Economics not culture main cause of conflict

THE prophetical US political scientist Samuel Huntington died just before yet another flare-up of violence in the Middle East.

Huntington was a proponent of a theory of the clash of civilisations well before the attacks on the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon by Islamic extremists on 11 September 2001. The event certainly made his theory more popular. In the week or so since his death, quite a few commentators have pointed to the Gaza violence as another example of the accuracy of this part of his theory. Some of the other parts have been given less notice, but more of them anon.

The part of Huntington’s thought given recent weight was that the collapse of communism would not lead to the end of history or the end of all conflict with everyone embracing peace and democracy.

Rather he thought that the 21st century would be one of a clash of the major civilisations: “Western, Confucian, Japanese, Islamic, Hindu, Slavic-Orthodox, Latin American and possibly African civilisation.”

Rather than conflicts and wars between nation states and ideologies (Nazism and communism) the conflicts would be between these civilisations.

“The fundamental source of conflict in this new world will not be primarily ideological or primarily economic,” he wrote in 1993. “The great divisions among humankind and the dominating source of conflict will be cultural. . . . Civilizations — the highest cultural groupings of people — are differentiated from each other by religion, history, language and tradition.”

It spells a hopeless cause for peace in the Middle East. Their cultures are going to persevere for a long time. One would hope that culture will not be the primary cause of conflict this century. We’d stand a better chance for a peaceful world if economics is the dominating source of conflict – for you can throw money at that cause and remove it. Culture is obdurate.

I think economics will continue to play a necessary and usually dominant role in conflict — combined with someone’s pursuit of power. When people are prosperous, they usually do not want conflict to interfere.

People do not go to war or engage in lesser-level violence against others just because they speak a different language or have a different religion. They fight because the others have something they want; something they feel entitled to; or for something that has been taken away from them – land, jobs, water and other resources.

With people feeling grievances over economic hardship, “leaders” can soon exploit cultural differences or excite people with ideology or appeals to nationalism.

The conflict in Northern Ireland ended when job discrimination against Catholics ended, not when every Catholic was converted to Protestantism (or vice versa).

George W. Bush invaded Iraq because of oil, not to overthrow a tyrant and impose democracy. If the latter were the reason, why are tyrants like Robert Mugabe and other tolerated?

Sierra Leone was a happy peaceful place until the discovery of diamonds turned it into a violent hellhole.

Palestinians have been deprived of land that was once theirs and live in economic deprivation because of embargoes and sanctions. Hence the violence.

Weimar Germany fell into the hands of Hitler because of the economic deprivations caused by the Treaty of Versailles.

The bloodiest war in American history – the Civil War – was fought between people of similar culture over largely economic matters.

Empires have fought for territory, food and resources, more than to spread their culture.

So on at least the question of the PRIMACY of the cause of conflict, I disagree with Huntington. I am not saying that culture – particularly religion or other forms f ideology – plays no role. It so often makes the economic conflict worse or makes violent conflict more likely.

Indeed, the propensity for war is higher when each of the protagonists thinks that their opponents should be forced to be like them – adopt a certain religion, be forced to use a particular language, adopt certain cultural practices and so on.

And therein lies the other lessons from Huntington’s work. He opposed the invasions of Iraq. He said that attempts to assert the universality of western culture were false, immoral and dangerous.

It may be that certain basic freedoms enjoyed mainly, but not exclusively, by people in the west are sought by humans everywhere. But other elements of western culture are not.

That being the case, Huntington said, “In the final analysis, however, all civilisations will have to learn to tolerate each other.”

But that toleration will only come with some economic prosperity; an absence of discrimination; and when they are not victims of unjust deprivation.

No-one is going to have any peace, in the Middle East or anywhere else, by trying to force the other side to their way of cultural thinking, but cultures can co-exist if the economic climate is right – if the economic is climate is such that no-one can exploit the deprivation and discrimination to whip people up into acts of violence.

One thought on “Economics not culture main cause of conflict”

  1. Your statement January 3rd:- George W. Bush invaded Iraq because of oil, not to overthrow a tyrant and impose democracy, . If the latter were the reason, why are tyrants such as Robert Mugabe and others tolerated?

    I believe when the two towers were blown apart, it was an act of agression and not called for; so what do you do, leave it and wait for them to have another go?
    Then Bush was given the wrong information about nuclear weapons, much the same way Howard was about children overboard. Security is not what it cracked up to be. As Bush has said since, he would have done some things differently. Having committed himself and finding how Sadam gave no freedom to many; Bush wanted what the Statue of Liberty claimed for America, a country that was started by immigrants. Their problem is they do not a Health Welfare system for basic illness as Europe, UK, and Australia have.

    To get rid of tyrants takes money and that is why Mugabe, a blot on the landscape, such as Hitler was, and the Indonesia’s ruling family as others, for themselves and not their subjects.

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