Clash of civilizations... Culture? Religion? Politics? Economy?
The clash of civilizations is defined as a theory that explains the great political and cultural movements of Universal History through the reciprocal influences exerted among them by different civilizations (as opposed to those due to clashes between nation-states or ideologies) .
A civilization, in this context, is a more or less closed culture with a more or less hermetic and impervious cultural tradition, which is therefore in opposition to other civilizations with different traditions.
Twenty years ago the political scientist Samuel P. Huntington wrote with this title (The Clash of Civilizations) a book that had great impact, some agreed with his thesis, others rejected, however, the events that occurred in this period, especially on issues such as immigration and Islamic terrorism have agreed with the thesis of this author
) The central theme of this book is the fact that culture and cultural identities, which at their broadest level are civilizational identities that shaped patterns of cohesion, disintegration and conflict in the post-Cold War world, that Islam was experiencing an explosion demographic of destabilizing consequences for the Muslim countries and for their neighbors, and that the universalist pretensions of the West make it enter more and more into conflict with other civilizations, in a more serious way with Islam and with China. Addressing the relationship between Islam and the West, he expresses his disagreement with then-President Bill Clinton who claimed that the West has no problems with Islam, but only with violent Islamist extremists. Emphatically Huntington refutes it and states: "Fourteen hundred years of history demonstrate the opposite. The relations between Islam and Christianity, both orthodox and Western, have often been tempestuous. Each of them has been Other of another, "and explains some of those religious clashes.
Unfortunately the facts demonstrate the truth of these theses, Muslims have gained huge spaces in Europe, their influence on culture is amazing and the power they hold in many cities and countries is growing and often uncontrollable. If only the British capital is taken as a reference, we find that more than one million Muslims live in London
Quoting Huntington's article:
Nation-states will continue to be the most powerful actors on the international scene, but the main conflicts of global politics will occur between nations and groups of nations belonging to different civilizations. The clash of civilizations will dominate global politics. The failures between civilizations will be the battle fronts of the future.
Levels of conflict
Huntington argues that conflicts between civilizations are inevitable, since each has significantly different value systems. For him the relations between civilizations will normally vary from the distant to the violent, being located most of the time between both extremes. Trust and friendship will be rare.
Clashes or conflicts between civilizations can occur at two levels: fracture line conflicts and conflicts between central states. The conflict at the micro level or the fracture line is when two neighboring states, but of different civilizations, enter into conflict or when a civil war between two different cultures takes place in a hidden country. On the other hand, the conflict between central states is a conflict between the main states of each civilization or entire civilizations for economic power and world control
Huntington calls fracture lines to the geographical, cultural and religious boundaries that divide civilizations. They usually agree with the borders of a group of countries but in some cases they pass in the middle of countries hiding them culturally. He argues that since the end of the Cold War, world conflicts have occurred along the borders of civilizations, with few conflicts within them. He gives as an example the wars that accompanied the disintegration of Yugoslavia, the war in Chechnya or the recurring conflicts between India and Pakistan.
Dialogue among civilizations
Some who accept Huntington's thesis regarding the existence of civilizations do not agree, however, with the inevitability of the conflict between them. They argue that, except for some extremists, the majority of the population prefers to coexist amicably.
The dialogue between civilizations was formulated for the first time by Mohammad Khatami, president of Iran, who introduced the idea as opposed to the theory of the Clash of civilizations of Samuel P. Huntington.
The term gained fame after the UN adopted a resolution with that name to enact 2001 as the year of dialogue among civilizations.67 In April 2007 the UN itself adopted the program called Alliance of Civilizations based on the concept of dialogue of civilizations.
Avoiding a world war between civilizations depends on leaders accepting the nature of global politics
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