The Next Step of Civilization Clash is Global Religious War

By Chan Kung

Summary: When Huntington proposed his Civilization Clash theory, he believed that while the age of ideology had ended, the world had only reverted to a normal state of affairs characterized by cultural and religious conflict. In the future, people's cultural and religious identities will be the primary source of conflict. What Huntington had not anticipated was that there is a next phase – the conflicts will not stop at the debate stage, it will neither stay at the churches and mosques nor will it stay with the preachers, but rather due to survival needs, religious commitment, poverty and inequity, the believers holding different faiths will take it to the streets, they will be armed and fight fiercely with one another.

Organization is able to influence the ruling regime

Who can overturn a ruling party? Many people are asking this question out of their own interests and for their own reasons but unfortunately, even if they are imaginative, most of the time, they get wrong answers. In China's case, the ruling party started from grass-roots community and has been through great hardship before it earns today's position. Therefore, the ruling party has the ability and vast experience in dealing with social crisis. Overturning a ruling party is easier said than done.

Turbulent street protests? China has experienced it during the 1989 incident, although it had to pay certain social costs, China went through the turbulence and has since then achieved remarkable success. A clarion call made by the high profile figures? This is even more improbable for today's China, the popular micro-bloggers, "big Vs", albeit being public figures with many supporters, they might not necessarily have action organization and hence it is impossible for them to play any substantive role in China's political life.

Organization, organization is the key!

Then, what about the internet?

In the eyes of many people, internet seems to be omnipotent, since it can shape the business heroes, surely it can unite the people to build a virtual organization and play political role in posting threats to the ruling party. The truth is, such idea exaggerated the role of the internet, although the internet might be able to create some political influence, first and foremost, as an information channel, internet is controllable. If the authority wishes and if necessary, the operation of the internet society can be cut off. Secondly, the internet is an information system, which means that no matter what kind of information, it can be dynamically overwritten and this is the basic characteristics of the internet society.

The key of all political activities lies in organization.

We often say that Hitler took advantage of the widespread dissatisfaction across the German society after the "World War I" and successfully built a Nazi organization which then launched the Second World War. One should not forget that the general discontent of the German society was not the key issue. In fact, with or without Hitler, this discontent was always there. The key to Hitler's success at that time was the Nazi organization, which helped Hitler gained power in Germany and launched the "World War II".

Therefore, the key to all political success lies in organization. Organization refers to a group of people who work together in an organized way for a shared purpose, such as political parties, trade unions, business, military organizations and so on. Organizations differ in size and effectiveness, there are competent and efficient organizations and likewise there are also inefficient and lax organizations. Different organizations have different fates. The ruling party is usually a reliably functioning organization.

In our world, what kind of organization is qualified to overturn such reliable, properly functioning organization?

Let's put this question aside and look at the world we are living in.

The latest news is that, a Muslim African wielded with AK47 was prepared to take hostage on a French commuter train before he was foiled by two American servicemen and an Englishman who happened to be onboard. Although the planned terrorist attack was failed, still, it shocked the world. We used to think taking flight is not safe, but now, trains, too, are not safe.

Charlie Hebdo, a French satirical news magazine used to be an ordinary magazine. To survive in the competitive world, it tried too hard in being creative and had landed itself in trouble. The controversial cartoons which made fun of Muhammad have annoyed the Islamic world. Hence, few masked gunmen from the Arabic world stormed its office and killed 17 people including the author, a few staff and an injured policeman who was begging for his life. The terror attack shocked the Europe and to date, the case has yet to be cracked down.

In Iraq, an organization known as ISIS seems to be formed out of a sudden, out of nowhere; even the most informed CIA did not have the accurate information on ISIS. The ISIS drove Iraqi government forces out of key cities in western Iraq and occupied almost half of Iraq over a very short period of time. The Iraqi government lost not only large territory and oilfields but also caused the Iraqi government which was equipped with MI tanks to panic and fled away. Now, in the western countries, ISIS is almost the synonym for "cool" and attracts a large number of disgruntled young people from United Kingdom to Australia, from Japan to China, from doctors to retired army – volunteers have been pouring into the ISIS limelight from every corner of the world. Since then, even with the US military's involvement in the fight by sending its air forces, the ISIS still have the ability to draw almost the entire Arabic world into their bloody war.

In Yemen, the religious conflicts and wars have caused the peninsula to resume war and forced Saudi Arabia which used to provide financial aids anonymously to respond with airstrikes and then a ground offensive. Saudi Arabia, the oil-rich country might see its first fiscal deficit due to the global oil price slump and the war between the Sunni and Shiite, and Saudi Arabia probably have to reconsider its currency link with U.S. dollar. That's quite a hefty price to pay and all of these are to curb ISIS, the rising organization.

Also, the very well-known "September 11 attacks" was an act by the al-Qaeda, a global militant Islamist organization.

A Clearer Answer Has Emerged – the Global Religious War

When writing "The Clash of Civilizations", Huntington had already realized that in the future world, the conflict of ideologies would give place to the clash of civilizations. In the past, the conflict and contradiction of ideologies played a major role and led to the cold war. The world was divided into two camps-the America Camp and the Soviet Camp. Every country had to choose one camp. However, the world will be totally different in the future. Different beliefs, aspirations and traditions will lead to clashes. What Huntington had not anticipated was that there is a next phase – the conflicts will not stop at the debate stage, it will neither stay at the churches and mosques nor will it stay with the preachers, but rather due to survival needs, religious commitment, poverty and inequity, the believers holding different faiths will take it to the streets, they will be armed and fight fiercely with one another.

More importantly, it will sweep across the whole world

Israel is the country that fights fiercely against Arab world which is also why it pays the most attention to the movement in Arab world. An Israeli think tank has also noticed this subtle prospect. Israeli chief negotiator Shlomo Ben-Ami points out that the religious wars in Arab world are always cruel. In Algeria and Egypt, the secular power can't stop the rising Political Islam. It could only be stopped by military takeover. He estimated that over 200,000 people died when Algeria's military coup finally turned into a bloody civil war.

The terrorists who attacked the office of the Charlie Hebdo in Paris claimed that the attack was launched because Charlie Hebdo humiliated Allah. Facing the threat of terror attack, French President Hollande reacted immediately and pointed out that it was a religious war. He would spare no effort in stopping religious wars and conflicts in France. He noticed the core of the issue, and his opinions had influenced the world.

Actually, various kinds of demonstrations and attacks are all over the world when terrorist attacked the office of the Charlie Hebdo. In Zinder, the second largest city of Niger, demonstrators attacked the French Culture Center, smashed and burned coffee houses, libraries and offices. Besides Niger, Muslim also staged a protest against Charlie Hebdo in many other places in the world, including Karachi, a city of Pakistan, Khartoum, the capital city of Sudan, Algiers, the capital of Algeria and Somalia. Even in Singapore, where state control has always been severe, readers find that page 22 of The Economists was blank except for the words "missing page". It was explained that, in order to show protest, The Economist's Singapore printer declined to print the page which included a picture showing the current cover of Charlie Hebdo which depicted the Prophet Muhammad.

Is global religious war unavoidable?

The basic logics associated with this question have to be sorted out. Firstly, we should know that the disappointment and discontent at government are mounting in every corner of the world. This is the basic trend of global mass movements and organizations. The theory of Eric Hoffer has already pointed out the nature of the problem. People who are extremely poor are too busy making living to join anti-government organizations. Only those people who have seen and tasted wealth to some extent and wishing for more wealth are the most sensitive group to the so-called "fairness". They will become the real radical anti-government force.

Secondly, global urbanization has brought some wealth and opportunities. However, it also creates unfairness at the same time. Inequality in wealth is very common in many areas, especially Islamic areas. Benefaction can only enrage more young people who are already filled with anger. The pursuit for wealth have not only helped Islamic immigrants to permeate the whole world, but also made them very dissatisfied.

Thirdly, universal disappointment is spreading along with immigration. Immigrations keep the operation of economy, though they harbor a wide range of emotions and discontent. Why are there so many immigrants? There are three factors: urbanization, internet and encouragement of religion. Immigration has become a "major event" in Europe, in which congested immigration tide between the Channel Tunnel is just a tip of the iceberg, there are internal, external and a broader concept of migration.

Fourthly, idolization has lost its influence, be it positive or negative influence. Now people are inclined to make choices independently and act freely. So long as there is an organization claiming that it could offer chance to the youth to relieve one's feelings, just like the chance offered by ISIS to the youth all over the world, the youth would hold together around this organization. In fact, such organizations do not even have a fixed leader. In nature, worship of artist idols is also sign of disappointment. In this half-succeed, halt-modernized world, people are willing to rely on others rather than to stand alone and to prove one's value by vent rather than by success.

In the past, people used government to fight against anti-government organizations. This was true no matter in the east or the west. Extreme ways were taken by the United States during the McCarthy era. With the development of the society, countries in the world had entered into different stages of development, and the fighting against the anti-government organizations by the government isn't so effective as before. In the west, there are Snowden and WikiLeaks; In the United States, AL-Qaeda crossed the country's borders and attacked New York successfully. After that, America killed Osama bin Laden, but AL-Qaeda are still stubbornly existing and expanding in the world and there would be one and another leaders; In Russia, Chechnya and complex nationality conflicts are still lasting; In China, split forces in Xinjiang and Tibet are a lingering shadow threatening China's safety. Islamic hardliners even got into Southeast Asia, so there are more and more religious rules in Malaysia which used to be moderate where multi-ethnic coexist peacefully. The dominance of Islam is more obvious than before and street clash began to increase.

Can we fight against anti-government organization by making government leaders more religious?

Making government leaders more religious was a successful governance model, and owning to the ideology, this model lasted for a long historical period in the world. By doing so, tough organizations could be formed and anti-government organizations are not worthy of mention. But now, this kind of success is gone. With the development of society and widespread usage of modernized information instruments, Jeong eun Kim, leader of the North Korea, has become the last religious leaders in the world. In the contrast, Iran has become the representative of religious country where religion gains authority through war. In the modern world, leaders in every country are already in a great bustle to combat all kinds of attack from the Internet. Shortage of resources and restrain of democracy has made government, the once formidable organization, become more vulnerable, more virtualized and the more like a public welfare institution. This is the truth we all have to face.

Now, governments are all struggling to live with attack from all sides, only few people in certain small communities could confront with such situation, and no major country in the world is an exception. Democratic system and democratic tide all over the world are also important causes of the weakened government. Government, as an organization, has to face complex restriction from the legal system; nevertheless, various anti-government organizations could act outrageously. Strong restriction on democratic system creates the well-being for social groups and safeguards the people's interests, but it drags down the government, which is timid and hesitant in taking actions and afraid of being used by political opponents. In a world full of clash of civilizations, governments' speculative mentality on resource mobilization, the uneven distribution of benefits and great differences at different stages of development brings many excuses for aggression and discontent, which push forward this clash which becomes increasingly fierce and evolve into religious war in the end.

Who Will Replace the Weak Government Organization?

We have to understand and concede that a precondition, namely the largest, most effective organization in the world is religious organization rather than government. None of the government around the world has been operated for thousand years, including both the Chinese and American governments. But the religious organizations—with different narratives, generally that the Christianity has lasted for 1,885 years; Islam for 1,400 years; Buddhism for 2,025 years; Hinduism for 1,815 years, and the older Judaism has even lasted for 3305 years. No government can be mentioned in the same breath with those religions when facing the great storms in the historical evolving process.

The "divine right of Kings" was criticized strongly by China's mainstream historical ideology for a very long term. By contrast, in the west, the "divine right of Kings" had deep root in organizational background. There is no king too foolish to entrust his own power to "God" groundlessly, so, apparently, "divine right of Kings" refers to the regime's legitimacy, but behind the screen, it reflects the great influence of religious organizations. In reality, it is a kind of ally between government and religions to reinforce each other's power. Every religious organization knows it clearly, as put by the famous saying of Iran's former highest leader Ruhollah Khomeini, "Islam is either politics or nothing".

Now around the world, only American and Chinese governments can cope with the rising organization with religious background. The so-called "Fighting Nation", Russia has allied with religion long ago. In order to win the absolute support of the Orthodox Church, Vladimir Putin has made what he deems as proper political concessions. The country who handles substantial power is America, in which their society mainstream consists of not only the powerful religious organizations, but also the complicated new religious power. Furthermore, America has various stronger social grassroots organizations that can display unexpected spirit and energy to hinder other organizations' permeation.

The other country who is against religions is China. China has taken the advantages of previous experience and existing organizational system, but the efforts are weakening, particularly at the poorly organized grassroots level, which shakes the whole foundation. So viewing it from the perspective of long-term interests, China and America, though are at daggers drawn over many issues apparently, are on the same page when it comes to combating the globalized religious war. When facing the largest and the most effective organization, when religion is calling its believers to fight, there is only one way to save the world from massive religious war – China and America should put aside their current interest conflicts, and work together. It is strategically important to the entire world.

For China, there is one thing to be done – let religious organizations to fight one another. In view of China's current condition, it is vital to cooperate with Vatican. China's 1.3 billion populations is very attractive for the Holy See. Vatican's world-class resource and influence, especially its global network and its relation with the Western tradition, can benefit China's global political coordination. Within China, the long-history Chinese Buddhism suffers from poor organization, as well as intense internal fights and competitions. Under the situation, the temple hosts became enterprises' CEOs, Shi Yongxin, the abbot of Shaolin Temple, is a good example. His social position has been significantly downgraded by his behavior. In contrast, Tibetan Buddhism's influence is expanding. In this case, China's religions have fallen into the pattern that Chinese Buddhism is increasingly weaker while the Tibetan Buddhism is growing stronger, and the former can't shoulder the major responsibility, leaving China with no alternative, but to cooperate with the Vatican.

In fact, China is now desperately in need of preachers who are religiously enthusiastic and harmless to the government to fill in the social gap. As a sizeable social organization, Chinese government has to select a religion and utilize the religion to restraint other religions and eventually, to avoid suffering from the global religious war.

There is one thing to be further elaborated. The conclusion on globalized religious war doesn't imply that there are wars between religions, nor does it suggest that Islam is the root of war. Actually, they are oppressed. And this is not a right-or-wrong question based on ideology. The global situation should be the focus. Without a doubt, the conflicts among civilizations are heading to the abyss; it is the potential risk for every government in the world.

For a long time, various historical reasons including the strong economic growth have caused us to gradually overlook the existence of a spirit gap in the society, namely, faith, and we have to fill in the gap. We believed in ourselves, until the reality broke it. We are unable to fill in each and every gap in the society, so we need the well-organized preachers to fill in each and every gap as the second channel. This requires immediate attention from the government to resolve it as soon as possible.

©2015 Anbound Information Corporation. All rights reserved.