Thursday, 30 December 2004View: Etyen Mahcupyan, Zaman, 30 December
There is probably no other situation that makes a scientist happy than the confirmation of the hypotheses he/she made.
[Samuel] Huntington, who proposed the clash of civilizations hypothesis must be very pleased nowadays since his hypothesis gradually has come true. Because, this thesis is not only confirmed by top U. S. government officials and by the resistance groups in Iraq, public opinion polls also show that both in the West and in the East, tension, which make the other "the other" and alienates it, settles step by step; however, the development at issue is a clear expression of the defeat of modernityÔÇÐ Because the thesis of modernity was the formation of a world in which everybody is enlightened naturally during a natural changing process. But, now the Western world tries to enlighten some by force, claiming that they would never enlighten themselves naturally or spontaneously. The cause of this change of attitude refers to the culture of those who do not resist enlightenment: "The culture of these people has such a basis that it is not possible to be enlightened with itÔÇÐ" We know that the basis at issue is religion. In this way, the Western world does not only save itself from the burden of failure that falls into its own part, but it also changes the perspective of the issue from mentality to religion, however, if the analysis had been made with the mentality terminology, it would have been indispensable to confess that the West was also suffering from the same mentality like the East, in other words, the authoritarian concept had penetrated into both the conservative and liberal veins of Western politics...
As a matter of fact, the "clash of civilizations" is a very cunning hypothesis: It makes reference to a clear difference, to religion, ignoring the harmony between mentalities, which is the real basis of civilizations. Although some of them are not very eager, today the Western world does not only use crude force in the Middle East, it also says, "Accept us by resembling us in a way to accept the hierarchical relationship between us." In other words, the target is not the East becoming like the "West" in terms of enlightenmentÔÇÐ An "affinity," which will legalize the West and make life easier, is sufficientÔÇÐ This situation is the basis of a series of economic, social, legal and political inequalities as well. Because, according to this view, there cannot be anything more natural than the East being at a lower level than the West in all fields, since it will never be totally enlightened. Moreover, the East should accept this situation as being "natural," so the state of "affinity" will serve this aim as it implies the transfer of Western norms to the East.
This analysis should not bring us to a point of rejecting Western norms; because the problem is not the norms themselves but their becoming tools within a certain authoritarian structure. Today, in an interesting way, we experience a period in which the East should adopt the norms of the West and reproduce them in the democratic mentality. It is another issue whether the Easterners will achieve this or notÔÇÐ On the other side, perhaps what is more interesting, is how the liberals will cope with this, because the authoritarian mentality becoming dominant again rules the relativist roots of liberalism and makes them tools. The liberals of the West have to gradually follow the new conservatives, they turn into an ineffective and amorphous mass by repeating the classical sentences.
It is not within anybody's ability to foresee future history; however, this time the politics of the future will be between the authoritarian mentality and being a democrat, and the liberals will be satisfied with just watching the case. However, only 10 years ago, it was expected that authoritarianism would be a losing mentality and liberalism would form a future classical rightist traditionÔÇÐ
e-mail:e.mahcupyan@zaman.com.tr
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Thursday, 30 December 2004
Etyen Mahcupyan
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