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VIEWPOINT: KAUTILYA
Civilising
Conflict
Huntington's
controversial "clash of civilisations" theory is back in the news.
By Jairam Ramesh
Three
words other than Osama Bin Laden are capturing world headlines these days-
"clash of civilisations". This phrase came into public discourse
dramatically with Samuel Huntington's "Clash of Civilisations?"
in the summer 1993 issue of Foreign Affairs, published by the New York-based
Council of Foreign Relations. Subsequently, the Harvard professor of political
science expanded his article into a book The Clash of Civilisations and
the Remaking of World Order that came out in 1996. Huntington's work has
been analysed and debated, applauded and heralded, criticised and condemned.
September 11, 2001 has brought it back into sharp focus across continents.
 Huntington
defines a civilisation as a culture writ large involving values, norms,
institutions and modes of thinking to which successive generations in
a given society have attached primary importance. Saying that religion
is the defining characteristic of civilisations, Huntington identifies
seven contemporary civilisations-Western, Latin American, Sinic, Japanese,
Hindu, Islamic and African. He rejects the notion of a Buddhist or Jewish
civilisation. He contends that while the lines between civilisations are
seldom sharp, they are nonetheless real.
Conflicts can occur within civilisations. But
what pre-occupies Huntington is the larger issue of conflicts between
and among civilisations, between what he calls "core states"
of different civilisations. According to him, the Soviet-Afghan War of
1979-89 was the first war of civilisations while the 1990-91 Gulf War
was the second such confrontation. Wars can also occur on a smaller scale
across "fault lines" between civilisations, as for instance,
in Kashmir. Rich diasporas play a key role in sustaining such conflicts.
Having said that future wars are going to be
civilisational in nature as a result of growing resistance to the spread
of western universalism, Huntington proceeds to give his remedies for
peace and harmony. In a multi-civilisational world, he writes, there are
three rules that need to be followed. First is the abstention rule: core
states must abstain from intervention in conflicts in other civilisations.
Second is the joint mediation rule: core states should negotiate with
each other to contain or to halt wars between states or groups from their
civilisations. Third is the commonalties rule: peoples in all civilisations
should search for and attempt to expand the value, institutions and practices
they have in common with peoples of other civilisations. Huntington calls
for an international institutional order restructuring, based on civilisations
as the surest safeguard against a world war.
Huntington devotes considerable attention to
the collision between Islam and the West. To be sure, anti-Muslim prejudices
in western societies and the policies of western governments, particularly
in West Asia, have fuelled great resentment amongst Muslims worldwide,
but the problem, Huntington says, is deeper. He argues that the absolute
nature of Islam that merges religion and politics, the absence of the
concept of non-violence in that faith and the fact that it lacks one or
more core states that could effectively mediate conflicts have all combined
to make Islam a source of global instability.
While addressing a seminar organised by the
Konrad Adenauer Foundation on India in Bonn in May this year, Dietmar
Rothermund, the eminent German historian and scholar on India, spoke on
how there is a danger that instead of Huntington learning from India,
some elements in India will learn from Huntington and make his scheme
a self-fulfilling prophecy. While referring to India as a civilisation-state,
Rothermund cautioned that such a reference must mean an affirmation of
diversity rather than an assent to Huntington's scheme of civilisational
blocks.
Huntington visited India in January 1998. His
lectures here evoked a jubilant response from RSS-BJP ideologues who saw
in his theories a vindication of their own world view. But while recognising
that India may well be a case for controverting his theories, we cannot
deny the need for an intensified inter-faith interaction on a sustained
basis in our society. Secularism must mean confronting bigots, fanatics
and zealots of all religions without fear or favour. We can no longer
run away from the fact that while we have had a glorious multi-civilisational
heritage, that syncretic and composite heritage is under assault from
all quarters-majority and minority. Huntington is convinced that a multi-civilisational
country can no longer endure as a coherent society. Two of 20th century's
multi-civilisational entities-the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia-have withered
away. Two remain-the US and India. But our approaches to managing diversity
are very different and have to be kept that way if we are to retain the
essence of our great civilisation immortalised in Iqbal's moving Saare
jahan se accha, Hindustan hamara.
(The author is with the Congress party. These
are his personal views.)
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