Clash of Civilisation - A Critique

If there is any single essay that has shocked and dominated Global Politics and Foreign Affairs post cold war, it is the Clash of Civilisation by Samuel P. Huntington. The argument put forth by Huntington is that the world will be divided along the lines of religion and civilisation and this divide will further increase due to globalisation (alienating people due to the cultural gap) thus leading to major conflicts between civilisations and nations. He predicted that the dominant source of conflict between nations would be cultural and not economic or ideology (referring to communism, democracy or autocracy).

With all due respect to Huntington and his understanding of Global affairs and politics (given his credibility in that field), I think he vastly underestimated the role economic growth and politics play in influencing conflicts. Huntingtion, very conveniently states Western Europe as a single civilisation whilst some time ago it was one of the most unstable regions in the world. This very region has turned into one of the most stable regions in the world only due to one initiative: The constitution of European Union.

So what is European Union? Why has it been able to turn one of the most unstable regions in the world into a region where there has been zero conflict in the past 50 years? Is it a miracle or is the EU following a well-grounded strategy?

The EU which was completely devastated after the second world war has turned into a super economic power only because of Jean Monnet and his brilliant foresight. His reasoning was based on one theory: As the economic ties between nations increase and as they become more interdependent for growth the probability of them going on war with one another decreases tremendously. Nations are governed by political leaders and leaders do not want to delve their country into poverty and suffering primarily because it undermines their power. This brilliant insight led to the formation of EU, free trade and finally now - the single currency system.

Isn't the success of EU in direct contradiction with the theory by Huntington? I do think so. So the next question is why isnt the rest of the world trying to implement the same? The answer is simple, its incredibly tough and requires tremendous discipline and foresight.

I do remember the proposal of a single currency system in South East Asia by the member states in a summit and not surprisingly it failed. What people dont understand is that the EU didnt begin with a single currency system, it began with economic ties, free trade, clarifying border conflicts and then moved into a single currency system and not the other way around.

Coming back to the discussion of Huntington's Clash of civilisation another interesting criticism of the theory has been put forth by Amartya Sen in his book- Identity and Violence: The illusion of destiny. A very interesting read indeed.