The recent withdrawal of US and NATO troops and the „end“ of the endeavor of the West to change Afghanistan by military force, must be used to reconsider Western global policies. It became obvious that Western -or any other - policy for regime- and societal- (!) change must run into a disaster, if it is vague in its goals, poor in its pre-assessment and if it lacks cultural, historical and religious characteristics under specific circumstances.
In a discussion organized by the Institute for Cultural Relations (ICPR, http://culturalrelations.org ) in Budapest I tried to draw some general conclusions from the neglect of the specific cultural characteristics of non-Western countries which lead repeatedly to the failure of Western military interventions. To meet or even solve conflicts without regard of the cultural aspects are guaranteed to fail.
Conflicts and cultures are both very diverse and have a complex relationship towards each other. Additionally, we should acknowledge that there is often an interrelation between cultural and other influences on conflicts. On the surface, mostly economic, social, and political influences dominate in conflicts. Nevertheless, it is useful, to look also at the role of culture in the creation, sustainability and resolution of conflicts. When using the term conflict I refer to an active disagreement between people - individuals, groups or states - with opposing opinions or principles, which result in one or all sides not being able to satisfy its needs and aspirations. To have different opinions alone does not necessarily lead to conflicts. The violation of one’s basic interests, however, is necessary to create conflicts.
This contribution at hand has a „Western“ perspective at its origin. In the last centuries, the West (especially Europe and the US) has been actively influencing global developments. It did exert this influence by economic, military, political and cultural means. Certainly, in these contexts, the Western influence is decreasing. Some of the conflicts we observe toady are the result of this waning power of the West, which is not accepted easily. Especially the rise of China is seen as an unwelcome challenge to Western – and especially US - influence. But one of the dominant conflicts many in the West see as vital is the “cultural” antagonism between the - Christian - for some Judeo-Christian - West and the Islam – and sometimes even radical Islamist tendencies. These two global conflicts, the one between the West especially the US and China and the one between the Christian and the Muslim world, enhanced by religious fanatics and extremists from both sides are endangering global peace.
How to define culture?
One definition of culture you can find, defines culture as „the ideas, costumes and social behavior of a particular people or society.“ As such culture - and I want to include also religion - is always connected with political developments. Additionally, we can find cultural aspirations and disputes at the origin of many conflicts. Anyway, culture is often misused to justify and even promote conflicts. Those who want to dominate other groups or countries are using - or better misusing - culture as one mean to support its dominance.
However, culture has an enormous influence on our perception of the world and on our attitude towards political issues. As the Nobel Prize winner, economist and philosopher Amartya Sen in 2006 wrote in his book “Identity and Violence”: “There is a compelling need in the contemporary world to ask questions not only about the economics and politics of globalization, but also about values, ethics, and sense of belonging that shape our conception of the global world.”
But, we should be aware that culture is something “liquid” and not static. Edward Said, the famous author and professor at Columbia University wrote once: “There are no insulated cultures or civilizations. Any attempt made to separate them into (…) watertight compartments (…) does damage to their variety, their diversity, their sheer complexity of elements, their radical hybridity.”
For Iljia Trojanow and Ranit Hoskoté, culture is always a result of different flows coming together. Their book is called Confluence (published 2012 by Yoda Press). We always look at a certain moment at culture and perceive it as a fixed category. But it is just a snapshot of a river flowing and changing over many years, decades and even centuries. Often the origins and sources are hidden but they can be detected.
Amartya Sen, who recognizes the influence of culture on our perception of the world underlines: “Our cultural identities can be extremely important, but they do not stand starkly alone and aloof from other influences on our understanding and priorities (…). Other things, such as class, race, gender, profession, politics, also matter, and can matter powerfully (…). Culture cannot be seen as an isolated force independent of other influences.”
In view of the recent disaster in Afghanistan or rather the disaster which recently became obvious, I would add history as an important element. If we look at the history of Afghanistan and the continuing fight between modernizers and those who presented themselves as defenders of Islam, if we realize that the state has never been a strong force, and that regional ethnic groups fought permanently for dominance, it becomes clear that the military intervention from the outside was guaranteed to fail from the beginning.
Jeffrey Sachs, the American economist and political analyst expressed it in the following way: „The magnitude of the United States’ failure in Afghanistan is breathtaking. It is not a failure of Democrats or Republicans, but an abiding failure of American political culture, reflected in US policymakers’ lack of interest in understanding different societies. And it is all too typical.”
Influence of history
When we speak about history and clash of cultures, we should also look at colonialism and its influence on today’s world. Colonialism is a very good- or rather bad - example how certain historic events and developments can have a long-term impact. The military occupation and annexation by colonial powers was often followed by priests and other cultural agents, who wanted to cement a superiority of the Western/colonial civilization upon other countries.
There were also writers, philosophers etc. who were promoting more ambivalent positions like Joseph Conrad when he described the cruelty of how colonialists treated indigenous people in what is known today as the Democratic Republic of Congo. Additionally, the behavior of Great Britain in India was often criticized by British philosophers themselves, but it did not really change the behavior and policies of British Imperialism. As Amartya Sen is underlining: “In Addition to the infringements and atrocities committed by the colonial masters, their general psychological attitude toward the subject people often generated a strong sense of humiliation and an imposition of perceived inferiority (…). The devastating effects of humiliation on human lives can hardly be exaggerated.”
One consequence of the imperial and colonial behavior is the existence of many cultural including religious artifacts in Europe’s museums. The recent debate about stolen cultural goods is a progress, but we find too much hesitation in returning stolen goods you can find in European capitals and their museums. One way out of this stalemate would be to have a joint policy defined and organized by museums in Europe and Afrika and other victims of robbery. They could present art from both continents and with this try to come also to a common perspective concerning colonialism and its effects. It could enhance mutual understanding of the difficult past and outline new chances for a common future.
When the “West” looks with concern and consternation at conflicts inside the sphere of former colonial countries and between the West and their former colonies, we should not forget the influence of the West’s arrogant behavior towards these countries and their people. Even today this behavior can be noticed vividly. After the discovery of the US soldier’s torture of Arab prisoners in Abu Ghraib in Iraq or during the Vietnam War, it is not surprising that fundamentalist and extreme forces would exploit this for their own means.
Of course, history is not the end, but it is “one more of the battle ground where we must meet the vast demands of the ever-living now” as Matthew Karp wrote recently in Harpers Magazine. “The past may live inside the present, but it does not govern our growth. However sordid or sublime, our origins are not our destinies; our daily journey into the future is not fixed by moral arcs or genetic instructions.”
But if we want other countries and people to convince that they should endeavor that journey into the future, we must act with care and sensibility. We cannot bomb them into a future we would like them to aspire. We have to argue with them, that also their culture - including their customs and interpretation of religion - is a result of a confluence of many rivers with ever changing contents. Will the West be successful? Not always, but more successful and with less loss of human lives - in comparison to wars.
The role of religion
In many conflicts cultural superiority is demonstrated by the conflicting partners. Very often it is connected with religion. Religion is a preferred “weapon” of defending one’s culture. It is supposed to prevent from being contested, because God as the supreme authority stands in its center. If we look at the conflicts in Northern Ireland, in former Yugoslavia, in Cyprus, in the Middle East, these conflicts are always also characterized by religious disputes, hiding the deeper economic and social conflicts. Even the dispute between the Russian Orthodox Church and the Ukrainian Orthodox Church and between the Serb Orthodox and the Montenegrin Orthodox Church is hiding political differences with antagonistic power interest.
If we`d take a deeper look at cultural attitudes and festivities, literature, music, food and if we would leave aside the political factor, we`d find much more similarities and mutual influences than contradictions. But as so often, it is a question of interpretation or rather misinterpretation. Political motivations and purposes are influencing these interpretations, distorting the religious beliefs, and turning it into extreme movements characterized by hatred. This is especially the case with radical Islam, where fundamentalists try to repudiate and destroy the “liberal” and tolerant heritage of many Muslim thinkers of the past.
The role of globalization
Many thinkers and experts thought that globalization would reduce cultural differences and “flatten” also the cultural world. But the contrary is the case. Cultural characteristics are used to underline one’s special position. Religion is often used to defend characteristics which are rejecting or denying fundamental rights. This affects specially women and girls. The recent developments in Afghanistan, where the Taliban could celebrate a return to power, underline the importance of that issue. It is an example of religious extremism based on a retrograde fundamentalist interpretation of Islam.
Those who reject Islam as such, will be not able to come into a dialogue with even “moderate” fundamentalists. Basic respect towards the Muslim religions and for cultural aspects and customs connected with it, is necessary for finding a basis for dialogue. With this I do not mean to enter into a dialogue with terrorists, but into a dialogue with people who may be convinced to change - or at least nuance their mindset. Again, it would be necessary to know the historic developments, the local customs, the major interests of its citizens etc. before acting “for” them. That was very often missing, when the “West” was intervening militarily without sensibility for different local customs and religious practices.
More or less tolerance?
In a multicultural world, and we live in such a world, respect and tolerance are necessary to minimize conflicts. But how much tolerance is acceptable? When do we lose self-respect and are denying our own principles? In a dialogue between the two experts, Wendy Brown and Rainer Frost, who wrote both books about tolerance, they tried to elaborate a definition of tolerance which would make a cross-cultural dialogue possible.
Rainer Forst argues that tolerance ends when one finds acceptable reasons to object against the behavior of others. “We have to give an account of good justifications.” But he asks also, that those who object to the values and customs of others, must show a willingness to engage with them. The problem arises if the “others” -for example the Taliban - are not interested in a dialogue.
Wendy Brown agrees in principle with Rainer Forst but she sees very often the power factor behind the rejection of ‘other’ cultures by the West. “I’m interested in how and why individualism, secularism, enlightenment, civility, and tolerance are all linked in civilizational discourse, such that Western liberal democracy becomes identical with tolerance and thereby cleansed of its historical episodes of slavery, colonialism, imperialism, and fascism; meanwhile, Islam, in that same discourse, gets relentlessly identified with intolerance. I’m interested in how tolerance was deployed in the years 2001 through 2004 to justify the invasion by the US and Britain of Afghanistan and Iraq.”
At least the West would need some self-reflection of its own “cultural crimes” and a more balanced approach towards other cultures. Of course, this should not lead to a “cultural relativism”, according to which any “culture” also those who deny basic human rights can be accepted and not put into question. The crimes committed by the West do not justify crimes committed by others. War crimes by Western soldiers do not justify atrocities by the Taliban or ISIS and vice versa. In spite of the tragic and unacceptable long lasting military interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan, the West should not give up strategies to enhance basic human and especially women’s rights in these countries and beyond. But it should be done with less arrogance and more sensibility.
Even Samuel Huntington, who in his famous article 1993 - and his book - was forecasting a clash of civilizations asked for a more subtle approach by the West: “It will (…) require the West to develop a more profound understanding of the basic religious and philosophical assumptions underlying other civilizations and the way in which people in those civilizations see their interests (…). For the relevant future, there will be no universal civilization but instead a world of different civilizations, each of which will have to learn to co-exist with the others.”
The special case of the European Union
The European Union has been founded on the basis of a history of long conflicts inside Europe, two world wars and finally the horrific crimes of the holocaust. The common Europe was an answer to that history, full of nationally and ethnically motivated conflicts. Therefore, European values or rather universal values play an important part in the European debates and implementation of European laws and regulations. But the more the dreadful history is forgotten, and “old” forces reappear from the underground - sometimes with changed outlooks- these values are put into question. It needs a permanent reiteration and reinterpretation of these values in order to keep the new European spirit alive.
The internal support for fundamental rights should not be seen as an obligation to enhance these rights globally at all costs. Yes, the European Union should have a sensitive and at the same time pragmatic strategy to support human rights worldwide. But one has to recognize that this support must not be exerted by force and military means. Sometimes conditionality connected with financial aid can be useful. The EU is a moral authority but also a geopolitical actor, which has to strive for peace, economic and social development inside and outside of its borders. The balance between these various tasks and aims is not easy to find, compromises are unavoidable. The results count, not the purity of the approaches.
Dr. Hannes Swoboda, President of the International Institute for Peace (IP), started his career in urban politics in Vienna and was elected member of the European Parliament in 1996. He was Vice President of the Social Democrat Group until 2012 und then President until 2014. He was particularly engaged in foreign, enlargement, and neighborhood policies. Swoboda is also President of the Vienna Institute for International Economics, the Centre of Architecture, the University for Applied Science - Campus Vienna, and the Sir Peter Ustinov Institute.