilizations,” an elaborate post-Cold War paradigm. Huntington
asserts that civilizations (defined by language, history, religion,
customs, institutions and by the self identification of people),
are both real and important, and that the differences among them,
which have been solidified through the centuries, are more fundamental
and enduring, than ideological or economic differences, as causes of
future conflict. Thus, civilizational conflict he states, is destined
to be the latest and inescapable phase of conflict in the modern world.
Additionally, whereas nation states, will continue to be powerful
actors in the affairs of the world, the clash between civilizations
will in effect dominate global politics and the (cultural) fault
lines between them, will constitute the battle lines of the future.
Some of Huntington’s critics (the magnificent seven) have been
vigorous in their attempts to discredit the civilization paradigm,
by insisting that the pervasive power of modernity and the inherent
weakness and inevitable erosion of tradition, will soon culminate
into a universal civilization, as the final and dominant determining
factor in global affairs. Professor Fouad Ajami has offered the most
brilliant, most eloquent and the most compelling “scalpel dissection”
of Huntington’s paradigm.
For this writer, Huntington’s civilizational paradigm is an ambitious
construct. However, it contains at least two very significant
classification errors, as well as the intriguing omission of a
monumental factor which promises to be overwhelming ingredient
in determining the future course in world affairs well into the
21st century and beyond: the population explosion in Asia, Africa
and Latin America. Most importantly, Huntington’s paradigm cannot
serve as a model or guide to help us comprehend post-Cold War global
political events.
ERRATA First, Huntington failed to realize and properly record that a
“Clash of Civilizations” has already been inaugurated by the conflict
between the Confucian and the Japanese civilizations, in the ‘China
Incident,” and between the Japanese, and Confucian plus Western
Civilizations, in the “Pacific Rim,” as part of World War II. As
expected from a civilizational conflict, involving sharply defined
cultural fault lines, the latter clash started with spectacular fury,
with an abrupt, surreal, unprovoked and devastating attack from the
air, at Pearl Harbor. This conflict was subsequently fought with
electrifying and ferocious naval and air battles, which included the
spectacle of the notorious kamikaze attacks, unique in the annals of
modern warfare. It included dogfights with Japanese pilots wearing
no parachutes, because it was considered disgraceful for them to
be captured alive by the enemy. The conflict was also fought with
enormous ferocity from island to island in the Pacific, with the
Japanese garrisons fighting against all odds, until the bitter end,
with very few survivors each time.
Even the Japanese civilian non-combatants, refused to surrender
and fell to their deaths from seaside elevations. Finally, when the
end came, it was from the air and was “unimaginable, irresistible,
[and] mushroom shaped.” Thus, the “Pacific Rim” conflicts before and
during the World War II, involved the clash of three civilizations,
the Confucian, Japanese and Western, especially its North American
subdivision. Even “the China Incident” was fought with great ferocity
(rape of Nanking and the indiscriminate bombardment of civilians) as
befitting to civilizational clash of arms. However, despite the fact
that the “Pacific Rim” conflicts fit Samuel Huntington’s paradigm
as the “right key in a door lock,” both of them were in effect
wars between nation states, that happened to belong to different
civilizations and not the other way around. These nation states fought
for their calculated crude interests.
The second significant error of Samuel Huntington’s is found in his
classification of contemporary civilizations, when he contradicts
his own obligatory definition. If indeed a civilization is defined
by common objective elements such as: language, history, religion,
customs, and institutions and subjectively, by the people’s
self-identification, then especially the Greeks, do not belong to
the Slavic-Orthodox-Moslem, civilization.
Orthodox-Christians they are, but Slavic people, they are definitely
not, and their differences from Islam, are too blatantly obvious to
deserve mentioning. But even the line of demarcation between Western
and Orthodox Christianity plus Islam, as suggested by William Wallace
(Map I), is fallacious, artificial and unsupported by the facts. This
line is also prejudicial, because it is based on the unresolved
Schism of Christianity, less than a millennium ago. On this issue
Jeanne Kirkpatrick is right on target. To exclude Russia and other
Orthodox Christians from Western Culture and to lump them together
with Islam, is to fly in the face of reality. Thus, instead of being
perpendicular, this demarcation line should be almost horizontal
(Map II), extending from the Black Sea to North Korea, separating
Christian people (including the Armenians) from those of the Islamic
and Confucian Civilizations.
THE GREEK CONNECTION History has already classified Greece as a
Western subcivilization, albeit with a special twist, due to her
exotic language, the non-Catholic branch of its Church and other
striking elements. Greece is in effect an outpost of Western Europe,
closely adjacent to the World’s most notorious cultural fault line,
that between Europe and Islam. In addition, Greece is the acclaimed
birthplace of Western democracy. Only in the city state of ancient
Athens and in the United States so far, has democracy lasted for as
much as two hundred years.
With a population of about 250,000, Athens produced works of
literature, sculpture and architecture that stand as models,
inspiration and wonder to this day. There is a superbly valid reason,
why the torch for the Olympic games originates in Olympia in the
Peloponessus and why the Greek Olympic team, holding that striking
blue and white flag, is always the first to enter the stadium, for
the Olympic opening ceremonies.
The fall of Constantinople in 1453 followed by almost 400 years of
Ottoman rule, eclipsed the normal evolution of a nation state. With
the revolution of 1821, promulgated mainly by Greeks of diaspora
living in Europe, a nation state was born about 170 years ago and
has been under parliamentary rule for 140 years of its existence,
in very sharp contrast to its neighbors to the east of the fault line.
During the “Western Civil Wars,” World War I and II and the Cold
War, Greece sided persistently and unequivocally with the victorious
members of the Western family of nations. Specifically, the Greeks
were celebrated participants in World War II, who fought in Greece,
in El Alamein, and in Italy. They enjoy the enviable distinction of
having defeated one of the fascist partners in 1940, of contributing
to the defeat of the second and of having defeated the Communists as
well, under the Truman doctrine, which was highly symbolic for the
Birthplace of Democracy.
Linguistically, the Greeks are unique indeed because their language
has only enriched other European languages. Thus, a cornucopia of
nomenclature of Greek derivation is found in Western dictionaries
and at least 68 per cent of the terms in Medicine are of Greek
derivation. The exotic nature of the Greek language is the reason
for the phrase, “its all Greek to me.”
There has never been a “kin country” syndrome among the Greeks, because
religion alone is not enough of a factor of kinship. The Greek Orthodox
Patriarchate is not the “Vatican” of Orthodox Christendom. As the
Turks have found to their sharp disappointment with the 150 million
fellow Muslim Turkic-speakers beyond their northern border, they
could not be their cultural Mecca, and they even failed to be their
“privileged partners.”
Most importantly, in complete alignment with the rest of Europe, Greece
has made the second demographic transition, with a low fertility rate
(1.4) and low natural increase of her population (0.1% annually), and
has embraced similar family planning methods, again in contrast, to her
Middle-Eastern neighbors on the other site of the fault line. Turkey
and other nations of the Middle East, have high fertility rates,
from 2.9 to 7.9,and natural increase from 1.5 to 5.0.
The Western character and strong subjective identification of the
Greeks is aptly illustrated by the Greek origin people in diaspora
(about 4 million), who voting with their feet, have settled mainly in
the West (US, Canada, Australia, European Continent). They are known
to adjust splendidly and to blend easily into the Western environment.
The Greek people have been adherents to the Orthodox Church since the
split of Christianity into its two main branches. The Greeks spread
Orthodoxy to the Slavic people. Religion is the only similarity between
them. All other objective elements such as language, history, customs,
institutions, culture, traditions are completely different.
Thus, it is absurd and inappropriate, to classify the Greeks into the
Slavic-Orthodox civilization just because they are not Catholics, or
Protestants. It is as absurd as classifying Suni and Shiite Moslems,
into separate Civilizations.
Thus, Greece is a part of Western civilization albeit with a special
twist: that of a magnificent language system, (for those who can read
the Iliad as well as Nikos Kazantzakis), a fierce individuality of
its people, and a great political and cultural heritage, which is
distinctly separate from that of the Slavic and Islamic peoples.
Greece it not even a “Torn Country.” It is a Western nation and a
European outpost at that.
THE DEMOGRAPHIC IMPERATIVE However, the most stupendous omission of
Samuel Huntington’s and of his critics (except Kishore Mahbubani),
concerns the overwhelming role that the demographic changes of the
world population, (projected for the 21st century), will undoubtedly
have on future world affairs.
The population explosion (vide infra) and brisk urbanization will
further erode tradition, and will boost modernity and the power of the
nation state. By 2015 nearly 56 per cent of the global population will
be urban, and there will be by 2010, 26 mega-cities with more than
10 million, most of them in developing countries. This significant
omission is understandable. We live in a world of intense and pervasive
specialization in science, and political scientists and professors
of government are no exception, in having difficulties to handle an
issue that necessitates a genuine multidisciplinary approach. Thus,
with one exception, the entire group of discussants, have neglected
the most crucial factor, that will determine to a significant degree,
the course of world affairs, in the next century.
Huntington refers to demographic changes only in passing and does not
seem to grasp their overwhelming impact on any post-cold War paradigm,
including his own.
POPULATION PROJECTIONS AND CONSEQUENCES.
Europe’s population (minus the previous USSR) will grow very little
by 2025, from 513 (1993) to 524 million (2025) and 18.4 of that
population will be over 65.
The population of the Middle Eastern countries and territories (Gaza
and West Bank) of 264,715 million in 1993, is projected to be about
576,426 million in 2025 (high estimate).
The Islamic nations included 980 million people in 1989 and are
expected to nearly double to 1.9 billion by 2020, accounting for 23
per cent of the world’s total.
The population of Africa was 677 million in 1993 and is projected to
be 1,552 million at 2025.
Asia’s population of 3,257 million in 1993 is projected to reach 4,946
million in 2025. China alone with 1,178.5 in 1993, is projected at
1,546.3 million for 2025.
North America’s (US and Canada) population of 287 million in 1993 is
projected at 371 million at 2025.
Latin America’s population of 460 million in 1993,is projected to be
682 million at 2025.
Former USSR’s population was 285 in 1993 and is projected at 321
million, at 2025.
Oceania’s 28 million people in 1993 are projected at 39 million
at 2025.
Thus the Western countries (Europe and North America) are projected
to have about 887 million people by 2025, (20 per cent of them over
65) whereas Africa, Asia and Latin America combined, are projected
to have 7,761 million, and a much younger population at that. This
enormous population imbalance between Western and non-Western nations,
will impart fundamental changes in the world arena.
The demographic forces now in motion will yield a world where
the US and other Western nations will no longer be able to shape
the political agenda, the culture or the direction of the global
community. Inescapably, the center of political, economic and
military power will move to a new non-Western area, bringing with
it an assertiveness of wide scope and significance. The mammoth
differences in demographic power will have serious consequences
for Western countries. Moreover, this population imbalance coupled
with differences in religion, culture, history, and traditions, will
provide the stage for a possible conflict between nation states or
groups of states, of the same or different civilizations.
The potentially controlling role of the demographic forces has been
appreciated by Kishore Mahbubani, who states that “simple arithmetic
demonstrates Western folly.” The West has 800 million people, and
the rest make up 4.7 billion.
In the national arena no Western society would accept a situation
where 15 per cent of its population legislated for the remaining 85
per cent. But this is what the West is trying to do globally.”
Kishore Mahbubani’s population arithmetic adjusted for the year 2025,
will be even more compelling for the emerging power of the non-Western
civilizations.
There can be no amount of exclusive technology or alliance that will
help a static and aging Western society, with 20 per cent of its
population over 65, (with its enormous expenses for health care and
other demands of its welfare policies), that will compensate for such
remarkable differences in sheer numbers and vitality of populations.
It is the demographic imperative, of population explosion and
urbanization (in addition to the modernizing imperative of Jeane J.
Kirkpatrick), coupled with the steady weakening of the Western
Societies through their own folly, that will facilitate conflict.
The West is caught into a self-made web of: low fertility rates,
excessive egalitarianism and radical interpretation of democracy, an
overwhelming emphasis on individualism, which translates into profound
selfishness (and away from altruism and childbearing), and palpable
arrogance, (even among intelligentsias); excessive liberalism and
permissiveness with almost total lack of discipline, especially among
the young, (who receive an abundance of contradictory signals from
their societies), a rigid and inflexible constitutionalism, flagrant
consumerism and hedonism and drug abuse; an incessant hollow call for
respect of human rights despite its miserable failure to protect its
own citizens from criminals and from other elements of social decay.
Whereas the “Western Ideas,” in Samuel Huntington’s litany of
“individualism, liberalism, constitutionalism, human rights, equality,
liberty, the rule of law, democracy, free markets,” sound magnificent,
the demographic forces now at work and on track and their predictable
consequences, will make the West less and less relevant, by sheer
population volume, by the global redistribution of economic power,
and by technology transfer. For instance, the rapidly increasing
economic power of the East Asian States, including China, and their
huge populations and internal markets, will eventually lead to
enhanced military power (including an atomic arsenal and the means
to deliver it), to cultural assertiveness and to profound political
influence. The only partial exception to this scenario will most
probably be the United States, due to strong credentials as part
of the Pacific Rim family of nations and due to the volume and high
quality of brain power and high technological standing.
ISLAM >>From all civilizations, Islam represents a special case and
stands out alone. Islam is much more than a religion. Indeed, it is
a complete way of life. The Sharia governs virtually every aspect of
human life and Moslems believe that the word of God was given word
by word to Muhammad 1400 years ago, who in turn copied it in the Koran.
Furthermore, Islam is an expanding faith and the maintenance of a
worldwide Muslim community is one of the goals of Islamic life. A
specific example of this is the pilgrimage to Mecca, which serves to
demonstrate to each pilgrim the vast reach of Islam and the communality
of its adherents. Many Westerners believe that Islam represents the
only veritable ideological competitor of the West at the end of the
20th century and beyond. Here again the demographic imperative appears
to be controlling, especially in the southern and eastern perimeter
of Europe, where the Europeans sense [the] Islamic ideology on the
march, in what is called Islamic fundamentalism.
The seven countries of North Africa including Egypt, had 155 million
people in 1993 and are projected at 280 million at 2025, with a
doubling population time of 28 years. Moreover, the 15 countries of the
Middle East (including Egypt and Israel) will surpass an aging Europe,
with their youthful population. Thus, the fear of population decline
in “Fortress Europe,” which has been debated in France for decades
is now coming into a sharp focus. Many Europeans have justified fear
that migration from developing countries, including North Africa and
the Middle East, will increase to unacceptable levels.
It seems that population, like nature abhors a vacuum and is compelled
to move from high-growth to low-growth areas, especially if there is a
pull factor of economic advantage. At the G-7 meeting in Tokyo in 1993,
it was stated that uncontrolled migration may be more threatening and
destabilizing than terrorism or the spread of nuclear weapons. Whereas
nobody would anticipate a holy war of Muslim countries from North
Africa and Middle East, as a crusade in reverse, this time by the
Muslim crescent, the potential for great upheaval and disorder at
Europe’s interface with Islam is real.
HAVE A BETTER IDEA? YES I DO.
The “Clash of Civilizations” post-cold War paradigm cannot serve as
the model to help us understand central developments in the future
of world politics. Instead, the nation states, old and new, will
continue to be the main actors in world affairs, with their “acting”
having at times, a civilizational component.
Conflict between (and within) nation states of the same or of different
civilizations will continue to occur as a result of various factors
acting alone or in combination such as: ubiquitous nationalism,
simmering land disputes, competition for scarce water and energy
resources, age-old tribal frictions, religious fundamentalism,
regional and international terrorism, attempts for regional hegemony,
pressures from refugee populations and from large waves of migrants
towards developed countries.
However, the most powerful, all pervasive underlying factor for future
conflict, will be the demographic forces of population growth and
urbanization. This will bring the gradual, inexorable translocation
of economic, political and military power (and the ability to risk
military conflict and to tolerate combat losses), away from Western
societies and toward the nation states of the Islamic, Hindu and
Confucian civilizations. The aging populations of the Western powers,
and their inability to accept large combat losses in serious conflict,
(except in dire need of self-defense), will be in sharp contrast with
the exploding and youthful people of other civilizations.
Edward Luttwak has recently provided us with a brilliant analysis on
the existing impotence of the great Western powers to influence the
course of world events through intimidation, backed up with military
action if necessary, due to the demographic imperative of one, two
and three child families. He discusses “the War of all Mothers” and
the Italian “mamismo” (mothering) and their political consequences,
in the form of a powerful constraint in the use of force, by the low
fertility Western powers.
He emphasizes that in the future, only nation states with a high
fertility rate and large families will be able to initiate and to
sustain conflict and to tolerate significant combat losses. The West
he says, will have to rely more and more on volunteer armies and on
robotic weapons and will delay and avoid conflict, as much as possible,
because of the new family demography.
On the other hand, atomic weapons (and the means of delivering them)
are expected to proliferate among some high fertility rate nation
states and their deterrent effect will be lost for the West. Thus,
the emerging picture for the future of world politics is complicated
and largely unpredictable, due to a mosaic of labile factors,
but specifically because of the looming consequences of population
explosion and urbanization, coupled with the information explosion,
in Asia, Latin America and Africa.
In my view, an all-embracing post-Cold War guiding paradigm based
on civilizational fault lines, is unrealistic. Instead, the “tug of
war” between tradition and modernity will continue inexorably, in
a large number of global locations. The nation states shall remain
the key actors in world affairs, albeit in a new order dictated by
demographic forces.
Finally, the International Conference on Population and Development,
in Cairo, last year, was indeed a valiant attempt to slow down the
projected population explosion within the 21st century, through family
planning and other measures, from 5.67 billion today, to a sustainable
7.27 billion by 2015. Most probably however, the long-term outcomes
of this effort, will be modest at best, due to the fact that Western
countries have long completed their second demographic transition,
whereas nation states of Islamic and some of the other non-Western
civilizations, have a long way to go, in achieving their own
demographic transition and population control.
Michael C. Geokas, M. D., M. Sc., Ph.D.(McGill), Emeritus Professor
of Medicine and Biological Chemistry, University of California, Davis.
SOURCES:
1. Huntington S.P. The Clash of Civilizations. Foreign Affairs,
72(3):22, 1993;
2. Huntington S. P. If not Civilizations What? Foreign Affairs
72(5):186, 1993;
3. Ajami Fouad. The Summoning, But they Said, We Will not Hearken.
Foreign Affairs 72(4): 2, 1993;
4. Kirkpatrick Jeane J. and others. The Modernizing Imperative,
Tradition and Change. Foreign Affairs 72(4):22, 1993;
5. Mabbubani K. The Dangers of Decadence, What the Rest Can Teach
the West, Foreign Affairs, 72(4): 10, 1993;
6. Kagan D. Pericles of Athens and the Birth of Democracy, New York:
Free Press, 1991;
7. Rouleau E. Challenges to Turkey. Foreign Affairs 72(5):110, 1993;
8. 1993, World Population Data Sheet, Population Reference Bureau,
Inc. Washington D.C.;
9. Beedham B. Islam and the West, Economist, 332(7875), August 6,
1994:44.
10. Luttwak E. Where are the Great Powers? Home With the Kids.
Foreign Affairs, 73(4):23, 1994;
11. Inoguchi T. The Coming Pacific Century? Current History 93(579):25,
1995;
12. Conelly M. and Kennedy P. Must It Be the Rest against the West?
The Atlantic Monthly, 274(6): 61-91,December 1994.