When Cultures Collide

When Cultures Collide

By Michael Elliott

Sunday, December 1, 1996 plsfield:description

In

1993,

Samuel

P.

Huntington,

director

of

the

John

M.

Olin

Institute

for

Strategic Studies at Harvard, published an article in Foreign Affairs on a coming

of

civilizations

that

will

dominate

the

future

of

global

politics.

His

new

book,

eagerly

awaited

by

many

who

read

the

article

--

whether

or

not

they

agreed with its thesis -- expands on the original idea. The book is studded with

insights, flashes of rare brilliance, great learning, and, in particular, an ability to

see the familiar in a new and provocative way. Yet, in the end, it doesn't convince.

One

might

venture

to

think

that

there

will

be

few

books

published

this

year

which are, at one and the same time, so stimulating and yet so maddening.

Huntington states his argument plainly.

reconfigured

along

cultural

and

civilizational

lines.

In

this

world

the

most

pervasive, important and dangerous conflicts will not be between social classes,

rich

and

poor,

or

other

economically

defined

groups,

but

between

peoples

belonging to different cultural entities.

It was Panglossian to think that the end of the Cold War -- that peculiar, because

ideologically charged, worldwide contest -- would usher in a time free of conflict.

It

is

not

hard

to

believe,

as

Huntington

seems

to

believe,

that

the

wars

in

ex-Yugoslavia or the Caucasus or Kashmir have their roots in culture or that they

could all become bigger. Nor is it difficult to identify at least some of the major

contemporary

civilizations

or

their

wellsprings,

such

as

religion.

Huntington's

taxonomy

encompasses

seven

main

civilizations:

Sinic

(in

effect,

Greater

Chinese);

Japanese;

Hindu;

Islamic;

Western;

Latin-American

(which

has,

supposedly,

evolved

in

its

own

way

from

shared

roots

in

the

Western

model);

and

African.

With

the

exception

of

some

provocative

comments

on

Mexico, the book hardly discusses the Latin-American case, and the African one