This document summarizes and critiques Samuel Huntington's theory of a "Clash of Civilizations". It outlines Huntington's division of the world into major civilizations and his premise that conflicts will emerge along fault lines between these civilizations. The document critiques Huntington's theory by arguing it oversimplifies diversity, ignores cross-cultural exchanges, demonizes non-Western civilizations, and seems aimed at justifying a neoconservative Western agenda. Overall, the document casts doubt on Huntington's theory by highlighting its flaws and possible political motivations.
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Clash
1. The Clash OF Civilizations
Impressions
and
Critique
2. In the post cold-war era, there
have been numerous
attempts at trying to
straighten-out the state of
world-
politics
• The End of History and The Last Man – Francis
Fukuyama (Universalisation of Western Liberal
Democracy) – 1992
• The Clash of Civilizations and Remaking of
World-Order – Samuel Huntington (Perpetual
Clash) – 1993
• Jihad vs. McWorld – Benjamin Barber
(Struggle between Globalization and Tribalism)- 1995
3. Who is Samuel Huntington?
Political Scientist
White-House coordinator
(Carter Administration)
Professor at Columbia And Harvard
Universities
4. Genesis of the idea of Clash
• This notion of “Clash of Civilizations” is not original
in Huntington
• In a sort of classic ‘orientalist’ gesture , he took it
from a 1990 Atlantic Magazine article – The Roots
of Muslim Rage by Bernard Lewis
• Its also suggested that Huntington’s proposition was
an attempt to ‘academically’ validate the fictitious
Islamic ‘Green Threat’ for the sustenance of Euro-
American military-industrial complex
5. Huntington’s
Clash of Civilizations
- First presented as a lecture in 1992 at
American Enterprise Institute
- Foreign Policy Magazine carried it as
a long-read in 1993
- Huntington later expanded it into a
book in 1996
7. Dividing the World into ‘Civilizations’
• Western
• Confucian
• Japanese
• Islamic
• Hindu
• Slavic-Orthodox
• Latin-American
• African
8. The faultlines between civilizations will be
the battle lines of future
- Misappropriating diversity into conflict
- Faultlines don’t necessarily devolve into battle lines
9. Civilization is the broadest concept of
cultural identity
- Identities can traverse the boundaries civilization
- People can, for example, be western-muslims,
latin-american hindus, Japanese-muslims etc.
10. Increase in
Intra-Civilization Consciousness
due to increasing interactions
within the civilization
- What about the inter-civilizational exchanges?
- There is a healthy socio-cultural, economic
and political exchange between civilizations,
cutting across Huntington’s “battle lines”
11. West, at the peak of its power confronts
NON-WESTS that increasingly have
a desire, the will and the resources
to shape the world into non-western ways
- Creating a “non-western” demon
- A demon that “we” are in “confrontation”
with
12. Economic Regionalism is increasing
amongst civilizations. It can only
succeed only when its rooted in
common civilization
- Inter-Civilizational trade organizations
- BRICS
- Trans-Pacific Partnership
- BRICS contains five different ‘civilizations’
13. First Arab Nationalism then Islamic
fundamentalism manifested themselves
-As if so called Islamic Fundamentalism is a successor
of Arab Nationalism
- Arab Nationalism was mainly anti-colonial in nature
- Islam has bloody borders. Classic example of
Islamophobic bigotry
14. Aggrandizing the west
West Versus the Rest
Most of the attention is given to West
West propounds a “universal civilization”
16. Alarmist Themes
- The Islamic-Confucian alliance has emerged
to challenge western interests, values and power
- Western countries are decreasing their
military power while non-western ones are
increasing it. Only west promotes non-
proliferation
- Flow of weapons is generally from East-Asia
to Middle-East?
17. Sounds more like policy-recommendation
than a genuine academic research
- To create a “western block”, by roping-in
Latin-America, Europe, Russia and Japan,
against “Confucian and Islamic States
- Maintain Western Military Superiority in East and
South-West Asia
- To “exploit” differences and conflicts among
Confucian and Islamic States. To support, in other
Civilizations, groups sympathetic to the West-
Divide and Rule
