A COMMENT TO THE ARTICLES

ABOUT THE CLASH OF

CIVILIZATION

Created by:

FAIRUZ ALHAMDI
016201100017
INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS 2

The US media, Huntington and September 11

(By: Ervand Abrahamian)

The article of Ervand Abrahamian contains an explanation of some of the topic,

which is about the media coverage of United States, about the thought of
Huntington, and about September 11 tragedy that occurred in the United States
some time ago. Abrahamian in his article also explains about Muslim relations
with these events.
In the article, explained that the media in the United States was too blames the
Muslims. As the media, there should be no element that contains of SARA. Based
Huntington's own thought, in the article clearly addressed his triumph. Because
according to the article, it happens Because of clash of civilization as it is on the
thought of Huntington.
How can the article explain Huntingtons triumph? One could argue that
journalists, as well as their readers, share Huntingtons own deeply ingrained
premises. Edward Said, Orientalism may be more relevant than many would like
to admit. One could argue that, by seeing the world in large civilizational blocs,
the United States is striving to preserve hegemony over Europe. One could also
argue that journalists and their readers find it easier to grasp Huntingtons broad
brush strokes than to examine cumbersome empirical details. After all, his
paradigm purports to explain politics all the way from Morocco to Indonesia. The
competing statenational paradigm confines itself to particular entitiesto 26
different states and at least 10 major national groups. Obviously religion cannot
explain why Iran favours Russia against Chechnya, Armenia against Azerbaijan,
and India against Pakistan. But how many journalists want to confuse readers
with such awkward details? Similar awkward facts arise in trying to explain the
attitudes of Muslims in Bosnia, Albania, Macedonia, Kosovo and Iraqi Kurdistan.
The main reason, however, for Huntingtons success lies elsewhere. His forte lies
in his ability to analyze international politics without discussing real politics,
especially the ArabIsraeli conflict. It is international relations with politics taken
out. This fits neatly into the medias, as well as the Bush administration,
conscious decision to sever the ArabIsraeli conflict from the general issue of
American unpopularity in the Middle East and of the specific problem of terrorism
against the USA. Any linkage is seen as transgressing a taboo line. Using the
Huntington paradigm, one can discuss the whole issue of September 11 without
raising the dreaded P wordPalestinethe equally dreaded terms occupied
territories and settlements, and also the uncomfortable notion of Arab
nationalism. Victorians shunned the subject of sex in polite company;
contemporary Americans avoid these other uncomfortable subjects when
discussing 11 September.

Clash of Civilizations, or Realism and Liberalism Deja Vu? Some

Evidence
(By: Bruce M. Russett, John R. Oneal, and Michaelene Cox)

This article assess the degree to which propositions from Samuel Huntington's
The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order can account for the
incidence of militarized interstate disputes between countries during the period
1950-92. This article describes that such traditional realist influences as
contiguity, alliances, and relative power, and liberal influences of joint
democracy and interdependence, provide a much better account of interstate
conflict. Pairs of states split across civilizational boundaries are no more likely to
become engaged in disputes than are other states ceteris paribus. Even disputes
between the West and the rest of the world, or with Islam, were no more
common than those between or within most other groups. Among Huntington's
eight civilizations, interstate conflict was significantly less likely only within the
West; dyads in other civilizations were as likely to fight as were states split
across civilizations, when realist and liberal influences are held constant.
The dominance of a civilization by a core state, democratic or not, does little to
inhibit violence within the civilization. Contrary to the thesis that the clash of
civilizations will replace Cold War rivalries as the greatest source of conflict,
militarized interstate disputes across civilizational boundaries became less
common, not more so, as the Cold War waned. Nor do civilizations appear to
have an important indirect influence on interstate conflict through the realist or
liberal variables. They help to predict alliance patterns but make little
contribution to explaining political institutions or commercial interactions. We
can be grateful that Huntington challenged us to consider the role that
civilizations might play in international relations, but there is little evidence that
they define the fault lines along which international conflict is apt to occur.
This article shows that it was grateful that Huntington challenged us to consider
the role that civilizations play in international relations, and we can certainly be
grateful that it is more benign than he suggested, because civilizations represent
a highly aggregated form of human culture that would be difficult to alter.
Policies adopted over the course of a few years could not be expected to change
cultural characteristics that have evolved over centuries. Fortunately, the
evidence we have assembled strongly indicates that national leaders need not
attempt such a Herculean task.

Civilizations do not define the fault lines along which international conflict
occurs. More relevant are the common bonds of democracy and economic
interdependence that unite many states, and separate them from others. The
realist influences are important for states that do not share liberal ties. For them,
realpolitik still determines the incidence of conflict. Consequently, policymakers
should focus on what they can do: peacefully extending democracy and
economic interdependence to parts of the world still excluded. These are more
important and more malleable determinants of interstate relations than the
cultural characteristics emphasized by Huntington. Strengthening the liberal
forces for peace can mitigate what might otherwise appear to be the clash of
civilizations.

Clash of Globalization
(By: Stanley Hoffmann)

This article describes about the state of international relations today. It explains,
In the 1990s, specialists concentrated on the partial disintegration of the global
order's traditional foundations: states. During that decade, many countries, often
those born of decolonization, revealed themselves to be no more than pseudo
states, without solid institutions, internal cohesion, or national consciousness.
The end of communist coercion in the former Soviet Union and in the former
Yugoslavia also revealed long-hidden ethnic tensions. Minorities that were or
considered themselves oppressed demanded independence. In Iraq, Sudan,
Afghanistan, and Haiti, rulers waged open warfare against their subjects. These
wars increased the importance of humanitarian interventions, which came at the
expense of the hallowed principles of national sovereignty and nonintervention.
Thus the dominant tension of the decade was the clash between the
fragmentation of states (and the state system) and the progress of economic,
cultural, and political integration-in other words, globalization.
Based on article, everybody has understood the events of September 11 as the
beginning of a new era. This break means that in the conventional approach to
international relations, war took place among states. But in September, poorly
armed individuals suddenly challenged, surprised, and wounded the world's
dominant superpower. The attacks also showed that, for all its accomplishments,
globalization makes an awful form of violence easily accessible to hopeless
fanatics. Terrorism is the bloody link between interstate relations and global
society. As countless individuals and groups are becoming global actors along
with states, insecurity and vulnerability are rising.
For all these tensions, it is still possible that the American war on terrorism will
be contained by prudence, and that other governments will give priority to the
many internal problems created by interstate rivalries and the flaws of

globalization. But the world risks being squeezed between a new Scylla and
Charybdis. The Charybdis is universal intervention, unilaterally decided by
American leaders who are convinced that they have found a global mission
provided by a colossal threat. Presentable as an epic contest between good and
evil, this struggle offers the best way of rallying the population and overcoming
domestic divisions. The Scylla is resignation to universal chaos in the form of new
attacks by future bin Ladens, fresh humanitarian disasters, or regional wars that
risk escalation. Only through wise judgment can the path between them be
charted.
We can analyze the present, but we cannot predict the future. We live in a world
where a society of uneven and often virtual states overlaps with a global society
burdened by weak public institutions and underdeveloped civil society. A single
power dominates, but its economy could become unmanageable or disrupted by
future terrorist attacks. Thus to predict the future confidently would be highly
incautious or naive.

Dialogue among Civilizations as a New Approach for International

Relations
(By: Mohammad R. Hafeznia)

On this article, it says after the collapse of the bipolar system different views and
theories were expressed by scholars and thinkers about the future of the world
and the international system. One of them is the theory of The clash of
Civilizations which was expressed in 1993 by the Samuel Huntington. This theory
caused some anxieties in the world. In reaction to this theory, M. Khatami, the
former president of the Islamic Republic of Iran, proposed the way of Dialogue
among Civilizations as a paradigm in the international relations. 53 rd General
Assembly of the United Nations on 3 September 1998 accepted it and approved
a resolution for the purpose of promoting dialogue among cultures and
civilizations and nominated the year 2001 as the year of Dialogue among
Civilizations. This article presents the study of both mentioned theories and
refers to the role of dialogue approach in creation of peaceful relations between
nations and states.
Samuel Huntington presented the theory of Clash between Civilizations as a
paradigm for explanation of the world situation after the cold war that caused
some anxieties. In opposite to its President Khatami as a statesman with cultural
personality, presented his idea of civilization dialogue as a paradigm for
international relations on 53rd session of UN General Assembly. This paradigm
welcomed by the General Assembly and nominated the year 2001 as the year of
Dialogue among Civilizations. Also the heads and officials of some countries in
the world welcomed to the Idea. From the other hand after the terrorist events in

the USA the expectations of the world community about the role of civilization
dialogue increased.
Continuation of power relations has produced social and geographical inequality
between human communities. Development of identitys sentiments and
competitions on the basis of religion, race, ethnicity, language, place and etc.
helps to the grow of misunderstanding and tensions between cultures and
civilization groups. Increasing insecurity arising from multi-dimensional terrorism
brings to necessity of the development of a Dialogue between nations and
cultures. This approach in the new world can lead peace and security for us and
now we need peace and security more than in any other time.

Hobbes on Barbarism and Civilization

(By: Robert P. Kraynak)

This article said that Hobbes' political science is based on the claim that civil
society hitherto has been founded improperly and is apt to dissolve into civil war.
The historical evidence for this claim, however, is not presented systematically in
Hobbes' political treatises; it must be reconstructed from his diverse historical
writings. In these writings Hobbes analyzes the history of man from barbarism to
civilization, and shows that the evolution of political authority from its original
basis in natural force to its later foundation on opinion has been the ruin of
civilization. This account, I argue, constitutes a genuine theory of history and
reveals the problem of civilization which Hobbes' political science is designed to
solve.
Hobbes' reflections on civil history, when taken as a whole, present a
comprehensive critique of traditional politics and science. The subject of this
critique is the evolution of man from barbarism to civilization, with a focus on the
development of political authority and the cultivation of the arts and sciences. In
all previous civil societies, Hobbes shows, this development followed a typical
pattern: civilization emerged when the rule by natural force in families and tribes

was replaced by great monarchies or republics, founded not only on force but
also on opinion.
This historical analysis provides the evidence for Hobbes' sweeping claim that
civilization hitherto has been a condition of imminent or actual warfare, a
condition as miserable as barbarism or savagery. In most civilized societies a
division of sovereignty has existed between the political sovereigns, who ruled
by "natural" means of physical force and hereditary succession, and the
intellectual authorities, who ruled by "civilized" means of opinion, persuasion,
and learning. In addition, civilized life led to controversies and conflicts among
the various intellectual authorities, who divided into factions, sects, and schools,
each of which competed for the honor of having its opinions established by the
state and other institutions.
In order to understand the significance of Hobbes' historical analysis for his new
political science, we must determine precisely what distinguishes it from
previous critiques of civilization. For, as Hobbes himself acknowledges, Plato also
held that civil society has never been free of "disorders of state and change of
government by civil war" due to its foundation on opinion (Leviathan, ch. 31, p.
357). Hobbes' reference is to the Republic (473a), to Plato's assertion that the
troubles of cities will never cease until philosophers become kings or kings
become philosophers. Plato's claim is based on the view that political or civil
society is like a cave where men live in the dark, unable to see anything but the
shadows of artificial things reflected on the walls (Republic, pp. 514-516). By
comparing the city to a cave, Plato implies that political and social life rests on
authoritative opinions-that is, on ideas taken on trust from authorities which are
never questioned or examined. These ideas are the source of most men's
understanding of right and wrong and the nature of things, although they are for
the most part false or, at best, second-hand reflections of reality. According to
Socrates, Plato, and other classical philosophers, political and civil life is
defective because it is essentially pre-philosophical: it rests on mere opinion
rather than on philosophical or scientific knowledge.

The Clash of Civilizations?

(By: Samuel P. Huntington)

Huntington says that world politics is entering a new phase, and intellectuals
have not hesitated to proliferate visions of what it will be the end of history, the
return of traditional rivalries between nation states, and the decline of the nation
state from the conflicting pulls of tribalism and globalism, among others. Each of
these visions catches aspects of the emerging reality. Yet they all miss a crucial,
indeed a central, aspect of what global politics is likely to be in the coming years.
It is his hypothesis that the fundamental source of conflict in this new world will
not be primarily ideological or primarily economic. The great divisions among

humankind and the dominating source of conflict will be cultural. Nation states
will remain the most powerful actors in world affairs, but the principal conflicts of
global politics will occur between nations and groups of different civilizations.
The clash of civilizations will dominate global politics. The fault lines between
civilizations will be the battle lines of the future.
Conflict between civilizations will be the latest phase in the evolution of conflict
in the modern world. For a century and a half after the emergence of the modern
international system with the Peace of Westphalia, the conflicts of the Western
world were largely among princes-emperors, absolute monarchs and
constitutional monarchs attempting to expand their bureaucracies, their armies,
their mercantilist economic strength and, most important, the territory they
ruled. In the process they created nation states, and beginning with the French
Revolution the principal lines of conflict were between nations rather than
princes. In 1793, as R. R. Palmer put it, "The wars of kings were over; the wars of
peoples had begun." This nineteenth century pattern lasted until the end of
World War I. Then, as a result of the Russian Revolution and the reaction against
it, the conflict of nations yielded to the conflict of ideologies, first among
communism, fascism-Nazism and liberal democracy, and then between
communism and liberal democracy. During the Cold War, this latter conflict
became embodied in the struggle between the two superpowers, neither of
which was a nation state in the classical European sense and each of which
defined its identity in terms of its ideology.
These conflicts between princes, nation states and ideologies were primarily
conflicts within Western civilization, "Western civil wars," as William Lind has
labeled them. This was as true of the Cold War as it was of the world wars and
the earlier wars of the seventeenth, eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. With
the end of the Cold War, international politics moves out of its Western phase,
and its center piece becomes the interaction between the West and non-Western
civilizations and among non-Western civilizations. In the politics of civilizations,
the peoples and governments of non-Western civilizations no longer remain the
objects of history as targets of Western colonialism but join the West as movers
and shapers of history.

Conclusion
From the discussion of some of the articles above, it is clear that the clash of
civilizations has led to polarization and stereotype of culture that often lead to
conflict (as has been written by Mohammad R. Hafeznia and Huntington in the
article above). There are a lot of civilizations in the world. Those article show a
lot of problem that would happen because of the clash of civilization so, we have
to keep and prevent the conflict and accept the differences.

Islamic civilization and Western civilization are the two largest in the world today
which always tends to be contrary, because of that the world today know the
terms of Eastern World and the Western World. Those allotment increases
the complexity of the problem of where exactly we stand, because the allotment
of East and West is not only determined by the place and geography, but also by
a world view, political, civilization and culture we have.

References
-

Ervand Abrahamian (2003). The US media, Huntington and September 11.

Bruce M. Russett, John R. Oneal, and Michaelene Cox (2000). Clash of
Civilizations, or Realism and Liberalism Deja Vu? Some Evidence.
Stanley Hoffmann (2002). Clash of Globalization
Mohammad R. Hafeznia. Dialogue among Civilizations as a New Approach for
International Relations.
Robert P. Kraynak (1983). Hobbes on Barbarism and Civilization.
Samuel P. Huntington (1993). The Clash of Civilizations?
Samuel P. Huntington (1996). The Clash of Civilization and the Remaking of
World Order.