The Clash of Civilizations

Ernest Hemingway stated that, “In modern war … you will die like a dog for no good reason”! Even though that is true, experts have gone further by trying to find the “roots” and explain why conflicts emerge in the first place. Two experts, Samuel P. Huntington and John R. Bowen, present two different approaches towards the cause of conflicts in 21st century. Although there is a difference between their approaches, both of them share the common believe that a conflict may occur when one puts pressure on the other; but the reason why this pressure takes place, varies among the two theories.

In his article, “The Clash of Civilizations”, Huntington points out that in the 21st century, conflicts will not occur based on ideology of a state or civilization, neither on economic power; but they will take place because the differences in cultural and religious identity between civilizations. As the first key point that lies under this theory, is the Western civilization approach towards the Eastern civilization. According to him, the Western Civilization promotes their “political and economic values, maintain their predominance and protect their interest” through economic and political pressure via Western Institution such as UN and IMF. This Western approach increases the cultural division between Western and Eastern civilization, but also within Western Civilization; between Western Christianity and Orthodox Christianity. This approach can be easily understandable if we take a look at the historical events where Western and Eastern civilization confronted each other such as in the Gulf War and Bosnian war, where Western used their power to protect countries from a same culture, same civilization. This leads to a reaction from Eastern cou...

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...up and swap a part of the region, thus creating Western vs. Eastern conflicts which apparently will lead to war between two complete different ideologies.

To conclude, wars have been and will be part of our lives. In some regions, people yet have lack of knowledge, therefore tend to separate people based on language, culture, religion, region and historical background. Yet we didn’t manage to overpass these obstacles that we create towards the minorities, and live in the same land together. Although some countries try to get rid of those issues and live beyond ethnicity borders, there are countries that point the figure at you and remind you that you are “you”, and because you are who you are “We hate you”! When we overpass the hate, the ethnic borders, there won’t be any conflicts, wars and articles that are trying to find the way how the conflict occurred!