The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order (22 page)

First, everyone has multiple identities which may compete with or reinforce each other: kinship, occupational, cultural, institutional, territorial, educational, partisan, ideological, and others. Identifications along one dimension may clash with those along a different dimension: in a classic case the German workers in 1914 had to choose between their class identification with the international proletariat and their national identification with the German people and empire. In the contemporary world, cultural identification is dramatically increasing in importance compared to other dimensions of identity.

Along any single dimension, identity is usually most meaningful at the immediate face-to-face level. Narrower identities, however, do not necessarily conflict with broader ones. A military officer can identify institutionally with his company, regiment, division, and service. Similarly, a person can identify culturally with his or her clan, ethnic group, nationality, religion, and civilization. The increased salience of cultural identity at lower levels may well reinforce its salience at higher levels. As Burke suggested: “The love to the whole is not extinguished by this subordinate partiality. . . . To be attached to the subdivision, to love the little platoon we belong to in society, is the first principle (the germ, as it were) of public affections.” In a world where culture counts, the platoons are tribes and ethnic groups, the regiments are nations, and the armies are civilizations. The increased extent to which people throughout the world differentiate themselves along cultural lines means that conflicts between cultural groups are increasingly important; civilizations are the broadest cultural entities; hence conflicts between groups from different civilizations become central to global politics.

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Second, the increased salience of cultural identity is in large part, as is argued in chapters
3
and
4
, the result of social-economic modernization at the individual level, where dislocation and alienation create the need for more meaningful identities, and at the societal level, where the enhanced capabilities and power of non-Western societies stimulate the revitalization of indigenous identities and culture.

Third, identity at any level—personal, tribal, racial, civilizational—can only be defined in relation to an “other,” a different person, tribe, race, or civilization. Historically relations between states or other entities of the same civilization have differed from relations between states or entities of different civilizations. Separate codes governed behavior toward those who are “like us” and the “barbarians” who are not. The rules of the nations of Christendom for dealing with each other were different from those for dealing with the Turks and other “heathens.” Muslims acted differently toward those of
Dar al-Islam
and those of
Dar al-harb.
The Chinese treated Chinese foreigners and non-Chinese foreigners in separate ways. The civilizational “us” and the extracivilizational “them” is a constant in human history. These differences in intra- and extracivilizational behavior stem from:

 1.  feelings of superiority (and occasionally inferiority) toward people who are perceived as being very different;

 2.  fear of and lack of trust in such people;

 3.  difficulty of communication with them as a result of differences in language and what is considered civil behavior;

 4.  lack of familiarity with the assumptions, motivations, social relationships, and social practices of other people.

In today’s world, improvements in transportation and communication have produced more frequent, more intense, more symmetrical, and more inclusive interactions among people of different civilizations. As a result their civilizational identities become increasingly salient. The French, Germans, Belgians, and Dutch increasingly think of themselves as European. Middle East Muslims identify with and rally to the support of Bosnians and Chechens. Chinese throughout East Asia identify their interests with those of the mainland. Russians identify with and provide support to Serbs and other Orthodox peoples. These broader levels of civilizational identity mean deeper consciousness of civilizational differences and of the need to protect what distinguishes “us” from “them.”

Fourth, the sources of conflict between states and groups from different civilizations are, in large measure, those which have always generated conflict between groups: control of people, territory, wealth, and resources, and relative power, that is the ability to impose one’s own values, culture, and institutions on another group as compared to that group’s ability to do that to you. Conflict between cultural groups, however, may also involve cultural issues. Differences
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in secular ideology between Marxist-Leninism and liberal democracy can at least be debated if not resolved. Differences in material interest can be negotiated and often settled by compromise in a way cultural issues cannot. Hindus and Muslims are unlikely to resolve the issue of whether a temple or a mosque should be built at Ayodhya by building both, or neither, or a syncretic building that is both a mosque and a temple. Nor can what might seem to be a straightforward territorial question between Albanian Muslims and Orthodox Serbs concerning Kosovo or between Jews and Arabs concerning Jerusalem be easily settled, since each place has deep historical, cultural, and emotional meaning to both peoples. Similarly, neither French authorities nor Muslim parents are likely to accept a compromise which would allow schoolgirls to wear Muslim dress every other day during the school year. Cultural questions like these involve a yes or no, zero-sum choice.

Fifth and finally is the ubiquity of conflict. It is human to hate. For self-definition and motivation people need enemies: competitors in business, rivals in achievement, opponents in politics. They naturally distrust and see as threats those who are different and have the capability to harm them. The resolution of one conflict and the disappearance of one enemy generate personal, social, and political forces that give rise to new ones. “The ‘us’ versus ‘them’ tendency is,” as Ali Mazrui said, “in the political arena, almost universal.”
[2]
In the contemporary world the “them” is more and more likely to be people from a different civilization. The end of the Cold War has not ended conflict but has rather given rise to new identities rooted in culture and to new patterns of conflict among groups from different cultures which at the broadest level are civilizations. Simultaneously, common culture also encourages cooperation among states and groups which share that culture, which can be seen in the emerging patterns of regional association among countries, particularly in the economic area.

The early 1990s heard much talk of regionalism and the regionalization of world politics. Regional conflicts replaced the global conflict on the world’s security agenda. Major powers, such as Russia, China, and the United States, as well as secondary powers, such as Sweden and Turkey, redefined their security interests in explicitly regional terms. Trade within regions expanded faster than trade between regions, and many foresaw the emergence of regional economic blocs, European, North American, East Asian, and perhaps others.

The term “regionalism,” however, does not adequately describe what was happening. Regions are geographical not political or cultural entities. As with the Balkans or the Middle East, they may be riven by inter- and intracivilization conflicts. Regions are a basis for cooperation among states only to the extent that geography coincides with culture. Divorced from culture, propinquity does
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not yield commonality and may foster just the reverse. Military alliances and economic associations require cooperation among their members, cooperation depends on trust, and trust most easily springs from common values and culture. As a result, while age and purpose also play a role, the overall effectiveness of regional organizations generally varies inversely with the civilizational diversity of their membership. By and large, single civilization organizations do more things and are more successful than multicivilizational organizations. This is true of both political and security organizations, on the one hand, and economic organizations, on the other.

The success of NATO has resulted in large part from its being the central security organization of Western countries with common values and philosophical assumptions. The Western European Union is the product of a common European culture. The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, on the other hand, includes countries from at least three civilizations with quite different values and interests which pose major obstacles to its developing a significant institutional identity and a wide range of important activities. The single civilization Caribbean Community (CARICOM), composed of thirteen English-speaking former British colonies, has created an extensive variety of cooperative arrangements, with more intensive cooperation among some sub-groupings. Efforts to create broader Caribbean organizations bridging the Anglo-Hispanic fault line in the Caribbean have, however, consistently failed. Similarly, the South Asian Association for Regional Co-operation, formed in 1985 and including seven Hindu, Muslim, and Buddhist states has been almost totally ineffectual, even to the point of not being able to hold meetings.
[3]

The relation of culture to regionalism is clearly evident with respect to economic integration. From least to most integrated, the four recognized levels of economic association among countries are:

 1.  free trade area;

 2.  customs union;

 3.  common market;

 4.  economic union.

The European Union has moved furthest down the integration road with a common market and many elements of an economic union. The relatively homogeneous Mercosur and the Andean Pact countries in 1994 were in the process of establishing customs unions. In Asia the multicivilizational ASEAN only in 1992 began to move toward development of a free trade area. Other multicivilizational economic organizations lagged even further behind. In 1995, with the marginal exception of NAFTA, no such organization had created a free trade area much less any more extensive form of economic integration.

In Western Europe and Latin America civilizational commonality fosters
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cooperation and regional organization. Western Europeans and Latin Americans know they have much in common. Five civilizations (six if Russia is included) exist in East Asia. East Asia, consequently, is the test case for developing meaningful organizations not rooted in common civilization. As of the early 1990s no security organization or multilateral military alliance, comparable to NATO, existed in East Asia. One multicivilizational regional organization, ASEAN, had been created in 1967 with one Sinic, one Buddhist, one Christian, and two Muslim member states, all of which confronted active challenges from communist insurgencies and potential ones from North Vietnam and China.

ASEAN is often cited as an example of an effective multicultural organization. It is, however, an example of the limits of such organizations. It is not a military alliance. While its members at times cooperate militarily on a bilateral basis, they are also all expanding their military budgets and engaged in military buildups, in striking contrast to the reductions West European and Latin American countries are making. On the economic front, ASEAN was from the beginning designed to achieve “economic cooperation rather than economic integration,” and as a result regionalism has developed at a “modest pace,” and even a free trade area is not contemplated until the twenty-first century.
[4]
In 1978 ASEAN created the Post Ministerial Conference in which its foreign ministers could meet with those from its “dialogue partners”: the United States, Japan, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Korea, and the European Community. The PMC, however, has been primarily a forum for bilateral conversations and has been unable to deal with “any significant security issues.”
[5]
In 1993 ASEAN spawned a still larger arena, the ASEAN Regional Forum, which included its members and dialogue partners, plus Russia, China, Vietnam, Laos, and Papua New Guinea. As its name implies, however, this organization was a place for collective talk not collective action. Members used its first meeting in July 1994 to “air their views on regional security issues,” but controversial issues were avoided because, as one official commented, if they were raised, “the participants concerned would begin attacking each other.”
[6]
ASEAN and its offspring evidence the limitations that inhere in multicivilizational regional organizations.

Meaningful East Asian regional organizations will emerge only if there is sufficient East Asian cultural commonality to sustain them. East Asian societies undoubtedly share some things in common which differentiate them from the West. Malaysia’s prime minister, Mahathir Mohammad, argues that these commonalities provide a basis for association and has promoted formation of the East Asian Economic Caucus on these grounds. It would include the ASEAN countries, Myanmar, Taiwan, Hong Kong, South Korea, and, most important, China and Japan. Mahathir argues that the EAEC is rooted in a common culture. It should be thought of “not just as a geographical group, because it is in East Asia, but also as a cultural group. Although East Asians
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may be Japanese or Koreans or Indonesians, culturally they have certain similarities. . . . Europeans flock together and Americans flock together. We Asians should flock together as well.” Its purpose, as one of his associates said, is to enhance “regional trade among countries with commonalities here in Asia.”
[7]

The underlying premise of the EAEC is thus that economics follows culture. Australia, New Zealand, and the United States are excluded from it because culturally they are not Asian. The success of the EAEC, however, depends overwhelmingly on participation by Japan and China. Mahathir has pleaded with the Japanese to join. “Japan is Asian. Japan is of East Asia,” he told a Japanese audience. “You cannot turn from this geo-cultural fact. You belong here.”
[8]
The Japanese government, however, was reluctant to enlist in the EAEC, in part for fear of offending the United States and in part because it was divided over whether it should identify itself with Asia. If Japan joins the EAEC, it would dominate it, which is likely to cause fear and uncertainty among the members as well as intense antagonism on the part of China. For several years there was much talk of Japan creating an Asian “yen bloc” to balance the European Union and the NAFTA. Japan, however, is a lone country with few cultural connections with its neighbors and as of 1995 no yen bloc had materialized.