Civilizations Shock: Samuel Huntington Article

Civilizations shock: Samuel Huntington article

The conclusion reached by Professor Samuel Huntington with this article published in 1993, is none other than now a manifestation of international resistance and ethnic and cultural claim movements is observed by monopolizing the entire planet with the aim of chargingmore than everything that once was taken. This appreciation, somewhat precipitous and superficial of international reality could immediately lead to consider that we are at the dawn of an unprecedented ethnic and cultural confrontation in the history of mankind.

‘The main source of conflict in a new world will not be fundamentally ideological or economic, the character of both the great divisions of humanity and the dominant source of conflict will be cultural’

Huntington’s analysis leads to a particular interest to the conflict or better even to the theoretical reasoning of a coming confrontation, which would happen according to the ature between civilizations and its connections rather than between states. This perception of international relations can maintain similarity to political realism, since they are based on conflict as an essential component, despite Samuel Huntington, this conflict points out as a result of the interaction between different cultures in the world and not as a fundamental aspect inInternational development.

It is necessary to take into account that confrontations of ethnic-cultural origin have been registered throughout the history of humanity, since the beginning of the first civilizations, and have always been notable aspects in the conflagrations that we know.

Undoubtedly the ethnic-cultural elements have a relevant weight in the relations of human beings. Culture comes to define and specify the conception of reality and behavioral patterns generally, so they have always been fundamental in power relations in humanity. You cannot express the importance of cultural aspects in relations between one or another society, but it is other elements that have caused and possibly cause conflicts. Samuel Huntington in his article ignores, or seems to omit the real causes of the conflicts to which he refers to his writing. In the same way, the historical factors that will generate them. 

Its main arguments are the conflicts unleashed in recent times, where the cultural feature is being used as a fight flag. Regardless of the fact that the flag of cultural claim is increasing. So far one of the conflicts that we could most glimpse as a properly cultural and/or religious conflict could be the crusades, when Europe declared the Holy War to the ‘unfaithful’ but well in terms of reasons, although nature.The crusades had as the main engine the reconquest of the Holy Land, Western Enclave, which has served western interests in the lands surrounded by the Muslim people. 

The crusades were holy wars, convened under the flag of culture, however they were true imperialist economic companies that were essentially motivated to looting, conquest and capture of slaves, as well as enrichment of the ‘Holy Mother Church. Such an effort made Urban II, his ‘holiness’ convened a civil army of women, children, of almost a million people in 1095, of which few survived.

With this clear example, it can be found that it is material struggles and not the differences (although they play a predominant role) that drive the people of the world to mobilize, and are those that drive Islamic fundamentalism, or separatist movements or guerrillasindigenous, or Iraqi resistance in Iraq, or intifada, or simply what motivated the boxers, or the gavilleros to fight.

Reality cannot be denied, cultural and/or ethnic ethnic differences are fundamental pillars of societies, and there is the possibility that they can be used in a struggle or conflict, however these ‘differences’ are not able to cause considerable war conflictsIn most cases.

Choque of civilizations establishes an alternative to international configuration after the Cold War, before a potential panorama hegemony of the United States. Samuel Huntington proposes an alternative theory where he states that the highest entities will be civilizations, as a maximum expression of the identity of the states. These civilizations will be identified by culture as a fundamental element against the rest of civilizations that are identified. Having greater intercom worldwide, cultural differences will be accentuated, which causes a claim of the own foreign culture.

Under this premise the world will be understood as a set of civilizations, which as a rule will have a central state that will be the hard nucleus that represents the common of each civilization, that is, an economically and militarily strong state that, in addition, will abande the ideasand customs of that civilization. Around them will find the rest of the states that probably follow the stele of the central. In this way the perception acquired is concentric circles where the strong state dominates the center and others generate an activity around it.

Civilizations will have a relationship full of rivalries and struggles. These conflicts will be due to the decline in the influence of the West and the rise of other. This boom will be in certain subjects according to each civilization, Muslims for great population growth and immigration or Asia (particular China) for its economic growth. With that tendency and western wear, conflicts will be increased by power struggle.

The author points out in his article Quer one of the fundamental bases of the conflict comes from the cultural part, in the case of the rest of civilizations, they do not have to accept western concepts regarding the visualization of the world, that is, human rights, human rights,Individualism, etc. This will carry with it that the rest of civilizations will try to claim their cultural roots but combining them with modernity. Sienda is in turn one of the key elements because the West assumed that modernity plus values and ideas would be equal to other countries, but Huntington presents a perspective where countries capture the best of each civilization and adapt it toHis idiosyncrasy. This, without a doubt, means that technological and industrial advances will be taken from the West, but cultural values will be discarded.

Religion then appears as one of those fundamental pillars, in this case the objective revolves around the Muslim world, although it is talk about Asia and India, Muslims are in the spotlight of the religious movement because there, according to the author,Religion has taken an important role in social matters that states did not act efficiently. Then it is another fracture for historical conflict with the West.

It should be noted that practically the entire civilizational conflict goes against the West and more specifically against the United States. Even so, it is forecast that there are still a few decades of western domain, especially in relation to military and economic power.

From the first moment after the publication of the article, the controversy has always revolved around this civilizational perspective of Huntington. Some sections such as "the bloody borders of Islam" can be more striking within the entire work and others simply expose a half truth, such as putting the United States at the Center for Cultural Development of the West. For now, the title of his work The clash of civilizations transmits a rather apocalyptic idea a priori, and above all once the work leaves intellectual circles and passes to the rest of society, where journalists can give an approacheven darker.

Despite how controversial the article is, it is necessary. Without being as complex as an individual study of each country, but without being as simple as two blocks, civilization as it is raised offers the opportunity to agglutinate various countries in an entity superior to them that somehow becomes a certain importance ininteraction with other civilizations.

But perhaps an individual does not feel more identified with their neighboring countries than with other “strangers? In that line, Huntington’s analysis is contemplated in a practical way, although it is also true that ICTs are creating a more dynamic and interconnected world, the perception of the individual generates greater sympathy and affection for close, examples such as terrorism, where recent attacksFrance (November 2015) and Belgium (March 2016) shocked European citizenship, both for the victims and for the proximity of each attack. Made in Paris and Brussels, there were two attacks in important cities in Europe where the impact they acquire is greater. However, terrorism has its actions especially in countries like Syria, where it affects the citizenship of the region and in fact, not as specific cases but as a continuous situation in time. But that terrorism in what we would consider the periphery of the West has barely relevance to the citizens of the United States or Europe.

It is peobble that the civilizational shock is not viable at a macro level because culture is not the only element of the conflict between various countries, if the analysis of international relations would be very simple. On the contrary, the interests of the states expand beyond cultural elements, perhaps the difference in values or cultures being an excuse.

Once the ideological confrontation of the Cold War, the culture and the process of emancipation of Western power are overcome, they cannot become the end of history. Humanity is facing processes of enormous magnitudes open to any development. The annexation of Crimea by Russia are answers to some kind of conflict beyond cultural differences, and even so there are those who could analyze it from that perspective.

As always the balance of power of civilizations has long been the domain of the western ruling class, and of the values, principles, behaviors, western. Obviously such a long supremacy is less and less powerful due to the great resistance movement that is brewing and changes in economic and political power that could occur in the future. Although it is important to emphasize the advance of the ‘Western globalization of production and misery’ that is imposing purely western models, however to greater action, greater reaction.

At present, conflicts between states will remain, and it is true that the conflict between them is more latent than among others. For example between the United States and Europe there may be differences, but not a conflict as large as the United States could have with countries in the Middle East. There is a hierarchy in the international scene where each country has a certain weight that in turn will have other rivals or allies in the same position, however a country of the upper strata (A1) could somehow influence another state "inferior ”only for that action to affect its rival state (A2). This hypothetical conflict has not been motivated by a cultural difference, although perhaps its justification could have been that.

The power relations between civilizations and the possibility of resistance to that domain could be the fundamental cause for new conflicts and main obstacle to the peaceful coexistence of civilizations, and not simply the multiple differences between civilizations, which are to thePerhaps perhaps the greatest heritage of humanity.

In the current moments the only factors that could hinder the relationships between civilizations (which are increasingly narrow) would be the relationships of domination within the current world system, where information is increasingof telecommunications that favor the daily exchange of different cultures and to an increasing awareness of the global world.

In any case, the theory raised a stir at the time. However, the interests of each State are not collected, everything is focused on the premises of civilization and what this entails. Being an invented system, that is, the creation of civilizations in the way that the author does, is forced to holdThe way to fit the puzzle pieces to create a conflict between civilizations.