Home Page: OCIN INITIATIVE
(Japanese Version)
(Arabic Version)
(Table of contents)
By Areha Kazuya
E-mail: areha_kazuya@jcom.home.ne.jp
Chapter 5: Two calendars (Gregorian & Hijri)
5-7(43) Two books of prediction: “The End of History and the Last Man” & ”The Clash of Civilization and the Remaking of World Order”
In the 1990s, the last decade of the 20th century, two books were published by a political scientist in the United States one after another, and they had the great reputation. One was Francis Fukuyama's "The End of History and the Last Man" in 1992 and another one was Samuel Huntington's "The Clash of Civilization and the Remaking of World Order" in 1996. When the end of the century was approaching, abnormal literatures which predicts the end of the world used to be published such as "Harmagedon" or "The predictions of Nostradamus". But two books were the papers on civilization by renowned scholars. The assertion of the two papers were quite different.
The Middle East has been at the mercy of history as a crossover point of East and West civilizations. In that sense, both books suggested important points for the history of the Middle East, although two books covered all over the world.
Professor Fukuyama predicted that the world of the 21st century would establish a global society with democracy and market economy and become the era of "the end of history" where there was no longer major conflicts of ideology. On the other hand, Huntington said that the world of the 21st century would not be in a direction of global integration, but rather would divide into units of many civilizations, and the wave of conflicts between each civilization would become the basis of the new world order.
Professor Huntington cited the seven civilizations as the main civilization of modern age; Western Europe civilization, Islamic civilization, Confucian civilization, Hindu civilization, Orthodox Church civilization, Latin American civilization and Japanese civilization. It is interesting that Huntington regards Japan as an isolated civilization. In sense of folklore and geopolitics, it should belong within the category of Far East Asia. Among these seven civilizations, the Western European civilization is the newest one starting from the industrial revolution in the 18th century. The Western European civilization focused on the ideology such as liberalism and capitalism. In contrast, the Islamic civilization is a religious one originated by Muhammad in the 14th century. The Orthodox Church civilization is also a civilization rooted in the religion of Christianity.
Once there had been four ancient civilizations in and along Egypt, Mesopotamia, Yellow River and Indus. Yellow River civilization in China was the mother of Confucian civilization. And Indus civilization in India was the mother of Hindu civilization. But Egyptian and Mesopotamian civilization had no successors. They only remained their names as an archaeological civilization.
Latin American civilization and Japanese civilization were related to ethnicity. For Japanese, however, the name of civilization sounds somewhat different, and “Japanese culture” sounds more popular.
In general, "civilization" and "culture" are used in almost the same meaning. According to Oxford English Dictionary, the definition of civilization in English is: ‘The stage of human social development and organization which is considered most advanced.’ And that of culture is: ‘The arts and other manifestations of human intellectual achievement regarded collectively’ or ‘The ideas, customs, and social behavior of a particular people or society.’ It seems that culture has more wide meaning than civilization.
Prof. Fukushima's "The End of History and the Last Man" was written in the age when the Berlin Wall was fell down in 1987 and the dissolution of Soviet Union in 1991, and The United States became the super power in the world. Socialism and communism were driven out and liberalism and capitalism became the de facto standard. His book was a child of the age. Meanwhile, it was sure that Huntington wrote "The clash of Civilization and the Remaking of World Order" under strong influence by the drastically changing history of the Middle East. They were the Iranian Revolution in 1979, the invasion and withdrawal of the Soviet Union in Afghanistan during 1990 to 1989, and the Gulf War in 1991.
These two philosophic books were born in the paradigm shift of dramatically changing history. Just around that time, neoconservatism was emerged in the United States. The roots of neoconservatism dated back to the 1930's. And it grew up as a theoretical pillar of the political party which opposed to the Detent (Release from tension) with the Soviet Union during the Cold War. The Jewish lobby in the United States supported the neoconservatism.
The speech by Barry Goldwater who was the Republican presidential candidate in 1964 was enthusiastically supported by conservatives. Senator Goldwater told that; "The radicalism for defending freedom was not a vice in any way, and the moderatism in search of justice was not a virtue in any way". The conservatism became the mainstream of the Republican Party;
During the Republican governments from President Ronald Reagan in 1981 to President George H. W. Bush in 1993, people of the United States confirmed the correctness of his country and was convinced that they were chosen by God and given the mission for world peace. The United States made the Soviet Union to withdraw from Afghanistan and promoted reunification of the East and West Germany. The United States supported Iraq of the secular regime in the Iran-Iraq war. In the field of economy, they forced the others the globalization through free trade. The power of the United States became unbeaten in the world.
This scenario was exactly same as Prof. Fukuyama's "The End of History and the Last Man". Prof. Fukuyama never said that history would end. He said that the world after the Cold War was the beginning of the final chapter of history where democracy and market economy might be unified to the one ideology. Having claimed such a kind of eschatological argument at the end of the 20th century has made his book the best-seller.
The United States overthrew the Hussein dictatorship in Iraq in the Gulf War. Rulers of the Arab and Muslim countries trembled. The United States intended to materialize Prof. Fukuyama's idea in the Middle East in the coming 21st century. However, it was Prof. Huntington's "The Clash of Civilization and the Remaking of World Order" that challenged Prof. Fukuyama's idea. It was unfortunate that the 21st century started from the 9/11 terrorist attacks that support Prof. Huntington's prediction.
(To be continued ----)
