Huntington’s “Clash of Civilisations” (1993; 1996) hypothesis has recently been revived in the wake of the 11 September 2001 catastrophe. It has been argued that the root cause of modern conflict is not political or economic but the clash of cultures. Huntington (1993, p. 22) in his work
“The Clash of Civilizations” suggested that “the fundamental source of conflict in this new world will not be primarily ideological or primarily economical. The great divisions among humankind and dominating source of conflict will be culture”. He postulates:
The clash of civilisations will dominate global politics;
Nation states will remain the most powerful actors in world affairs, but the principal conflict of global politics will
occur between nations and groups of different civilisations.
The fault lines between civilisations will be the battle lines of the future(Huntington, 1993, p. 22).
Thus, following Huntington, western civilisation is at war with other civilisations from the Arab, African, and Asian worlds. Huntington (1993, pp. 23–24) defined civilisation to mean, “a cultural entity, villages, regions, ethnic groups, nationalities, religious groups, all have distinct cultures at different levels of cultural heterogeneity”. The difference in these cultures is the root cause of modern conflicts; people want independence and self- determination.
Following the concept of cultural fault lines and ethnic awareness- civilisation, others have argued that this concept of clash of civilisation is essentially ethnic nationalism. Muller (2008, p. 21) in his work “Us and Them” calls this civilisation “the enduring power of ethnic nationalism”.
Muller (ibid.) argues that people think about their nation states in two ways:
[First,] all people who live within a country’s borders are part of the nation, regardless of their ethnic, racial, or religious origins, [second, that] the core of the ethnonationalist idea is that nations are defined by a shared heritage, which usually includes a common language, a common faith, and a common ethnic ancestry.
Therefore, ethno-nationalist groups experience inequality and lack of upward mobility and since they speak the same language, they decide to demand their own state (ibid.). The people want their own state because
“they would be the masters, dominating politics, staffing the civil service, and controlling commerce” (ibid.). Therefore, conflict resolution in this
situation is based on the creation of more states or at least partitioning—
allowing ethnic groups to have more power over their destiny.
However, other political scholars oppose this argument and argue that ethnic nationalism can only lead to the creation of more States, for example, in Nigeria we would need at least 250 States to satisfy the strong ethnic groups which appear unsustainable. Therefore, they contend that the root cause of ethnic conflict is bad State institutions. For example, Habyarimana, Humphreys, Posner and Weinstein (2008, p. 138) write that in Muller’s argument about the role of ethnic nationalism breaking up European States, he:
[O]verlooks the peaceful consolidation that has resulted from the ability of diverse groups-the Alsatians, the Bretons, and the Provencals in France; the Finns and the Swedes in Finland; the Genoese, the Tuscans, and the Venetians in Italy-to live together. By failing to consider the conflicts that did not happen, Muller may have misunderstood the dynamics of those that did.
In other ways, Muller does little analysis of the root causes of those conflicts that have led ethno-nationalist groups who break away from their former European States. Moreover, as to Muller’s position that what drives ethnic nationalism is the “enduring propensities of the human spirit”—
inherent inclination towards our kin. His critics demonstrate how studies show that people respond just as generously to the needs of others, as well as the needs of their own, when they know the needs of the other.
Therefore, they conclude that political coalitions formed along ethnic lines are not necessary because people care more for their own, but simply because it may be easier to collaborate with their ethnic peers to achieve collective goals (Habyarimana, Humphreys, Posner, and Weinstein, 2008,
p. 139). Therefore, the problem is not people; it is the institutions of the State and the lack of justice that exists within the State. Habyarimana, Humphreys, Posner, and Weinstein (2008, p. 139) argue what people want is justice and peace. However, people may work along ethnic lines because they expect their kin to discriminate in their favour, but such reciprocity is a protection against being cheated rather than an “inner propensity of human spirit”.
Therefore, what drives people to work with their ethnic kin is the belief that one is more likely to get fairness and justice in the distribution of wealth generated in the State by working with their ethnic kin. For these critics then the solution is improving State institutions so that there would be justice and fairness. People would no longer seek their own State.
Hence, we would maintain that the theory on the Clash of Cultures is compatible with the HNT as it corresponds to the frustration of the BHN of distributive justice—the need that resources belonging to a group are fairly distributed to all members (Marker, 2003). Nonetheless, in multi- communal conflicts, this Clash of Cultures needs to be accounted for in conflicts such as the Boko Haram case in Nigeria (Chapter Five).
Therefore, in applying the HNT for conflict resolution, one needs to account for the role of religion, natural resources, and cultural differences in multi-ethnic and multi-religious communities like Nigeria. The HNT and these other theories guide us in the study of Fr. Francis Libermann’s
“Project for the Blacks”.
However, since Nigeria is a postcolonial country, we also need postcolonial theory in this endeavour, to which we now turn.