Bridging visions of history

Soumitro Das, The Statesman, Asia News Network, Calcutta

This is a pretty startling statement, but it comes from the Secretary General of the United Nations, Kofi Annan, inaugurating what his organization calls a "dialog between civilizations", in very obvious opposition to the professor Samuel Huntington and those who think like him.

Here it is: "One could argue that there are two groups of civilizations -- one which perceives diversity as a threat and the other which sees it as an opportunity and an integral component for growth." There lies a clash in this formulation.

The Secretary General goes on to speak about liberal democracy and fundamental rights. Annan may be thinking for instance, Afghanistan, traditional systems of belief and cultural conduct that contrast with the hegemonic thrust of liberal democracy and its twin progeny -- globalization and liberalization.

Its most spectacular expression is the clash between the followers of "radical Islam" and the rest -- among whom the West, Israel, India, the Philippines, several Arab regimes friendly towards the West and, perhaps, from now onwards, any pluralistic Muslim regime.

And can we say that the traditional cultures of Japan, South Korea and Taiwan see diversity "as an opportunity and an integral component for growth"? Ask foreigners -- known under the derogatory term gaijin -- how comfortable they are in Japan.

Or turn the focus on the West itself: Do Asians in Britain feel they are "an opportunity and an integral component for growth"?

The dialog between civilizations should, under no circumstances be construed as one between the liberal democratic West and the intolerant rest of the world. The truth is that diversity exists at many levels, within nations and between them, within religious spheres and it is always a problem.

The real clash is not between Christianity and Islam -- but between the forces of material and technical progress and all those who do not agree with it, in the name of faith, traditional way of life, environment, or because they think too much government is a bad thing. Very often this lack of agreement is due to inequality and oppression, to which ordinary political solutions are available.

What is the rate of unemployment in Egypt, what was it in Iran yesterday? Why is it that riots are taking place in north England towns where the cotton-mill economy has collapsed?

This is an issue where even racist and cultural divides are abolished -- most violent demonstrators in Gotenburg and Genoa during the G-8 summits were white Christian youth fed up with a soulless industrial and information society.

One begins to understand why Michel Foucault, dyed-in-the-wool anarchist and one of the greatest political philosophers, has begun calling for "a return of the spiritual in politics" and saw Ayatollah Khomeini off at the airport when the latter went back to Iran.

"Radical Islam" is one of the new voices of rebellion, abhorrent and crude as it may be, but there are other voices working within the fabric of civilizations that see diversity "as an opportunity and an integral component of growth."

They might say, "We do not want to grow like this."

All this does not mean that liberal democracy should give up, or that humanity should turn its back on material and technical progress.

What many people are demanding, is a place at the center. That is, a world that is no longer regulated by the Euro-American vision of mankind's history.

The real problem, for any eventual dialog of civilizations, is to discover elements or concepts from other cultures which can become world-shapers in the way, for instance, technology has become.