Narendra Modi and Xi Jinping, like other contemporaries Donald Trump, Viktor Orban, Boris Johnson, etc., are leaders with a nationalistic bent. They view their respective countries as embodiments of either Han Chinese or Hindu civilization, where the center of the world revolves around their nations in the sense that they see them as the center of history. Read Here – […]
There are no good outcomes from here. Many people will die prematurely. Many will lose their jobs. Many businesses will go under. Many people will suffer bereavement, loneliness and despair, even if they dodge the virus. The only question is how many in each case. We are about to find out how robust civilisation is. […]
The current media-designated “war” between the, investment and technology has, unsurprisingly, revived a previously dormant discourse on differences between “Asian” (here, “Chinese”) vs “Western” (“American”) values that many believe portend the “clash of civilisations” advanced by Harvard political scientist Samuel Huntington in 1993, and repeatedly embellished by numerous acolytes since. Read Here – South China […]
Civilizationist populism was first pioneered a decade and a half ago by the Dutch politician Pim Fortuyn. A stylish, openly gay, former Marxist sociologist, Fortuyn transformed himself, in the months before his 2002 assassination, into a stunningly successful politician by breaking taboos and challenging the dull, consensual style of Dutch politics. Fortuyn was of course […]
For the first time since the demise of the Qajar dynasty in the early 20th century, Iran is extending its political and military reach to what it considers its rightful sphere of influence: Mesopotamia and the areas of the eastern Mediterranean and Arabian Peninsula with sizeable Shiite communities. Read Here – Foreign Affairs
Beijing believes that its superior civilization provides the leadership with the necessary skills to lead mankind in the process of building a utopian world order, known by Chinese since ancient times as Tianxia. Read Here – The National Interest
When the Arab world was tolerant and accepting of others, it led the world: From Baghdad to Damascus to Andalusia and farther afield, we provided beacons of science, knowledge, and civilization, because humane values were the basis of our relationships with all civilizations, cultures, and religions. Even when our ancestors left Andalusia, people of other […]
looking beyond borders 