The 'Confusion' of Civilizations
Institute research on ethnic and religious intolerance finds that the so-called clash of civilizations has more to do with nationalism.
April 1997
he so-called clash of civilizations recently asserted by political scientist Samuel Huntington in articles and a book might more appropriately be called the "confusion of civilizations," says David Little (left), director of the U.S. Institute of Peace's project on intolerance and senior scholar in religion, ethics, and human rights.
To understand why, however, it is necessary to look more closely at nationalism, which Huntington virtually ignores, Little says. Ethnic and religious conflicts are inseparable from the dynamics of nationalism, which is a universal attempt, usually by a majority group, to gain control over the political and legal life of the inhabitants of a particular territory, using ethnicity and religion to justify their claim to power, Little says. He discussed the role of ethnicity and religion in nationalist movements at an Institute meeting in January.
Culture or Nationalism?
Huntington first presented his thesis on "The Clash of Civilizations" in Foreign Affairs in 1993 and has since published a book on the subject entitled The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order. Essentially, he says that the world is riven by deep cultural divisions and that nations and peoples belonging to different culture groups--for example, Western, Islamic, or Confucian--hold markedly different values regarding democracy, human rights, and religious tolerance. He concludes that it is wrongheaded for the West to impose its value system on the rest of the world in what can only be a futile contest of "the West against the rest."
Little argued, however, that his in-depth studies of countries such as Sri Lanka, Ukraine, and Sudan show that "key contemporary patterns of cultural, ethnic, and religious confrontation exist not so much between civilizations as within nations." In these and other countries, as part of an effort to create a nation-state, a majority group has sought to assert exclusive ethnic domination over minority ethnic groups, which in response try to evade or restrain the majority's effort to dominate. Generally, the majority group legitimates its claim to power by appealing to ethnicity, and further bolsters its claim by arguing that it advances and defends "certain sacred values and ways of life" embodied by a particular religion.
In their effort to avoid domination by the larger ethnic group, minorities usually appeal to human rights standards that prescribe ethnic and religious tolerance and nondiscrimination. "Minorities widely advocate human rights solutions, not only because they are internationally proclaimed and sanctioned, but more importantly, I think, because they are regarded as offering the only truly satisfactory basis for stable ethnic and religious peace in a multi-ethnic nation," Little said.
Ethnic Nationalism and Minorities
The struggle of minorities to cope with ethnic nationalism is as apparent in the United States, Canada, and Western Europe (for example, among Native Americans in the United States, Quebecois in Canada, and Roma in Europe) as it is in far-flung countries and regions. "The struggles of minorities in the West are not different in kind from what is happening in the rest of the world," Little said. "The sorts of laws and policies in favor of ethnic and religious tolerance and nondiscrimination that we in the West have come to embrace, as the result of a very painful history, are just as relevant to the experience of other nations."
For example, the Dalai Lama advocates the "separation of church and state" in a future Tibet to guarantee non-Buddhist minorities their rightful claims to freedom and equality. In Sudan, there are substantial Muslim constituencies who oppose the present Islamic government and who advocate, sometimes at considerable risk to themselves, greater compliance with human rights principles. Minority populations in southern Sudan invoke principles of nondiscrimination and religious freedom. Also, it was the recent adoption of human rights norms in Moldova, Guatemala, and the Philippines that provided the basis for a peaceful settlement of ethnic disputes in those countries.
These examples help to demonstrate that there is no "clash of civilizations" as such, Little said. Rather, it is important for the West to see itself not as alienated from "the rest," but as partners with them in a common venture. At the same time, the West needs to recognize that other regions of the world must adapt and apply the norms of tolerance and nondiscrimination to their own settings in their own ways.
