Paul
Goble
Staunton, September 24 – Samuel
Huntington thought that Ukraine was a country divided by “the clash of
civilizations,” and this notion lies behind both the actions of Vladimir Putin
and the current understanding of many in the West. But it is profoundly wrong, according to
Yaroslav Hritsak, a historian at Kyiv’s Ukrainian Catholic University.
In an essay in Ukraine’s “Novoye
vremya” devoted to recent Western theories about the international system,
Gritsak says that Huntington in contrast to all the others is well known in
Ukraine because his ideas continue to influence the thinking of so many
non-Ukrainians about what Ukraine in fact is (nv.ua/opinion/grytsak/linija-razryva-227437.html).
That unfortunate reality, the Kyiv
historian continues, was very much on public view at the recent economic forum
in Poland in the course of which one of the three panels devoted to Ukraine was
“called in the Huntingtonian fashion – ‘The Clash of Values: The Battlefield of
Ukraine.’”
Huntington viewed Ukraine as “a
classic case of a date divided by civilizational conflict,” and many both
inside Ukraine and outside of it have accepted that notion. But the critics of the Harvard historian have
pointed out that Huntington’s ideas are not only overly simplified but in the
case of Ukraine simply wrong.
First of all, Hritsak points out,
these critics have pointed out that in his work, Huntington mistakenly viewed
the Catholic west of Ukraine as simply part of the West and the Orthodox east as
simply part of the Orthodox world. But in fact, both parts were and are “hybrids”
of east and west.
As Hritsak notes, “the Ukrainian
Greek Catholic Church accepted the authority of the Vatican but retained its
Orthodox liturgy and dogmatic teachings. And this hybrid formation survived all
the repressions in the Russian Empire and the USSR, being one of the most
dynamic Christian churches in the world.”
Second, a new and more powerful
argument against Huntington’s view was “the defeat of ‘the Russian spring’ in
Ukraine in 2014. Experts who know Putin
suggest that he took the thesis about the clash of civilizations as the basis
of his plan for Ukraine. His calculation was simple: as soon as Russian forces
entered the country, it would split along the Huntington line.”
In that event, “Eastern Orthodox
Ukraine would voluntarily unite with Moscow.” But as now is obvious, “this didn’t
happen,” Hritsak continues. And the
reasons is simple: “today the civilizational line of Huntington passes not
along the Zbruch but coincides with the line of the front” between Russian
forces and Ukrainian ones.
And third, the Ukrainian historian
says, Huntington made yet another mistake which has implications for
Ukraine. He believed that the line of
division would be horizontal, among regions and countries, rather than vertical
within them. And thus he ignored the
fact that many in one civilization looked to other civilizations for
inspiration.
“Even in Western Europe,” Hritsak
continues, “many would like to see Putin as the leader of the world, and in the
Muslim world, there are not a few supporters of Western democracy.” Indeed, he says, research shows that “now the
chief ‘clash of civilizations’ has broken out around ‘eros’ rather than ‘demos,’”
about the inclusion of women.
No society can flourish “if a
significant part of its population as for example the serfs in the Russian
Empire of the black population in the US is excluded from equal participation
in public life.” And Ukraine in this regard is part of the West European
civilization rather than the Russian one.
That was demonstrated at the Polish
conference, Hritsak says. Not only were
there are large number of delegates interested in the West who came from the
eastern portions of Ukraine, but “many of them” were women, yet another
indication that the horizontal divisions Huntington talked about are not
appropriate for talking about Ukraine.
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