Culture And Conflict: Cross-Cultural Perspectives
Since ancient times, there has been a conflict between two hemispheres caused by religious, cultural and national differences. Huntington vividly portrays the conflict between two parts of the world and calls it “Clash of Civilizations”. This notion clearly and objectively defines relations between the East and the West. As the most important, this concept vividly portrays current state of international affairs and cultural conflict between the East and the West. This is a multidimensional notion which includes different spheres: economic, political, religious and social. Other critics (Augsburger, 1992; Avruch, 1998) investigate the problems and causes of the conflict and propose different solutions.
Still all researchers recognize that for centuries, western and eastern traditions have differed greatly which led to the conflict arising from authentic nature and cultural uniqueness of both hemispheres. In modern world, this process (confrontation) leads to clash of civilizations which compete on the international arena. It should be mentioned that influence of both civilization is a highly complex subject which has an impact on cultures and societies in different ways: through norms and traditions, religious concepts and social institutions and globalization processes. Following Huntington (1998) cultural and religious identity is the main factors which lead to clash of civilization. In some Eastern countries the creation of social culture influenced by religion traditions is seen as a priority and a great deal of time and effort is given to obtrusion of religious dogmas. Islamic fundamentalism is considered now as the main adversarial political and cultural form which competes with western traditions and modernization of the western world. It creates a conflict between the East and the West, and has tremendous and unpleasant consequences for both civilizations. In Asia and Middle East the impact of religion on life of common citizens is stronger in comparison with Europe and America. The Eastern traditions become a remarkable feature of Islam threatening millions of Western believers around the globe (Avruch, 1998).
Cultural conflict is a result of social modernization affected by the West but rejected by the East. Technological and social modernization has changed the nature of social relations in the West. It is important to understand the role of equal rights policies and the perva¬sive influences which it exercises over the behavior of people. Modernization process has changes cultural traditions which previously restricted women’s activity outside the domestic sphere. Changing production patterns have restructured agriculture, social landscape and traditional sources of income. The main impact of modernization of the West is on cultural development and traditions as well as development of social institution of marriage and justice. In the West, modernization has resulted in social and sexual liberation movements and was aimed to protect social and sexual rights of women (Avruch, 1998).
Eastern culture differs greatly from western norms and traditions. Today, Islamic, Hindus, Buddhism etc. traditions are continuing to create serious troubles not only to many individual countries but also to the world community as well (Mazrui, 1990). Ideology of Western society is based on liberal world democracy. In contrast to Eastern culture, the West supports free trade, democratic institutions as an opposite power to authoritarian and dictatorial state authorities and to the absence of world order of the East. The nature of the challenge to political equality and to the democratic process goes beyond the immediate impact of economic inequalities. There is a point of view that western culture represents low morals and false traditions as a result of new social changes and law. Following Huntington “In this new world the most pervasive, important, and dangerous conflicts will not be between social classes, rich and poor, or other economically defined groups, but between peoples belonging to different cultural entities” (Huntington, 1998, p. 27). Many Islamists accuse western world in lack of traditions and morals which lead to social degradation. They state that it is dangerous thing to forget about human dignity and human code of ethics. Low morals and absence of personal values lead to amorality and decay of the West. In genera, Islamic traditions are used as a useful tool in the process of ruling the society. When they start to dominate and tyrannize people acting in the interests of powerful Islamic elite they loose their original destination as customs and morality. It remains disappointing that the social issues that are generally identified as pertaining to traditions deal with questions of communal responsibility rather than of individual choice. Similar to the East, in Western society the organization of violence and coercive relations constitutes an additional site of power which interpenetrates with other domains and directly affects life and death chances in and across communities. Concentrated physical force can function on behalf of a community, acting for its preservation or defense, or against it, eroding security and undermining pre-established regulatory mechanisms. Prior to the emergence of the modern state, political authorities often faced rival centers of power backed by organized force. The main problem is that the Eastern religious traditions are a part of everyday life reflecting philosophy of common people. In the west, religion does not have a great influence on the entire population, which creates clash between two civilizations. For instance, Christmas holidays are nothing more than a direct impact of religion on popular culture (Augsburger, 1992).
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