Clash of Cultures

Whether humanity will survive to live in peace will depend on whether a clash of cultures (barbarism) or a coexistence of cultures prevails

By Dr R Neerunjun Gopee

About three weeks ago I was talking to a former classmate of mine at RCC who went to study and finally settled in Leeds, UK. He had sold his old house and bought another one which was being renovated. Meanwhile he was putting up in a cottage in an estate known as Harewood House, and described to me how beautiful and peaceful it was, with a Himalayan Garden and a Buddhist stupa where meditation sessions were held. We reminisced about my visits to Leeds and his place from Wakefield in the 1970s, where I was then in training at the hospital there.

“we too in Mauritius, after going through some politically motivated antagonisms and hiccups that periodically still surface because of some hotheads – but are promptly quelled – have come to accept our cultural differences as an enriching diversity (vide culinary habits, language, cultural festivals elevated to national status, etc.,) and have, even if unwittingly rather than by design, settled into a mode of coexistence which well-nigh approximates the Singaporean model, the undefinable mauricianisme which we feel in our bones, and which had better remain so!…”

About a week after our conversation, in contrast, there was rioting and arson in another locality in Leeds, Harehills where more recent immigrants have been housed. Police clashed violently with the rioters, a bus was set on fire right in the middle of the road. Some days ago, there was another violent incident at Manchester airport involving immigrants and police. The latest incident is the death of three children, all girls, at a concert in Southport, in a knife attack by a 17-year-old immigrant.  Nine other people were injured including two adults, and five are in a critical condition in hospital. 

Like my friend, there are thousands of Mauritians and people from Commonwealth and other countries too who have gone to the UK, France, Italy, the US, Canada, Australia and stayed on there, living peacefully and well-integrated into the society. Similarly in other colonising countries like the Netherlands, Germany, Spain, Portugal there have been movements of migrants who have made them their home where they too are well-settled.

However, the situation is dramatically different now, not only in the UK but all over Europe, and in the West generally, with more recent waves of immigrants that have now been qualified as deliberate and planned invasions, as their mindsets are deemed to be different. In his famous ‘Rivers of blood’ speech in 1968, a Google search reveals that the UK Conservative Party member Enoch Powell had argued that he felt that although and “many thousands” of immigrants wanted to integrate, the majority did not, and that some had vested interests in fostering racial and religious differences “with a view to the exercise of actual domination, first over fellow-immigrants and then over the rest of the population”.

This foreboding seems to have materialized, if we go by another call made in the same vein by the American author from Harvard Samuel Huntington in his 1996 book ‘The Clash of Civilisations and The Remaking of World Order.’

Perhaps it would be more appropriate currently to speak of world disorder, what with two ongoing wars – Middle East and Ukraine – that threaten to spread and even globalise and acts of terrorism that have been multiplying after the 9/11 attack on the Twin Towers in New York: 46,000 to date. This is the figure cited in a speech on terrorism in the UK Parliament.

At this stage it would be useful to underline a nuance between culture and civilisation, as is done by late KM Pannikar, noted Indian scholar, statesman and diplomat in his book ‘Essential Features of Indian Culture.’ Defining culture as ‘a complex of ideas, conceptions, developed qualities, and organized relationships and courtesies that exist generally in society,’ (italics added), he continues with: ‘The difference between a cultured and a civilized society is that, while the latter is organized under conditions ministering to the welfare of the community, the cultured society is one which emphasises the ideals, conduct, relationships, aesthetic and other values which are cherished in that society.’

Further on he writes that ‘while civilizations could be and are generally materialistic, there is no culture which is not essentially spiritual,’ and refers to T.S. Eliot who argued that the basis of culture is religious belief.

In my humble view, the world is witnessing both a clash of civilizations and a clash of cultures. Courtesies have been thrown to the wind, to be replaced by clashes. It is widely acknowledged that there are attempts for global dominance by one civilisation or one culture – technological, corporate, military-industrial, or religious. Acts of terrorism and wars are the visible manifestations of this phenomenon.

Did the Iranian Revolution of 1979 trigger the slide into the current mayhem? In his book ‘Faultlines in the Faith: How Events of 1979 Shaped the Islamic World’, author Syed Iqbal Hasnain argues in this sense in an interview he gave to India Currents, available online.

Be that as it may, what is more than evident is that the world is urgently in need of peace and reconciliation, otherwise we are heading for very troubled times ahead, chaos that may lead to civilisational annihilation. Even the spectre of a nuclear winter in parts of Europe is looming on the horizon, if we go by the latest developments in the Ukraine-Russia conflict.

In the concluding pages of his book, Samuel Huntington points out: ‘Instead of promoting the supposedly universal features of one civilisation, the requisites for cultural coexistence demand a search for what is common to most civilisations…The constructive course is to renounce universalism, accept diversity, and seek commonalities.’

He cites Singapore as the successful model country where this has happened by design, the Singapore Project that ‘distinguished it from the West’, initiated by President Wee Kim Wee in 1989.

I believe it would be fair to say that we too in Mauritius, after going through some politically motivated antagonisms and hiccups that periodically still surface because of some hotheads – but are promptly quelled – have come to accept our cultural differences as an enriching diversity (vide culinary habits, language, cultural festivals elevated to national status, etc.,) and have, even if unwittingly rather than by design, settled into a mode of coexistence which well-nigh approximates the Singaporean model, the undefinable mauricianisme which we feel in our bones, and which had better remain so! Alas, pity that we don’t emulate Singapore in its other developmental aspects which our political leaders keep alluding to!

The way forward for the world can only be cultural coexistence that alone can ensure relative peace and harmony, and we cannot but concur with the concluding lines of Samuel Huntington, which sound like an admonition: ‘In the greater clash, the global, “real clash” between Civilisation  and barbarism, the world’s great civilizations, with their rich accomplishments in religion, art, literature, philosophy, science, technology, morality, and compassion, will either hang together or hang separately. In the emerging era, clashes of civilisation are the greatest threat to world peace, and an international order based on civilizations is the greatest safeguard against world war.’ Using his own terminology, I would modify that to ‘commonalities of civilisation’ which are, au fond, a matter of culture.

Whether humanity will survive to live in peace will depend on whether a clash of cultures (barbarism) or a coexistence of cultures prevails.

Mauritius Times ePaper Friday 2 August 2024