The Huntingtonian Fallacy

Samuel Huntington's clash of civilization is one of the most popular works of later 20th century. The assertion that start of the 21st century will see conflict based on civilizational identity rather than national identity was completely at variance with prevailing theories which broadly predicted espousal of western values after the demise of communism.

Huntington argued against taking such a course for granted, instead he contention was that absence hegemonic control of communism, coming years would see a revival of hostilities between traditional rivals.

And that is how it turned out. After the fall of communist USSR while danger of WWIII has subsided, the world has witnessed the number of conflicts steadily increasing.
This tendency has a direct correlation with the tension between members of different civilzations.

What is much more crucial role on Islam (or to be precise Pan-Islamism) has been important in many (again to be precise majority) of the conflicts (Russia - Chechenya, Kashmir,Palestine, Indonesia,Thailand to name just a few).In his book, Huntington referred to this phenomenan as "bloody borders of Islam".

This theory (clash of civilization) has gained currency since september 9-11 and many pundits have started to believe that what we are witnessing is a precursor to full blown "war of civilization" as was predicted by Huntington.

Yet, I think this is inaccurate, i.e there is no war of civilizations, further taken as civilization west doesn't face any outside danger.

The reason for this is following

1) The opposition to western civilization as exemplified by Al Qaeda and rag tag of terrorist organizations, in no way constitutes a civilization. This doesn't refer to the number of active participants in terrorism or the strike capability. The idea behind resurgency (where "idea" is used very loosely) belongs right to the medieval age. Irrespective of how many surgeons or engineers may join them, enlightenment has not passed from anywhere near them.

2) Even if discounting the above, Islamic civilization has never been united for long.
The reason is not very hard to find. Expansion of Islam in a large part can be attributed to determined military compaigns by Prophet and his followers. These compaigns were successful only because of strong belief in Islam. This was the main bedrock of Islamic expansion and as long as it was able to dominate over disruptive tendencies caliphate survived.
However one of the main characterstics of Islam is a strong affinity for tribe, and resulting tribal rivalary (this was pointed by Huntigton himself). As a result it is not long before unity forged on religious camaraderie is overcome by more temporal considerations.


The conclusion is unless what goes for Islamic civilization doesn't develop new ideas, unless it doesn't undergo enlightenment, it can not hope to be equal to west. It is ironical that almost all the instruments/weapons employed against west are themselves product of western science, which itself was result of Renaissance.

Note: This is not an arguement against "war on terror", it is utmost duty of a nation to protect her citizen and neutralize any threat to them.
 

Category : Civilization, Society, Culture, International, Politics