Last update - 03:42 18/07/2003
The decline of the West
Huntington shows an impressive grasp of the current events and trends in countries around the globe, but gives short shift to the Jews
By Efraim Halevy
"Hitnagshut Hatzivilizatziyot" ("The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order") by Samuel P. Huntington (English edition published by Simon & Schuster), translated into Hebrew by David Ben-Nachum, Mercaz Shalem, 512 pages, NIS 92
In his book "The Clash of Civilizations," Samuel Huntington seeks the new world order that came into being after the collapse of the Soviet Union in the late 20th century. In his estimation, he has found it. Huntington, born in the United States, grew up in a world dominated by the Cold War. When it ended, with unexpected suddenness, he looked for a new paradigm and discovered it in an approach that sees a shift away from national and ideological wars to a clash of cultures, which will become the pivot of life in the 21st century.
Huntington's book has won unprecedented international attention. It is brimming with analyses and insights on countries across the globe and distant from one another, such as Mexico, Turkey and the Koreas, not to mention China, Japan and the countries of Europe. Huntington shows both an impressive grasp of the current events and trends in countries and continents that are geographically and cultural remote from the U.S., and a remarkable ability to gather up all the facts and figures he presents, page after page, and to fashion them into a coherent and convincing theory. With the help of David Ben-Nachum's fluent translation into Hebrew and an introduction by Dan Margalit, the reader is able to dive into the text with little effort but considerable enjoyment.
To reach his conclusions, Huntington travels a long road. He analyzes human history, going back almost as far as biblical times to define various eras and what made them unique. Considering whether the dominance of the Western world in the previous decade signifies the possibility that we are moving toward the establishment of a universal civilization, he concludes - and I agree with him - that we will never get to the point where all of humanity nestles under the wing of a single civilization. Because that is so, and because global peace will probably remain an elusive goal, we can look forward to the continuation of conflicts. The next stage will be wars between major civilizations. These wars will be conducted in different ways, most of them along the fault lines that divide civilizations. The decisive war, says Huntington, will be fought between the West and Islam backed up by China, or between America and China aligned with Islam. It is as simple - or over-simplistic - as that.
What are the major civilizations in our day, according to Huntington? First and foremost is the Chinese, which he says is recognized by all scholars. Next comes Japan. Some scholars lump China and Japanese together, but most see them as distinct cultures. The third is Hindu civilization, and the fourth, Islam.
"All major scholars recognize the existence of a distinct Islamic civilization," writes Huntington. "Originating in the Arabian peninsula in the seventh century C.E., Islam rapidly spread across North Africa and the Iberian peninsula and also eastward into central Asia, the subcontinent and Southeast Asia. As a result, many distinct cultures or sub-civilizations exist within Islam, including Arab, Turk, Persian and Malay."
The fifth is Orthodox civilization, centered in Russia. The sixth is Western, which includes Europe, North America and Latin America. After a brief discussion of whether Latin America is a separate civilization, Huntington concludes that it is probably closer to a sub-civilization within Western civilization.
In discussing the various components that define a group of people as a civilization, the author naturally gets to religion. Basing himself on Alfred Weber, he lists the five "world religions" as Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Confucianism and Buddhism. Buddhism, he says, differs from the others in that it has spread to other cultures in southeastern Asia and become assimilated in the indigenous culture. "Hence, while Buddhism remains an important component of their cultures, these societies do not constitute and would not identify themselves as part of a Buddhist civilization."
`Accoutrements of civilization'
At this point, the author apparently senses a problem and adds a rare footnote: "What about Jewish civilization? Most scholars of civilization hardly mention it. In terms of numbers of people, Judaism clearly is not a major civilization. [British historian Arnold] Toynbee describes it as an arrested civilization which evolved out of the earlier Syriac civilization. It is historically affiliated with both Christianity and Islam, and for several centuries Jews maintained their cultural identity within Western, Orthodox and Islamic civilizations. With the creation of Israel, Jews have all the objective accoutrements of a civilization: religion, language, customs, literature, institutions, and a territorial and political home.
"But what about subjective identification? Jews living in other cultures have distributed themselves along a continuum stretching from total identification with Judaism and Israel to nominal Judaism and full identification with the civilization in which they reside, the latter, however, occurring primarily among Jews living in the West."
In his introduction, Dan Margalit points out that "from an Israeli standpoint, the book raises some questions," and recalls the famous polemic between the former Israeli ambassador to Canada, Rabbi Dr. Jacob Herzog, and the historian Toynbee. (Toynbee said that the vitality of a civilization is measured by its ability to respond to challenges, and the moment this ability diminishes marks the beginning of a society's decline - a claim refuted by Herzog.)
In my opinion, the problem goes beyond an unanswered question. With all due respect to the author, one cannot simply toss off a remark that Judaism is "historically affiliated with Christianity and Islam" and leave it at that, in a serious work aspiring to explore the major historical developments of our time. If Huntington thinks that a few incidental comments about the Arab-Israeli conflict are sufficient in the lengthy historical trek he embarks upon (and this is Margalit's second, justified quibble), then I, as an Israeli and a Jew, have a problem with the scientific message of the book. It is not that I personally take offense with what Huntington writes, but I want to be certain that the factual tenets of his work are solid.
There is no question in my eyes that the Jewish phenomenon gets in the way when an author sets out his ideas concerning a new world order. His idea of Islam as a major civilization gearing up for a showdown with Western civilization leads him into brash statements that do not always pass the test of reality. Suddenly, one comes across sentences like: "In Western Europe, anti-Semitism directed against the Arabs has largely replaced anti-Semitism directed against the Jews." According to Huntington, in other words, there is no hatred of Jews in Europe today. On what does he base such a sweeping generalization? The numerous anti-Semitic incidents in post-World War II Europe are dramatic proof to the contrary.
A citizen of the world
Looking through the book, one is struck by Huntington's meticulous accounting of the wars in Croatia, Bosnia, Herzegovina and Kosovo during the last decade of the 20th century. Pages upon pages are devoted to Bosnia, and its capital, Sarajevo, crops up six times. In contrast, Jerusalem, the focus of a bloody confrontation between civilizations, is mentioned only once.
This one instance is worthy of being cited in full: "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." In the next breath, Huntington observes: "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."
When considering the wars of the past century, can a dispute over what Muslim girls wear to school in France compare in any way - be it identity, emotional intensity or fatefulness - to the historic battle for Jerusalem?
Even if the author prefers not to make much of the Jewish attachment to Jerusalem, how can he ignore the battle for this city when he discusses the cornerstones of Islamic thinking in our day? True, if I were a citizen of the world I would look at these things from above, appreciating the grand sweep of Huntington's brushstrokes, covering continents and hundreds of years. But what can I do if I am a Jew and an Israeli, and what interests me is how the author sees us?
Here is one of the few quotes in this book that mention the struggle between Israel and the Arabs, which has preoccupied the world for over a century: "In the Middle East, conflict between Arabs and Jews in Palestine goes back to the establishment of the Jewish homeland. Four wars have occurred between Israel and the Arab states, and the Palestinians are now engaged in the intifada against Israeli rule. In Lebanon, Maronite Christians have fought a losing battle against Shiites and other Muslims."
How did we get to declare independence? What happened to a century's worth of Zionism? Is this lone sentence sufficient to convey all that has happened in Israel's 50-odd years of existence? Four wars? So how did they turn out? How did the superpowers respond? Is it not worthy of mention that three times - in 1956, 1967 and 1973 - the world was on the verge of an all-out global conflict as a result of this conflict? Is the war between Israel and the Arabs equal in weight, or at all comparable, to the Christian battle against the Shiites in Lebanon (and who, pray tell, are the "other Muslims"?). Wouldn't it have been proper to point out that this clash in Lebanon ended in the mid-1990s?
On target with Islam
But let's go on to another major topic of Huntington's interest - Islam - to which he devotes a large part of the book. Here he is right on target. Analyzing the central features of Islam, he observes that Islam is a religion of the sword that glorifies military virtues: "The doctrines of Islam ... dictate war against unbelievers, and when the initial expansion of Islam tapered off, Muslim groups, quite contrary to doctrine, then fought among themselves. The ratio of fitna or internal conflicts to jihad [holy war] shifted drastically in favor of the former. The Koran and other statements of Muslim beliefs contain few prohibitions on violence, and a concept of nonviolence is absent from Muslim doctrine and practice."
Islam, writes Huntington, is also a religion that preaches conquest. As Islam spread, it conquered vast amounts of territory, also in Europe, and converted people en masse. But this is where Huntington's cover drops with respect to his views on Israel: "Conversely, the expansion of the Russian Empire to the Black Sea, the Caucasus, and Central Asia brought it into continuing conflict for several centuries with a variety of Muslim peoples. The West's sponsorship, at the height of its power vis-a-vis Islam, of a Jewish homeland in the Middle East laid the basis for ongoing Arab-Israeli antagonism.
"Defenders of Islam often allege that its Western critics believe there is a central, conspiratorial, directing force in Islam, mobilizing it and coordinating its actions against the West and others," he continues. "If the critics believe this, they are wrong. Islam is a source of instability in the world because it lacks a dominant center."
But the greatest contributing factor to instability and violence, both within Islam and against non-Muslims, writes Huntington, "is the demographic explosion in Muslim societies and the availability of large numbers of often unemployed males between the ages of 15 and 30." Although I have no idea why he says this, the author is hopeful that "the aging of this pig-in-the-python generation by the third decade of the 21st century and economic development in Muslim societies, if and [when it] occurs, could consequently lead to a significant reduction in Muslim violence propensities and hence to a general decline in the frequency and intensity of fault-line wars."
This is a pious hope that, personally, I would love to share. The trouble is that, at the moment, there are no signs of any progress in this direction.
Israeli readers should be particularly interested in understanding the thinking of those who shape public opinion and set the tone in international policy. In this respect, the book offers a wellspring of insight and information. For starters, the author takes a very pessimistic view of the life span of Western civilization. He is doubtful about the ability of the West to recover, and says quite frankly: "Societies that assume their history has ended ... are usually societies whose history is about to decline." To bolster this statement and seal every possible escape hatch, Huntington adds: "In the emerging world of ethnic conflict and civilizational clash, Western belief in the universality of Western culture suffers three problems: it is false; it is immoral; and it is dangerous." For extra emphasis, he quotes the British military historian Michael Howard: "The common Western assumption that cultural diversity is a historical curiosity being rapidly eroded by the growth of a common, Western-oriented, Anglophone world-culture, shaping our basic values ... is simply not true."
Huntington further illustrates the plight of Western civilization with a quote from Brutus in Shakespeare's Julius Caesar:
"Our legions are brim-full, our cause is ripe.
The enemy increaseth every day;
We at the height, are ready to decline.
There is a tide in the affairs of men,
Which taken at the flood, leads on to fortune;
Omitted, all the voyage of their life
Is bound in shallows and miseries.
On such a full sea are we now afloat,
And we must take the current when it serves,
Or lose our ventures."
Glimmer of hope
And yet if the West mends its ways, there is still a glimmer of hope. Huntington's advice to the chief partners in Western civilization - the United States and Europe - is to "achieve greater political, economic and military integration and to coordinate their policies so as to preclude states from other civilizations exploiting differences among them [I draw attention to dissension in the West over the recent American-led invasion of Iraq]; to incorporate into the European Union and NATO the western states of Central Europe, that is, the Visegrad countries [Czech Republic, Poland, Hungary and Slovakia], the Baltic republics, Slovenia and Croatia; being implemented to encourage the `Westernization' of Latin America and, as far as possible, the close alignment of Latin American countries with the West; to restrain the development of the conventional and unconventional military power of Islamic and Sinic countries (I draw attention to the axis of evil including Iraq and Iran. I do not believe anything will be done concerning China); to slow the drift of Japan away from the West and toward accommodation with China; to accept Russia as the core state of Orthodoxy and a major regional power with legitimate interests in the security of its southern borders; to maintain Western technological and military superiority over other civilizations; and, most important, to recognize that Western intervention in the affairs of other civilizations is probably the single most dangerous source of instability and potential global conflict in a multi-civilizational world."
Without getting overly involved in current events, it is hard to ignore Huntington's insistence that it is futile for Western civilization to impose its views and values on other civilizations, Islam included. The United States has embarked on a relentless campaign to eradicate Islamic terror and keep weapons of mass destruction out of the hands of defiant, irresponsible countries. Along with its strategic military operations in Afghanistan and Iraq, it has launched a plan to cultivate democracy in the Middle East. This plan, named MEPI (Middle East Partnership Initiative) will be implemented with the help of generous budgets. This policy, of course, does not dovetail with Huntington's approach; it is completely contrary to it. But as the plan is fleshed out, his fundamental outlook will be put to the test.
Does Huntington the diviner have any good news for us in the peace and security department? This is what he has to say as his book draws to a close: "`Every war must end.' Such is the conventional wisdom. Is it true of fault-line wars? Yes and no ... The conflicts ... stem from the geographical proximity, different religions and cultures, separate social structures, and historical memories of the two societies. In the course of centuries these may evolve and the underlying conflict may evaporate. Or the conflict may disappear quickly and brutally if one group exterminates the other. If neither of these happens, however, the conflict continues and so do recurring periods of violence. Fault-line wars are intermittent; fault-line conflicts are interminable."
That is hardly a rosy or encouraging forecast. I want to append a personal note: political predictions rarely come true. The truth of the matter is that no person can foresee all the different variables, much less how they interact with one another. Moreover, as threats to a country or world order are identified, the very fact of identification has a way of warding off the danger. In hindsight, events may be understood and explained, but the course of events is usually very different from predictions.
If Huntington had written his book in the late 19th century, he would have rated the Zionist movement, established in 1897, as highly unlikely to survive, let alone realize its goals. If he had written his book at the end of World War I, when a British census found 85,000 Jews living in Palestine, he probably wouldn't have predicted that in 30 years, a Jewish state would be born. If he had written the book at the end of World War II, when the Jewish population totaled 600,000, would he have believed that David Ben-Gurion would successfully declare Israel's independence on May 15, 1948?
The materials that go into the making of history are very sensitive, very fluid and very unpredictable. Huntington's book is important because he provides readers with a good frame of reference, but I would counsel utmost caution in adopting any of his conclusions.
Efraim Halevy was head of the Mossad. This article is based on remarks delivered at the book-launching of the Hebrew edition.