Clash Of The Civilizations

The clash of civilizations

It is far more meaningful now to group countries in terms of their culture and civilization. A civilization is a cultural entity. Villages, religions, ethnic groups, nationalities, religious groups all have distinct cultures at different levels of cultural heterogeneity; a civilization is thus the highest cultural grouping of people and the broadest level of cultural identity people have short of that which distinguishes humans from other species. It is defined both by common objective elements, such as language, history, religion, customs, institutions, and by the subjective self-identification of people. People can and do redefine their identities and, as a result, the composition and boundaries of civilizations change.

Civilizations may involve a large number of people or a very small number of people; a civilization may include several nation states or only one; civilizations obviously blend and overlap, and may include sub civilizations. Civilizations are nonetheless meaningful entities, and while the lines between them are seldom sharp, they are real. Civilizations are dynamic; they rise and fall; they divide and merge and they disappear and are buried in the sands of time.

Civilization identity will be increasingly important in the future, and the world will be shaped in large measure by the interactions among seven or eight major civilizations. The most important conflicts of the future will occur along the cultural fault lines separating these civilizations from one another: civilizations are differentiated from each other by history, language, culture, tradition and most important, religion. The people of different civilizations have different views on the relations between God and man, the individual and the group, the citizen and the state, parents and children, husband and wife, as well as differing views of the relative importance of rights and responsibilities, liberty and authority, equality and hierarchy. These differences are the product of centuries. They will not disappear soon. They are far more fundamental than differences among political ideologies and political regimes. Differences do not necessarily mean conflict, and conflict does not necessarily mean violence, however, differences among civilizations have generated the most prolonged and the most violent conflicts. All this is happening in a world that is becoming a smaller place. The interactions between peoples of different civilizations are increasing; these increasing interactions intensify civilization consciousness and awareness of differences between civilizations and commonalities within civilizations.

Conflicts and violence will also occur between states and groups within the same civilization. Such conflicts, however, are likely to be less intense and less likely to expand than conflicts between civilizations. Common membership in a civilization

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