Milorad EKMECIC

CLASH OF CIVILIZATIONS OR A NEW GLOBAL SYSTEM OF GREAT POWERS?

The author made an attempt to elaborate a close affiliation of the traditional "Balance of Power" and the modern "Clash Civilizations". The waging of the Cold War has given rise to emergence of a group of global great powers to replace the former balance of two superpowers. "Equilibrium politico" initiated by the peace settlement of Lodi 1452 in Italy, in the next century was extended to the Western Europe, and after the Russian victory over Sweden in 1709 to the whole continent. By the number of states and their names it was changed in 1648, 1713, 1815, 1919, 1945 and 1991. From 1898 USA and Japan started a process of its transformation from a European to the global concert, which performance has not ended so far. Demographic strength and economy are usual standards by which the status of the states in upgraded. Johann L. Kluber ("Droits des genes moderne de 1'Europe") in 1819 estimated that, besides military might and the extension of population, all resources of a nation should be added. In the course of five centuries the rise of the civilization gradually became the factor number one by which great nations were classified.

The theory of "Clash of Civilizations" was created by Arnold Toynbee. Of the same origin is the definition that a nation is the smallest and civilization the largest identity of the man. The same impetus was given to the later rejection of the "German theory" that culture is a spiritual, and civilization spiritual and technological advancement of humanity. The definition "civilization is culture writ large" was adopted. Arnold Toynbee displayed his philosophy on "Clash of cultures" in a chain of lectures read on BBC 1952, and published as a booklet "The World and the West" one year later. In the clash of civilizations the West has the initiative to strike first. He elaborated the western conflicts with Russia, Islam, China, India. The main feature of a civilization is the religion as a larger frame which should not be identified as a theological creed. It could be replaced by the ideological myth (as communism, or even American "civic religion" as well). The process of defeating a civilization starts with the failure to borrow western technologies only. After technology, the liberation of the woman, adaptation of Latin alphabet, the whole western way of life and finally the western faith should be accepted. Kemal Ataturk in Turkey created a milestone for the whole mankind.

Samuel P. Huntington exploited the whole Toynbeean spectrum of this philosophy but the final conclusion. In his opinion the modernisation of the world is not equal to its westernisation. Instead of attempting prevalence over the world, USA should unite the western part of the globe and defend it. The "Bloody Borders of Islam" today are the loci of this clashing. Catholic solidarity with Catholic separatism in Yugoslavia, as well as the demographic explosion of Moslems in Kosovo and Bosnia are the reasons of the religious and civil war today. Memorandum of Serbian Academy of Sciences (Huntington quoted it as a "declaration of 200 intellectuals", p. 261) was an expectable reaction of intellectual elite to a rapid change of ethnical character of the two traditionally Serbian provinces.

Philosophy of "Clash of Civilization" became something more than yet another theory. It has already acquired the foundation of a new political ideology to replace the waning dominance of former Marxists and Liberals. Conservative ideology of the Catholic Church today is trying to fulfill the ideological vacuum after the collapse of the Cold War. As of today it is the main philosophical force both in the USA and Europe. Historical destiny of the theory on clashing civilizations probably will be the extension of the traditional ideological animosity and intolerance from the times of conflict with the Soviet Union to a new cluster of global powers. It is only difference to the theories on the proxime emergence of the new blocks of global powers (Kissinger 1992, Paul Kennedy 1993, Brzezinski 1993), as a response to the "metaphor of our time" Walt W. Rostow initiated in 1990.

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