Modern Asia: Dynamic Development as a Chance to Preserve Cultural Diversity
A Summary of Points featured in the talk on the Theme:
1.
What shadows are the peoples of Asia chasing? The Asian elites have accepted in toto Western paradigms of thought, the values of consumerism and individualism, the spirit of competition, the inescapable loneliness of being as part of the condition humaine, the social rationality (and hence ethicality) of modern economic behaviour, the desperate need to marshal people into nation-states, and the rationality of modern science as the only valid method to perceive reality. They are chasing the shadows of permitted assimilation; the rainbow, at the end of which is a suburban home with a two-car garage. The poor of Asia, who are legion, are chasing fading chances of their right to survive as communities, with ancient life-asserting cultures.
2.
The creation of wealthy ghettoes of assimilados in the fast-growing urban conglomerations of Asia, guarded by their own private armies, would signal the end of any democratic political process that may have found roots in the unhealthy and dangerous soils of gross social inequality, political corruption, harsh economic serfdom, and violent oppression. The fear of waves of immigration into the West of highly talented, highly motivated, Asians would trigger even more thoughtless demonization of other cultures in the West, with more than a dozen million unemployed, and may even make a 'war of civilizations' put a tragic end to human survival.
But this process is not to be thought of as only a 'possible' scenario of the future. The process began a long time, this homogenization of the elites and leaders of Asia, and of every other nation and country, into the culture of the modern West, with its singular assumptions, which find their true social and intellectual roots in the triumphal imperialism of the 19th century. Through the conflicts we see featured every evening on our television screens, we may learn something about the early 20th century. We may find that fascism is not an aberration of a particular period, but an inherent political expression of the terrible process of 'modernization,' of transition from community identities to that of the mass mobilized nation-state.
4.
The elites of modern nation-states, who contemptuously obliterate old identities and cultures as 'tribal, irrational,' and essentially devoid of meaning, simultaneously claim that they, the modern and distant elites, have access to the only true knowledge, cumulated by correct scientific processes, which can be evaluated only by the elites themselves, not only about the universe and all physical and living processes, but even of humanity itself. Without putting it in so many words, these elites claim a higher moral authority than any forms of divinity envisioned by the unreason of earlier, 'irrational' peoples. People are mobilized, then, to serve, and democratically participate, in the modern rational social structure of the state, which is good because it is rational. If there is a war, it is against the unreason and moral corruption of not-yet developed peoples, or elites. Competitors, opponents, the non-homogenized minority, those identified as the other, are necessarily used as scapegoats, and their cultures demonized. How else to portray challenges to rational, moral authority? A media blitz, fuelled by the commercial mechanism to sell whatever is sensational, can confirm disinformation as the only truth; and horrors of war or development, as suffering brought on by irrational peoples on themselves, almost as 'just punishment.' These we could record as the inquisitions of the modern scientific world, unleashed upon the poor, the less powerful, who are not homogenized; or who cannot be, because they own resources, such as oil, which must be snatched away for growth.
5.
If imperial empires were built this way in the 19th century, the stratagems are well understood by every power-seeker, and continue to be used by big and small elites, by big and small warlords. Ethnic conflict and balkanization, crude and barbarous prejudice against the other, are held up by every tin-pot dictator, on the historical authority of the West, as the only way forward for a people to homogenize themselves into a nation-state, to modernize themselves to compete effectively, till they too can identify themselves as families with two-car garages. Here we see a terrible continuum between the decimations of the Amerindians and the Australian aborigines in the past, and the tragic plight of Bosnians and Hutus and Tutsis; we see why Iraq and Chechnya need to be bombed today; why the polytheistic Hindus are now being marshaled into scapegoating Muslims as causes of their own poverty; and why great Indian and Pakistani armies, outfitted at many times the combined health and education budgets of their countries, face each other across lifeless Himalayan glaciers.
6.
For strident elites who are ideologically secure in believing they have the only key to the door of knowledge and power, cultural loss is a trivial irritation in their manipulation of lesser peoples. There is 'no need to know' what the poor, the poorer, and hence the ignorant, the irrational, think or believe. What is important is that the poor, the poorer, should begin to believe in the powerful, the richer, as all-knowing, as all-good, as their deliverers from their own vice of ignorance, and their self-generated poverty. The hubris of modern elites is unmatched in history.
Such hubris has made the 20th century unique in its violence, in its over one hundred million war causalities; in the way tribal societies of Asia, Africa, and Latin America, disappear as regularly as other life-forms from the face of the earth. This barren inheritance is already proving too costly; and hence the search, rather half-heartedly begun, for sustainable growth among the rich, for sustainable development elsewhere. The Lifeboat theory creates nightmares of being swamped by the dis-possessed trying to clamber on board; but even if they can be kept away, what if there is nothing left fit to eat?
8.
If the prophets, marginalized in true fashion at home, from Mahatma Gandhi to Schumacher, saw this on-rushing dilemma of modern civilization, and created alternative visions of self-actualizing human societies that could live more lightly on the earth, in harmony with nature and each other, they have come to be used as icons for justifying the liberalism of the modern nation-state. But crises demand more than the lip service of seminars, and resolutions of governmental bodies to discuss issues further.
9.
It is no new discovery that all peoples know that what we need is the re-creation of a spiritual basis for life, a remembrance that the knowledge of what is ethical cannot be reposed in distant elites, nor in systems, but depends on its recognition by ordinary people, in their daily lives, on the basis of their common sense, and their shared humanity. This shared humanity recognizes the enrichment brought into the lives of all by the diversity of cultures, which have grown organically, like differing species, in the soil of a shared human history.
10.
A gentler path of human development for all, for the South as for the West, would be 'slower,' but far more dynamic than the confrontational paths of resource and community destruction we follow today. There would be a recognition that the greatest strengths lie where we now see only weakness - in cultural diversity - and that the greatest resource a nation can have lies in the originality and resilience of its poor. De-centralization of decision-making powers to the grassroots, far from weakening a people, make them unassailable.
11.
If these truths are self-evident, as several constitutions protest they are, why does it seem so difficult for any country to take well-understood steps to validate them, to validate the human spirit? The problem is a little deeper than the 'troops needing a few more hours to loot the city before peace is declared.' The modern belief system of elite decision-makers, of whatever colour or country, is too deeply entrenched in 19th century knowledge, for them to be able to recognize simultaneously their errors of governance, and the viable alternatives available today. What is needed is a movement, of ordinary peoples, to show how life can and should be lived - alternatives that should and will start becoming social realities. Simple ways of saying yes and ways of saying no.
12.
Even as the Royal Bengal tigers begin to disappear as a species in the wild, the East Asian Tigers are becoming forces to be reckoned with in the financial markets, in the fierce battles for commercial ascendancy in the world. We know something now about how they gained their successes; what business innovations they grafted on to known paradigms. Security for workers, and solidarity as a community, seem to be keywords. Equality creating measures, in the poorest rural areas through land reforms, seem to have paid dividends in higher incomes, higher savings, investments in local production, resulting in higher purchasing power among the masses, fuelling rapid industrialization. This has happened whatever the official ideology of the country, Japan, China, Korea, or Taiwan. The 'clash of civilizations' in the Far East seems to have been replaced, by turning inwards to look after their own peoples, till what we see there is a race among civilizations. Can the West learn from the East Asian Tigers to care for its marginalized, its underclass, the unemployed, the homeless, the old, the sick?
13.
In West Asia, the unfortunate discovery of the world's greatest oil resources have condemned Islamic cultures to be demonized by the West, despite the West's inheritance from them of its boasted principles of science, of algebra, of astronomy; even of courtly love(!), and of humanistic governance of refugees and minorities (let us not forget the shelter that Moorish kingdoms of Spain gave to persecuted Jewish peoples). Old imperial practices of scapegoating a people before destroying them continue to be used successfully even today, even in the post-industrial world, magnified and crudely simplified on mega screens by modern media. Can we not conceive that the message of caring humanity of Islam could have more value for us than fossil fuel?
South Asia is beginning the chase of the West. Professional members of its elites, in their hundreds of thousands, are already recognizable pressure groups for American Presidents. Here again, can we not see beyond cheaper software development, marketable gurus, and herbal medicinal cures for diseases of over-consumption? Can we visualize inclusive community life, which gives to simple people a sense of time and place, a feel for the earth, the comfort of togetherness, and an unspoken acceptance of other cultures, other forms of life?
15.
People who used to be dismissed as 'the lunatic fringe' some decades ago are now being lauded as grassroots activists. Conferences were held in Rio, Copenhagen, Cairo, Beijing, Rome where NGO opinion was listened to almost as the prophetic voice. There is a danger in such sudden discoveries: we could safely leave these opinions for the drama of the conference table, and not let them intrude into our daily lives. But is it not the point of all these conferences that it is the ordinary families now, people unaccustomed to upstaging one another who should start taking vital decisions about the quality of life; about the earth; about other living creatures; about other societies, other cultures, other ways of celebrating life? Have people in the West no need to re-think about what they want, who they really are?
16.
What attitudes and structures impoverish human experience, and what enrich it? The very existence of myriad cultures, peoples, depends on the answer the West may find for this question? If the West places at least as much importance on permitting the existence of cultural diversity as on preserving bio diversity, we may find a world which is not a cultural museum, but one which has found the spiritual roots of life. It may not yet be too late to come to this recognition of what makes for humanity, for human community life. But for this to happen, the West cannot be a mere passive spectator, a consumer of other cultures. The elites of the West, who lead the whole pack of decision-makers around the globe, have to start the search for new beginnings, or, rather, to re-find the old beginning. They have to start with themselves. It may not be so difficult a thing to do. The inner need is waiting to be recognized in each one of them. Can they search themselves, can they listen to themselves? This first step they have to take on their own. And let us remember, the great Indian philosopher, J. Krishnamurthi, used to say: the first step is the last step!
Symposium On 'The Politicization Of Culture: A Problem Of International Peace?' Düsseldorf, 9 December, 1996
