1. Cultural Globalization:
Cultural Globalization is a mean of Globalization; “Globalization” means expanding
boundaries of countries of the world diffusing into each other and creating a global
government with a single government body, same culture and a single religion.
Cultural globalization means extending of values and ideas around the world diffusing all
the culture into one and creating a global culture. It has already begun, new technology
and especially internet is doing its work and integrating cultures around the world.
Culture is the ideas, values and customs of a particular group and sometime religion has
the main role in the culture of a group.
The main idea or theme of cultural globalization is to create a global culture and end all
differences in the world, because in the future globalized world, the main conflict will be
the conflict of the culture, as Samuel P. Huntington says, “The main reason of conflict
in the modern world will not be ideological difference or the economic difference
but the main source of conflict will be the cultural difference between civilizations.
Nation states will dominate the world. The main reason of the conflict will not be the
geographical differences among the states but the main conflict will be the
differences of cultures. The clash among civilizations will be the problem of global
politics.” (Huntington, 1993)i
The cultural will have deep impacts on the world. The diversity of cultures and societies
is the beauty of humanity. Cultural globalization will end the diversity of humanity. The
societies will lose their identity in the vast single culture of the world. In a culture,
language plays a very important role but in globalized culture the diversity of languages
will also be at stake. Globalization will also have some good effects on the society, as it
will provide equal developmental opportunities for the whole world creating a
homogenous society.
2. Clash between “The Clash of Civilization” and “The Clash of Ignorance”:
Samuel P. Huntington in his book “The clash of Civilization” argued about the future of
the world affairs. He gave his argument that, in future the wars will not be fought on the
basis of geographical territories or economical territories, instead the future conflict will
mainly base on the cultural conflict among the different civilizations of the world.
He stated, “The world will be greatly affected by the conflict between seven or eight
main civilization of the word. These main world civilizations include Japanese,
Western, Hindu, Confucian, Islam, Slavic-Orthodox, Latin American and African
civilization.” (Huntington 1993)ii He mainly emphasized on the conflict between the
extreme “Islamic world” and the modern “West”. He gave many example and arguments
to strengthen his believes.
Edward W. Said opposed his believes. He refused the hypothesis of Huntington about
the clash of “Islam” and the “West”. Said contradicted the example of 9/11 used by
Huntington to declare Muslims as extremists and to base his hypothesis of the Islamic
and western conflict on it. Edward W. Said quoted the late “Iqbal Ahmed” to argue that
a small group of mislead people do not represent the whole community. He highlighted
the anti-Islamic moments in his documents. Edward discussed about the societies where
Muslims and Westerns are living together without any conflict for decades. Edward W.
Said neglected Huntington’s ideology and stated in his work, “’The Clash of
Civilization’ thesis is a fraud like ‘The War of the World’ just to show the self-pride
of westerns, instead of defining the true picture of the modern world and the
problems one will have to face in the future.” (Said 2001)iii
Fauzi Najjar stood in the middle of the both above mentioned arguments. He stated that
some groups in the Muslims welcome globalization and the remaining are those who
haven’t understood the true meaning of the globalization.
i
(Samuel P. Huntington(1993) The Clash of Civilization, P. 1)
(Samuel P. Huntington(1993) The Clash of Civilization, P. 25)
iii
(Edward W. Said (2001) Clash of Ignorance, P.13)
ii