After the cold war was over, most people thought the age of conflict had finally ended. But humanity is faced with more conflicts than ever before: Violent conflicts between states have greatly decreased, but nonviolent conflicts between them have not. Within states, regardless of West or the non-West, all kinds of primordial conflicts have increased – perhaps more than ever before. They are racial, religious or sectarian, ethnic, tribal and regional conflicts and disputes. These domestic disputes and conflicts have spilled over into the conflicts between the West and the non-West. This West-non-West conflict has turned into a clash of civilizations.

It is truly ironic, because the nation-state system has become the basic foundation of the international system since World War II, but most nation-states cannot function efficiently, mainly because internally the state is incapable of maintaining peaceful relations among different primordial groups, while the international community is sharply divided into the West and non-West.  Many non-Western states, particularly Muslim states, are hostile to Western civilization. To make the situation worse, universal international organizations are simultaneously committed to both the promotion of cultural diversity and of a universal civilization founded on the values of Western civilization.  The UN adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and two international covenants on political, civil, economic, social and cultural rights that reflect the values of Western civilization more than those of non-Western civilization. Most UN members have accepted these human rights treaties, but interpret their concrete provisions differently.

In the UN, the principle of humanitarian intervention is one of the most controversial. The Western group led by the US holds that if any state commits crimes against humanity in its territory, the UN or member states in a group can intervene in the conflict. But most non-Western states have strong reservations about this principle. They claim the principle of nonintervention supersedes the principle of humanitarian intervention.

Nowadays, terrorist and other kinds of violent crimes are committed in all parts of the world, particularly Africa, the Middle East, Western Europe and America. The main sources of these violent acts are primordial ones, particularly a religious one. In the future, there is the possibility that some Western states will be subject to humanitarian intervention if the conflict between the indigenous Western people and non-Western immigrants and their descendants continues to aggravate. The UN, the only universal international organization empowered with an unprecedented hard power for global peace-keeping in world history, is crippled by crashes of cultures within and between states.

UNESCO, which is the only global international organization equipped with soft power for global peace-building, also faces a similar dilemma. It adopted the convention on cultural diversity in 2005. It tried to avoid the conflict between the idea of promotion of universal civilization and that of protection of traditional cultures by including a provision that cultural diversity cannot contravene human rights and fundamental freedoms enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. But under such circumstances, it will be very difficult to promote a major UNESCO program, education for international understanding, because the protection and promotion of the traditional cultures of all primordial groups within a state promotes not so much mutual understanding as mutual misunderstanding and antagonism. When two persons with different ethnic, religious or racial backgrounds meet, they are more likely to dislike rather than like each other because humans instinctively stick to primordial ties than nonprimordial ties such as intellectual and ideological ones. In my view the education for international understanding program should become the primary program of UNESCO.  UNESCO’s popular programs, the Cultural and Natural Heritage Program and the Memory of the World Program, are instead largely used by member states to propagandize the greatness of their cultural and natural heritage.

The world is faced with a serious dilemma: We need a universal civilization for permanent peace within states and between states, but it is almost impossible to do so mainly because the nation-state is the basic unit in the international system and primordial ties can hardly be replaced by new kinds of identity. Moreover, the West, particularly the US, holds that Western civilization should become the foundation of universal civilization. The key values of Western civilization are individualism, political freedom and equality, and separation of temporal and spiritual authority.  In contrast, two most distinguished values of non-Western civilizations are authoritarianism and collectivism. The UN has made various efforts to integrate both value systems, but with little success. It will take a long time for humanity to create a universal civilization, contrary to what Klaus Schwab predicts in “The Fourth Industrial Revolution.” The primary ties die hard. Both the West and non-West may have to live with them for another million years regardless of the fast movement of globalization and scientific and technological development.

When I served as Korean ambassador to UNESCO and representative to its executive board in the early 1990s, I witnessed dramatic confrontations between Western and non-Western civilizations at official meetings quite often. I was extremely saddened by the realities that turn the lofty goals and ideals of the UN Charter and the Constitution of UNESCO into simple rhetoric.  

By Park Sang-seek

Park Sang-seek is a former rector of the Graduate Institute of Peace Studies at Kyung Hee University and the author of “Globalized Korea and Localized Globe.” --Ed.