living conditions. For the past 20 years the number of people travelling by
air has constantly been on the increase. The forecasts for the year 2010 are
particularly significant.
Table 12
The number of people travelling on international airlines
(millions)
Year
Passengers
1986
318
2000
485
2005
624
2010
789
Source: The World in 1995. L.,1995.
As can be seen from table 12, for the next 15 years the number of those
travelling on international airlines will double. If we also add the number
of people travelling by other means of transport we will see that more than
one third of the world's population travels to different parts of the world.
Most of the travellers are from the industrialised countries and there is a
logical trend arising, the greater the material progress of a given nation
the more they are inclined to travel.
The "travelling nations" are uniting the world in an inimitable manner.
Their families and ethnic and cultural connections, their national
affiliations unite countries and continents, frequently in spite of official
government policies. They are the bearers of globalisation and it is no
accident that they produce the vast majority of the representatives of
global culture.
Only those nations which can adapt to the conditions of new world
communications will be able to survive and to dominate the world
intellectually and economically. The Jews, the British, the Americans, the
Japanese and Chinese are the leading nations in the processes of
globalisation. They are immediately followed by the Indians and Armenians
who in their own way and in different scales have attempted to establish
their own networks. The Armenians are fewer in number but very closely knit
while the Indians are motivated by their desire to catch up with the rest of
the world. It should, however, be noted that very soon the benefits which
can be gained by "travelling" will be discovered by others. There is a great
likelihood that the Russians, Brazilians, Mexicans, Nigerians and South
Koreans will follow in the footsteps of the other "travelling nations".
Some people say that the time of ethnic groups has arrived, I
personally believe that now is the turn of the "travellers".
3. MAN WITHOUT ETHNIC ORIGIN OR THE REBELLION OF ETHNICITY
No-one can say how many people of mixed blood live on the earth. No-one
can say how many mixed marriages there are, but one fact is certain -- that
they are on the increase. There are hundreds of millions of people who by
blood or by spirit do not belong to one nation or group of people. They are
simply citizens of the world or a part of the New Civilisation.
T
he demographic statistics of the UN show that about one third of the
modern world population is of mixed ethnic origin. This may include the
majority of the population of multinational countries, the children of mixed
international marriages and so on. I am convinced that all the figures which
have been collated in relation to this question are relative simply because
of the different types of methodology used and the lack of precise
statistics. There is one significant element: the more globalised the world
becomes the more people will become the bearers of multicultural traditions.
This is another demographic aspect of globalisation and global culture.
While the "travelling nations" stimulate the processes of opening-up, the
children of international marriages are the truest expression of the new
civilisation. It is not important where a person is born and what passport
he possesses. Even if a person is defined as an American, although he is of
Italian-Irish or Russian descent or even if he is Tatar-Ukrainian, this is
not the most important. What is most important is that there is an
increasing number of people in the world who on the basis of their
behaviour, their lifestyle and their value systems demonstrate the
characteristics of the multicultural society and the intermixing of
different traditions and customs.
There is a growing number of people all over the world who are becoming
aware of their global belonging and regard their specific citizenship as a
relative and distant concept. The daily life of these people bears little
resemblance to that of their mothers and their fathers. They may have come
from India, Egypt, Zimbabwe or Thailand but they dress like Europeans, live
in apartments with simple modern furniture and eat international cuisine.
Their ethnic origins might be expressed only through certain national
dishes, items used to furnish their homes or the celebration of certain
national feast days.
With the intermixing of trade and communications and national cultures,
man himself is changing. Little by little day by day he is becoming a
citizen of the world. Born of a European mother and a Latin American father
he might wake up in an apartment in New York, watch the world news on the
BBC and go to work in a Japanese company. He might lunch in a Chinese
restaurant and then go to Russia on business. This Mr.X might have a house
which is furnished with items "made in the world", he might have a Polish
wife and his children might be learning Italian. There are innumerable
examples of this. They are the signs of an emerging, unclassified phenomenon
-- the appearance of a universal human culture and common global awareness.
The main centres of this intermixing used to be in university cities,
tourist areas or companies with employees from many countries of the world.
Today these processes of drastic change are taking place all over the world.
There are certain exceptions, where the women of a certain country are not
allowed to marry foreigners or to have children by them. The Palestinians,
for example, do this for reasons of national survival. When the Jordanians
require the children of mixed marriages to take Jordanian citizenship this
is mainly for religious reasons.
The ethnic and the cultural intermixing of the world is a slow and
evolutionary process. It can be seen in cultural adaptation, the use of one
and the same language and the intermixing of lifestyles and cuisine etc..
Let us take for example language learning. As can be seen from table 13, at
the moment there are 12 major languages in the world. In total there are
between 4000 and 10,000 spoken languages and between 20--50,000 dialects.
There is an undisputed trend towards the gradual disappearance of a large
number of dialects and languages. The process of cultural intermixing also
is taking place in languages. On the one hand this is a sign of the trend
towards the use of a single or small number of languages as a global
lingua-franca. To a great extent this is the role of English. On the other
hand there are a large group of local languages which thanks to the
electronic media will survive and will play a significant role in the
survival of the culture of certain nations. At the moment more than 1
billion people in the world use English as an international language. This
is due to the fact that the English speaking group is the second largest
group of people in the world (table 13) as well as the fact that it has been
the English-speaking countries which have provided the main stimuli for
progress and that the world media broadcast in English. English is
undoubtedly the major language in North America, one of the major languages
in Europe and is used widely in Japan, India and Latin America as an
international language.
Globalisation will require sooner or later one of the world languages
to become a global language. It is very likely that this English will fulfil
this role. This is because the most active processes of globalisation during
the last 50 years have come about as a result of the domination of the USA
in the world economy. It is possible, however, that in the processes of
economic polycentralisation English will lose part of its domination to
French or German or one of the eastern languages such as Chinese or
Japanese.
Whatever the outcome I believe that the future of culture and language
lies in a combination of global language and culture, national cultures and
languages and the unsustainable cultures and languages of the smaller
nations. There are notably over 2 billion people in the world, mainly in the
poorer countries who do not speak any of the 12 major languages of the
world.
Table 13
The major languages of the world.
Chinese More than 1 billion China, Taiwan, Singapore
English 300-400 million people United Kingdom, USA, Canada, Ireland,
India, Nigeria, Australis, South Africa
(official language of 87 nations and
territories)
Hindi 250-300 million North Africa, Trinidad, South Africa,
Mauritius
Arabic 165 million North Africa, Near East
Russian 250-300 million Republics of the Former Soviet Union
Malay 180 million Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Brunei
Bengali 150 million Bangladesh, India
Spanish 180-520 million Official language of 20 nations and
territories in Europe and America
French 100-150 million Official language in 37 countries and
territories in Europe, Africa, America
and Oceania
Japanese 125 million Japan, minorities in USA and Brasil
German 150 million Germany, Switzerland, Luxemburg,
Lichtenstein, Austria and Belgium
Urdu 50-90 million Pakistan.
Source: the Universal Almanac 1996 ed. J.Wright, Kansas City, 1995.
It is still unclear which of them will preserve their languages and
which of them will fall under the influence of the stronger cultures.
Neither one extreme, the disappearance of ethnicities within a global
culture, nor the other, their isolation and conservation is capable of
answering the needs of humanity. It has already been mentioned that the
explosion of ethnic groups is more or less an attempt at self-defence and a
consequence of aggression against smaller cultures and nations. If
migration, mixed marriages and the world media stimulate the intermixing of
culture, then education and concern for the smaller cultures is a compulsory
precondition for the preservation of local traditions and universal harmony.
The Fourth Civilisation will be an era of global cultural phenomena but also
the preservation of all the smaller cultures which express the diversity of
the human species. This process cannot be stopped and there is little doubt
that there will be an increase in the number of people who will lose their
"pure" ethnicity but this will not lead inevitably to the destruction of
national traditions and features. There have been periods throughout the
history of humanity when the mixing of blood for many nations was considered
shameful. Many nations aspired to preserve the purity of their roots and
people through the purity of their blood. The formation of nations and
nation states coincided logically with this process.
The New Civilisation places the emphasis on the moral aspect of the
common human spirit, the search for the common elements between autonomous
cultures and peoples. Only in this way can the new dimensions of technical
and spiritual progress be combined with tolerance, mutual influence and
unification of difference cultures. The other alternative is isolationism
and conflicts between civilisations and religions. Whether the 21st century
will be a century of wars between cultures and civilisations as S.Huntington
seems to believe or a century which places the priority on the universal and
humanitarian elements of development -- this is a question of choice between
the past and the future.
4. GLOBAL AWARENESS
The 19th and the 20th centuries were a time of mass ideology. Global
awareness rejects the closed ideologies of confrontation. It is a reflection
of the common elements which unite the inhabitants of the earth but also of
the differences between us and our neighbours. Global awareness is the main
driving force of the Fourth Civilisation. It is the sense of the
compatibility and legitimisation of these differences.
H
umanity is constantly adapting itself to the common spiritual values of
integration. The integration of manufacturing and communications has lead to
a growing awareness of the common problems of people and the ways in which
they can be resolved.
Religions are a typical expression of this unified awareness. Sometimes
they are imposed through methods of conviction more frequently by violence
and coercion. Religious conflicts over the past 2 millennia have been
struggles between spiritual values and the different systems and structures
of human awareness. Homo Sapiens in his evolution from the apes inherited
and developed this common awareness. Over the centuries group ideologies
became more and more massive. General or mass awareness is reflected in the
common features and standards of life, in common gods and religions and in
common spiritual values.
The industrial age from the end of the 18th century saw a new period of
structuring of mass values. The unifying nature of existing dogmatic
religions was gradually replaced by unifying ideologies. Liberalism,
Marxism, Leninism, nationalism, fascism and Maoism are just some examples.
Certain ideologies reject religious awareness, others try to adapt it to
their value systems. Until the 19th century violence was the basic, albeit
limited, means for the solution of all conflicts between peoples, cultures
and ideologies. Mass ideologies gave rise to mass violence. The most radical
religious ideologies of the 20th century were undoubtedly communism and
fascism. Although they were essential different and had different economic
bases they both used violence as a key political method. Zbignew Brzezinski
was correct when he referred to such ideologies as "coercive utopias". Such
ideological religions allow for only one truth and exalt one system as the
true system. They share the same eternal ideas and the same laws of human
society. This is not only an expression of the primitivism of Utopia or
subjective illusions imposed through coercion but a definite stage in the
development of humanity. Ideological religions are an expression of the mass
awareness which is caused by violent and radical integration, by the
coercive persecution of the rural population and their transformation into
industrial workers, the exploitation of hired labour, the violent
colonisation of hundreds of nations and billions of people. Mass ideologies
are the result of violence but also carry its seeds.
How otherwise is to explain that communism, the greatest utopia of the
20th century was accepted by practically half of humanity? Or that the
Germans, Italians, Spanish and Japanese believed in fascism? Ideological
religions appeared on the historical scene as a result of the great
cataclysms of the 19th and 20th centuries but above all as a result of the
internationalisation of manufacturing forces and spiritual life. This
internationalisation of manufacturing gave birth to the illusion that the
world might be ordered on the lines of a ready-made political model on the
basis of dogma imposed by a group of people. Utopias become transformed into
mass credo only when the social conflicts and chaos have caused huge
destruction. Historically, mass poverty and mass violence have always caused
mass reactions which has prepared the ground for the appearance of coercive
utopias.
Ideological religions create different types of culture. In their
extreme forms these ideologies have given rise to the cult of personality
and the exaltation of leaders. Just as the ancient peoples prayed to Amon
Ra, Zeuss or Tangra in the 20th century they prayed to Hitler, Stalin, Mao
and Pol Pot. Of course, the cult of personality is not the only type of mass
utopia. The ideological religions also created the cult of the system
itself, the notion of the future, power and its structures. All this was the
imposition of freedom of thought. In certain countries and certain peoples
this type of mass awareness lead to accompanying forms of daily life, dress
and behaviour humiliating man in favour to ideology.
One of the most important consequences of the collapse of the Eastern
European totalitarian regimes was the destruction of the totalitarian type
of mass awareness. The collapse of the Berlin wall not only destroyed the
communist utopia but also created the opportunities for the entire
historical removal of ideological religions. Hitler, Stalin and Mao had
aspirations of disseminating their utopian notions over the entire world.
Fortunately this did not happen. The destruction of ideological religions
did not mean the ideological and spiritual division of the world not the
final removal of the danger of new coercive utopias. The removal of the iron
curtain does still not mean the final end to global inequality, economic
violence or the impossibility of the appearance of new ideological
religions. IN order to put a stop to such a danger many things will have to
change in this world.
Global awareness is radically different from the ideological religions
and the culture of the coercive utopia. It is developing as a result of the
new communications and the natural technological progress of humanity. It is
not a consequence of violence and coercion but of the modern technological
and cultural revolution. Its origin has to be looked for in the intermixing
of values and the criteria for the most advanced cultures of the world and
in their constant enrichment. The intermixing of different cultural values
leads to the formation of common thought processes with common foundations
which have began to develop rapidly since the falling of the iron curtain.
Global awareness is the common understanding of people for the common
problems of the world which cannot be resolved by one or a single group of
countries or by one or a group of peoples. This is the realisation of the
interdependence of the world and that the tragedy of one individual people
might lead to a tragedy for all. Global awareness is also a change in the
hierarchy of human values and in the extent to which common human conflicts
come to the fore. The enormous problems of pollution, the appearance of
holes in the ozone layer, global warming, the destruction of the rain
forests, AIDS, cancer and other mass illnesses of the 20th century, the
dangers posed by nuclear energy and numerous other problems are occupying
the thoughts of people around the world more and more and motivating their
actions.
Global awareness is reflected in the growing realisation of a larger
part of humanity that only human rights, individual freedom, freedom of
speech and the press and the gradual improvement in labour and living
conditions around the world can guarantee the preservation of the human
species. The most important thing is that in this way, gradually but
undeviatingly the common criteria for good and evil, justice and injustice,
progress and stagnation are being formed. This is the basic meaning of the
new theoretical and ideological synthesis which has been mentioned in an
earlier chapter.
Global awareness is developing on the basis of the cultural images and
standards of world significance and which do not belong to any one national
cultural school. Education and science, information and the media, trade and
finances, sport and tourism, food and daily life are a part of this growing
awareness. Today over 90% of the adult population of the world receive
information from more and more accessible and homogenous sources of culture.
The universal heroes, the universal film stars, the universal sports idols
are all symbols of one and the same phenomenon. Claudia Schiffer, Naomi
Cambell and Cindy Crawford are the greatest models at the end of the 20th
century because they are a reflection of the diversity of the ideal of
beauty and universal aesthetic standards. The travelling peoples have taken
their cuisine all over the world to Latin America, the USA, Russia and
Africa. Pele was the world football idol and the death of the racing driver
Aerton Senna was mourned all over the world. The reason is because we are
becoming citizens of one global village about which each subsequent
generation will know more than we do.
Today, global awareness is still just a trend but a trend which is
developing in the space of hours and minutes. The world corporations, the
global culture, mixed marriages, the "travelling peoples", universal
communications and values and common experiences are all an undisputed fact.
However, the trend towards the formation of a universal global awareness is
still at its very beginning. It has to cope with national and local
prejudices, ethnic enmity as well as social and economic inequality. This
trend towards the formation of the global awareness of humanity cannot be
stopped. It will take a long time and will most probably reach its peak in
the next century.
5. MULTICULTURE AND GLOBAL CULTURE
Multiculture or the combination of global, mixed and local cultures is
the main feature of the Fourth Civilisation.
T
he modern era was a time of cultural coercion. The violation,
plundering and export of huge amounts of works of art to Europe and America
was a symbol of colonialism. Fascism and Communism with their ideologies of
unification destroyed many cultural traditions and opened the way to the
violent imposition of monolithic cultural products. Imperialism in all its
manifestations bore within itself the idea of unification and multiculture
or, in other words, the domination of one culture and the transformation of
others into museum exhibits. One only has to compare the ancient cultures of
Benin and Nigeria and their artifacts exhibited in the British museum or the
culture of Bukhara and Samarkand preserved in the vaults of the Hermitage in
St.Petersburg with what has remained in the local museums.
The 20th century was a century of colonialism and imperialism, a
century of the greatest progress of humanity. It was at the same time a
century of the greatest destruction and oppression. One can but hope that
the New Civilisation will resolve the problems of cultural aggression.
However, this will be conditional upon the removal of media imperialism as a
threat to cultural imperialism. Only the future will tell whether the trends
of imperialism and cultural monopolism associated with the outgoing
civilisation or the global trends of the Fourth Civilisation will prevail. I
personally believe that historical progress and the global changes in the
world are taking us towards something different from cultural imperialism
and the dominance of one culture over others. There is, however, absolutely
no guarantee that we will turn the clock back.
If the trend towards imperialism persists and is not modernised, if the
media and cultural unification of the world takes place as a result of the
cultural domination of a number of countries via the trans-national
corporations then the forecasts of Samuel Huntington may very well come
true. The 21st century will be a century of conflicts between cultures and
civilisations and the slow and turbulent development of economic
polycentrism and associated cultural structures.
The cultural equivalent of economic polycentrism is multiculture.
Multiculture is the combination of many different cultures and their
intermixing and also the preservation and the development of international
and supra-national relations. The preservation of the cultures of small and
large nations will be preserved with the relevant legislation and economic
conditions. Multiculture means the rejection of media and cultural
imperialism. Together with economic and political polycentrism this is the
next most important feature of the Fourth Civilisation. Integration causes
either oppression or intermixing which is at the foundation of multiculture.
It is this intermixing stimulated by economic growth will be the main
cultural feature of the 21st century.
The most obvious manifestation of this process is in the area of
showbusiness, art and music, dance and the fine arts. The resolution of
religious conflicts, however, will be more difficult. The formation of a
global culture and the localisation of cultural ethnic communities will have
determinate roles in both economic and political processes. Globalisation
and autonomisation are already leading to the huge re-structuring of
cultural communities. Everything I have mentioned in this chapter: the
intermixing of cultures and global culture, the intermixing of ethnic groups
and the "travelling peoples", the formation of global awareness are features
of this process.
There are, of course, no absolute or automatic processes. I am speaking
only of a determining trend for the future. There will be processes and
events which will lead us forward but there will also be retrograde
influences. There will be a struggle for the establishment of new relations
between civilisations and the temporary victories of the protectors of the
past. The greatest task faced by the modern world is the removal of cultural
imperialism, the intermixing of religions and cultures with mutual
tolerance. The international media have great responsibility to avoid
becoming the advocates of new forms of oppression. However, they could also
become the proponents of a new spirit of multiculture. In practice this
means the protection and support of small and large cultures, a respect for
the daily life and traditions of smaller nations, the implementation of
policies of mutual adaptation of different cultures and, importantly, the
rejection of totalitarian cultural forms.
The last of these steps is of particular importance. As can be seen in
table 14, there are in the world today five basic religions. Each of these
religions and the cultures which are associated have their own geographical
and historical roots and form part of the world's cultural and ideological
treasury. However, at the same time each of these religions has its sects
and branches which would like to transform their religion into one of world
dominance and demonstrate intolerance and irreconcilability to
non-believers. This is as true for Christians as it is of the Muslims. The
gentle nature and lack of aggression inherent in Orthodox Christianity,
perhaps, make it the only exception. After the collapse of the two-bloc
system of the world the ideological vacuums were filled by religions and a
semi-overt struggle for domination began. A number of evangelical Christian
sects decided that the time was ripe for them to impose their own belief on
the world with little concern for the fact that they were depriving many
people of their individual freedom and turing them into obedient
instruments.
Table 14
Region
Christianity %
Islam %
Hinduizum %
Buddhism %
Judaism %
Africa
East Asia
South Azia [62]
Europe
Latin America
North America
Oceania
Fm. USSR[63]
236300
22300
125900
420300
392200
227200
21500
102200
15,3
1,4
8,1
27,2
25,3
14,7
1,4
6,6
215800
22300
534900
9200
600
2600
100
31500
26,4
2,7
65,5
1,1
0,1
0,3
*
3,9
130
*
644000
600
600
700
300
*
0,2
*
99,5
0,1
0,1
0,1
*
*
*
143400
150900
200
500
200
*
400
*
48,5
51,0
0,1
0,2
0,1
*
0,1
300
*
3900
1500
1000
7900
100
3100
1,7
*
21,9
8,4
5,6
44,4
0,6
17,4
Total
1548500
100
817000
100
647500
100
295600
100
71800
100
*100000, 0,1% Source: The World Christian Encyclopedia, 1985.
Islamic fundamentalism has also displayed public intolerance to
non-believers and the representatives of other countries. The murders in
Egypt and the execution of foreign hostages in Algeria and international
Islamic terrorism are examples of intolerance towards the traditions of
others. It is extremely important that such features of modern religions be
overcome. This will not be resolved by force but with the efforts of the
world community and states and their politicians and government to achieve
reconciliation. If modern Islam turns towards modernism combining its
profound cultural heritage with the achievements of the modern world it will
become part of the New tolerant Civilisation. The other alterative is
isolationism and the division of global cultures and traditions. During the
middle ages in Asia Minor and other places in the world Islam was the
embodiment of progress and was a source of innovation and new philosophical
and cultural trends, in the modern world it could assume a similar role.
The opening-up of cultures and religions to each other is a slow and
clearly painful process. It requires people to live democratically and in
mutual tolerance particularly of those nations which live in the border
areas between two geographically and religiously different zones. One
shining example is that of the Israelis and the Palestinians who since the
historical events of 1993 have been attempting to find a new
non-confrontational model for the resolution of their conflict. The
Bulgarians, Greeks and the Turks also have a vital role to play living as
they do on two sides of the divide between Christianity and Islam. There is
much dependent on the way in which these countries will resolve the problems
of their ethnic minorities and international relations. Cultures and
religions have to be sensitive to other cultures and religions. This does
not only mean avoiding conflict but actively assisting and complementing
each other. Only in this way will the principle of multiculture be able to
throw off the burden of the outgoing world of imperialism.
Perhaps, the ideal model of multiculture and tolerance for others can
be seen on the Hawaiian islands. Japanese and Polynesians, Americans and
Koreans, Buddhists and evangelists live in harmony and peace on such a small
piece of land. After so many centuries of inter-cultural conflicts the
nations which make up the multicultural communities of the USA have achieved
an impressive state of tolerance and unity.
I am convinced that the idea of global multiculture is not at odds with
the universal processes of globalisation. Clearly the structures of world
culture and the structure of the New Civilisation and will contain the
following mutually influential components:
-- the emerging global culture is being developed and disseminated via
the world media and is becoming distinct from the culture of the large
nations which have done much to create it;
-- the culture of the large nations which together with the
establishment of the principles of political polycentrism and multiculture
will gradually lose their ability to influence and erase the culture of
smaller nations;
-- the culture of the smaller independent nations which require more
specific forms of protection and whose preservation and development is one
of the most important issues in the modern world;
-- intermixed or border cultures as a product of the mutual influence
of individual nations.
There is little doubt that during the 19th century and for the entire
period of the 20th, there was a great deal of inequity between cultures and
religions. This was a result of colonial oppression, of two world and
hundreds of local conflicts and the violent attempts to impose cultural
domination. After the collapse of the two world systems humanity has every
opportunity to stop this trend and open up the way for multiculture as the
direct alternative to cultural imperialism. A balancing element to this is
the undoubted development of global cultural values which will take their
inspiration from the larger countries and nations who control the world
communications. The responsibility of the owners of global communications
and the governments of the countries in which they function will be to
ensure the development of the smaller countries and their integration into
global culture exchange.
There is no doubt that sooner or later this process will require strict
forms of global regulation, less passive and powerless than perhaps that of
UNESCO but, nevertheless, similar in terms of its profound and multi-lateral
experience. Many small nations and languages have already disappeared and
this process will, no doubt, continue for a number of years to come.
Countries living in isolation can not but be affected by this process.
Cultural autonomy is closely associated with weak economies. Weak economies
permit a low level of economic integration and lead to conflicts rather than
cooperation between ethnic groups and culture. This is an almost universal
truth and can be seen in Iran and Iraq, Israel and Turkey, India, the
Balkans and the Caususus.
The opposite example of cultural intermixing and emergent multiculture
can be seen in those regions of the world where people have realised the
senselessness of cultural assimilation and the value of peaceful cultural
co-existence. The USA, Australia, Europe, Cuba, Brazil and a number of other
countries in the world are fine examples of the intermixing and cooperation
of different races and cultures.
Chapter Ten
THE NEW POLITICAL ORDER
1. THE TWILIGHT OF THE SUPERPOWERS
The Fourth Civilisation will change the global political order. This is
a logical consequence of the end of the cold war the appearance of new world
economic powers and the globalisation of finances and the stock markets.
T
he political history of humanity has developed through a number of
large cycles. The First Civilisation was a time of great empires. Later,
over a period of about 10 centuries, from the 4th to the 13th century, the
world was witness to the collapse of empire and the formation of small
unstable states and the large scale migration of tribes and entire nations.
The Third Civilisation saw the development of nation states and new imperial
aspirations which reached their height with the creation and the struggle
between the two world systems. The New Civilisation will to a certain extent
once more return us to the features of the Second Civilisation but to a
qualitatively new cultural and economic level of development as well
migration of large groups of people the collapse of great blocs and empires,
the redrawing of national borders. Is this part of a logical cycle or is it
merely a temporary political cataclysm?
I believe that the cycle of predominant political concentration has
already come to an end and we are entering a new cycle of the domination of
global culture and the parallel development of local features. This, of
course, does not mean that globalisation will come to a halt but that the
parallel processes of globalisation and localisation will exert a strong
influence on current state and political formations. The 19th century left
us a legacy of the concept of the Great Powers. The 20th century brought in
the concept of the two superpowers: the USA and the USSR.
With the collapse of the USSR the world found itself faced with two
possible alternatives: either to develop monocentrically with the domination
of the single remaining superpower, the USA, or to search for a new
geo-political form. A number of researchers, politicians and journalists
seemed to be in favour of the idea of the exclusive role of the USA as the
superpower to lead the world into the 21st century. Indeed, during the first
years after the collapse of the Warsaw Pact and the Soviet Union this seemed
possible. Without its basic enemy, the USA was transformed into the most
powerful economic and political force in the world. After 1989--1990 the USA
seemed to be the only power capable of resolving a number of world conflicts
and stabilising the world order. The war in the Persian Gulf in 1991, the
intervention in Somalia, the positive role of the USA in the peace process
in Bosnia in 1995 and the resolution of the problem of Palestinian autonomy
served to strengthen this conviction.
The USA are still the strongest nation state in the world but,
nevertheless, I believe that the time of the superpowers has passed. The
Fourth Civilisation will finally reject them and even now, during the
transition between eras, there are already noticeable trends and processes
which support this.
The gradual twilight of the superpowers is for a number of reasons a
general process. It is consequence of the trend towards global balance and
the expected balancing of the global market. It is also due to a number of
reasons associated with the cyclic development of geopolitical structures. I
mentioned earlier that the economic development of the world has become
polycentric. Japan, South Korea, more recently China and a number of other
Asian economic powers have achieved significant economic strength. European
integration has undoubtedly raised the importance of the European Economic
Community in the world division of labour. The Latin American markets have
become more attractive for investments. The globalisation of the economy has
allowed for many more countries to accumulate economic strength and
self-confidence. During the cold war and up to 1989 the appearance of new
powerful and independent economic centres was of secondary importance.
Military power and nuclear weapons were an undisputed factor in the
determination of political power. This trend persisted for the entire period
of the 20th century. In the 1960's and the 1970's there was a growing
conviction that there would in fact be no victor after a nuclear conflict.
Indeed, after the collapse of the Berlin wall there are still people who
continue to wag their sabres and claim that they can achieve their aims
through armed conflict. Nevertheless, things do seem to have changed. The
emergence of new technology and new economic opportunities have come to the
fore.
This has reduced, at least for the time being, the role of Russia in
world politics leaving it to ponder the questions of its domestic political
and economic restructuring. For the same reasons, the USA now finds itself
in a completely new situation.
The vacuum which was formed after the collapse of COMECON and the
Warsaw Pact (1990--1991) has begun to be filled not only by the USA but
Germany, France, Japan and the European community as a whole. Although this
process is rather veiled and timid it will continue in the future. Germany
demonstrated its new-found self-confidence with its independent position on
Bosnia. The nuclear tests carried out by France in the Pacific in 1995 were
more significant from a political point of view than scientific. Similar
ideas can be read into the applications by Japan and Germany to join the
Security Council.
The other issue which has always seemed to dog the USA and which will
undermine its potential as the only superpower in the world is the issue of
economic expenditure. Since the Second World War the USA has run up a huge
armaments bill which has lead to a colossal increase in its foreign debt.
Today the world's financial systems is under an enormous strain because of
the constant increase in American borrowings, especially in the 1980's
(table 15). In the 1970's and 1980's, however, this seemed not to be such a
serious matter. The USA at the time was the leading figure in the Brenton
Woods system and the dollar was the only reserve currency in the world and
the US was able with some ease to compensate for the debts it had
accumulated. In the 1980's the USA was paying 250--300 billion dollars in
interest alone on its foreign debt. The majority of global economists
believe that if this trend persists for much longer the American economy
will begin to slide and the dollar will lose its position to the yen and the
German mark.
Table 15
Federal debt of the USA
Year
1900
1920
1950
1960
1970
1980
1990
1992
1994
Billion Dollars
Per head of population (USD)
Interest paid on debt (bill)
% of federal income
1,2
16,6
-
-
21,2
228
-
-
256,1
1688
5,7
13,4
284,1
1572
9,2
10,0
370,1
1814
19,3
9,9
907,7
3985
74,9
12,7
3233
13000
264,8
21,1
4064
846
292,3
21,1
4692
026
296,3
80,3
Source: Bureau of Public Debt, US Dept of Treasury.
There is little doubt that the USA and Russia will progressively have
to reduce their military expenses which are the main causes for budget
deficits and huge debt. IN 1994 the USA spent 280.6 billion dollars on
defence which more than all the other countries of the world put together
with the exception of Russia. US military expenditure was 9 times greater
than that of Germany (35 billion dollars); 9 times that of France (34
billion); 7 times that of the UK (41 billion); 50 times that of Japan (5.9
billion dollars); 100 times that of China (2.7 billion)[64]. I
have never seen accurate or proven figures for Russia but I believe that up
to 1990 they were similar to the US. There is no economy in the world which
can compensate for such expenditure and bear the burden of competition in
the global market. For this reason the role of the USA and Russia as the two
superpowers has begun to subside. Superpower tension might reappear in the
world only if the two-bloc system is revived. There is, however, little
likelihood of this since global financial markets are so interlinked and
interdependent and for all the other reasons associated with the emergent
New Civilisation.
This leads on to the other question of where the new centre of economic
and political power will develop and who will take on the roles and
responsibilities of the USA and Russia. Russia clearly needs time to
reorganise its economy and bring it in line with the needs of the market.
However, even if this were to take place within the shortest possible period
of time -- 10--15 years, it would not be able to assume the role of a
superpower, nor would it want to. On the other hand Jacques Atalie and other
writers have forecast that "economic power is moving away from America
towards Europe and the Pacific".[65] I believe that it would more
accurate to make another conclusion. It is true that during the Third
Civilisation the Euroatlantic powers made great progress in their domination
of the world at the beginning of the processes of globalisation. It is also
true that after the 1960's the Asian economic powers began gradually to free
themselves from the protectionism of the USA and Europe and they will play a
very active global role in the coming 21st century.
This fact, however, is insufficient to support the claim that "economic
power is moving away from America towards Europe and the Pacific". It is
more likely that there will be a period of levelling and mutual balance
between the Japanese, American and European economies. This is possibly the
most effective solution. Of course, this is also associated with the
reduction in the responsibilities and burdens of the USA and the involvement
of other countries such as Japan. The superpowers will disappear but it will
not necessarily follow that the USA will preserve their role as one of the
world's main political and economic centres. The world can no longer benefit
from American domination or its downfall. In the same way the world could
have done without the political and military conflicts within the former
USSR.
2. FROM IMPERIALISM TO POLYCENTRISM
air has constantly been on the increase. The forecasts for the year 2010 are
particularly significant.
Table 12
The number of people travelling on international airlines
(millions)
Year
Passengers
1986
318
2000
485
2005
624
2010
789
Source: The World in 1995. L.,1995.
As can be seen from table 12, for the next 15 years the number of those
travelling on international airlines will double. If we also add the number
of people travelling by other means of transport we will see that more than
one third of the world's population travels to different parts of the world.
Most of the travellers are from the industrialised countries and there is a
logical trend arising, the greater the material progress of a given nation
the more they are inclined to travel.
The "travelling nations" are uniting the world in an inimitable manner.
Their families and ethnic and cultural connections, their national
affiliations unite countries and continents, frequently in spite of official
government policies. They are the bearers of globalisation and it is no
accident that they produce the vast majority of the representatives of
global culture.
Only those nations which can adapt to the conditions of new world
communications will be able to survive and to dominate the world
intellectually and economically. The Jews, the British, the Americans, the
Japanese and Chinese are the leading nations in the processes of
globalisation. They are immediately followed by the Indians and Armenians
who in their own way and in different scales have attempted to establish
their own networks. The Armenians are fewer in number but very closely knit
while the Indians are motivated by their desire to catch up with the rest of
the world. It should, however, be noted that very soon the benefits which
can be gained by "travelling" will be discovered by others. There is a great
likelihood that the Russians, Brazilians, Mexicans, Nigerians and South
Koreans will follow in the footsteps of the other "travelling nations".
Some people say that the time of ethnic groups has arrived, I
personally believe that now is the turn of the "travellers".
3. MAN WITHOUT ETHNIC ORIGIN OR THE REBELLION OF ETHNICITY
No-one can say how many people of mixed blood live on the earth. No-one
can say how many mixed marriages there are, but one fact is certain -- that
they are on the increase. There are hundreds of millions of people who by
blood or by spirit do not belong to one nation or group of people. They are
simply citizens of the world or a part of the New Civilisation.
T
he demographic statistics of the UN show that about one third of the
modern world population is of mixed ethnic origin. This may include the
majority of the population of multinational countries, the children of mixed
international marriages and so on. I am convinced that all the figures which
have been collated in relation to this question are relative simply because
of the different types of methodology used and the lack of precise
statistics. There is one significant element: the more globalised the world
becomes the more people will become the bearers of multicultural traditions.
This is another demographic aspect of globalisation and global culture.
While the "travelling nations" stimulate the processes of opening-up, the
children of international marriages are the truest expression of the new
civilisation. It is not important where a person is born and what passport
he possesses. Even if a person is defined as an American, although he is of
Italian-Irish or Russian descent or even if he is Tatar-Ukrainian, this is
not the most important. What is most important is that there is an
increasing number of people in the world who on the basis of their
behaviour, their lifestyle and their value systems demonstrate the
characteristics of the multicultural society and the intermixing of
different traditions and customs.
There is a growing number of people all over the world who are becoming
aware of their global belonging and regard their specific citizenship as a
relative and distant concept. The daily life of these people bears little
resemblance to that of their mothers and their fathers. They may have come
from India, Egypt, Zimbabwe or Thailand but they dress like Europeans, live
in apartments with simple modern furniture and eat international cuisine.
Their ethnic origins might be expressed only through certain national
dishes, items used to furnish their homes or the celebration of certain
national feast days.
With the intermixing of trade and communications and national cultures,
man himself is changing. Little by little day by day he is becoming a
citizen of the world. Born of a European mother and a Latin American father
he might wake up in an apartment in New York, watch the world news on the
BBC and go to work in a Japanese company. He might lunch in a Chinese
restaurant and then go to Russia on business. This Mr.X might have a house
which is furnished with items "made in the world", he might have a Polish
wife and his children might be learning Italian. There are innumerable
examples of this. They are the signs of an emerging, unclassified phenomenon
-- the appearance of a universal human culture and common global awareness.
The main centres of this intermixing used to be in university cities,
tourist areas or companies with employees from many countries of the world.
Today these processes of drastic change are taking place all over the world.
There are certain exceptions, where the women of a certain country are not
allowed to marry foreigners or to have children by them. The Palestinians,
for example, do this for reasons of national survival. When the Jordanians
require the children of mixed marriages to take Jordanian citizenship this
is mainly for religious reasons.
The ethnic and the cultural intermixing of the world is a slow and
evolutionary process. It can be seen in cultural adaptation, the use of one
and the same language and the intermixing of lifestyles and cuisine etc..
Let us take for example language learning. As can be seen from table 13, at
the moment there are 12 major languages in the world. In total there are
between 4000 and 10,000 spoken languages and between 20--50,000 dialects.
There is an undisputed trend towards the gradual disappearance of a large
number of dialects and languages. The process of cultural intermixing also
is taking place in languages. On the one hand this is a sign of the trend
towards the use of a single or small number of languages as a global
lingua-franca. To a great extent this is the role of English. On the other
hand there are a large group of local languages which thanks to the
electronic media will survive and will play a significant role in the
survival of the culture of certain nations. At the moment more than 1
billion people in the world use English as an international language. This
is due to the fact that the English speaking group is the second largest
group of people in the world (table 13) as well as the fact that it has been
the English-speaking countries which have provided the main stimuli for
progress and that the world media broadcast in English. English is
undoubtedly the major language in North America, one of the major languages
in Europe and is used widely in Japan, India and Latin America as an
international language.
Globalisation will require sooner or later one of the world languages
to become a global language. It is very likely that this English will fulfil
this role. This is because the most active processes of globalisation during
the last 50 years have come about as a result of the domination of the USA
in the world economy. It is possible, however, that in the processes of
economic polycentralisation English will lose part of its domination to
French or German or one of the eastern languages such as Chinese or
Japanese.
Whatever the outcome I believe that the future of culture and language
lies in a combination of global language and culture, national cultures and
languages and the unsustainable cultures and languages of the smaller
nations. There are notably over 2 billion people in the world, mainly in the
poorer countries who do not speak any of the 12 major languages of the
world.
Table 13
The major languages of the world.
Chinese More than 1 billion China, Taiwan, Singapore
English 300-400 million people United Kingdom, USA, Canada, Ireland,
India, Nigeria, Australis, South Africa
(official language of 87 nations and
territories)
Hindi 250-300 million North Africa, Trinidad, South Africa,
Mauritius
Arabic 165 million North Africa, Near East
Russian 250-300 million Republics of the Former Soviet Union
Malay 180 million Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Brunei
Bengali 150 million Bangladesh, India
Spanish 180-520 million Official language of 20 nations and
territories in Europe and America
French 100-150 million Official language in 37 countries and
territories in Europe, Africa, America
and Oceania
Japanese 125 million Japan, minorities in USA and Brasil
German 150 million Germany, Switzerland, Luxemburg,
Lichtenstein, Austria and Belgium
Urdu 50-90 million Pakistan.
Source: the Universal Almanac 1996 ed. J.Wright, Kansas City, 1995.
It is still unclear which of them will preserve their languages and
which of them will fall under the influence of the stronger cultures.
Neither one extreme, the disappearance of ethnicities within a global
culture, nor the other, their isolation and conservation is capable of
answering the needs of humanity. It has already been mentioned that the
explosion of ethnic groups is more or less an attempt at self-defence and a
consequence of aggression against smaller cultures and nations. If
migration, mixed marriages and the world media stimulate the intermixing of
culture, then education and concern for the smaller cultures is a compulsory
precondition for the preservation of local traditions and universal harmony.
The Fourth Civilisation will be an era of global cultural phenomena but also
the preservation of all the smaller cultures which express the diversity of
the human species. This process cannot be stopped and there is little doubt
that there will be an increase in the number of people who will lose their
"pure" ethnicity but this will not lead inevitably to the destruction of
national traditions and features. There have been periods throughout the
history of humanity when the mixing of blood for many nations was considered
shameful. Many nations aspired to preserve the purity of their roots and
people through the purity of their blood. The formation of nations and
nation states coincided logically with this process.
The New Civilisation places the emphasis on the moral aspect of the
common human spirit, the search for the common elements between autonomous
cultures and peoples. Only in this way can the new dimensions of technical
and spiritual progress be combined with tolerance, mutual influence and
unification of difference cultures. The other alternative is isolationism
and conflicts between civilisations and religions. Whether the 21st century
will be a century of wars between cultures and civilisations as S.Huntington
seems to believe or a century which places the priority on the universal and
humanitarian elements of development -- this is a question of choice between
the past and the future.
4. GLOBAL AWARENESS
The 19th and the 20th centuries were a time of mass ideology. Global
awareness rejects the closed ideologies of confrontation. It is a reflection
of the common elements which unite the inhabitants of the earth but also of
the differences between us and our neighbours. Global awareness is the main
driving force of the Fourth Civilisation. It is the sense of the
compatibility and legitimisation of these differences.
H
umanity is constantly adapting itself to the common spiritual values of
integration. The integration of manufacturing and communications has lead to
a growing awareness of the common problems of people and the ways in which
they can be resolved.
Religions are a typical expression of this unified awareness. Sometimes
they are imposed through methods of conviction more frequently by violence
and coercion. Religious conflicts over the past 2 millennia have been
struggles between spiritual values and the different systems and structures
of human awareness. Homo Sapiens in his evolution from the apes inherited
and developed this common awareness. Over the centuries group ideologies
became more and more massive. General or mass awareness is reflected in the
common features and standards of life, in common gods and religions and in
common spiritual values.
The industrial age from the end of the 18th century saw a new period of
structuring of mass values. The unifying nature of existing dogmatic
religions was gradually replaced by unifying ideologies. Liberalism,
Marxism, Leninism, nationalism, fascism and Maoism are just some examples.
Certain ideologies reject religious awareness, others try to adapt it to
their value systems. Until the 19th century violence was the basic, albeit
limited, means for the solution of all conflicts between peoples, cultures
and ideologies. Mass ideologies gave rise to mass violence. The most radical
religious ideologies of the 20th century were undoubtedly communism and
fascism. Although they were essential different and had different economic
bases they both used violence as a key political method. Zbignew Brzezinski
was correct when he referred to such ideologies as "coercive utopias". Such
ideological religions allow for only one truth and exalt one system as the
true system. They share the same eternal ideas and the same laws of human
society. This is not only an expression of the primitivism of Utopia or
subjective illusions imposed through coercion but a definite stage in the
development of humanity. Ideological religions are an expression of the mass
awareness which is caused by violent and radical integration, by the
coercive persecution of the rural population and their transformation into
industrial workers, the exploitation of hired labour, the violent
colonisation of hundreds of nations and billions of people. Mass ideologies
are the result of violence but also carry its seeds.
How otherwise is to explain that communism, the greatest utopia of the
20th century was accepted by practically half of humanity? Or that the
Germans, Italians, Spanish and Japanese believed in fascism? Ideological
religions appeared on the historical scene as a result of the great
cataclysms of the 19th and 20th centuries but above all as a result of the
internationalisation of manufacturing forces and spiritual life. This
internationalisation of manufacturing gave birth to the illusion that the
world might be ordered on the lines of a ready-made political model on the
basis of dogma imposed by a group of people. Utopias become transformed into
mass credo only when the social conflicts and chaos have caused huge
destruction. Historically, mass poverty and mass violence have always caused
mass reactions which has prepared the ground for the appearance of coercive
utopias.
Ideological religions create different types of culture. In their
extreme forms these ideologies have given rise to the cult of personality
and the exaltation of leaders. Just as the ancient peoples prayed to Amon
Ra, Zeuss or Tangra in the 20th century they prayed to Hitler, Stalin, Mao
and Pol Pot. Of course, the cult of personality is not the only type of mass
utopia. The ideological religions also created the cult of the system
itself, the notion of the future, power and its structures. All this was the
imposition of freedom of thought. In certain countries and certain peoples
this type of mass awareness lead to accompanying forms of daily life, dress
and behaviour humiliating man in favour to ideology.
One of the most important consequences of the collapse of the Eastern
European totalitarian regimes was the destruction of the totalitarian type
of mass awareness. The collapse of the Berlin wall not only destroyed the
communist utopia but also created the opportunities for the entire
historical removal of ideological religions. Hitler, Stalin and Mao had
aspirations of disseminating their utopian notions over the entire world.
Fortunately this did not happen. The destruction of ideological religions
did not mean the ideological and spiritual division of the world not the
final removal of the danger of new coercive utopias. The removal of the iron
curtain does still not mean the final end to global inequality, economic
violence or the impossibility of the appearance of new ideological
religions. IN order to put a stop to such a danger many things will have to
change in this world.
Global awareness is radically different from the ideological religions
and the culture of the coercive utopia. It is developing as a result of the
new communications and the natural technological progress of humanity. It is
not a consequence of violence and coercion but of the modern technological
and cultural revolution. Its origin has to be looked for in the intermixing
of values and the criteria for the most advanced cultures of the world and
in their constant enrichment. The intermixing of different cultural values
leads to the formation of common thought processes with common foundations
which have began to develop rapidly since the falling of the iron curtain.
Global awareness is the common understanding of people for the common
problems of the world which cannot be resolved by one or a single group of
countries or by one or a group of peoples. This is the realisation of the
interdependence of the world and that the tragedy of one individual people
might lead to a tragedy for all. Global awareness is also a change in the
hierarchy of human values and in the extent to which common human conflicts
come to the fore. The enormous problems of pollution, the appearance of
holes in the ozone layer, global warming, the destruction of the rain
forests, AIDS, cancer and other mass illnesses of the 20th century, the
dangers posed by nuclear energy and numerous other problems are occupying
the thoughts of people around the world more and more and motivating their
actions.
Global awareness is reflected in the growing realisation of a larger
part of humanity that only human rights, individual freedom, freedom of
speech and the press and the gradual improvement in labour and living
conditions around the world can guarantee the preservation of the human
species. The most important thing is that in this way, gradually but
undeviatingly the common criteria for good and evil, justice and injustice,
progress and stagnation are being formed. This is the basic meaning of the
new theoretical and ideological synthesis which has been mentioned in an
earlier chapter.
Global awareness is developing on the basis of the cultural images and
standards of world significance and which do not belong to any one national
cultural school. Education and science, information and the media, trade and
finances, sport and tourism, food and daily life are a part of this growing
awareness. Today over 90% of the adult population of the world receive
information from more and more accessible and homogenous sources of culture.
The universal heroes, the universal film stars, the universal sports idols
are all symbols of one and the same phenomenon. Claudia Schiffer, Naomi
Cambell and Cindy Crawford are the greatest models at the end of the 20th
century because they are a reflection of the diversity of the ideal of
beauty and universal aesthetic standards. The travelling peoples have taken
their cuisine all over the world to Latin America, the USA, Russia and
Africa. Pele was the world football idol and the death of the racing driver
Aerton Senna was mourned all over the world. The reason is because we are
becoming citizens of one global village about which each subsequent
generation will know more than we do.
Today, global awareness is still just a trend but a trend which is
developing in the space of hours and minutes. The world corporations, the
global culture, mixed marriages, the "travelling peoples", universal
communications and values and common experiences are all an undisputed fact.
However, the trend towards the formation of a universal global awareness is
still at its very beginning. It has to cope with national and local
prejudices, ethnic enmity as well as social and economic inequality. This
trend towards the formation of the global awareness of humanity cannot be
stopped. It will take a long time and will most probably reach its peak in
the next century.
5. MULTICULTURE AND GLOBAL CULTURE
Multiculture or the combination of global, mixed and local cultures is
the main feature of the Fourth Civilisation.
T
he modern era was a time of cultural coercion. The violation,
plundering and export of huge amounts of works of art to Europe and America
was a symbol of colonialism. Fascism and Communism with their ideologies of
unification destroyed many cultural traditions and opened the way to the
violent imposition of monolithic cultural products. Imperialism in all its
manifestations bore within itself the idea of unification and multiculture
or, in other words, the domination of one culture and the transformation of
others into museum exhibits. One only has to compare the ancient cultures of
Benin and Nigeria and their artifacts exhibited in the British museum or the
culture of Bukhara and Samarkand preserved in the vaults of the Hermitage in
St.Petersburg with what has remained in the local museums.
The 20th century was a century of colonialism and imperialism, a
century of the greatest progress of humanity. It was at the same time a
century of the greatest destruction and oppression. One can but hope that
the New Civilisation will resolve the problems of cultural aggression.
However, this will be conditional upon the removal of media imperialism as a
threat to cultural imperialism. Only the future will tell whether the trends
of imperialism and cultural monopolism associated with the outgoing
civilisation or the global trends of the Fourth Civilisation will prevail. I
personally believe that historical progress and the global changes in the
world are taking us towards something different from cultural imperialism
and the dominance of one culture over others. There is, however, absolutely
no guarantee that we will turn the clock back.
If the trend towards imperialism persists and is not modernised, if the
media and cultural unification of the world takes place as a result of the
cultural domination of a number of countries via the trans-national
corporations then the forecasts of Samuel Huntington may very well come
true. The 21st century will be a century of conflicts between cultures and
civilisations and the slow and turbulent development of economic
polycentrism and associated cultural structures.
The cultural equivalent of economic polycentrism is multiculture.
Multiculture is the combination of many different cultures and their
intermixing and also the preservation and the development of international
and supra-national relations. The preservation of the cultures of small and
large nations will be preserved with the relevant legislation and economic
conditions. Multiculture means the rejection of media and cultural
imperialism. Together with economic and political polycentrism this is the
next most important feature of the Fourth Civilisation. Integration causes
either oppression or intermixing which is at the foundation of multiculture.
It is this intermixing stimulated by economic growth will be the main
cultural feature of the 21st century.
The most obvious manifestation of this process is in the area of
showbusiness, art and music, dance and the fine arts. The resolution of
religious conflicts, however, will be more difficult. The formation of a
global culture and the localisation of cultural ethnic communities will have
determinate roles in both economic and political processes. Globalisation
and autonomisation are already leading to the huge re-structuring of
cultural communities. Everything I have mentioned in this chapter: the
intermixing of cultures and global culture, the intermixing of ethnic groups
and the "travelling peoples", the formation of global awareness are features
of this process.
There are, of course, no absolute or automatic processes. I am speaking
only of a determining trend for the future. There will be processes and
events which will lead us forward but there will also be retrograde
influences. There will be a struggle for the establishment of new relations
between civilisations and the temporary victories of the protectors of the
past. The greatest task faced by the modern world is the removal of cultural
imperialism, the intermixing of religions and cultures with mutual
tolerance. The international media have great responsibility to avoid
becoming the advocates of new forms of oppression. However, they could also
become the proponents of a new spirit of multiculture. In practice this
means the protection and support of small and large cultures, a respect for
the daily life and traditions of smaller nations, the implementation of
policies of mutual adaptation of different cultures and, importantly, the
rejection of totalitarian cultural forms.
The last of these steps is of particular importance. As can be seen in
table 14, there are in the world today five basic religions. Each of these
religions and the cultures which are associated have their own geographical
and historical roots and form part of the world's cultural and ideological
treasury. However, at the same time each of these religions has its sects
and branches which would like to transform their religion into one of world
dominance and demonstrate intolerance and irreconcilability to
non-believers. This is as true for Christians as it is of the Muslims. The
gentle nature and lack of aggression inherent in Orthodox Christianity,
perhaps, make it the only exception. After the collapse of the two-bloc
system of the world the ideological vacuums were filled by religions and a
semi-overt struggle for domination began. A number of evangelical Christian
sects decided that the time was ripe for them to impose their own belief on
the world with little concern for the fact that they were depriving many
people of their individual freedom and turing them into obedient
instruments.
Table 14
Region
Christianity %
Islam %
Hinduizum %
Buddhism %
Judaism %
Africa
East Asia
South Azia [62]
Europe
Latin America
North America
Oceania
Fm. USSR[63]
236300
22300
125900
420300
392200
227200
21500
102200
15,3
1,4
8,1
27,2
25,3
14,7
1,4
6,6
215800
22300
534900
9200
600
2600
100
31500
26,4
2,7
65,5
1,1
0,1
0,3
*
3,9
130
*
644000
600
600
700
300
*
0,2
*
99,5
0,1
0,1
0,1
*
*
*
143400
150900
200
500
200
*
400
*
48,5
51,0
0,1
0,2
0,1
*
0,1
300
*
3900
1500
1000
7900
100
3100
1,7
*
21,9
8,4
5,6
44,4
0,6
17,4
Total
1548500
100
817000
100
647500
100
295600
100
71800
100
*100000, 0,1% Source: The World Christian Encyclopedia, 1985.
Islamic fundamentalism has also displayed public intolerance to
non-believers and the representatives of other countries. The murders in
Egypt and the execution of foreign hostages in Algeria and international
Islamic terrorism are examples of intolerance towards the traditions of
others. It is extremely important that such features of modern religions be
overcome. This will not be resolved by force but with the efforts of the
world community and states and their politicians and government to achieve
reconciliation. If modern Islam turns towards modernism combining its
profound cultural heritage with the achievements of the modern world it will
become part of the New tolerant Civilisation. The other alterative is
isolationism and the division of global cultures and traditions. During the
middle ages in Asia Minor and other places in the world Islam was the
embodiment of progress and was a source of innovation and new philosophical
and cultural trends, in the modern world it could assume a similar role.
The opening-up of cultures and religions to each other is a slow and
clearly painful process. It requires people to live democratically and in
mutual tolerance particularly of those nations which live in the border
areas between two geographically and religiously different zones. One
shining example is that of the Israelis and the Palestinians who since the
historical events of 1993 have been attempting to find a new
non-confrontational model for the resolution of their conflict. The
Bulgarians, Greeks and the Turks also have a vital role to play living as
they do on two sides of the divide between Christianity and Islam. There is
much dependent on the way in which these countries will resolve the problems
of their ethnic minorities and international relations. Cultures and
religions have to be sensitive to other cultures and religions. This does
not only mean avoiding conflict but actively assisting and complementing
each other. Only in this way will the principle of multiculture be able to
throw off the burden of the outgoing world of imperialism.
Perhaps, the ideal model of multiculture and tolerance for others can
be seen on the Hawaiian islands. Japanese and Polynesians, Americans and
Koreans, Buddhists and evangelists live in harmony and peace on such a small
piece of land. After so many centuries of inter-cultural conflicts the
nations which make up the multicultural communities of the USA have achieved
an impressive state of tolerance and unity.
I am convinced that the idea of global multiculture is not at odds with
the universal processes of globalisation. Clearly the structures of world
culture and the structure of the New Civilisation and will contain the
following mutually influential components:
-- the emerging global culture is being developed and disseminated via
the world media and is becoming distinct from the culture of the large
nations which have done much to create it;
-- the culture of the large nations which together with the
establishment of the principles of political polycentrism and multiculture
will gradually lose their ability to influence and erase the culture of
smaller nations;
-- the culture of the smaller independent nations which require more
specific forms of protection and whose preservation and development is one
of the most important issues in the modern world;
-- intermixed or border cultures as a product of the mutual influence
of individual nations.
There is little doubt that during the 19th century and for the entire
period of the 20th, there was a great deal of inequity between cultures and
religions. This was a result of colonial oppression, of two world and
hundreds of local conflicts and the violent attempts to impose cultural
domination. After the collapse of the two world systems humanity has every
opportunity to stop this trend and open up the way for multiculture as the
direct alternative to cultural imperialism. A balancing element to this is
the undoubted development of global cultural values which will take their
inspiration from the larger countries and nations who control the world
communications. The responsibility of the owners of global communications
and the governments of the countries in which they function will be to
ensure the development of the smaller countries and their integration into
global culture exchange.
There is no doubt that sooner or later this process will require strict
forms of global regulation, less passive and powerless than perhaps that of
UNESCO but, nevertheless, similar in terms of its profound and multi-lateral
experience. Many small nations and languages have already disappeared and
this process will, no doubt, continue for a number of years to come.
Countries living in isolation can not but be affected by this process.
Cultural autonomy is closely associated with weak economies. Weak economies
permit a low level of economic integration and lead to conflicts rather than
cooperation between ethnic groups and culture. This is an almost universal
truth and can be seen in Iran and Iraq, Israel and Turkey, India, the
Balkans and the Caususus.
The opposite example of cultural intermixing and emergent multiculture
can be seen in those regions of the world where people have realised the
senselessness of cultural assimilation and the value of peaceful cultural
co-existence. The USA, Australia, Europe, Cuba, Brazil and a number of other
countries in the world are fine examples of the intermixing and cooperation
of different races and cultures.
Chapter Ten
THE NEW POLITICAL ORDER
1. THE TWILIGHT OF THE SUPERPOWERS
The Fourth Civilisation will change the global political order. This is
a logical consequence of the end of the cold war the appearance of new world
economic powers and the globalisation of finances and the stock markets.
T
he political history of humanity has developed through a number of
large cycles. The First Civilisation was a time of great empires. Later,
over a period of about 10 centuries, from the 4th to the 13th century, the
world was witness to the collapse of empire and the formation of small
unstable states and the large scale migration of tribes and entire nations.
The Third Civilisation saw the development of nation states and new imperial
aspirations which reached their height with the creation and the struggle
between the two world systems. The New Civilisation will to a certain extent
once more return us to the features of the Second Civilisation but to a
qualitatively new cultural and economic level of development as well
migration of large groups of people the collapse of great blocs and empires,
the redrawing of national borders. Is this part of a logical cycle or is it
merely a temporary political cataclysm?
I believe that the cycle of predominant political concentration has
already come to an end and we are entering a new cycle of the domination of
global culture and the parallel development of local features. This, of
course, does not mean that globalisation will come to a halt but that the
parallel processes of globalisation and localisation will exert a strong
influence on current state and political formations. The 19th century left
us a legacy of the concept of the Great Powers. The 20th century brought in
the concept of the two superpowers: the USA and the USSR.
With the collapse of the USSR the world found itself faced with two
possible alternatives: either to develop monocentrically with the domination
of the single remaining superpower, the USA, or to search for a new
geo-political form. A number of researchers, politicians and journalists
seemed to be in favour of the idea of the exclusive role of the USA as the
superpower to lead the world into the 21st century. Indeed, during the first
years after the collapse of the Warsaw Pact and the Soviet Union this seemed
possible. Without its basic enemy, the USA was transformed into the most
powerful economic and political force in the world. After 1989--1990 the USA
seemed to be the only power capable of resolving a number of world conflicts
and stabilising the world order. The war in the Persian Gulf in 1991, the
intervention in Somalia, the positive role of the USA in the peace process
in Bosnia in 1995 and the resolution of the problem of Palestinian autonomy
served to strengthen this conviction.
The USA are still the strongest nation state in the world but,
nevertheless, I believe that the time of the superpowers has passed. The
Fourth Civilisation will finally reject them and even now, during the
transition between eras, there are already noticeable trends and processes
which support this.
The gradual twilight of the superpowers is for a number of reasons a
general process. It is consequence of the trend towards global balance and
the expected balancing of the global market. It is also due to a number of
reasons associated with the cyclic development of geopolitical structures. I
mentioned earlier that the economic development of the world has become
polycentric. Japan, South Korea, more recently China and a number of other
Asian economic powers have achieved significant economic strength. European
integration has undoubtedly raised the importance of the European Economic
Community in the world division of labour. The Latin American markets have
become more attractive for investments. The globalisation of the economy has
allowed for many more countries to accumulate economic strength and
self-confidence. During the cold war and up to 1989 the appearance of new
powerful and independent economic centres was of secondary importance.
Military power and nuclear weapons were an undisputed factor in the
determination of political power. This trend persisted for the entire period
of the 20th century. In the 1960's and the 1970's there was a growing
conviction that there would in fact be no victor after a nuclear conflict.
Indeed, after the collapse of the Berlin wall there are still people who
continue to wag their sabres and claim that they can achieve their aims
through armed conflict. Nevertheless, things do seem to have changed. The
emergence of new technology and new economic opportunities have come to the
fore.
This has reduced, at least for the time being, the role of Russia in
world politics leaving it to ponder the questions of its domestic political
and economic restructuring. For the same reasons, the USA now finds itself
in a completely new situation.
The vacuum which was formed after the collapse of COMECON and the
Warsaw Pact (1990--1991) has begun to be filled not only by the USA but
Germany, France, Japan and the European community as a whole. Although this
process is rather veiled and timid it will continue in the future. Germany
demonstrated its new-found self-confidence with its independent position on
Bosnia. The nuclear tests carried out by France in the Pacific in 1995 were
more significant from a political point of view than scientific. Similar
ideas can be read into the applications by Japan and Germany to join the
Security Council.
The other issue which has always seemed to dog the USA and which will
undermine its potential as the only superpower in the world is the issue of
economic expenditure. Since the Second World War the USA has run up a huge
armaments bill which has lead to a colossal increase in its foreign debt.
Today the world's financial systems is under an enormous strain because of
the constant increase in American borrowings, especially in the 1980's
(table 15). In the 1970's and 1980's, however, this seemed not to be such a
serious matter. The USA at the time was the leading figure in the Brenton
Woods system and the dollar was the only reserve currency in the world and
the US was able with some ease to compensate for the debts it had
accumulated. In the 1980's the USA was paying 250--300 billion dollars in
interest alone on its foreign debt. The majority of global economists
believe that if this trend persists for much longer the American economy
will begin to slide and the dollar will lose its position to the yen and the
German mark.
Table 15
Federal debt of the USA
Year
1900
1920
1950
1960
1970
1980
1990
1992
1994
Billion Dollars
Per head of population (USD)
Interest paid on debt (bill)
% of federal income
1,2
16,6
-
-
21,2
228
-
-
256,1
1688
5,7
13,4
284,1
1572
9,2
10,0
370,1
1814
19,3
9,9
907,7
3985
74,9
12,7
3233
13000
264,8
21,1
4064
846
292,3
21,1
4692
026
296,3
80,3
Source: Bureau of Public Debt, US Dept of Treasury.
There is little doubt that the USA and Russia will progressively have
to reduce their military expenses which are the main causes for budget
deficits and huge debt. IN 1994 the USA spent 280.6 billion dollars on
defence which more than all the other countries of the world put together
with the exception of Russia. US military expenditure was 9 times greater
than that of Germany (35 billion dollars); 9 times that of France (34
billion); 7 times that of the UK (41 billion); 50 times that of Japan (5.9
billion dollars); 100 times that of China (2.7 billion)[64]. I
have never seen accurate or proven figures for Russia but I believe that up
to 1990 they were similar to the US. There is no economy in the world which
can compensate for such expenditure and bear the burden of competition in
the global market. For this reason the role of the USA and Russia as the two
superpowers has begun to subside. Superpower tension might reappear in the
world only if the two-bloc system is revived. There is, however, little
likelihood of this since global financial markets are so interlinked and
interdependent and for all the other reasons associated with the emergent
New Civilisation.
This leads on to the other question of where the new centre of economic
and political power will develop and who will take on the roles and
responsibilities of the USA and Russia. Russia clearly needs time to
reorganise its economy and bring it in line with the needs of the market.
However, even if this were to take place within the shortest possible period
of time -- 10--15 years, it would not be able to assume the role of a
superpower, nor would it want to. On the other hand Jacques Atalie and other
writers have forecast that "economic power is moving away from America
towards Europe and the Pacific".[65] I believe that it would more
accurate to make another conclusion. It is true that during the Third
Civilisation the Euroatlantic powers made great progress in their domination
of the world at the beginning of the processes of globalisation. It is also
true that after the 1960's the Asian economic powers began gradually to free
themselves from the protectionism of the USA and Europe and they will play a
very active global role in the coming 21st century.
This fact, however, is insufficient to support the claim that "economic
power is moving away from America towards Europe and the Pacific". It is
more likely that there will be a period of levelling and mutual balance
between the Japanese, American and European economies. This is possibly the
most effective solution. Of course, this is also associated with the
reduction in the responsibilities and burdens of the USA and the involvement
of other countries such as Japan. The superpowers will disappear but it will
not necessarily follow that the USA will preserve their role as one of the
world's main political and economic centres. The world can no longer benefit
from American domination or its downfall. In the same way the world could
have done without the political and military conflicts within the former
USSR.
2. FROM IMPERIALISM TO POLYCENTRISM