The 9/11 attacks as well as the Madrid ones, and the murder of the Dutch film maker Theo Van Gogh by Muslim extremists…What once was far away in the USA came closer to our homes, such as the murder on Van Gogh showed us. The Islam in many countries in Europe came under a bad spotlight. It has lead to a sharp polarisation between the Muslim world and the West. It is going on and on this way and populist politicians such as Geert Wilders in the Netherlands, see their chance to provoke and insult other cultures and of course the Islam. His film, probably showing the 'backwardness' of the Islam can be seen in the tradition of what is called the unavoidable 'bloodsheding' war between cultures. All of this seemed to have been predicted by Samuel Huntington as he wrote his world famous and much talked about article Clash of civilisations in 1993, later on elaborated in his book The clash of Civilizations  where he poses the thesis that the end of the Cold War has introduced a new area where cultures will form the pattern along which conflicts will arise. In this article I want to warn for the danger of Huntington’s these and show a better paradigm for international relations. Kochler rightly argues that Huntington’s paradigm a danger forms for the global world order. Perception creates reality. A ‘theory’ describing the world as a unavoidable clash between civilisations, has the effect that the perceived clash becomes reality. This interdependency between perception and reality can be shown by the following action-reaction schedule. (A) The perception of a treat gets used by the elite of one or more member states of a civilisation to mobilise the public for the realisation of hidden interests. Interests that can be realised by perceiving actions as preventive self-defence. An example is the war against Iraq. The perception of a treat works as a vehicle of real warfare. Oil is the hidden interest. (B) The countries (of the civilisations) that are seen as a treat will come with a counter-action. This one has two elements. They will oppose the dominant culture (the West) and they will assert themselves. The following step is that they will come into action under the name of self- defence against those international actors who threaten them, namely, the countries who want to start a preventive war under the same motive. This preventive war will be labelled as the strife for national interests – economic or political. In this way a vicious circle of threat perception and defensive war comes into life. Huntington’s these becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy in this way. Is the The clash of civilisations perhaps nothing more than a ‘theory’ providing the West (read: Bush) a legitimation to realize plans in the Middle East and Central Asia? This means safeguarding the entry to oil and settling a West and Israel befriended system? It depends on what the Western civilisations does with Huntington’s political policy advices. The war against terrorism – even if oil and other motives play a role – showed that there is no clash between the whole Muslim world and the West. A lot of support from Muslim countries was the foundation for peaceful co-operation. On the other hand, ‘mulsimbrothers’ have called each other traitors for co-operating with the West. Is it then, the Machiavellian divide and rule tactic, more explicitly Huntington’s advise to exploit differences among the groups within a civilisation?  How scientific is a these serving political goals? Huntington has a range of political advises for the government and it seems often to happen that his ‘facts’ are submitted to his theory. Manipulating and selecting facts to make them fit for his paradigm. He calls several conflicts typical ‘civilisation’ conflicts (the war against Iraq) whereas it is nothing else than a conflict where national interests (oil) are at stake. He thinks of new civilisations where they don’t exist as separate ones, such as South America, as he admits, for the reason of analytic theory. Turning reality upside down. Above all this he gives advises that contradict. He poses Russia theoretically in the Orthodox civilisation, where he advises the government to push this country in the direction of the E.U.

Said sees Huntington’s theory as an ideological and strategic instrument to influence American Defence and foreign politics. He happened to be an important advisor of the Pentagon a year after the publication of his article. His theory can be seen as serving the interests of the representatives of the weapon industry. He doesn’t mind that his theoretical threat leads to a real confrontation, through which post factum this actual threat will be used to prove that Huntington was right. Maybe another paradigm offers a better perspective on international relations. In his article The End of History Fukuyama presents a perspective on the global order, making Huntington superfluous. He says the end of the Cold War has started the universalisation of Western liberal democracy. Competing ideologies came to an end. This already was the case at the Battle of Jena as the principles of the French Revolution got realised, that underlie modern democracy. Two alternatives for the democracy that occurred after the French Revolution, communism and fascism failed. Fascism got beaten after World War 2 and its lack of success made it unpopular. Communism failed because it was clear that the class problem could be solved within liberal context. Egalitarism, such as realised in the USA society represented the Marxist classless society. With the fall of the iron curtain the Western alternative got more popular in Eastern Europe. Fukuyama points at developments indicating that the democratic system gets even more universal. In China Marxism as an economic system looses its function. Government has started with a large range of decollectivation of agrarian sector, the role of the State has been reduced to that of a tax collector and the production of commodities have increased while in the cities a large layer of bourgeoisie consumers have come into being. The economy is now more open to the world as never before. In Russia there were developments of the same sort. Stalinism got replaced by liberal principles. Central planning lead to an inefficient economy en got replaced by forms of decentred decision making in the field of investments, prices and labour. Free market, Rule of Law, separation of powers and protection of poverty became the new pillars of the system. Consumentalism and free market are also winning influence elsewhere in Asia, as the ‘newly industrializing countries’ are following the success of Japan.

The liberal democracy makes the economic system of the free market possible. The consequence is that we now life in a world in which all is about economic interests. Ideological – and thus religious – conflicts will not be that much important and the use of military means can be replaced by economic means. This does not mean religion and spirituality will totally disappear from the scene. Culture will remain an aspect of an individual’s life, but it doesn’t necessarily have to be the overarching identity of a person and certainly not of a State in international relations, when these states are open to the fact that the world has entered the stage of the ‘common marketisation’ of international relations. Economic calculation, technical problems, environmental interests are now the most important motives of action. Communism as an economic system doesn’t go hand in hand with representative democracy. The free market depends on democracy. The end of the Cold War lead to a big increase of liberal democracies in the world and to a decline of the total of war conflicts in the world, wars between states and ethnical wars. Is there a causal relation between free market, democracy and war? In On Democracy Dahl showed us that democracies are less likely to get in war with each other. The high level of trade between countries requires trust, friendliness and trade can’t be fluent while war. Democracies have also learned the art of compromising and the members of democratic states don’t see the others as threatening.  The free market requires that people can move freely between the States and that commodities can move over the open market without hinder and too much government control. Conflicts make trade, which leads to the necessary fulfilment of consumption needs, impossible. Last but not least, democracies don’t get in war because they share the same values. Since the end of the Cold war there is an increase of democracies – which will go on – and therefore, other than Huntington thinks, the possibility of conflicts will diminish.

If we take Fukuyama’s paradigm as a better way of seeing the world order, an other way of dealing with international affairs is needed. The End of Huntington. Globalisation, driven by economical needs of the consumers, can transform the so called ‘clash’ into a system of cooperation. A cosmopolitan space has been opened of economic, cultural and social interaction. A synthesis of forces – that are now being perceived as opposing – is possible by agreeing on a base of co existence using minimal norms and values. Tolerance, freedom, mutual understanding and trust. Its clear that this needs a policy of dialogue. Kochler gives a good direction of how to achieve this. Globalisation must strife for inclusion. It requires revision of prejudices, developing communal values and integration by debate. Knowledge is a factor of essential interest in this process. Simply black and white thinking, appointing certain countries already as ‘the axe of evil’ makes a dialogue impossible. Polarisation and making the public fear neither. The interdependency of economies, the new media, internet shows how open the world is, how much supposed opposition between ‘cultures’ don’t exist on a human level, where people are not boxed into singular culture-defined identities….Disagreement or resistance, flag burning and such, directed against the West are not per se acts expressing hate against the West. Its either directed against the policy from the US (that is, Bush) in the Muslim world, or there is a dislike about the try to dominate USA way of life over the world. Taste, whether it being good or bad taste, however is not a question of politics. Hoping this article will open to more dialogue in stead of polarisation. This on the eve of Geert Wilders’ publication of the anti-Islam movie