| Tour de Horizon The world order, as we knew it in our time crumbled, when the Berlin Wall was knocked down. That breach symbolized what had been an ever-present fear, that nuclear rivalry between the two super-powers might have caused catastrophe (however unintentional) on a world scale. Many demons were released from bottles stoppered till then. Overpopulation, scarcity of resources and environmental damage came to dominate world consciousness. Ethnic conflict (previously controlled for political reasons) emerged into the open. The expression "genocide" came into renewed use, after a long abeyance following the end of the Second World War. A new word entered the media and public consciousness: ethnic cleansing. Even the fear of a nuclear holocaust returned. There were loose cannons in the form of unsupervised nuclear weaponry, nuclear materials and unemployed nuclear scientists in the former Soviet Union (now euphemistically calling itself the Commonwealth of Independent States). The possibility of any of those falling into the hands of rogue states or terrorist organizations was enough for some to look back with a certain guilty longing for the bad old days. It is worthwhile remembering that after the end of the Gulf War, the President of the United States declared that there is a new World Order.. It is not yet clear whether there will be a new world order, or any order at all. The last decade of the millenium points to a new "World Order" as characterized by fragmentation, the crumbling of central authority, the proliferation of peripheral organizations usurping the power of a central government often unable to carry out its day-to-day functions. The process is a generalized one: not only in the developing world.. One can recall the rule of clans and sub-clans in war-torn Mogadishu, the murderous free-for-all in Cambodia, Afghanistan and many other places, but also the impotence of the Egyptian government after the last earthquake, when Islamic organizations filled the void in taking care of victims. Think of inner city chaos in American megalopolises, ruled by violent street gangs fighting over control of "turf" and drugs. Remember the suburbs of Paris, where the French police prefer not to enter too often and never singly.. This study attempts to analyze one of the new conflicts. It is variously labeled as Fundamentalist Islam vs. The West or Islam vs. Christianity. The conflict does exist; it is not new, neither did it originate with religions. This very same conflict was in place long before the emergence of Christianity or even the concept of "The West". It is connected with religions certainly, but only as an expression of the geographical factor in the conflict. It is not a conflict of races, as many so-called races are part of the conflict on both sides.. It is a conflict of civilizations, or cultures, as nineteenth century German scholars would put it. Its roots go back to prehistory.. To analyze the conflict it must be seen in historical perspective. The point of departure is the present, and the rest of this section will attempt to give the necessary historical background.. The immediate roots of our world as we know it today go back to the Industrial Revolution, which started some time before the French Revolution. A period of approximately two centuries saw first an unprecedented expansion of the power of western civilization and then the beginning of its contraction.. The period may be roughly divided into two unequal parts.. The "longer" nineteenth century from the beginning of the French Revolution in 1789 until the start of the First World War in 1914, and the "shorter" twentieth century from that date to the breach in the Berlin Wall in 1989. It is not the only example of historians re-forming the calendar. There is also the long sixteenth century from 1492 to the start of the Thirty Years War in 1618.. * * *
."In Whitehall that evening, Sir Edward Grey, standing with a friend at the window as the street lamps below were being lit, made the remark that has since epitomized the hour: ' The lamps are going out all over Europe; we shall not see them lit again in our lifetime.'" That is how Barbara Tuchman reminds us of the situation in Europe at the end of July 1914, when war broke out.1. Sir Edward Grey must have been prescient or perhaps he recalled reports from the American civil war, which demonstrated that a modern war couldn't be won by bugle charges, but only by a long and tedious process of grinding down the opponent's strength and willpower. To realize the depth of Sir Edward's observation, it must be remembered that it was made towards the end of a period when western civilization was at the zenith of its success. The period referred to as the Long Nineteenth Century saw the expansion of control by European powers and their dominions spread over 48.1 % of the population of the globe. 85 % of the world's industrial production was under European control.2 That sort of expansion and control had not been seen since the Roman Empire expanded in the then known world in the first century BC. Paul Johnson wrote in the "The Birth of the Modern"3 :"All over the world, the last wilderness, in the pampas and the steppes, in the Mississippi Valley and Canada, in the Himalayas and the Andes were being penetrated or settled by the advanced societies, and their peoples were being subdued, in some cases annihilated. Never before, or since had so much cheap land become available, and the hungry people of Europe were moving overseas in vast numbers to possess it." It was not a simple overseas immigration. The Bureau of Census of America has declared the Frontier extinct in 1890.4 This act meant that the distribution of free land in the continental United States was over, and there was no more empty land for the taking. Empty land meant land devoid of white settlers. The global frontier has neared its end too. The empty lands, i.e. empty from Europeans, in southern Africa, Canada, Australia and New Zealand and the southern parts of South America were rapidly filling up. If Europe would have an equivalent office to the Bureau of Census in America, the end of the long Nineteenth century would probably witness the extinction of the World's Frontier. Together with territorial expansion came the extension of the industrial base. Demographic pressure and industrialization were the twin springs of that long nineteenth century. The West was expanding its control over an ever-increasing share of the earth and its resources. Simultaneously, it prevented the creation of alternative and potentially competitive industrialization in its colonies and dependent territories. In 1750, when the Industrial Revolution had just got under way, the level of industrialization in the United Kingdom and in India was about equal. By 1900 India's was one-hundredth that of the United Kingdom.5 The colonial powers took care to eliminate potential competitors from local industries. Simultaneously, they made a conscious effort to improve public health in their colonies. Better public health meant more demographic pressure, which, together with reduced opportunities, meant more poverty. The "mother" countries, however, received tangible benefits from the bigger markets. Lenin was probably right in what he wrote in 1916 in a pamphlet entitled "Imperialism, The Highest Stage of Capitalism." He sought to account for the fact that European capitalism had not led to the steady impoverishment of its working class, but had, in fact, led to a rise in their living standard leading to a reasonably satisfied trade union mentality amongst workers in Europe.6 The anticipated impoverishment was transferred to the colonies. At the closing of the long nineteenth century, Sir Edward said his by-now famous words. If at the end of the short twentieth century, there would have been a contemporary Sir Edward, he would speak of countries and not of cities. There are a number of countries, which are marked on the maps, they have names, but no one knows, or even wishes to know, what is happening in them. Somalia, Sudan, Rwanda, Burundi, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Haiti, Cambodia, Afghanistan, Tajikistan, etc. The list is growing.7 In the nineteenth century there was an effort by explorers to fill the blank spots on the map. Then, they did not know what was there. Now, we know what was there, but not what is there. The short twentieth century proved to be horrendous. After the end of the First World War, Churchill wrote: " ... Torture and cannibalism were the only two expedients that the civilized, sensible Christian states had been able to deny themselves ...". 8 Barbara Tuchman did compare the twentieth century to the truly horrendous fourteenth century, Black Death, the Hundred Years War.9 * * *
The new World Order has started its existence at an auspicious point in time. The first half of the old World Order saw an unprecedented expansion of Europe's colonial empire, with a corresponding expanse of industry and wealth. The second half saw the beginning of its contraction, without a comparable reduction in wealth.Projecting present trends into the future, it is estimated that by 2025 the West will contain 10.1 % of world population (in 1920 it controlled 48.1 %), while its share of industrial production will be an estimated 30 % in 2013 (from 85 % in 1928). 10 A number of scholars have come to the fore attempting to rationalize the situation as it is and as it is developing. There are two schools of thought. The optimistic school sees the world as a violent and unsafe place but since the elimination of superpower rivalry, one potential source of conflict is now removed and the world is a safer place to live in. The pessimistic school bases its analysis on incontrovertible facts: demography, food production, environmental damage, immigration trends and much else. To this may be added the decline of the West that many statistics show: e.g. the West's percentage share of global population, industrial production. There is a corresponding increase in the powers of other civilizations, often resentful of past slights and material damage suffered at the hands of the West. This school of thought is pessimistic. It sees the future as unstable. A summary of these pessimistic thoughts appeared in a book "Jihad vs. McWorld" by Benjamin R. Barber. The title is apt and expressive, showing a world of ethnic conflicts and local interests against a world organized upon capitalist, multi-national lines. Two conflicting ideas are juxtaposed. The introduction says: "Those who look back see all of the horrors of the ancient slaughterbench reenacted in disintegral nations like Bosnia, Sri Lanka, Ossetia and Rwanda, and they declare that nothing has changed. Those who look forward prophesize commercial and technological interdependence - a virtual paradise made possible by spreading markets and global technology - and they proclaim that everything is or soon will be different. The rival observers seem to consult different almanacs drawn from the libraries of contrarian planets."11 Hobbesian jungle vs. Disneyland! But it is not only the contrast between ideas and results in different parts of the globe. A glossy magazine article can describe Moscow as one of the glittering and exciting place to be, nonchalantly adding that life expectancy has dropped eight years in a decade. Glittering, indeed! Francis Fukuyama is the main representative of the optimistic school of thought, McWorld, which sees the world as dominated by high-tech industries, multi-national corporations tied by a computerized communications network and ruled by reason. His thesis first appeared in "The End of History", which was printed in The National Interest in the summer of 1989. The provocative article caused much misunderstanding and controversy. He followed up the article in 1992 with a book entitled "The End of History and the Last Man." That Francis Fukuyama used the expression "the last man" after "the end of history" means that he was not as optimistic about the future as he seemed to be. The expression "the last man" was used by Nietzsche, who was among the first to lose faith in the future of the Western Modern Age.12 The titles of both article and book may be misleading, unless one remembers that Fukuyama is a Hegelian scholar. The titles refer to the "end of history" in the Hegelian sense, meaning that after the collapse of the Soviet state and communism, liberal democracy has won the ideological war. Lacking ideological competition, there is no hindrance to every man receiving the "recognition" which was the moving spirit behind every social struggle since the beginning of history. What is this "recognition"? "The concept underlying 'recognition' was not invented by Hegel. It is as old as Western political philosophy itself and refers to a thoroughly familiar part of a human personality. Over the millennia, there has been no consistent word used to refer to the psychological phenomenon of the 'desire for recognition'. Plato spoke of 'thymos' or 'spiritedness', Macchiavelli of man's desire for glory, Hobbes of his pride or vainglory, Rousseau of his amour-propre, Alexander Hamilton of the love of fame, and Nietzsche of man as 'beast with red cheeks'."13 Fukuyama was perfectly aware that the struggle of mankind for 'recognition' is a Western political symbol, and is far from being universal. In Chapter 4 of Part I, Francis Fukuyama listed those states having liberal democratic systems in 1990.14 Of the 61 states on the list, a majority is from the Americas, Europe, East Asia and Oceania. There is one Muslim state, Turkey, and one from the Middle East, Israel. Most of the states on Fukuyama's list have a high GNP per capita. It is a club for the rich. If liberal democracy should become the world's preferred political system, then the GNP of the poorer three-quarters of the world must be raised before we all reach an earthly Promised Land. After all, one cannot expect hungry people to be interested in "recognition". It is not certain that even then everybody will wish to join. Even Fukuyama has reservations about the will of most countries to accept liberal democracy as a preferred political system. Francis Fukuyama was an optimistic man. He really considered that political change can bring about the end of history, which is the end point of mankind's ideological evolution and the acceptance of western liberal democracy as the final form of human government. He added that some conflicts may occur in the Third World, but the global conflict is over, and not only in Europe either. After all, Fukuyama was a policy analyst for the US State Department and well aware that it wasn't only the ideological conflict that was over. The ever-dangerous political conflict was over as well and now there remained one Superpower. It must have been an intoxicating idea, albeit a short-lived one. That was before it was calculated that in order to prise Kuwait out of Iraq's claws that one remaining Superpower had to mobilize 70% of its military resources. Among other substantial changes in the new World Order, the understanding of the 1648 Treaty of Westphalia to the effect that conducting wars was solely within the realm of sovereign states was now undermined.15 Armed forces can stand up to the armed forces of other powers, but they are not much use against suicide bombers (often directed against the civilian population) or invasion from makeshift rafts and decrepit ships. Nor are TV crews monitoring the action over the epaulettes of the military a factor to increase its power.16 The actual problems involved in increasing the GNP of states not on the liberal-democratic list was only obliquely touched upon by Fukuyama. 17 Paul Kennedy directly addressed this problem in "Preparing for the Twenty-First Century". It is very technical, detailed and an altogether sobering book. It attempts not to take sides, but gives detailed statistics. Reading between the lines, it can be grasped that catastrophe might be averted if the world's luck holds. But raising the standard of life for most of the earth's peoples is not on. There is simply not enough food, fuel and raw materials to go around. If the consumption of fuel in the United States (4 % of the earth's population) is 25% of production, then production must be increased at least 6 1/4 times to equalize the use of fuel alone. Fuel is only one resource. Other statistics are even more frightening. According to one calculation, the lifetime environmental damage resulting from consumption of one American will be twice that of a Swede, thrice an Italian, thirteen times a Brazilian, thirty-five times an Indian ... and 280 times a Chadian or a Haitian. 18 Equalizing the imbalance or even somehow redressing it would require a drastic reduction in consumption by the rich. By 2025, according to Kennedy, the West will have only 10 % of the earth's population. 19 This means that for every dollar increase in the GNP of the poor 90%, $ 10 has to be taken from the rich 10 %. It is doubtful whether such a redistribution of resources can be done by peaceful means, at least there are no historical precedents for it.20 Moreover, the redistribution of resources will not necessarily distribute the know-how needed to generate and keep wealth. The destruction of the Roman Empire led to the redistribution of wealth between its citizens and the barbarian tribes. The Dark Ages followed. Finally, one more authority with probably the most powerful message. Professor Samuel P. Huntington's "The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of the World Order" appeared in 1996. It followed an article called "The Clash of Civilizations", which appeared in "Foreign Affairs" in 1993. The article stirred up excitement and controversy. Professor Huntington himself has written " ... the article struck a nerve in people of every civilization." Professor Huntington first examined the human tendency to see human history in terms of two worlds: US and THEM. Although in certain cases this bi-polarity might correspond with reality, in most cases the earth is a multi-polar entity with conflicts along the fault lines between civilizations, but alliances within the civilizations themselves. However, if we still wish to cling to a bi-polar notion, it might be appropriate to talk about "the West" and "the Rest". Judging from the predominance of the West in economic, military and some consider cultural matters, it is only natural that the relative weakening of the West (caused not a little by self-inflicted damage) should bring an appropriate reaction from those still suffering from the slights and damage caused by the (once) advancing West. Huntington explains that people from "the Rest" still remember that Western advance was not led by Western values, but by superior arms and military tactics.21 Westerners tend to forget this, preferring to remember Kipling's White Man's Burden and Wilberforce's campaign to abolish slavery. "The Rest" has never forgotten.22 Huntington sees seven civilizations today or eight if Africa is accepted as a civilization. The seven are Western, Orthodox, Muslim, Indian, Sinic, Japanese and Latin American. It appears to us that Huntington was quite conservative in his estimate of the number of civilizations. There were many scholars occupied with civilizations, their development and decline, and their calculations of the number of civilizations differ widely23. What Huntington succeeded in doing was to transfer the issue of civilizations from the hypothetical realm of historians to newspaper headlines. Historians may relate to the theories of Toynbee, Spengler and others, but everybody can relate to the conflict in Bosnia, where a bloody war rages between Western, Orthodox and Muslim civilizations. There is nothing theoretical about this conflict. And it is only one of its illustrations. Huntington set himself the task of defining the concept of civilization 24 It was a wise move. There are so many definitions of civilization(s) and cultures that any historian had better set his own definitions, or face being bogged down in arguments about the validity of this or that usage. A summary of his definitions is listed below: 1) Civilized society differs from primitive society by reason of being settled, urban and literate. To be civilized is good. To be uncivilized is bad. 2) Civilization is a cultural entity, involving values, ideals, and the higher intellectual, artistic and moral qualities of a society. It is a people's overall way of life. It involves the "values, norms, institutions and modes of thinking to which successive generations in a given society have attached primary importance".25 . 3) Civilizations are comprehensive, i.e. none of their constituent units can be fully understood without reference to the encompassing civilization. 4) Civilizations are mortal, but also long-lived. They evolve, adapt and are the most enduring of human associations. 5) Since civilizations are cultural and not political entities, they do not do any of those things which governments do. Having defined civilization, Huntington sets out the main elements of his thesis in 5 points. 26 Some clarification and explanation is required: 1. For the first time in human history, modernization is not equivalent to Westernization. Comment: It seems that this definition might be premature. So far, it is true, East Asian countries have made remarkable progress in modernization while relying on their own values. The progress may be steady, but there is doubt about the validity of this proposition. The proof will ultimately be empiric. But there is another field where there is undoubtedly a clear break from the recent past: the matter of the return to indigenous languages and cultures. Fifty years ago India chose English as its official language. This was done on political and utilitarian grounds. It is doubtful whether this decision would have been made today. It is estimated that no more than 3 % of the population of India has some knowledge of English. Hindi is to become the lingua franca of India.27 2. The balance of power among civilizations is shifting to the detriment of the West. This is due to the expansion of Asian civilization and the Islamic demographic explosion. Comment: This is an obvious point, which has been cited many times, and no doubt will continue in the future, namely that the relative power of the West is declining, most certainly demographically. 3. A civilization-based world order is emerging. Societies sharing cultural affinities cooperate with each other.28 Comment: This is certainly a moot point as there are cases that contradict this premise. In the Armenian-Azeri conflict Iran tends to side with the Armenians. This demonstrates that dividing lines may be blurred wih racial intervention. It is true that Iranians and Azeris are both Shiite Muslims. However, Armenians and Iranians are both Indo-Europeans, with deep historical connections between them, while the Azeris are of Turkish extraction. In this particular case, historical affinity seems to be stronger than religion. But on the whole, relationships between states with common affinities as regards civilization tend to be different from relationships with states from other civilizations. An example is the "special relationship" subsisting between Great Britain and the United States, even where there are different interests. In World War II the Germans (including the SS) treated POWs from the Western allies more-or-less in accordance with the Geneva Convention, unlike the inhuman treatment meted out to POWs from the Soviet Union and the Balkans. 4. The West's universal pretensions increasingly bring it into conflict with other civilizations, most seriously with Islam and China. 29 Comment: The West sees the optimal political system in liberal democracy, and the optimal economic system in free market capitalism. It attempts from time to time to induce other nations to accept its preferred systems. Not all the non-European peoples tend to agree with the West on the first, and many not even on the second. 5. The survival of the West depends on Americans reaffirming their Western identity and Westerners accepting their western identity as unique, if not universal, and uniting to renew and preserve it against challenges from non-Western societies. Comment: Probably the most important point. Here, Huntington comes out openly against multi-culturalism and any dilution of Western identity. It may not be a politically correct attitude, but he took the stand that the Magna Carta and not the Magna Mac, with all its intimations of multi-culturalism should represent Western civilization. Reaffirming Western identity is a warning not only to America, but to Europe as well. Huntington meets head-on the issue of immigration and assimilation. Where the immigrants are assimilated into the fabric of a host society, it is all to the good. Where immigrants attempt to preserve their cultural unity, it is invasion by peaceful means (so far). The latter is the case with Turkish immigrants in Germany and the Netherlands, Arab immigrants in France, Mexican and other South American immigrants in the US. Huntington cites in his book the example of Mexicans in Los Angeles demonstrating against Proposition 187, a measure that would deny state benefits to illegal immigrants and their children. The demonstrators carried Mexican flags. The flags were enough to frighten the voters. The Proposition was passed with a 59 % majority. In California at least five of Huntington's civilizations are represented. The racial riots there increasingly turn into civilizational conflicts, unlike the black vs white riots of the 1960. 30 There is a similar situation in Europe. The issue of the head scarves of Arab schoolgirls in France, the citizenship of second generation Turks in Germany, the assimilation problems of Indians and Pakistanis in the UK, these are not social problems. They are clashes of civilizations. If the present situation continues, it must be taken into consideration that more and more local conflicts are likely to become generalized. The authorities of sovereign states may be unable to prevent or contain them. Gated communities can be lifesaving devices 31, although it is difficult to see how a healthy society can exist in a world of gated communities. If the diagnosis made by Huntington is correct, then Western civilization may come into conflict with Confucian civilization, e.g. China and with other SE Asian nations. As both the Chinese and the Muslims carry deep resentments for past slights and abuses by the West, they might become allies in a conflict. Wishing to examine the comments of Chinese and Muslims about this thesis, audietur et altera pars, - listen to both sides - represents a problem. In SE Asia and in China in particular there are research institutes, symposiums, thinkers, all issuing publications from which we get some idea of what the mainstream thinking is in that part of the world. A few representative comments are given here. With Islam's reaction there is a problem. Edward Said wrote in "Orientalism" that since 1800 till the publication of his book in 1979, at least 60,000 books appeared in the Western world about the Middle East. But in the Middle East the number of books about the West are next to none.32 Western research institutes deal with the Middle East but there are no such research institutes in the Middle East vis-a-vis the West. It is even problematic for them to have research institutes about themselves.33 This lack of curiosity about themselves and about the outside world is explained in detail in the Chapter "The East" in Part IV, "The Conflict". There was a conscious effort made by the author to find contemporary comments from the Islamic side, but the results are meager indeed, Concerning the possibility of conflict between Western and Confucian civilizations, there is agreement as regards basic premises. China's economy is growing at a rate of 10 % per annum. Very soon (probably at the beginning of the next century), China might become the leading commercial power on earth. In 1995 US gross domestic product amounted to US $7.25 trillion, $ 27.578 per person. China had a GDP of only $ 620 at official rates of exchange, or $ 2,920 based on what is called purchase-parity rate. The basic assumption of most analysts is that the 10 % annual growth rate will be maintained, at least in the coastal areas.34 Increased wealth, even without the increase in defense expenditure, will augment China's armed forces, which will surely affect its foreign affairs posture too. 35 Add to this scenario the deeply frustrated and compelling nationalistic aspirations of China, then there is a highly combustible combination. Any little spark might cause a major conflagration. 36 Indeed, Huntington describes a hypothetical scenario in which there is an armed conflict between China and Vietnam over offshore oil in the South China Sea, with the intervention of the United States. 37 Admittedly, China's history and Confucian philosophy are not conducive to foreign adventure. The Chinese call themselves The Middle Kingdom, considering themselves between gods and ordinary mortals. When Vasco da Gama passed the Cape of Good Hope, he might have met a Chinese fleet visiting Madagascar at about the same time. When Vasco da Gama returned, he was treated as a national hero. The Chinese admiral, on the other hand, was put on trial for exceeding his instructions. Still, it is an open question whether demographic pressure and equality in weapons technology will not affect Chinese basic attitudes? In order to emphasize the uniqueness of Confucian states, a new doctrine was developed, that of Asian values. The concept of Asian values is not very far from old-fashioned British Victorian values, mixed with Confucian philosophy. But when nearly two billion people accept them, these tenets turn into weapons against the slothful West. According to these principles, society and state are more important than the individual; families are the soul of the state; the state and society should respect individuals; harmony rather than conflict can preserve the social order; religions should coexist peacefully and supplement each other.38 Despite the signs of resurgence of the Far Eastern states, a caveat must be posed. The undoubted decline of the West has been going on for the best part of this century, with economic, demographic, military but most important, moral changes. The decline of the West does not have to bring about an automatic growth in the power of other civilizations. Western decline was accompanied by an even greater decline in the former communist bloc. It is not altogether certain that SE Asian civilization will continue at its present growth rate. Its growth was generated, at least partly, by demand from the West. Western decline may well cause the decline of such demand. In addition, there are sufficient inherent problems in SE Asia to put at least a question mark to the possibility of the Far Eastern states overcoming the West. Among the eight civilizations on his list, Huntington has contrasted the Western and Islamic as enemies at least from the seventh century AD.39 But according to this book it started much earlier. After all they are neighbors. The enmity of "The Rest" is of much later origin, arising from Western expansion in the last two centuries and the heavy-handed Western rule. The enmity of the Confucian civilization can be traced back to the two Opium Wars, starting in 1839 and ending in 1860, the occupation of Hong Kong and the treaty ports of China's eastern seaboard. In India it can be traced to the Mahratta Wars, Clive and Plessey, but mainly to the defeat of the Great Mutiny of 1857. These were tangible events, defeats and humiliations suffered by the peoples of SE Asia. With Islam the process was shorter. The French conquered Algiers in 1830, after long and patient endurance of the depredations of Algerian pirates.40 Tunisia and Egypt were occupied at the end of the 19th century. Morocco and Libya were occupied at the beginning of the 20th century. The countries of North Africa and the Middle East proper exchanged one overlord, the Ottoman Empire, for a group of others. After the end of World War II, they became fully independent. Central Asian Muslims were occupied by Russia in the second half of the 19th century (for reasons similar to the French in Algiers) and are now mostly independent states. Nonetheless, the enmity of Islamic civilization is much fiercer than that of the others. It might be said that it is an elemental rage, not always within the bounds of reason. It seems to arise mostly from the heartlands of that civilization, the arid, semi-arid or fully desert area stretching along the North African coast through to and including Afghanistan.41 The Islamic world includes three more areas: - A northern desert strip from Turkey in the west through the Central Asian Muslim republics, the Turan as it is called by the Turks. - Muslim states and communities in the Indian sub-continent: India itself, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Myanmar (Burma). - Muslim states in SE Asia, Malaysia and Indonesia. The behavioral pattern of these three areas differs from that of the heartlands, but their enmity towards the West is similar to that of their non-Muslim neighbors. The question of the connection between environment and civilization will be discussed in detail in: "Geography, Climate and Environment". At this point a few elements will be sufficient. Women are acceptable as Prime Ministers in the Indian sub-continent. India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh have all had women as Prime Ministers. This is unthinkable in the Middle East (except in Israel and Turkey, both of which had women as Prime Ministers). The Muslim states of SE Asia tend to behave not unlike other states in the area. They industrialize together with others.42 On the whole, when Islamic civilization is referred to, it is in effect the Middle East that is discussed. Definition of "The West" is not unequivocal either.43 After all, Orthodox civilization colonized the Central Asian Muslim states, waged war and made incursions into Iran and Afghanistan, and waged war with China along the Amur River. Islam is more than a religion. It is also a systematic and coherent ideology44 not unlike, for example, liberalism or communism. It provides its followers with a clear path to a better world, with equality, morality and social justice for its followers. Like communism, it is a totalitarian ideology, in that it provides clear answers to moral and social questions45 rejecting the paths of all other ideologies and religions. It can be democratic, at least in theory, as all are equal before God, but it certainly cannot be liberal, as it cannot encompass universal human rights and freedom of conscience and religion. The revival of Islam is probably most intense in those countries which have made most progress towards a modern society. The Islamic revolution led by the Ayatollah Khomeini came as a result of modernization introduced by the late Shah. The westernized elite of Egypt and Algeria brought on themselves an underground Islamic reaction. In this sense, Islamic fundamentalism is not unlike European fascism. It hits hardest apparently modernized countries, where traditional cultural values are most threatened46. That is also the reason why the countries of the Middle East cannot carry out a serious program of industrialization. Industrialization means capitalism, a systematic work order, and it would appear that capitalism will not develop without a rational spirit.47 It wasn't only Max Weber who thought that Islamic tradition couldn't coexist with capitalism. So does Paul Kennedy. Kennedy came to the conclusion that the Middle East cannot participate in the anticipated changes of the 21st century because of its confrontational stance towards international order and modernism. Not much can be expected until that stance is dissipated and the fear of being overwhelmed by Western ideas is eliminated. 48 But Paul Kennedy does know that civilizations do not change easily. He takes only a few pages to remove the whole of the Middle East from the predicted changes of the 21st century. No wonder, therefore, that Islam cannot really win adherents in the affluent West or SE Asia, in both of which, at least in the latter, moral and social doctrines of their own exist, coupled with a higher standard of living. At most, Islam can offer some hope to the teeming millions of the poorest countries of the Third World. This appeal holds dangers for the West. Moreover, it has a demographic bulge of young people, calculated to last at least into the middle of the coming century. Either through legal or illegal immigration, it is already the second largest religion in most West European countries.49 This demographic calculation causes disquiet in the west, as the 1973 apocalyptic novel "The Camp of the Saints" by Jean Raspail showed.50 Demographic imbalances, with or without terrorist acts51 are disconcerting, as anyone can testify who has had to pass stringent airport security checks or seen the tightly welded dustbins on the streets of Paris, to prevent them being used as receptacles for bombs. * * * * *
There is broad agreement between the three scholars whose opinions are considered in this study. On the subject of the relationship between Western and Islamic civilizations, Huntington places Islam in a position of implacable enmity towards the West. Kennedy claims that Islam's confrontational stance prevents it from reaching the hoped-for riches of the 21st century. Fukuyama denies it entry into the realm he called "The End of History". There is a strong undercurrent in the rich literature on this subject. It is hinted at in some, stated directly in others, that it is not entirely a conflict that began in contemporary times, caused by the expansion of the West. In fact, it goes much further back in time than the period of Western expansion over the last two centuries. The aim of this study is to examine the events in the conflict, to demonstrate that they are links in a long chain. Surprising, as it may seem, it started in darkest pre-history and has been continuing relentlessly ever since then. Even a preliminary examination shows a strong prima facie case. Historical literature is full of accounts of conflicts and wars between the two civilizations, treating them as a continuation of a single sequence. Herodotus 52 saw in the Persian attack on Greece an act of revenge for the destruction of Troy, which was revenge for the abduction of Helen, in response to the abduction of Medea and of Europa. Transposed into modern usage, Herodotus seemingly wished to state that the conflict had very deep roots and went back to ancient mythology. There are many seemingly connected events, spanning hundreds of years, maybe thousands. Smyrna was one of the earliest Aeolian towns in Asia Minor53, later captured by the Ionians. It was old enough to have been one of the seven cities laying claim to be the birthplace of Homer, and that was on the border of history. The Persians wanted to destroy it in their first war with the Greeks, but Greek victory saved it. The same Smyrna saw a terrible pogrom in the 1st century BC, when Mithridates Eupator organized the killing of all Romans and Italians in Asia Minor. This pogrom was the work of the local Asian population round the Greek city. The self-same surrounding population having been converted to Christianity for over a thousand years joyfully welcomed invading Turks against the Greek population of the city. In the twenties of this century, Kemal Ataturk expelled the Greeks from Smyrna. Is there a direct continuity in these events? Of course there is! The city was a foreign implant in Asia,and the Asians had to put up with it, lacking the power to change things. Until they had the power and a suitable combination of circumstances made change possible. Smyrna is not an isolated example. In the 1950s the last Greeks left Alexandria. They left less violently, but they left after 2,300 years. It is not only ancient history that provides us with examples. In Raspail's apocalyptic "The Camp of the Saints", the heroes are named after the French lieutenants of Don Juan of Austria, the victor of Lepanto, and after the Greek admiral at the time of the fall of Constantinople.54 One does not need historical novels to prove continuity of relations. Ordinary histories are full of unanswered questions with ambiguous answers at best. Was the 1529 siege of Vienna by Sultan Suleiman I, the Magnificent, one of the major events in the Islamic-Western conflict or merely an event in Europe's realpolitik, a part of the war between the Hapsburgs and the Valois of France. Probably it was some of both, and only the outcome of the siege gave it its ultimate meaning. The Turks' failure to take Vienna had many consequences, partly in local politics, and partly in inter-civilizational matters. In European politics it enabled continuing Spanish rule in Italy for a long time to come. The siege itself, regardless of its outcome, gave a breathing space to the Reformers of the Church. Without the effort spent in defeating the Turks, those efforts could have been turned against the Protestants. On the level of inter-civilizational matters, the defeat ensured that the occupation of Hungary lasted only 150 years. Without the base of Vienna and Western Hungary, the Hungarian Reconquista would probably been much slower and longer. There is one important element that gives this civilizational conflict a unique dimension. Every historical conflict has a measure of enmity, but the enmity contained in this conflict surpasses them all. History is full of conflicts, tribal, national, social, ideological, etc. Every one of them had its measure of enmity. It is only in modern times that ideological and national conflict involves common people. Enmity used to be restricted to the soldiers and the ruling classes, and even then, not to all of them. During the Seven Years War English gentlemen spent their holidays in Paris. The war did not affect them. The bitter ideological conflict between the West and communism did not generate personal animosity between ordinary Americans and Russians. Both sides affirmed that they objected to policies, even to the governing layer of society, never to the people. But in this particular civilizational conflict there is an intensity of feeling that marks it out. It did not start with Islam and Christianity. Long before, there was the complete destruction of Carthage in the 2nd century BC, the wars in the East that began with the destruction of Jerusalem, the bloody suppression of insurrections in Egypt, Libya and Cyprus, the eventual suppression of Bar Kochba's revolt ... all these are special events in Roman history. The total destruction wrought by Rome, suicidal defense by those from the Middle East, none of these were typical of Rome's wars. There was only one destruction comparable to that wrought on Carthage and Jerusalem. That was Corinth, but that seems to have been a special case. Apart from this special enmity, two other elements make the conflict truly unique, especially dangerous and unpredictable. The first element is the aspect of moral superiority. The representatives of the Middle East invariably claimed the moral high ground whenever there were dealings with Greeks, then Romans, then Westerners even in our own times. The followers of Zoroaster and Mazda, Jews, Muslims did not accept Greeks and Romans as their moral and spiritual equals. This moral superiority was not restricted to religion alone. There are numerous examples of this attitude from the earliest times till today. One example will be sufficient. Then and now the inhabitants of the Middle East cover the human body from sight. The human body cannot be shown in paintings or sculpture. Men and women wear loose clothing so that the outlines of their body are completely covered. In addition, women cover face and hair. The Venus di Milo might have seemed an abomination, no less than sports arenas and the baths. When they encountered Greeks and Romans they looked on their habits as immoral and depraved, an offence against everything they considered sacred. The attitude persists to this day ... but towards all Western habits, not just those of Greeks and Romans. The second element is that Westerners see those from the Middle East as fanatics, not altogether rational and certainly unpredictable. The unpredictability and irrationality is best illustrated in two imaginary scenarios. The first is described by Professor Huntington in which there is a conflict in 2010 between China and Vietnam over underwater oilfields in the South China Sea. The United States becomes involved in this war, which eventually involves Europe (including Russia), Japan and the Arab states. China, wishing to prevent Europe from coming to the assistance of the United States, deploys intermediate-range nuclear-capable missiles in Bosnia and Algeria. Serbia and Croatia invade Bosnia, despite the assistance given to Bosnia by Albania and Turkey, and manage to capture the missile launching sites. "Meanwhile a missile with a nuclear warhead, launched from Algeria, explodes outside Marseilles and NATO retaliates with devastating air attacks against North African targets." 55 Caspar Weinberger, a former US Defence Secretary in the Reagan administration presents another scenario in "The Next War". Iran wishes to occupy the oilfields of the Persian Gulf . To warn off Western intervention, Iran destroys with an atomic missile Monza, a small Italian town. This brings it into conflict with the United States and Europe. Iran has no means of direct retaliation against the United States, so it orders its agents there to launch a terrorist campaign, which includes spreading the botulism virus in New York. The United States retaliates by using a nuclear missile to destroy a central nuclear missile base in Iran.56 These two scenarios might be hypothetical or not. Hopefully they are merely hypothetical. They are not shown here to show the extent of the enmity, not even that this may actually occur. These two scenarios do show that two serious people, one who was a National Security adviser to President Johnson, and the other a Defense Secretary, thought these scenarios realistic. As both had access to all the information available to the United States government, even the hypothetical nature of the scenarios can be frightening. Since the days of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the world has been living in the shadow of mass destruction. The possession of the means of mass destruction in the hands of the then superpowers (even if they were unevenly matched) assured a stand-off, aptly referred to as MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction). Behind the wry acronym, the concept it represented expressed the belief that there is no possibility of winning a nuclear war. It meant committing suicide together with the enemy, like Samson who brought down the temple in Gaza on himself and on the Philistines.. The situation as it then seemed, assured over fifty years of armed and confrontational peace. It was not a real peace, as both sides waged war by proxy outside their own countries. It was all much like George Orwell's 1984. Wars in Africa, South East Asia, Central America, but taking very good care that the wars never came home. So, in the Korean War, President Truman dismissed General Douglas MacArthur who wanted to extend the war beyond the Yalu into China, just as the Soviets took very good care not to touch West Berlin, although they probably could have taken it easily enough. Blockade, yes. Wall, yes. Direct action, no. There was no real fear in that period known euphemistically as the Cold War that either side would use its nuclear arsenal. The reason for this certainty was that both sides assumed that their opponents were rational people and no rational person would use suicide as an instrument of policy. If there was any real fear, it was always that nuclear weapons might fall into the hands of terrorist groups. The deliberate spread of gas in the Tokyo underground was a frightening illustration of such a fear. The specter of mass destruction by committed terrorists was no longer a hypothetical scenario but reality. This perception by Westerners that those outside the West were fanatics without self-imposed moral restrictions is not new and not directed at Islam alone. The assassins, who were organized and led by the 'old man of the mountain' were active in Islamic times, the sicarii in the time of the Jewish revolt in 67-70 AD terrorized their opponents in pre-Islamic times. That they did not use weapons of mass destruction is a matter of technology and not of lack of intention.
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This book intends to examine in depth a conflict, which is probably the longest conflict in the history of mankind. It has written references since the early first millenium BC. However, its roots reach much further back. In order to compass a large and unbroken chain of events, new research techniques had to be employed. History itself is endless and dynamic. It is a huge mass of data and elements in a matrix coordinated by time and space. The data bank grows and grows. Today's actions are tomorrow's history. There is nothing to compel historians to select data in a particular order, so long as the reasons for the selection are shared with the reader who are, after all, those who accept or reject the results. This book intends to draw data from recorded and unrecorded history to demonstrate that there was, indeed, connection and continuity between events The ambitious scope of the research has to combine all levels of historical research, civilizational, episodical and individual. It certainly is a study on a civilizational level, as the example of Smyrna has shown. But it also looks at individual events where necessary, to check where they are unconnected historical episodes or connecting links in a long chain as was attempted in the case of the siege of Vienna. The study has three major parts: The first part is an examination of the basic elements connected with the subject. Those are the building blocks from which historical research is possible. Geography, climate, environment, race and group behavior, civilization and culture and religions - those are the keys that have to be defined both generally and in the context of this book. In the second part there will be a description with psychological profiling of the adversaries, Islam and Christianity, or more accurately, the Middle East vs. Europe and its allies. This part examines the mutual perceptions of the adversaries and whether there have been changes in their mutual perceptions. The chronological order of the conflict is set out in the third part. Special emphasis will be laid on how the adversaries perceive the nature of events in particular stages. There is no intention to re-write history. Hannibal and his elephants will cross the Alps. Cato will fulminate in the Senate: Ceterum censeo, Carthaginem esse delendam - I thereby suggest that Carthago should be destroyed. The question will be whether, when Hannibal and his kind swore to destroy Rome they did it as champions of the Middle East against the West, or as a general of a North African city-state fighting for spheres of commercial interest against another city-state on the Italian peninsula. It is just such a point that this work intends to examine in depth. Notes: |
