The ‘clash of civilisations’: a fundamentalist thesis?
The link between fundamentalism and the state is well exemplified by Huntington’s
contention that globalisation is leading to a clash of civilisations. He explicitly
identified his position with the realist theory of international relations (Huntington,
1996: 185), and argued that the tools of realism – a state-centric view of the world
which remains basically changeless – leads to an understanding of (violent) conflict
in terms of cultural and what he calls ‘civilisational’ difference.
While Huntington concedes that minorities in other cultures may espouse Western
values – meaning the values of what he calls democratic liberalism – dominant
attitudes in non-Western cultures range from widespread scepticism to intense
opposition to Western values (Huntington, 1996: 184). Although almost all non-
Western civilisations are resistant to pressure from the West – including Hindu,
Orthodox, African and even Latin American countries – the greatest resistance to
Western power has come from Islam and Asia (Huntington, 1996: 193).
Civilisations, Huntington argues, are the ultimate human tribes, and the clash of
civilisations is tribal conflict on a global scale. Trust and friendship between the
civilisations will be rare (Huntington, 1996: 206). He sees a deeply conflictual
relation (Huntington takes it for granted that conflict is always violent), not simply
between Islamic fundamentalists and Christianity but between Islam itself and
Christianity. Conflict is a product of difference. In civilisational conflicts, unlike
ideological ones, kin stand by their kin (1996: 209–10, 217). Thus, the Gulf War
is interpreted as a war between civilisations (1996: 251), and religion, in
Huntington’s view, is the principal defining characteristic of civilisation, so that
what he calls ‘fault-line wars’ are almost always between people of different religions
(1996: 253). At the global level, the clash is between the West and the rest. At the
micro- or local level, it is between Islam and others (1996: 255). The longer a fault-
line war continues, the more that kin countries are likely to become involved (1996:
272).
Huntington takes the view that it is futile and counterproductive for countries
to integrate their peoples. A multi-civilisational United States, he argues, will not
be the United States: it will be the United Nations. We must reject the divisive siren
calls of multiculturalism (1996: 306–7, 310). Cultural identities inevitably collide
in an antagonistic manner. ‘We know who we are only when we know who we are
not and often only when we know whom we are against’ (1996: 21). Here is realism
with a cultural twist! Nation-states are and will remain the most important actors
in world affairs, but their interests, associations and conflicts are increasingly shaped
by cultural and civilisational factors. Huntington also argued that the USA is now
threatened by immigrants from Latin America who are altering the national identity
of traditional America.
Huntington’s book, The Clash of Civilizations (1996), it could be argued, is
itself a kind of fundamentalism: but not only does it not arise from, it is staunchly
opposed to, the Islamic tradition. Huntington believed that human history is the
history of civilisations (1996: 40). Islamic civilisation in particular and non-Western
culture in general, is on the ascendant, and it is wrong to assume that with
‘modernisation’ the world becomes more amenable to Western values. In fact, he394 Part 3 Contemporary ideologies