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Vakhi Surkho for the SNA CHECHENPRESS, 05/04/08
In the light of the theories of the ethno-genetic and civilisational development of mankind.
Thus the life of humanity is a series of emerging and declining nations. If it were not for this constant changeover of peoples, if the whole of mankind were a single monolith just as all manner of cosmopolitans and internationalists dream of, having completed the abovementioned cycle the mankind would disappear from the face of the Earth. And here we enter a new, supranational level of human existence – the civilisational level. This brings us to another question: what is the interaction of the ethnic and the civilisational components of mankind? This is the topic of the following section of the article.
Some would say, perhaps, that I exaggerate the role of nations/ethnos in global processes and that ideology plays a far greater role. This is true, of course, ideology, i.e. religion as a supranational institution, impacts on the actions of all its followers, irrespective of their ethnic background. But this influence is different for different people. A passionary nation perceives an idea as a long-term project, as an ideal which has to be fought for, as a guide to action. At the same time a nation which is undergoing the inertia phase perceives religion as a tradition, as a symbol.
It is characteristic of every ideology that an overly ardent follower begins with time to perceive it as a self-sufficient authority, with people being a mere supplement. This ignores the fact that ideologies are created to serve people, to provide for their spiritual equilibrium and social justice. What is the use of ideology in the absence of people, an ideology which does not serve people?
Allah created people but he did not leave them to the mercy of fate but has been sending them prophets at regular intervals with clear tokens from Himself and Guidance for life (oral or written maxims). This is because people tend to bicker or get carried away. For this reason they often distorted Allah’s prescriptions or gradually sanctified the sacred prophets or simply Allah’s loyal servants as ‘gods’ and thus were plunged into the barbarism of polytheism. Yet each time Allah, merciful to His creations, would send yet another prophet for the renewal of His religion.
So far no renewed religion has managed to reach all corners of the earth at once and so the old distorted dogmas, which had become pseudo religions, continued to exist side by side and to compete with the new dogmas. Thus in different corners of the Earth different civilizations sprang up and started fighting each other - the struggle which continues even today. An American geopolitical expert Huntington, in particular, mooted the theory of the conflict of civilisations. It is obvious that that theory still underlies the main foreign policy course of the US government today, although the latter is trying to conceal this by in the guise of different terms.
The clash of civilisations is the clash of outlooks which are different in different regions of the world. The fully formed (mature) peoples form a state by organizing their social, economic and political systems. At the same time religion forms a civilization out of a group of states or forms one empire state on the basis of many countries. To put it simply, a civilization is peoples and countries united by a single idea which has been materially expressed in the sacred writings, in the language it is written in which serves as a lingua franca, and in the script it is recorded in. There are other, less obvious features, as well.
Today there are three global civilisations in the world – Islamic civilisation, Christian-Judaic and Pagan (India, China, the region of Asia Pacific). This is the most superfluous account of the civilisational state of the world. In reality, the world is much more complex and there are several parallel pictures which describe its contemporary state. Let us look at the world of civilisations from different cultural angles.
The pagan world is very multifaceted, but it is represented by two powerful centres of gravity for a number of different cults: Buddhism in China and Hinduism in India. The Christian world was first divided into the Orthodox and Catholic Churches, and later the Germanic super-ethnos, having split away from the Catholic Church, founded Protestantism through a series of religious reforms. Judaism, as we have already mentioned, should also be seen within the same framework as Christianity. The world of Islam is more monolithic. During the passionary overheating of the Arab-Islamic super-ethnos the Shia religion got established as a separate party within Islam. The majority of Muslims, however, are Sunnis, the adherents of the Sunna of the Prophet Muhammad (s.a.s).
Every world religion-civilization strives for world domination, for globalization, but the abovementioned civilizations in their present state are sub-global, i.e. regional. The Christian world was first and foremost, the north of Eurasia, and now it comprises the whole of the New World. Islam is represented first and foremost by Afro-Asia, i.e. the South and East Mediterranean but includes other regions of the world (Central Asia, the South-East Asia). Paganism as a centre of civilisation is first and foremost, the East Asia, then Africa and Oceania.
At the same time, apart from the world view level, it is important to take into account some other levels of globalisation or civilized expansion – the trade, the financial and the electronic ones. But, in my opinion these material levels are incapable of overthrowing or occupying the spiritual level, although they can distort it. There is also military-political expansion, which is directly dependent on the economic component.
Based on these criteria we can see that the world of Islam is weak, and in contrast to the Christian and Pagan worlds does not have its own political pole, i.e. does not have any voting rights in the world political processes. By contrast, the Pagan world has two political poles – India (a nuclear power) and China (already a space nation). In addition, these two countries together with Japan and Korea, in other words, the whole of the region of the South East Asia constitute the most dynamically developing region of the world.
These fact and the fact that Islam, tame in economic terms and in terms of its science and technology is close to the Christian world geographically and in terms of its ideology, have prompted the Russian culture expert Grigorii Pomerants to divide the whole of mankind into two global civilizations: the Western Judaic-Christian-Islamic monotheistic civilisation (the Mediterranean, including the Middle East and the New World) and the Eastern Pagan civilisation.
(To be continued) |
