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Ambassador Kishore Mahbubani, Dean of Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy at National University of Singapore Let me address this challenge of legitimacy with one simple point. India will be the third great Asian Power to emerge, after Japan and China. Japan emerged self-consciously as a Western Power. China has made no pretentions in that direction. Hence, it may be fair to ask: Will India emerge more like Japan or like China? Trying to figure out the directions that India will take will not be easy. There will be at least three, if not more, key factors at play. The first will be the nature of the era we are living in: Is it Eastern or Western? The second will be an understanding of the two key terms: Eastern or Western? What do they mean? The third factor at play will be the nature of Indian civilization itself. In short, the question I have posed is neither simple nor easy to address.
Eastern or Western Era? The first great Chinese reformer, Sun Yat Sen, had no hesitation in recommending that China should learn from the West: "Chinese civilization has been around for several thousand years now, while Western civilization has only been around a mere several centuries. Chinese people cannot change a past civilization into a modern one. This is why people say that China is the most conservative and that is the reason for its accumulated poverty ... we, the modern people of China, are all useless, but if in the future we use Western civilization as a model, we can easily turn weakness into strength, and the old into the new. I think that everyone should go to the West and find something new, then go to the East and find something old, and if we Chinese can bring this about, then there will be nothing hard about the old turning into the new." Similarly, India’s first Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, said: "The search for the sources of India’s strength and for her deterioration and decay is long and intricate. Yet the recent causes of that decay are obvious enough. She fell behind in the march of technique, and Europe, which had long been backward in many matters, took the lead in technical progress. Behind this technical progress was the spirit of science and a bubbling life and spirit, which displayed itself in many activities and in adventurous voyages of discovery. New techniques gave military strength to the countries of Western Europe, and it was easy for them to spread out and dominate the East. This is the story not only of India, but of almost the whole of Asia." Both Sun Yat Sen and Nehru were happy to concede that the West had moved far ahead of Asian societies. They recognized the Western dominance of their era. Another great historical figure of the early twentieth century was Kemal Ataturk, who ruled Turkey from 1923 to 1938. He was absolutely convinced that a modern, secular Western state was the only way for Turkey to move forward. He expressed this in symbolic terms by comparing Islamic and Western headware: "The fez sat upon our heads as a sign of ignorance, fanatacism, obstacle to progress and attaining a contemporary level of civilization. It is necessary to abolish the use of the fez and adopt in its place the hat, the head gear used by the whole civilized world." Today it is hard to imagine any leader of any Islamic country, even Turkey, adopting the clear and boldly pro-Western approach of Kemal Ataturk. This is a simple illustration of how times have changed. The nature of the era a hundred years ago was clear. Today, the nature of our era is less clear. There is no agreement on the nature of the era that we are living in. Nor is there agreement on its key defining features. No clear and simple answers are available. The only certainty of our times is change. Indeed, we must be living in the greatest period of change experienced in human history. This explains the sense of fluidity we feel about the nature of the times we live in. The West itself is not clear about the era we are living in. Indeed, it is experiencing great confusion and ambiguity about its role and place in the world today. Many leading minds in the West continue to believe that Western civilization remains on top of the heap in terms of civilizational achievements. None of them would express this sense of superiority as boldly as D.H. Lawrence did in 1923 when he said, "I become more and more surprised to see how far higher, in reality, our European civilization stands than the East, Indian and Persian, ever dreamed of ... this fraud of looking up to them -- this wretched worship-of-Tagore attitude -- is disgusting." There is every reason for the West to feel superior: in economic performance, in political arrangements, in social safety nets, in education and learning, and in critical fields of science and technology, the West is still far ahead. Each year, Westerners win most of the Nobel prizes. The rest win few. And yet, underneath the surface conviction of civilizational superiority, there is also a growing internal disquiet about shrinking Western power and influence in the world. In their heart of hearts, most Western intellectuals are becoming increasingly aware that the centuries of Western domination of the world are coming to an end. For the past few centuries, Western decision-makers determined the course of human history. J.M. Roberts, a Western historian, described well the nature of this Western domination: "It seems reasonable to expect agreement that the course of ’modern’ history ... has been increasingly dominated by first the Europeans and then the Western civilization, which was its successor. By ’dominated’ I mean two things were going on. One was that the history of the rest of the globe was changed forever and irreversibly by the actions of the men of the West. The other was that it changed in a particular direction; it was overwhelmingly a matter of other cultures taking up Western ideas, goals and values, not the reverse." Today, to use Roberts’ memorable phrase, human history is not dominated by ’the men of the West.’ Nor is history a one-way street. Instead of feeling dominance and strength, many in the West have never felt so insecure, both in their daily lives and in their sense of what the future will bring for them. Remarkably, one man sitting in a cave in Afghanistan has unleashed much of this insecurity. A few young English Muslims have aggravated it even further. In October 2006, on a short flight from Newark to Milwaukee, I found that my saline solution, hair gel, shampoo, shaving cream and Colgate toothpaste had to be confiscated because they were seen as potential threats. How can the most powerful civilization in the world feel so insecure? Terrorism is not the only threat. Lou Dobbs has convinced many Americans that outsourcing to India is the next big threat to America. Europeans, by contrast, feel threatened when a British citizen of Indian ancestry, Lakshmi Mittal, tries to buy a European steel company [and playing by the rules set by the Europeans]. All these are examples of insecurity. But it would be a mistake to focus only on the material realm. In the great Cold War between the West and the Soviet Union, the West did not only try to out-perform the Soviet Union in the material and military spheres. Instead it kept emphasizing that the Western values of democracy, human rights and freedom represented the highest values of humanity. Ronald Regan expressed this sense of moral superiority well when he compared the West with the ’evil’ Soviet empire. When the Cold War ended with a Western victory, it was seen as a powerful endorsement of Western values. Hence, the West embraced with great enthusiasm Francis Fukuyama’s essay ’The End of History.’ Fukuyama said, "The triumph of the West, of the Western idea, is evident first of all in the total exhaustion of viable systematic alternatives to Western liberalism ... what we may be witnessing is not just the end of the 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 evolution and the universalization of Western liberal democracy as the final form of human government." About fifteen years have passed since Fukuyama wrote "The End of History". If a similar essay was written today, it is hard to imagine the West embracing it with equal enthusiasm. But what has changed? Several things have. First, there is growing awareness that Western societies will no longer be the most successful societies. If the Goldman Sachs BRICs study is reasonably accurate, in the year 2050 out of the four largest economies, three will be Asian: China, USA, India, and Japan [in that order]. It is hard to engage in Western triumphalism if this triumphalism does not rest on a conviction of perpetually superior economic performance. Something equally important has occurred in the moral dimension. The West is no longer seen as the custodian of the highest values of human civilization. Fifteen years ago, if anyone had suggested that Western countries would endorse or allow the use of torture, they would have been dismissed out of hand. But this has happened. In 2005, Ms. Irene Khan, the head of Amnesty International, said: "Guantanamo is the gulag of our times." If her statement was untrue, there would have been a huge rush of denials from the West. If her statement was true, there should have been an equally strong chorus of voices to say that this had to stop. Apart from a brief and few flutters of regret, nothing really happened. The gulag continued. It was greeted by a loud silence in the West. This silence of the West has had a near metaphysical impact on the rest. There has been a profound shift in how the leading Asian and other minds viewed the West. Instead of seeing the West as a paragon of virtue, they now see an emperor with no moral clothing. Many were dismayed by Western double standards: criticizing gulags elsewhere but refusing to condemn Guantanamo. The West is not alone in having double standards. All governments without exceptions have double standards. However, none of the governments outside the West pretend to be as virtuous as the West. The perceived disappearance of the Western era does not mean the disappearance of Western civilization. Indeed, Western civilization will remain the single strongest civilization, especially in material terms, for at least another fifty to one hundred years. However, its capacity to dominate the world will progressively diminish as other societies and civilizations, especially in Asia, recover their strength and verve. Such an analysis could well cause those living in the West to feel pessimistic about the future of the world. Given the belief of Western intellectuals that the West is the only custodian of superior moral values, they fear that the progressive disappearance of the Western era in global affairs will imply a moral slippage in the human order also. This is where some good news can be inserted. In my second opening question, I had asked whether there was a clear understanding of the terms "Eastern" and "Western". Are they truly distinct and separate? Will the rise of the East lead to an abandonment of global commitment to some of what are perceived to be Western values? The good news [both for the West and the East] is that some of these perceived Western values may actually be Eastern in origin. One of the most thoughtful commentators of our times is the Nobel laureate, Amartya Sen ... In his writings, he has tried to demonstrate that Eastern civilizations have also practiced many Western values and in some ways began doing so before the emergence of the Western era of world history. He says: "There have, for example, been frequent declarations that non-Western civilizations typically lack a tradition of analytical and skeptical reasoning and are thus distant from what is sometimes called ’Western rationality.’ Similar comments have been made about ’Western liberalism’, ’Western ideas of right and justice’, and generally about ’Western values’. Indeed, there are many supporters of the claim [articulated by Gertrude Himmelfarb with admirable explicitness] that ideas of justice, right, reason and love of humanity are ’predominantly, perhaps even uniquely, Western values.’ But Amartya Sen goes on to point out ... that this artificial distinction between the East and the West in the area of values is not historically justified. The West believes that it has uniquely championed ’freedom’ and ’tolerance’. But, as Amartya Sen says, "A good example is the Emperor Ashoka in India, who during the Third Century BCE covered the country with inscriptions on stone tablets about good behavior and wise governance, including a demand for basic freedoms for all -- indeed he did not exclude women and slaves as Aristotle did." He concludes his discussion on this subject with a very strong statement: "The claim that the basic ideas underlying freedom and tolerance have been central to Western culture over the millenia and are somehow alien to Asia is, I believe, entirely rejectable." There is just one more passage I want to quote from Amartya Sen. This is a key passage because many in the West believe that the modern secular state could not have been conceived of by other civilizations. Amartya says, "It is worth recalling that in [Mughal Emperor] Akbar’s pronouncements of four hundred years ago on the need for religious neutrality on the part of the state, we can identify the foundations of a non-denominational, secular state which was yet to be born in India or for that matter anywhere else. Thus, Akbar’s reasoned conclusions, codified during 1591 and 1592, had universal implications. Europe had just as much reason to listen to that message as India had. The Inquisition was still in force, and just when Akbar was writing on religious tolerance in Agra in 1592, Giordana Bruno was arrested for heresy, and ultimately, in 1600, burned at the stake in the Campo dei Fiori in Rome." Why am I quoting Amartya Sen at great length on Ashoka [who ruled from 272 to 232 B.C.] and Akbar [who ruled from 1556 to 1605 A.D.]? I’m using them to make one big point: that the great divide that the West has conceptualized between the West and the East may be an artificial one. The great Western values of freedom and tolerance, reason and logic, may not be uniquely Western. The West has to stop believing that other cultures are incapable of being as rational as the West. In response to Pope Benedict XVI’s recent quotation from a 14th century Byzantine emperor, Tariq Ramadan wrote this in a column in the International Herald Tribune: "The selective memory that so easily forgets the decisive contributions of rationalist Muslim thinkers like Al-Farabi [10th century], Avicenna [11th century], Al-Ghazali [12th century], Ash-Shatibi [13th century] and Ibn Khaldun [14th century] is reconstructing a Europe that practices self-deception about its own past. If they are to reappropriate their heritage, Muslims must demonstrate in a manner that is both reasonable and free of emotional reactions, that they share the core values upon which Europe and the West are founded." India’s role as it emerges as a great power may therefore be quite different from the roles played by Japan and China. Japan tried to demonstrate forcefully that it could be as good a member of the Western club as any Western nations. China, by contrast, has made no effort to prove that it can be as Western as any other Western society. As it emerges, India may well have to play the critical role of acting as a bridge between the East and the West.
A Few Predictions Indians, unlike the Japanese, are going to wear less rather than more Western clothing as they emerge as a great power. Clothing is important. It helps to define one’s identity. Try to imagine another Mahatma Gandhi or Jawaharlal Nehru without their trademark Indian clothing. My second prediction -- and I make this prediction with pain, not pleasure -- is that the West will continue to lose the magical place it has enjoyed in the global human imagination. A hundred years ago, our Asian ancestors could not conceive of alternatives to Western civilizational superiority. It is reported that at one time, even Mahatma Gandhi said "the British Empire existed for the welfare of the world." It is hard to imagine any significant Asian leader making a similar statement today. The West is losing its magical place in human imagination for many reasons. There was a time when many Asians believed that Westerners were inherently superior. Today more and more Asians believe that they can perform equally well on a level playing field that is not rigged. But there is another practical reason why many in the West have not noticed the rising cultural confidence of Asians. Most Western opinions are generated by a small group of Western pundits -- whether they be in the New York Times or Financial Times; the Economist or the New York Review of Books. For most of these pundits, their mental foundations still rest on a deep conviction of Western civilizational superiority. This seeps through their writings. The consequence of all this is that you have a strange situation: in our information rich universe where Western voices continue to speak to other Western voices on the basis of deep-seated assumptions of Western superiority, while the rest of the world is progressively drifting away from these assumptions. One favorite past-time of Western pundits is to wrap the cloak of moral virtue around themselves and say that, at least in the moral arena, Western civilization stands head and shoulders above the rest. It is doubtful whether this was ever true in the absolute sense. Many Indians love to repeat the famous quip of Mahatma Gandhi: When asked about what he thought of Western civilization, he replied, "I think it would be a good idea." Any remaining elements of the myth of the moral superiority of Western civilization have been deeply punctured by the recent stories of the West and torture. Perhaps one of the greatest contributions of Western civilization to human history has been to both de-legitimize and effectively constrain the use of torture. Hence, the rest of the world was deeply shocked that this same civilization is now allowing or implicitly endorsing the use of torture. The stories of Guantanamo and of the outsourcing of torture by the West have been hugely damaging. Few Western pundits have understood this. Hence, with the West losing its magical place in the human imagination, it is also likely that the desire to emulate the West will also diminish in India as it will in the rest of the world. Please let me emphasize that India will continue with some of the finest political traditions it has inherited from the West: democracy, a respect for human rights, and respect for the rule of law. But, increasingly, Indians will start to claim these traditions as their own, just as Western philosophers happily accepted the work of Islamic rationalists and claimed their ideas as their own. A rediscovery of the ideas of Ashoka and Akbar in India could lead to an understanding that some of the best practices of Indian political culture predated the arrival of the West in India. My third prediction is that with the growing detachment between the West and the East, India will once again resume its natural role as the meeting point for the great civilizations. At a time when many in the West are convinced that the West cannot co-exist in peace with the Islamic world, they should study how India has been able to accommodate so many civilizations -- including the Hindu, Buddhist, Islamic and Christian civilizations -- and how most of them have lived in peace with each other for most of the time. It would be foolish for me to even try to analyze and explain why India uniquely has been able to achieve this. But the record is clear. There is something unique about Indian political and social culture. There is a spirit of inclusiveness and tolerance that pervades the Indian spirit. Hence, while the West often tries to discuss the world in black and white terms, distinguishing itself from either the evil empire or the axis of evil, the Indian mind is able to see the world in many different colors. Take contemporary Iran as a case study. The West cannot see beyond the relatively new and brief theocratic rule of Iran. Indians however see a rich and deep Persian civilization which has contributed so much to the development of both Asian and Indian cultures. Many in the West are surprised to find that Iranian leaders have a sophisticated and nuanced understanding of the contemporary world. Indians would not be surprised. Hence, while the West believes in cutting itself off from Iran, Indians naturally believe in engagement [even though the Indian government, like the American government, disapproves of the Iranian nuclear program]. The Indian capacity for engaging other cultures and civilizations may well define India’s role in the relations between the West and the East. Certainly it can play an important bridging role but it could play an even bigger role. It could help to remove the sharp distinctions that seem to be growing between the West and the East. It could perhaps help to convince the leading minds in the West that they should stop seeing themselves as guardians and custodians of one leading civilization, the Western civilization. Instead, they should see themselves as guardians and custodians of ’human civilization’. Convincing the West to adopt this new mindset will not be easy. A great crusade will be needed to convince the West that it is essentially no different from the East. India may well play a leading role in this crusade. |