Ignorance: The Clash Of Civilization

The first problematic is that, Huntington put some conflicting and unlike countries into the same civilizational groups by referring the idea that they have the same religion. While the religion and culture have great importance according to Huntington, the basic qualities of the identified civilizations are neither the same in religion and sect, nor in race and nationality. In other words, Huntington 's classification is not based on a uniform cultural scale. To give an example, sometimes the countries of the same religion but very different characteristics and also different sects, like in the Islamic civilization, imposed into the same group. Societies that have never resembled each other in the framework of clear civilizations (like Turkey

(October 22, 2001). The Clash of Ignorance. The Nation, Vol 273, No 12, p.2. begins with the presumption of the unique relevance of a singular classification (11). Indeed, the question “Do civilizations clash?” is founded on the presumption that humanity can be pre-eminently classified into distinct and discrete civilizations, and that the relations between different human beings can somehow be seen, without serious loss of understanding, in terms of relations between different civilizations(12).

Thirdly, just at the moment where he was talking about modernization does not equal to Westernization, he told that Japan, Singapore and Saudi Arabia are modern, prosperous societies but they clearly are non-Western (13) (p.4 of 6).At this stage, the distinction between Westernization and modernization is not clear, but to the extent it is understood that, he accepts modernization only as the use of technical means. So, the question rises and asks that what is the modernization level of Saudi Arabia,

A Critique of Samuel Huntington’s Clash of Civilizations thesis. Changing Turkey

(12) Sen, Amartya (December 11, 2012). A Critique of Samuel Huntington’s Clash of Civilizations thesis. Changing Turkey

(13) Huntington, Samuel P. (1993). If Not Civilizations, What? Foreign Affairs, November/December 1993, V: 72, N: 5, p.4

religion – most important civilizational identifier according to Huntington, – but also that conflict is always more nuanced than macro-level labels such as “the West” and “Islam” imply.” (14). As another question, what will happen to the huge Muslim population in the West is problematic in this sharp distinction. So, the question of the impossibility of a monolithic civilization and clashes within civilization rises as further problem.

Fifthly, while he was saying that countries with similar cultures will form alliances, Huntington has ignored the fact of international interests and economic benefits. Do not all history teach us that interests play a more important role in interstate relations than emotions and cultural identities? Is not the latest Iran-Iraq war one of the last examples of this? Why does the 21st century cause this principle to change and how the so called "cultural identity," oppress national and economic interests? Notice that, we have not even accounted for important concepts such as identity and nationalism yet which led us to an ever-ending disputes and