The clash of civilizations, by Samuel P. Huntington - Theory study and criticisms against the ideas

Résumé du document

In 1996, Samuel Huntington published his book "The clash of civilization and the remaking of world order". That book being a follow-up to the article that Huntington had published a few years earlier in the journal "Foreign affairs". The journal Foreign Affairs never got so many replies on an article it had published. Nowadays, the Clash of civilizations has even become a buzz word. I will here sum up some of the main points of Huntington's theory. I'll present them here and also give my personal opinion on them, but first of all, I'd like to come back to the reason why Huntington came to such a theory. In 1989, the then existing bipolar world order broke down. It left the academics that had been working on it for a long prepared unprepared : they had not foreseen the fall of the soviet union.

Extraits

[...] It would mean that whatever we do or think, we are bound to act in particular ways. I do believe in education, in travels to learn other cultures and I therefore cannot agree with him. To conclude, to me Huntington's analysis is not pointless. Cultures and civilizations do play a role. But by focusing so much on that criteria, he forgot other such as ideology, economics, demography that are as important. Sources Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of civilizations and the remaking of world order N.Y., Simon and Schuster Inc. [...]

[...] To me, one must not belong to a civilization. Of course we all received an education, we all joined groups and had a feeling of belonging at some point. But to say that I cannot define myself as belonging to more than one civilization is non-conceivable to me. He then moves on with the idea that the main conflicts will occur between people of different cultural identities, which basically means that people are not tolerant enough to accept other people's view, traditions and values. [...]

[...] First of all, Huntington says how the world was divided, how countries did interact with each other over a very long period of time. He then mentions the turning point, namely of the collapse of the communist world and goes on saying that, at that point, civilization became the most important distinction among people. To him, civilizations can be defined in terms of religion, ancestry, language, history, values, customs and institutions. That definition is actually quite large in my opinion, and isn't a problem in itself. [...]

[...] The Islamic civilization is probably the best example for it. If the Arabic community did not have the Israel/Palestine problem, it would probably be much more difficult for these countries to hold together. Moreover, the Arabs do not alone constitute the Islamic civilization : the Kurds, Turks, Pakistanis also belong to it and they are not exactly the same! Additionally, if civilizations and cultures are so important, it shouldn't be too easy for one country to switch sides, to alter its old traditions. [...]

[...] The clash of civilizations, by Samuel P. Huntington In 1996, Samuel Huntington published his book clash of civilization and the remaking of world order”. That book being a follow-up to the article that Huntington had published a few years earlier in the journal “Foreign affairs”. The journal Foreign Affairs never got so many replies on an article it had published. Nowadays, the Clash of civilizations has even become a buzz word. I will here sum up some of the main points of Huntington's theory. [...]