Interdependence means the union of opposites is better than decoupling. There are more benefits all around to the union of opposites than decoupling from an economic and human development and international affairs and international relations standpoint, despite the obvious cultural and religious differences which exist between the opposites. But one can argue that culture would not be relevant if it were not for the essentiality and importance and significance of identity in the social world. Without a sense of identity, one is lost, and one knows nothing about oneself, and in turn one cannot differentiate oneself from others, which is why culture ends up playing such an important role in both international relations and social life in general.
Nevertheless, and as Samuel Huntington argued:
“Spurred by modernization, global politics is being reconfigured along cultural lines. Peoples and countries with similar cultures are coming together. People and countries with different cultures are coming apart. Alignments defined by ideology and superpower relations are giving way to alignments defined by culture and civilization. Political boundaries increasingly are redrawn to coincide with cultural ones: ethnic, religious, and civilizational. Cultural communities are replacing Cold War blocs, and the fault lines between civilizations are becoming the central lines of conflict in global politics.”
But again, both the individual and the group are “groping” for a sense of identity above all else. And when the Cold War ended, political and social identity was no longer based on ideology but rather, identity began being shaped by culture. To borrow from Huntington yet again, the end of the Cold War means that the world has “seen the eruption of a global identity crisis.” He added: “Almost everywhere one looks, people have been asking, ‘Who are we?’ ‘Where do we belong?’ and ‘Who is not us?’ And as Huntington noted, these are general and personal questions which took on global and international significance after the end of the Cold War. Personal issues and personal milieux became ever more connected to public and international structure.
In essence, Huntington argued that people in general end up getting closer to people with similar cultural and religious traits and get farther away from people with different cultural and religious traits. And this inclination or impulse to get closer to people who have similar cultural and religious traits affects everything else about international affairs and international relations. To borrow from Huntington yet again: “[People] have been groping for groupings, and they are finding those groupings with countries of similar culture and the same civilization.”
And while identity is multifaceted and multidimensional in nature, and it evolves rather than remaining static, Huntington insisted that cultural identity is more important than all other facets and dimensions of identity. He wrote: “In the contemporary world, cultural identification is dramatically increasing in importance compared to other dimensions of identity.” Conflicts are in turn conflicts based on culture above all else. As Huntington wrote: “The increased extent to which people throughout the world differentiate themselves along cultural lines means that conflicts between cultural groups are increasingly important; civilizations are the broadest cultural entities; hence conflicts between groups from different civilizations become central to global politics.”
And the irony is that greater communication and interconnection between different cultural groups has sharpened or has made cultural identity and the differentiation of people based on culture more “salient.” On a deeper level, there always has to be an “us versus them” dynamic in social life. “It is human to hate.” As a result, global conflict has taken on a cultural character and leitmotif.
Adam A. Azim 