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Why idea of 'civilisation' is under threat

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Makarand R Paranjape
Makarand R ParanjapeAug 09, 2017 | 10:36

Why idea of 'civilisation' is under threat

A hundred years ago, when much of the world struggled to free itself from colonialism, civilisation became an important site of difference. For the colonised, the critique of modern, Western civilisation became essential to the anti-colonial struggle. That is because the colonisers had tried to legitimise their expansionist and exploitative enterprise of empire-building as the white man's civilising mission or burden.

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Thinkers

In India, major thinkers and leaders such as Rabindranath Tagore and Mahatma Gandhi wrote at length about civilisation. In Hind Swaraj (1909), the latter railed against it, accusing civilisation of enslaving us with the "temptation of money and… luxuries". Indians, according to Gandhi, were "hypnotised" by modern civilisation, which is why we allowed the British to rule us. Gandhi's main grouse was that modern civilisation makes "bodily welfare the object of life", while true civilisation (sudhar) should promote virtue, dharma and self-realisation.

Colonial authorities, of course, continued to use the discourse of civilisation to show that we were not civilised, therefore unfit for self-rule. Gandhi turned this argument on its head by contending that modern civilisation was itself not worth having. It was irreligious and immoral, the "Satanic" age from a Mohammedan, and "Iron" age (Kaliyuga) from a Hindu point of view. He rounded off his denunciation by averring, "Civilisation is not an incurable disease, but it should never be forgotten that the English people are at present afflicted by it."

Nearly a century later, after ignoring dire warnings by unpopular prophets like Samuel Huntington, the West rudely woke up to the real threat radical ideologies pose to its dominion with 9/11. In Civilisation and Its Enemies (2004) and The Suicide of Reason: Radical Islam's Threat to the West (2007), Lee Harris warned about not just the threat to civilisation, but its imminent destruction.

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In the latter book, he identifies two kinds of fanaticism, the fanaticism of Islam and the fanaticism of reason. Ironically, the latter blinds the West to the former. It prevents an understanding of just how dangerous the former is. The fanaticism of reason, thus, normalises the fanaticism of Islam as just another kind of cultural difference. Perhaps, Harris goes too far, but all over the world, the failure of the liberal project is predicated, at least partly, upon its inability to grasp who its real antagonists are.

Philosopher

Ramin Jahanbegloo, the Iranian philosopher in Indian exile, tries to address these issues in an erudite and moving essay, "The Decline of Civilisation". Though he addresses the issue of decivilisation at the global level, his basic frame of reference remains the Western thought. To this, he adds an inter-civilisational note by bringing in a few key non-Western interlocutors such as Tagore and Gandhi. But Jahanbegloo does not go far enough in linking the two moments in the dialogue of civilisations - the early 20th century and the early 21st.

In the 21st century, after the decolonisation of the globe, civilisational battle lines have been redrawn. The fight is not between two meanings of civilisation, but between civilisation itself and a rampant, worldwide decivilising counter-narrative. As Jahanbegloo hints, the latter also has caused more than religious or ideological fanaticism.

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There are economic and ecological, not to mention social and political, reasons why several societies have descended into violence, anarchy and failure. Within the West too, the breakdown of the welfare state, the failures of multiculturalism, and problems of hyper consumption suggest a civilisational decline from within.

Jahanbegloo, it would seem, prefers to remain in a safe and cosy fireside armchair, not taking on difficult or contentious issues. This is somewhat disappointing for someone who was imprisoned, possibly tortured, by the Iranian regime on suspicion of being a CIA agent, an Israeli spy, Western-sympathiser, and what-not. As a victim of state intolerance, having experienced the real and frightening proof of organised decivilisation, he might have been more candid, if not hard-hitting.

Collapse

Surprisingly, the large-scale ravaging and collapse of West Asia in the last 30 years or so also escapes his detailed concern or attention. The collapse or destruction of so many countries, societies, and regions, characterised by regime-changes, displacement, and large-scale migration - these burning problems, so clearly part of the spread of decivilisation, do not come in for closer scrutiny or analysis. Instead an erudite, some might say effete, philosophising style defines his approach in this slight volume.

The book begins with long and rambling "Foreword" by Romila Thapar. Its main point is that there is a dialectical relationship between civilisation and its other, called by different names in different times and situations. She states the obvious; one might have expected more than plain platitudes from such an eminent scholar.

The simple slogan on the cover, "Why we need to return to Gandhi and Tagore," is not also not properly elaborated by the contents of the book. Even if it is one of Jahanbegloo's intentions, he does not manage to explain why or how this return is to be effected.

Having said this, the book is still welcome for foregrounding the idea of "decivilisation". This is definitely a topic worth debating, though in much more focused if not far-reaching terms.

 

Last updated: August 09, 2017 | 17:42
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