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From: Robert Kagan
To: Amartya Sen
Subject: Why Is There So Little Evidence To Contradict the "Clash" Theory?
Wednesday, May 3, 2006, at 6:48 AM ET
Dear Dr. Sen,
Let me begin our little correspondence by congratulating you on your
wonderful book. It is (with apologies for the following string of
back-cover-blurblike phrases) elegantly written, powerful, convincing,
humane, and necessary. No doubt our hosts at Slate will be unhappy to
hear this, but I agree with you about almost everything. I agree
entirely when you insist that to interpret the present era as a "clash
of civilizations" is both mistaken and dangerous and that it is
important to view people not by a single identity-as Muslim,
"Western," or Asian-but as a bundle of identities. Your keenest
insight may be that we need to avoid falling into precisely the trap
that Osama Bin Laden has deliberately laid for us: to divide the world
into Muslim and non-Muslim. Above all, I share your conviction that
liberal democracy is not a cultural phenomenon but a basic human
aspiration. I may perhaps go even further than you in arguing that
liberal democracy-which does not separate peoples by cultures but
unites them in common devotion to the principle of equal rights-is the
only durable answer to the present crisis.
I wish I were more optimistic that your arguments will have an impact
on the present discussion. You have restated the core of the liberal
enlightenment worldview, with its belief in the universality of human
nature and in the inherent ability of all peoples to transcend their
cultures and their histories-the conviction embodied in the American
Declaration of Independence. But these are not very fashionable ideas
these days. The metaphor of a "clash of civilizations" has taken hold
of the popular imagination, and once such metaphors take hold they are
easily reinforced by events-the fracas over the cartoons of Mohammed
in Europe, for instance, or the violence in Iraq-and even, as you
argue, by well-meaning efforts to ameliorate the confrontation by
"building bridges" between the cultures. In intellectual circles,
meanwhile, self-described "realists" are temporarily back in vogue
arguing that the attempt to "impose" democracy in places like Iraq (or
Afghanistan, Pakistan, Egypt, etc.) is doomed to failure. We are told
that Iraqis and other peoples are not "ready" for democracy. And even
the successful elections in Palestine are cited as evidence of the
failure of democracy because the "wrong" people were elected.
We would both dispute these claims, I think. You're right to argue
that the shortcomings of the democratic process in Iraq are less the
failure of the Iraqis-who have shown an extraordinary commitment to
the idea of democracy despite horrendous obstacles-but of an American
intervention that succeeded in ousting Saddam Hussein but then failed
to provide adequate security and stability to rebuild the country. And
I would like to hope that the victory of Hamas in the Palestinian
elections can promote the idea of multiple identities that you
describe: that people can be both Islamists and democrats. But I find
very few people who believe those two identities can coexist.
Certainly, one problem we face is that there often seems to be so
little evidence to contradict the "clash of civilizations" explanation
of our era. Why, for instance, do we not see more Muslims publicly
insisting that their other identities be given greater prominence? If
it is true that liberalism is not a Western phenomenon-and I agree
that it is not-why don't we see more Muslim leaders, intellectuals,
and opinion-makers pressing for it? You offer a good explanation for
some of this reticence: The non-European world, after a long history
of colonization, harbors resentments and "anti-Western" sentiments
that tend to shape identity. But when will we see more people break
out of this straitjacket? Or is that already happening, and I've just
been missing it?
In Iraq, for instance, you are right that there has been an increasing
tendency to treat the country as if it were nothing more than a group
of sects. But, on other hand, there does not seem to be much
insistence on the part of Iraqis themselves to be treated differently.
At least this does not show up very noticeably in the political
process. No doubt the United States is partly responsible for this:
Because the intervention force did not provide sufficient security, as
Noah Feldman and others have argued, Iraqis had to find their own
means of security, and they turned naturally to their ethnic groups
for protection. And, as you argue, our political policies may have
reinforced the tendency toward sectarian identity. But I wish one
could see more evidence of a countervailing desire on the part of
Iraqis to transcend this sectarianism. And in the Muslim world more
generally, who is standing up and demanding to be seen as more than
simply a Muslim?
If there was one thing missing from your book, it is a deeper
explanation of this failure. Perhaps in your response to this note,
you can offer your thoughts on the dog that does not bark loudly
enough to be heard.
With great admiration and all best wishes,
Bob
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Amartya Sen
To: Robert Kagan
Subject: Was World War II a "Clash of Nationalities"?
Wednesday, May 3, 2006, at 3:07 PM ET
Dear Mr. Kagan,
I am delighted to receive your observations, both because of your
extremely kind and generous comments on my book Identity and Violence
and because of the interesting and engaging questions you have put to
me.
I am pleased, of course, that you do not disagree with my thesis on
the importance of a person's various affiliations and associations and
the resulting multiplicity of identities that any human being has, nor
with the need for reasoning and choice in determining the priorities
over them in any particular context. But you ask the powerful question
of who, in "the Muslim world," is "standing up and demanding to be
seen as more than simply a Muslim?" You point out that you missed in
my book a deeper explanation of this failure. And on the general
subject of a supposed "clash of civilizations," while you accept my
rejection of that thesis (I am very encouraged by your support on
this), you also make the extremely interesting point that "there often
seems to be so little evidence to contradict the 'clash of
civilizations' explanation of our era." I agree that it does "often
seem" that the general thesis of "civilizational clash" fits the
ground reality very well. But does it really?
As you know, my book is very concerned not only with the multiplicity
of our identities, but also with the way the illusion of a solitary
identity, increasingly defined in terms only of religion, has been
used to cultivate violence in the world. The so-called Islamic
terrorists have used this weapon with great effectiveness. But to
interpret that effectiveness as proof that there really is an
inescapable clash of civilizations would be like constructing a thesis
of an irresistible "clash of nationalities" on the basis of the
observation of the ground reality of the two huge world wars of the
20th century. To consider another analogy, to see in the supremely
bloody Hutu-Tutsi violence of a decade ago the "proof" of the
inescapability of a "Hutu-Tutsi clash" would be to ignore not only how
that violence was deliberately cultivated, and also ways that, with
appropriate development of political interactions and civil society,
such fostered violence can be resisted and overcome, as it
increasingly is. Similarly, the ground reality of the Holocaust is no
evidence that the gentile Germans are doomed to be inescapably Nazi.
Indeed, Western parochialists and Islamic extremists have, I fear, an
implicitly shared involvement in arguing for the primacy of a person's
religious identity, leaving a person no room for entertaining the
demands of other affiliations and associations. And yet other
commitments have flourished. For example, business has grown in the
world across the barriers of regions and cultures, wherever the
opportunities have existed and have not been stifled, focusing on a
different kind of economic identity. Interestingly, anti-big-business
movements have also grown across regional and cultural boundaries and
have led to one of the most global movements in the world, under the
somewhat deceptive name of "anti-globalization movement." Belief in
religious separation and the allegedly inescapable hostilities linked
to it has to come to terms with the existence of other powerful forces
related to other identities-economic, political, social, linguistic,
and many others. The theory of an overarching "clash of civilizations"
not only has to face the difficult problem of explaining so many
different types of movements in the world today, it would not be able
to provide much of an explanation for some of the most prominent
political developments in contemporary history, such as the separation
of Bangladesh from Pakistan, which happened despite the fact that they
shared the same religious identity (more than 100 million Bengali
Muslims supported-and fought for-the assertion of a Bengali identity
in addition to their Muslim identity).
Let me also consider my own country, India. Samuel Huntington
describes it simply as a "Hindu civilization." That description may
seem a little odd since India, with its 145 million Muslims, has more
Muslims than almost any other country in the world, including those
that are firmly placed by Huntington within "the Muslim civilization."
But Huntington is right that the vast majority of Indians come from a
Hindu background-more than 80 percent, in fact. And yet, if you look
at the three principal governmental positions in India, none of them
is held today by a Hindu: The president is a Muslim (Abdul Kalam), the
prime minister is a Sikh (Manmohan Singh), and the leader of the
ruling party (Sonia Gandhi) is a Christian of Italian ancestry. Not
only is this situation the result of a democratic electoral process,
you will detect no sense of the country being in a state of explosion
for this reason. This despite the fact that there have been systematic
attempts at cultivating the divisions of religious identity, often
quoting Huntington himself. There were even killings of minorities in
the riots of Gujarat in 2002, which ended up, in the Indian general
elections of 2004, as a major vote-loser for the party that seemed
implicated in that violence.
But what about Pakistan, which is so often seen as just a hotbed of
Islamic militancy? The crucial issue here is the role that has been
played by the undermining of democracy, particularly secular
democracy, in Pakistan by a sequence of military leaders. It is also
important to see how the civil society in Pakistan has tried to offer
its own resistance through courageous pursuit of non-sectarian causes,
such as the development of a powerful human-rights movement, reliant
largely on the support of the civil society. One of the most
significant recent developments in South Asia is the emergence of bold
and powerful media in Pakistan. Not only do you hear very little about
this in the Western press: Reports of clash get priority over positive
civil engagements, despite the immensely larger number of people who
are involved in construction rather than in destruction.
Before I end, may I reverse our roles and ask you a question? We may
have taken, I believe, somewhat different positions on the wisdom of
the military intervention in Iraq (I was-and am-firmly against it).
But I do agree with you on the crucial importance of democracy in the
world and also on the ability of people outside to help the
development of democracy in a country that is currently deprived of
it. (I am convinced, for example, that the economic boycott of the
apartheid-dominated South Africa helped to pull that regime down.) We
also agree that after the intervention, the occupation forces "failed
to provide adequate security and stability to rebuild the country." I
would also argue that the neglect of the civil society and of the need
for public reasoning (with a free and inclusive media) has been one of
the major problems. But what about the military intervention itself? I
would be very curious to know how you see that question now.
Again, very many thanks for your very kind and extremely perceptive
comments and questions.
Yours,
Amartya
--
"There is nothing more perilous to conduct, or more uncertain in its
success, than to take the lead in the introduction of a new order of things
- because the innovator has for enemies all those who have done well under
the old conditions and lukewarm defenders in those who may do well under
the new."
"The Prince"
Nicolo Machiavelli
--
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