Clash of civilizations

1. Aima Buttar

2.  Introduction
 Overview
 Definition and its meanings
 Three attributes of clash of civilization
 Main Theory of clash of civilizations
 Reasons for the clash of civilizations
 Islam vs. Western civilizations
 Conclusion

3.  The Clash of Civilizations (COC) is a hypothesis
that people's cultural and religious identities will
be the primary source of conflict in the post-
Cold War world. It was proposed by political
scientist Samuel P. Huntington in a 1992
lecture at the American Enterprise Institute,
which was then developed in a 1993 Foreign
Affairs article titled "The Clash of
Civilizations?", in response to his former
student Francis Fukuyama's 1992 book, The End
of History and the Last Man. Huntington later
expanded his thesis in a 1996 book The Clash of
Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order.

4.  Huntington began his thinking by surveying the
diverse theories about the nature of global politics in
post-cold war world period. Some theorists and
writers argued that human sights, liberal democracy
and capitalist free market economy had become the
only remaining ideological alternative for nations in
the post-cold war world. Specifically Francis
Fukuyama argued that the world had reached the
‘end of history’ in Hegelian sense.
 Huntington believed that while the age of ideology
had ended, the world had only reverted to a normal
state of affairs characterized by cultural conflict. In
this thesis he argued that “the primary axis in the
future will be along cultural and religion lines”.

5.  An advanced state of human society, in which a high level of
culture, science, industry, and government has been reached.
 Civilization entered the English language in the mid-18th century
with the meaning “the act or process of bringing out of a savage
or uneducated state.”
 Origin from Latin word civilis-citizen.
 Civilization is a cultural entity defined by objective elements
such as language, history and religion etc whereas Clash of
Civilization is a clash of cultural spheres within a single global
civilization.
 Differences among civilizations are real and basic:
As mentioned before, civilizations are differentiated in terms of
history, language, culture, tradition & religion. These
differences are products of centuries, which are too fundamental
that cannot be changed easily. Unlike political ideologies,
civilization has been built deep inside our minds and will not vary
according to time. This is the main reason why Huntington
believed that if there was a future war, the ultimate cause
behind it would probably be the differences among civilizations.

6.  In the 1993 foreign affairs article, Huntington
writes:
“It is my hypothesis that the fundamental
source of conflict in this new world will not be
primarily ideological or primarily economic.
The great division among humankind and the
dominating source of conflict will be cultural.
Nation states will remain the most powerful
actors in world affairs, but the principle
conflicts of global politics will occur between
nations and groups of different civilizations.
The Clash of civilizations will dominant global
politics. The fault lines between civilizations
will be the battle lines of future.”

7.  Objective elements include language,
history, religion, customs, institutions
 Subjective elements include variable levels
of self-identification
 Civilizations are dynamic; they rise and fall,
divide and merge

8. 1.“The Clash of Civilizations?” that still has a
question mark to it) is a very narrow, one-
dimensional view of conflict in the contemporary
world. In effect, it attempts to relate conflicts
straight and simply to cultural differences
between peoples. It then relates peoples to
predominant cultures and groups all cultures into
8 major civilizations (Western, Islamic, Sinic,
Japanese, Orthodox, Hindu, Latin American and
African). It disregards or downplays all other
evidence to the contrary (regarding culture,
conflict and anything else that might contradict
the simple paradigm of “The Clash”).

9. 2.The historical and contemporary evidence of
conflict does not in any way support the argument of
“The Clash”. Sam Huntington personally admitted
that much in a discussion round at Harvard, but made
a vague reference to “predictions of future confirm a
strong case is made of the fact that modernization is
not equal to westernization. Just because people in
other cultures drink Coca-Cola and wear Nike shoes
does not mean that they also inhale the Western
system of values with it. Ah, yes. But this much was
known by anthropologists long before and has been
debated at length. It is, however, not an argument
that differences and frictions between cultures (or
even civilizations) will necessarily grow and there is
much evidence to the contrary (think of elite
formation or the growing importance of “epistemic
communities”).

10. 3.The argument does not in any way explain
why conflicts occur in the first place. In
particular, there is no discussion of the
importance of democratic vs. authoritarian
regimes, justice vs. equality, struggles over
the control of resources, ethno-political
mobilization, and ethnic entrepreneurs and
so on. In short: The major ingredients of
violent conflict are ignored for the sake of a
one-dimensional, wrong-headed argument.

11. 4.Clashes of “civilizations” could only occur if
the world is ordered according to Huntington’s
thesis of the “structure of civilizations”:
Countries group around the “core states” of
their own civilizations against other countries
that group around the core states of their own
civilizations. The core state of “The West” is
then, according to S.H., the United States of
America. Russia, India, China, Japan would be
the other “core states”, while Latin America,
Africa and Islam do not have core states (yet).
And here is part 1 of the hidden agenda of S.H: If
the West is to counter the “challenge” of the
rising civilizations, it must “rally” around the
U.S.A. Europe as an alternative model of
“western civilization” would be disaster for S.H.

12.  Today, most Christians believe in the Trinity, meaning
that God has 3 forms (Father, Son, Holy Ghost/
Spirit). The concept of trinity was not adopted by
Christianity until the Council of Nicea in 325 AD.
Some of the early Christians were Unitarians. Even
today, there are Christian Unitarian churches that do
not accept the Trinity. Notable Rationalist Unitarians
include thinkers such as Ralph Waldo Emerson
(American), scientists such as Isaac Newton (British),
as well as famous figures such as Florence Nightingale
(British) in nursing and humanitarianism, Charles
Dickens (British) in literature, and Frank Lloyd Wright
(American) in architecture.
While in Islam.
 Trinity is totally rejected. Jesus is neither God, nor
Son of God (in the literal sense). Jesus was a human
prophet and not divine.

13.  Christianity and Islam both are Teleological
religions, that is their values and beliefs
represent the goals of existence and purpose
in human existence.
 Irreligious people who violate the base
principles of those religions and perceived to
b furthering their own pointers aims, which
leads to violate interactions.

14.  Two decades ago, after the end of the cold war, and
the triumph of liberal free market democracy,
Samuel Huntington predicted that future conflict
would be purely civilizational, and between nation
states. The West’s antagonists in these future
conflicts would be the world’s remaining
unassimilated non-Western cultures: Confucianism,
but especially Islam. In the past decade, civilizational
conflict with Islam has, indeed, escalated. These
struggles, however, are taking place, within and not
between, nation states, including the internecine
warfare (Fitnah) inside Islam. Finally, and most
importantly, culture and civilization are inseparable
from the economy, polity and society. Cultures are
not shaped, nor do they ever evolve, in a socio-
economic vacuum, making a purely civilizational
conflict virtually impossible.

15. THANK YOU…!!!