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Uncultured pearls of wisdom - The Telegraph

Pramit Pal Chaudhuri ()
1 May 1997

Title : Uncultured pearls of wisdom
Author : Pramit Pal Chaudhuri
Publication : The Telegraph
Date : May 1, 1997

When they declared all quiet on the Cold War front, roughly three schools of
thought arose on the world order that would follow. One said the nation-state
would still reign. Another said small, non-state players would run riot. The
third said cultural ties, transcending nations, would determine the future of
international relations. Samuel Huntington comes from the third school. And sits
in its most pessimistic class.

His thesis, put out in a 1993 article "Clash of Civilizations" and expanded on in
this book of nearly the same name, is that "the principal conflicts of global
politics will occur between nations and groups of different civilizations...The
fault lines between civilizations will be the battle lines of the future." States
will choose enemies, select allies, even trade on the basis of culture-not
ideology or economics. Countries that share gods, clothes and family values will
be friends.

Accept this thesis - and when Huntington began visiting the White House it was
feared Bill Clinton had and foreign policy becomes a whole new ball game. It
assumes the West must live in a state of conflict with China, Russia and the
Islamic world. But anyone who reads this book can only come to the view
Huntington's worldview is more than flawed, it is positively retarded. Clinton
seems to have thought so: a few years ago he publicly rejected the idea that,
Islam and the West, the twain shall never meet.

Huntington's centre does not hold. He carves the world into nine civilizations.
But they are out of comic books. Latin American and African civilization? His
Buddhist civilization is a chimera: a motley crew of Mongolia, Tibet and southeast
Asia. If the case for civilization as a political unit is weak, the case for
culture becoming the decisive force in state policy is even weaker Despite piles
of footnotes and quotes, Huntington never even fixes the definition of either
term.

His dismisses the idea of global cultural convergence because "modernization no
longer means Westernization". Definitions again. Japan is his model of
non-Western modernity True, it was not turned inside out like Turkey was by Kemal
Ataturk. But it is a land of liberal democracy, the rule of law, political and
civil rights the hard core of the Western canon. With dictators turning turtle all
over east Asia and Africa, China planning to adopt Roman law and Tokyo saying it
must copy the United States economy to survive, the West seems to still set the
pace.

There are many pages about Islam. It's his best example, fulfilling his idea of a
civilization that lets things like religion colour its political relations. And
Islamic states, Huntington shows, are three times more prone to fighting outside
their culture than any other civilization. But he avoids some truths. That
fundamentalist ire is directed largely against other Muslims. That many Muslim
groups fight alongside the Christian insurgents in Sudan. That Muslim Indonesia
sees more in common with Catholic Philippines than Islamic Morocco.

Another part of his thesis is that "the roots of economic cooperation are in
cultural commonality". The successful trade blocs are those whose members pray at
the same church. So he has to twist to explain why the multicultural Association
of Southeast Asian Nations is doing so well. As for the all encompassing Asia
Pacific Economic Cooperation forum, there is no mention. Culture effects some
global issues like immigration and human rights. But in the big concerns, like
trade and security, there is no evidence culture is decisive. Or, as The Economist
once wrote, "Which 'civilization' you belong to matters less than you might
think."

Huntington has exhaustive footnotes, a 30 page bibliography. But too much of what
he writes is superficial, constructed from quotes rather than serious empirical or
theoretical research. Often he is terribly off base. Consider some of his proof
the West is in decline. He shows that the percentage of soldiers in the world
that are in Western armies and the West's percentage of world manufactures are
both in decline. Big deal. Technology not foot soldiers determines military
superiority these days. If anything the military lead of the West over the rest is
increasing. As for manufacturing, the West's economies are today service and
information driven. All that industrial stuff is passe.

Huntington has little to say about India other than that its secular nature is
under threat - further evidence culture is king. His sources: two newspaper
clippings written soon after Ayodhya. In 1993 one of his critics cited Indian
democracy as an example of a Western import flourishing in culturally alien soil.
Huntington poohpoohed the argument, clearly out of ignorance.

He wrote a defence of his first article entitled "If Not Civilization, What?"
where he said his argument may be flawed but no one's got a better one. He should
look at the second school of post-Cold War theorists who argue international
relations will be driven by non-state players like non-governmental organizations,
corporations and local governments. They rest much of their case on changes
brought about by information technology networks and the like. It should surprise
no one that neither the Internet nor information technology have a place in
Huntington's book.


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