Page 77 - ثقافة قانونية العدد الخامس للنشر الإلكتروني

Huntington’s arguments are based on several reasons that are believed to have caused the clash:(9)
Differences between civilizations are basic.
Increases in cultural interaction raise the level of awareness of the differences among civilizations.
Social change and economic modernization are weakening the status of the state as a provider of identity.
Cultural characteristics and differences are less compromised and resolved than political and economic ones.
Successful economic regionalism may reinforce civilization’s consciousness.(10)
Huntington concluded that:(11)
The futures of both peace and civilization depend upon understanding and cooperation among the political, spiritual and intellectual
leaders of the world’s major civilizations. In the clash of civilizations Europe and America will hang together or hang separately in the greater
clash, the global ‘real clash’, between civilization and barbarism, the world’s great civilizations with their rich accomplishment in religion, art,
literature, philosophy, science, technology, morality and compassion will also hang together or hang separately. In the emerging era, clash of
civilizations is the greatest threat to world peace and an international order based on civilization is the surest safeguard against world war.
Criticism of Huntington’s Thesis
Many scholars have criticized Huntington’s views. Criticism arises because it is known that culture is a sharp-edged entity that is nowadays
rationalized.
There are differences in civilizations and cultures, but to what extent? Are there no commonalities? Huntington argues that these different
civilizations have to learn to co-exist with each other.
In fact, there are many similarities among civilizations as a result of the increased interaction among cultures.(12) Nowadays, globalization
plays a significant role in enhancing comprehension between varied and diversified civilizations. This transnational cultural phenomenon will
create coordination rather than political conflict.
Also, similarities and commonalities are increasing, but these are narrowing the constant gap of existing differences. It should be noted
that the reason behind the two World Wars was not a consequence of the clash of civilizations.(13) At the outbreak of the First and Second
World Wars during the 20th century, globalization was not yet recognized. Today, the situation is totally different: Globalization is currently
enhancing the world atmosphere and is familiar to people from a diversity of civilizations.

Universalism versus Territorialism (the Two Faces of Globalization)
The first modern protest against globalization took place in Seattle in December 1999; this was supposed to be the start of a new round
of trade negotiations leading to further liberalization. Farmers in developing countries found that their jobs were threatened by the highly
subsidized crops from the United States and Europe. Opposition to globalization came not only from developing states but also from developed
countries. These protesters ‘did not accept the argument that, economically at least globalization would ultimately make everybody better off’.(14)
The International Labor Organization and the World Commission on the Social Dimensions of Globalization, which was established in 2001,
surveyed 73 countries on all continents except South Asia. In the United States and the European Union, the unemployment rate increased
between 1990 and 2002. The commission also found that 59 per cent of the world’s people were living in countries with growing inequality,
and only 5 per cent lived in countries with declining inequality. In brief, globalization may have helped some countries to increase their Gross
Domestic Product (GDP) and the total sum of the goods and services produced, but it did not help most of the people in these countries.(15)
It is worth mentioning that there are many forms of a market economy. The American model differs from the Japanese model and from the
European social model. It is argued in developed countries that globalization has been used to advance the ‘Anglo-American liberal model’.
Moreover, wages in the United States have been stagnated for more than a quarter of a century, and incomes are as high as they can be, partly
because Americans work far longer than their European counterparts. In the developing world, there is strong resentment that globalization has
been used to advance a version of market economics reflecting corporate interests that are to be found in huge parts of the developed world.(16)
It is doubtless that development progresses from levels of subsistence agriculture towards light manufacturing and urbanization and
then to high-tech services. More than half the world not only has a foothold on the development ladder, but it is actually climbing it. This
ascension is evident in rising personal incomes and the acquisition of goods such as cell phones, television sets and scooters. Progress can
also be monitored through rising life expectancy, falling infant mortality rates, rising educational attainment and increasing access to water.(17)
It is of fundamental importance to realize why a vast gap exists between rich and poor today. It is appropriate to return to the very recent
period of human history when this divide emerged. The past two centuries constitute a unique era in economic history, a period referred to
as growth by Jeffrey Sachs, an eminent modern economist.(18) In conclusion, all regions such as Western Europe, Eastern Europe, the former
USSR, the United States and Canada, Latin America, Asia (excluding Japan) and Africa were poor in 1820. However, economic progress has
been universal, and today’s rich regions have experienced by far the greatest economic progress.(19)
There are three goals of development strategy that are shared globally. First, it is recommended that development strategy be developed

(9) Ibid., 25.

(10) Wahab, supra, note 1, 367.

(11) Huntington, supra, note 8, 321.

(12) Wahab, supra, note 1, 367.

(13) Mohamed A.M. Ismail, Public Economic Law and New International Administrative Contracts (Beirut, 2010), 49.

(14)Stigltiz (2007), supra, note 1, 7.

(15) Ibid., 8.

(16) Stigliz (2007), supra, note 1, 91–100.

(17) Jeffrey D. Sachs, The End of Poverty (Penguin Books, 2005), 19.

(18)Ibid., 27.

77 (19)Ibid., 29.