“BOOK REVIEW”
“THE CLASH WITHIN CIVILIZATION “
-BY DIETER SENGASS
Dieter Senghaas is a social scientist, peace researcher and theorist of Germany. He is a professor of Peace, Conflict and development studies. This book by Dieter Sengass is a controversial debate based on the book by Samuel Huntington “Clash of civilizations”. The major debate by Dieter Senghaas in this book is that issues isn’t “between the civilizations” but it is “within the civilizations”. And the another major error that Dieter Senghaas contradicts is that clash within and between civilizations is not Culture but Economic roots. The changes in the civilizations leads the civilization towards conflicts. Theory of Samuel Huntington in “The Clash of Civilizations”, claims cultural entities as major role players in world conflicts. But according to Dieter Senghaas the major fault line and reason behind these conflicts within the civilizations are socio-economic differences. These cultural change or difference within the society comes from the development and modernization. Modernization is the process to bring changes and transformation in the existing traditions in the societies internally. Modernizations is considered as to be a conflictual process. The challenges of the modernization and transformations did exist in the history as well as today before our very eyes. The conflict due to modernizing is between the traditional and cultural values. Cultural transformation and modernization becomes the reason for conflicts within the societies because whenever the modernization takes place it creates pluralism in the societies.
The idea of book explains that most devastating conflicts aren’t much between different civilizations but actually are the ones whose fault lines of differences in socio-economic lies within the civilizations. Paradigm cultural changes in the civilization due to modernization and development by force within,...