Date: Sun, 29 Dec 1996 23:00:59 -0500 (EST)
From: louisgodena-AT-ids.net (Louis R Godena)
Subject: M-I: Re: "Challenger Civilizations" & the Decline of the West




My thesis that the world revolution in the coming era will prove to be the
revolt of the colonial peoples against capitalism in the guise of
imperialism rather than a revolt of the proletariat of the advanced
capitalist countries prompted Candice to observe:        

>...As the relative power of other civilizations increases,  the appeal 
>of Western culture fades and non-Western peoples have increasing
>confidence in and committment to their indigenous cultures...The central 
>problem in the relations between the West and the rest is,  consequently,
>the discordance between the West's -- particularly America's -- efforts to
>promote a universal Western culture and its declining ability to do so...The
>"collapse of Communism" exacerbated this discordance by reinforcing in
>the West the view that its ideology of democratic liberalism had triumphed
>globally and hence was universally valid...


The West is attempting and will continue to attempt to sustain its
preeminent position and defend its interests by defining those interests as
the interests of the "world community",  the euphemistic collective noun
(replacing the "Free World") to give global legitimacy to actions reflecting
the interests of  the United States and other Western powers as they,  for
instance,  seek to integrate the economies of non-Western societies into a
global economic system which the US dominates.    At the same time,  these
ambitions are rendered problemmatic by the West's declining ability to
promote a universal culture.

Islam and China,  for example,  embody great cultural traditions very
different from and in their eyes infinitely superior to that of the West.
The power and assertiveness of both in relation to the West is increasing,
and the conflicts between their values and interests and those of the West
are multiplying and becoming more intense.   Because Islam lacks a core
state,  its relations with the West vary greatly from country to country.
Since the 1970s,  however,  a fairly consistent anti-Western trend has
existed,  marked by the rise of fundamentalism,  shifts in power within
Muslim countries from more pro-Western to more anti-Western governments,
the emergence of a quasi-war between some Islamic groups and the West,  and
the weakening of the Cold War security ties that existed between some Muslim
states and the United States.    China,  of course,  is increasingly
aggressive in challenging the West's economic and military monopolies and,
poised to possess the world's largest economy,  could well bring other
nations within its orbit.    In fact,  by the early 1990s,  a
"Confucian-Islamic" connection was in place between China and North Korea,
on the one hand,  and in varying degrees Pakistan,  Iran,  Iraq,  Syria,
Libya and Algeria,  on the other to confront the West on a number of issues
(Olivier Roy, *The Political Failure of Islam* [Cambridge,  Mass., 1994:
Harvard University Press]; see also,  Richard Albright's forthcoming survey,
*Emerging Civilizations and the Challenge to the West* [New York,  1997:
Holmes & Meirer).

Two questions to bear in mind here:  Will the global institutions,  the
distribution of power,  and the politics and economies of nations in the
first quarter of the twenty-first century primarily reflect Western values
and interests or will they be shaped primarily by those of Islam and China?
And what will this mean for socialism?


Louis Godena  


   



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