The Clash of Civilizations

The Clash of Civilizations is an article by Samuel P. Huntington which was published in 1993 in the Forreign Affairs magazine. It focuses on the claim that in the post-cold war world the source of struggle and conflict will be cultural and not economic or ideological. In addition, Huntington divides the world in 8 civilizations and tries to predict the frequency of confrontations between them. One of the main reasons for this, according to him, is the fact that while living in more globalized world, nations feel they have lost a part of their identity and try to compensate that by going back to their cultural roots and religion. The second major reason is, of course, the fact that the cultural differences that people have have been around much longer than the political or ideological ones that have developed throughout the ages.

Is he right?

Well, if one picks up a newspaper and just randomly goes over the news, one can immediately notice several things Huntington got right. The Sinic and the Islamic civilizations have increased their power and have started challenging the power of the West. And globalization seems to be putting more oil into the fire. There are also a lot of conflicts within civilizations and geographical (physical) boundaries are created to divide groups of different religion and culture.

Consequently, one can argue that I agree with the theory behind Clash of Civilizations and believe that Huntington's article might just be a self-fulfilling prophecy.

One thing, however, that I find very interesting, is the part about the 'torn' countries and the 'identity crisis' they would go through. What side is to prevail? What's would be the strongest element that would determine the country's civilization? Religion?

True, Turkey is an excellent example of such a 'torn' country but there has to be other countries that are similar. Could Mongolia be one? As a nation they have had tremendous influence from the Soviet Union. Their social behavior, alphabet are deeply influenced and they do not have much tolerance for the China. But this is yet to be seen.