This summer represents the tenth anniversary of Samuel P. Huntington’s now seminal article “The Clash of Civilizations?” printed in Foreign Affairs magazine. As the world watches armed forces amassing along the borders of various civilizations, it is worth reflecting on the truths and challenges posed in this study and its ongoing relevance for the business community.

Steven Greisdorf

This summer represents the tenth anniversary of Samuel P. Huntington’s now seminal article “The Clash of Civilizations?” printed in Foreign Affairs magazine (Summer 1993, pp. 22-49). As the world watches armed forces amassing along the borders of various civilizations, it is worth reflecting on the truths and challenges posed in this study and its ongoing relevance for the business community.

The last ten years have been a political and economic roller coaster. The end of the Cold War and the anticipated “peace dividend” have given way to terrible civil wars, intra-regional conflict, and international military intervention. “Shock therapy” by the IMF has given way to the “Asian flu” and massive discontent. The Oslo peace accords have given way to protracted violence in Israel and Palestine. The dot-com boom has given way to the dot-com bust. A long period of economic expansion has given way to a time of painful unemployment and recession.

The early years of the new millennium have only seen these cycles of hope and pain escalate. The rise of the protest movement as a viable voice is but one indication that the systems and organizations that were put in place to bridge the various civilizations are in need of structural reform or, perhaps, re-birth. The end of the Cold War and the seeming triumph of Western-style democracy and its partner, capitalism, have done little to overcome the gross inequities that currently exist both within countries and between them.

Self-interest, both at the national level and at the individual level, seems to be the guiding principle today. As Huntington points out, “The West in effect is using international institutions, military power and economic resources to run the world in ways that will maintain Western pre-dominance, protect Western interests and promote Western political and economic values” (p.40). Terrorism is yet another form of self-interest at the extreme. And we need look no further than the executive suites at Enron, WorldCom, Global Crossing, Tyco, and others to see this rampant self-interest manifesting itself on the business front.

While debate rages at the UN, in the media and around the family coffee table, a fundamental dimension of the current series of conflicts seems strangely absent: “The people of different civilizations have different views on the relations between God and man, the individual and the group, the citizen and the state, parents and children, husband and wife, as well as differing views of the relative importance of rights and responsibilities, liberty and authority, equality and hierarchy” (p.25). How can we possibly hope to resolve present day conflicts without a more basic understanding of who we are and how we see the world? Military intervention and economic sanctions for the sake of persuasion lack respect, humility and humanity.

What, then, is the lesson from Huntington’s article – ten years later? At the macro level, Huntington, himself, proposes part of the answer: “It will . . . require the West to develop a more profound understanding of the basic religious and philosophical assumptions underlying other civilizations and the ways in which people in those civilizations see their interests. It will require an effort to identify elements of commonality between Western and other civilizations.” And it will certainly require a degree of humility, particularly by the West, that seeks to understand “the other” for who they are, rather than who we expect them to become.

From the standpoint of business, international expansion, often seen as the engine of growth, will need to be held up against the cultural perspectives of the civilizations into which the business is entering. While in many places in the world, investment and employment opportunity of any form is welcomed, to do so through exploitation, manipulation, corruption or any other form of self-interest is neither humane nor just. True partnerships, built on trust, respect and mutuality, will serve as long-term bridges across civilizations.

At the micro level, we need to begin to accept personal responsibility for the conflicts we see in the world today. Self-interest is not just something that is manifested in the halls of political power or the executive suites. We are each capable of practicing self-interest in oftentimes greater extremes. Today’s conflicts require a profound search within each of us to understand more fully what it means to be a global citizen, at the macro and the micro level, with its accompanying rights and responsibilities. It also means committing to a life based on principles – of honesty, purity, unselfishness, and love.

One of Mahatma Gandhi’s most famous admonitions is to “be the change you want to see in the world.” Huntington concludes his article with this prediction: “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 coexist with the others.” It is only when we are willing to confront ourselves and those aspects of our own lives that are in need of change that we can ever hope to be bridge builders across civilizations.

Steven D. Greisdorf is the North American Regional Director of Caux Initiatives for Business

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