It is the only chance for change – Obama

"When Huntington introduced this new theory, AlQueda’s Islamic fundamentalism had not militarily challenged Western countries. India and China had not been identified as emerging super powers."


by Patali Champika Ranawaka

(November 15, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) On the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington DC on August 28, 1963, Rev. Martin Luther King appealed to US people as follows;

"Five score years ago, a great American in whose symbolic shadow we stand, signed the Emancipation Proclamation. This moment’s decree came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of Negro slaves who had been served in the flames of withering injustice. It came as a joyous day break to end the long night of captivity. But one hundred years later, we must face the tragic fact that the Negro is still not free.

"Now is the time to lift our nation from the quicksands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood.

"I will listen to you, especially when we disagree."

US President elected Barak Obama pledged this to the crowd at his victory speech. In his election campaing, President Obama has pledged to the people that he is going to change US policy. After the victory, he reiterated that and told the US people that "it is only the chance (victory) for the US to make that change." Would President Obama be able to change the USA with the blessings of world community?

For the past two decades, several western scholars tried to theorize the change that the US people and the whole world has egarley searched for.

Soon after the end of the cold war (in 1990), Francis Fukuyama’s sophisticated essay ‘The End of History (and later he expanded his thesis in a book (1992) titled ‘The End of History and the Last Man’, argued; "the triumph of the west of the western idea is evident first of all in the total exhustion of viable systematic alternatives to western (free market) liberalism...what we maybe witnessing is not just the end of cold war, or the passing of a particular period of post war history, but the end of history as such, that is the end point of mankind’s ideological evaluation and the universalization of western liberal democracy as the final form of human government."

Fukuyama’s argument could be lightly taken as a resentment of the west towards the Soviet block. He used Hagel’s dialectical analysis, the very same philosophical tool used by Karl Marx, to predict that communism would be the final form of human government, to prove the ultimate failure of Marx’s communism and triumphalism of Western free market liberalism. But in a deep sense, it showed the deep desire of the West to believe in their superiority over the rest of the world. George Bush (Snr.) had declared that as the new world order.

In 1993, in response to Fukuyama’s theory of Western triumphalism, Samaul Huntington published an article titled ‘Clash of Civilizations’. Later, he published a book in 1996 titled ‘The clash of civilization and the remaking of the world order’, in which he argued that the end of the cold war does not mean Western domination over the world. He further argued "It is my hypothesis that the fundamental source of conflict in this new world will not be primarily ideological or economic. The greater divisions among humankind and the dominating source of conflict will be cultural. Nation states will remain the most powerful actors in world affairs, but the principal conflicts of global politics will occur between nations and groups of different civilizations. The clash of civilizations will dominate global politics and the fault lines between civilizations will be the battle lines of the future."

In his thesis, Huntington analyzed the population trends, military capacity, economic growth rates etc., of different civilizations and came to a conclusion that eight major civilizations will compete with each other for domination. These are Christian or Western civilization, Islam or Muslim civilization, Hindu or Indian civilization, Sinic or Chinese civilization, Orthodox or Russian civilization, Latin American civilization, Sub Saharan African civilization and the Buddhist civilization. And in some cases the Sinic, Hindu, Buddhist and Japanese civilization could be merged into a single civilization called Asians or Eastern civilization.

When Huntington introduced this new theory, AlQueda’s Islamic fundamentalism had not militarily challenged Western countries. India and China had not been identified as emerging super powers. But time has proved that conflicts were evolving and civilizational fault lines could be easily identified. Putin’s New Russia and Slav civilization may emerge as a new contender and Asian economics may lead the world in a near future, before the anticipated time period as claimed by Huntington. He further explained the current situation. In the politics of civilization, the people and governments of non Western civilization no longer remain the objects of history as targets of Western colonization, but join theWest as movers and shapers of history."

Then came Kishore Mahbubani, an Indian based in Singapore. His book titled ‘The New Asian Hemisphere - The irresistable shift of global power to the east’, showed the world that a deep desire of the West is to believe that history has concluded with the Western triumph and therefore the rest of the world has no choice. But to become cultural clones of the West, would not happen. For two centuries, Asians from Tehran to Tokyo from Mumbai to Shanghai, have been made into bystanders in world history, reacting defenselessly to the surges of Western commerce, thought and power. That era is over. Asia is returning to the center stage it occupied for 18 centuries, before the rise of the West," he argued. He further added that the West should take the Asian surge as an opportunity and not as an threat.

Mahbubani’s arguments were never based on economic figures. In the first century, it was estimated that Asia accounted for 76 percent of global GDP. Western Europe at this time accounted for only 11 percent. In the year 1000, Western Europe’s share of global GDP was 8 percent. Asia in contrast was 70 percent. This balance began to shift with the industrial revolution. In 1820, the Western Europe share had grown to 24 percent, while Asia’s had shrunk to 59 percent. Around this time, Western offshoots with significant levels of GDP, including the US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand made up less than two percent of global GDP. But in 1998, these offshoots accounted for more than 30 percent of the world GDP, Asia’s share was 37 percent.

If we take the GDP (PPP) in 2005, European Union counties accounted for 21.5% USA and Canada accounted for 22.2% Asian countries accounted for 38.6% where the former USSR (including Russia), accounted for 3.7%. And the world’s five largest economics are the USA (12146 US$ Billion), China (8815 US$ Billion), Japan (3995 US$ Billion), India (3779 US$ Billion) and Germany (2429 US$ Billion) Therefore, already three out of the five largest economies of the world are (China, India, Japan) from Asia. It is also estimated that at the present growth rate, China will be the world largest economy (GDP – PPP value ) before 2015.

With the bursting of the assets bubble resulting in a credit crunch in Europe, those economies will be retarded and contracted. Although it badly affects the Asian economies, a recent IMF report predicted, over six percent growth rate for Asians whereas Western countries will be reduced to 0.5%. At this stage, no one could be able to predict the proportion and duration of the economic crisis that the West is experiencing. But Asians do have a better chance of surviving.

So, we have discussed the three scenarios suggested by three eminent scholars. ‘Western Triumphalism’ coined by Fukuyama, ‘Clash of Civilization’ suggested by Huntington and ;Shining Asia; theorized by Mahbubani. The major weakness of these three arguments is that they do not consider the ecological constraints to the present development. Their economic analysis was based on raw data produced by the existing development paradigm. But if we go back 40 years, 1968, it was the ‘Club of Rome’ Group of eminent scientists who identified the two major limitations to growth oriented present development, namely scarcity of resources and pollution. Their computer model predicted that the ‘Crash of Civilization’ would happen within the 21st century, if we were not going to change our economic growth oriented development.

One of the key philosophers of the 20th century, Prof. E. F. Schaumacker further analyzed the limits to growth and wrote a famous book called ‘Small is Beautiful’. There, he argued that although Air, Water, Land and Minerals are scarce, the most important resource is Fossil Fuel. In this industrial era, 86% of our energy needs are generated from fossil fuels. Without an unlimited fossil fuel resource base, this growth could not be sustained. On the other hand, even if human kind do have an unlimited fossil fuel base, they could not be able to burn and use it, because the rate of generation of heat pollution may cause dangerous environmental disasters. Therefore, Schaumacker suggested that non renewable mega energy sources and development would not be able to sustain and small renewable energy sources and micro development projects should be implemented.

A great physicist and philosopher, Fritjof Capra further analyzed the Schaumacker thesis and elaborated the theme. His incisive analysis on Western science, technology and society made him conclude that the turning point of the fossil fuel based civilization has come. As he argued "fossil fuel – oil, coal natural gas have been the principal sources of energy in the industrial era and as we run out of them, this era will come to an end. From the broad historical cultural evolution, the fossil fuel age and the industrial era are but a brief episode, as fossil fuels are being exhausted and economic and political declines are already being felt. This century will be marked by the transition from the fossil age to renewable energy from the sun. So he suggested that we should embark on a collective effort to transform modern development into new eco-friendly sustainable development.

Susan George once wrote a book titled ‘Fate is Worse Than Debt’. This should be re-titled as ‘Ecological Debt is Worse Than Financial Debt’. The recently published living planet report confirms that we, as human beings, are using the planet’s resources faster than they can be regenerated. Humanities ecological footprint which measures the amount of biologically productive land and water area required to produce the resources for an individual, a population or an activity for cousumption and to absorb the waste they generate given the prevailing technologies and resources management and this area is expressed in global hectares (gha) is more than the bio-capacity, which measures the actual regenerating capacity and this ‘overshooting’ phenomenon clearly shows the ecological deficit of human kind.

The global per capita ecological footprint was 2.23 gha in 2003, and bio capacity was 1.78 gha, showing the world that each person’s ecological debit was 0.45 gha. According to the present consumption rate, all the resource from planet earth for the whole century (2100), will be exhausted in 2080 and environmentally permissible carbon emmission or carbon budget will be expired in 2032. That means, we need another planet or two to sustain the present development. The ecological deficit of the United States was 4.8 gha in 2003 and this means they need another country which is equal in land mass to sustain their development. China (-0.9), India (-0.4), Japan (-3.6), Germany (-2.8), Brazil (7.8), Canada (6.9) do possess ecological reserves.

In Sri Lanka, our ecological footprint was 1.0 gha (in 2003) and our bio capacity was 0.4 gha. That means our ecological deficit is 0.6 gha per person. So, we have to enhance our bio capacity (supply), to meet the resource demand as indicated in ecological foot print index.

It should be noted that there exist some probability that this financial crisis may lead to an ecological crisis. If it were to happen, then all the countries with ecological debts, including Sri Lanka, would collapse ecologically, causing misery to humanity. Countries which posses ecological reserves like Brazil, Russia, Canada or Australia may emerge as the next super powers. We should also note that if an ecological credit crutch does happen, the entire civilization would suffer tremendously.

So, the challenges of the financial credit crunch may turn into an ecological credit crunch; it is time to make some vital changes in Western epistimie. But it is doubtful to predict whether President Obama is going embrace each of the four senarios predicted by Fukuyama, Huntington, Mahubani or Capra. In the recent past, US governments selfishly and stubbornly rejected global appeals to adhere to the Kyoto Protocol and other climate change related changes, which are essential for the whole of human kind to survive. President Obama should be able to evolve a new change that not only the US people can believe in, but also which the whole world would be able to believe in. Changing the world is the need at this turning point in human history. - Sri Lanka Guardian