Self-isolation?
The West’s growing moral imperialism may drive developing nations into China’s arms
When Samuel P. Huntington wrote his 1996 book, “The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order,” describing an inevitable showdown between the West (Europe and North America) and the Islamic world, most of the academic world and national media dismissed it as anti-Islamic bigotry.
There was no real conflict between Islam and the West, we were assured. We were all just one big happy family.
What, then, to make of the current sport-shaming of Qatar by this same Western establishment that dismissed Huntington’s book?
In fact, the Left’s current outcry over a devoutly Islamic nation hosting the World Cup is far more judgmental of Islam than Huntington’s book ever was.
In the run-up to this week’s World Cup international soccer tournament, the Associated Press wire service moved a preview feature article detailing how the world was turned off by Qatar’s “human rights” record, predicting record-low TV ratings for the event.
Similar analyses have been run everywhere from the New York Times and Washington Post to CBS and CNN.
There are always a few sentences about Qatar’s treatment of immigrant workers - but then we get to what is really driving Western left-wing outrage: Qatar, as an Islamic nation, has not changed its laws nor beliefs on homosexuality to conform to contemporary Western views.
We saw and heard similar “analysis” during the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia. U.S. President Barack Obama pointedly refused to attend the opening ceremonies in official protest of a recently enacted Russian law banning foreign gay-rights organizations from operating in Russia. Instead, Obama announced that the openly gay Billie Jean King would head the U.S. delegation in an attempt to publicly humiliate Russia’s leader, Vladimir Putin, and teach him a lesson. (That turned out pretty well, no?)
Despite all the handwringing in the Western media about how “the world” looked on in horror at the spectacle of the hidebound Russians hosting a global event, “the world” mostly agreed with Russia’s law or thought it was irrelevant to hosting of Olympics.
And yet here we are, eight years later, and the Western media is playing the same song: Claiming to speak for a world that it has made zero effort to understand.
While the Western Left takes great pride in denouncing all Western thought, belief, art and history that occurred before, say, August, one cornerstone of Western outlook remains unchanged: The notion that the West - Europe, the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand - represent the inevitable future of our entire species and globe.
One of the favorite shibboleths of the Left is to warn dissenters that they risk being on “the wrong side of history.”
Well.
The United Nations last week announced that the world’s human population just passed 8 billion.
China and India are both home to roughly 1.4 billion people each - meaning that more than one-rhird of the world’s population lives in those two nations. India, predominantly Hindu but also home to the world’s third-largest Islamic community, does not share the West’s views on homosexuality and other non-traditional sexual mores. And while China is officially atheist, it shares both its historic Buddhist and superimposed Marxist-Leninist hostility toward the West’s constantly evolving views on sexuality.
The United States is the third-largest nation in the world at 335 million. (And even here, a sizeable minority of citizens hold to traditional Christian views on sexuality.)
The next largest countries are Indonesia (275 million) and Pakistan (229 million), both resolutely Islamic. Nigeria’s 216 million are divided between old-school Christians and Islam - the one thing they agree on is that same-sex relationships are deeply immoral.
Add up Europe’s population (roughly 748 million), and that of the rest of the “West,” and less than one-fifth of the world is attempting to dictate to the other 6.5 billion how to think and believe.
If that’s not de facto imperialism, I don’t know what is.
But the Western Left’s blithe belief that it is on the “right side of history” seems unlikely to be proven true. Heck, it’s unlikely that future histories will be written or read predominantly by Europeans or North Americans.
In his 1996 book, Huntington rather nicely summarized his views in a single passage: “In the emerging world of ethnic conflict and civilizational clash, Western belief in the universality of Western culture suffers three problems: it is false; it is immoral; and it is dangerous.”
Whom it is dangerous for is unsaid - but I would argue it is the West itself most threatened by its own hubris.
The West’s contemptuous sanctimony toward Islamic, Hindu and Christian views of human sexuality is already alienating other nations. During the Obama administration, Nigeria requested assistance in fighting the Boko Haram terrorists. The United States replied that of course we’d be happy to help - just sign here and here to authorize American gay rights advocates and abortion providers to come proselytize. (The New Left even continues the old Christian practice of sending missionaries to convert the heathens.)
Nigeria instead quietly signed a mutual aid agreement with China - which was more interested in access to Nigeria’s natural resources and burgeoning middle-class markets than in dictating morality to its people.
Sri Lanka and Pakistan are just two other nations that have recently strengthened ties with China, which is also currently wooing former Soviet client states in Central Asia.
While Europe and the United States increasingly condition the awarding of foreign aid to recipients’ willingness to concede to Western perspective on issues such as homosexuality and abortion, China makes no such demands.
Will this be the final “World” Cup?
If the Europeans and Americans succeed in conditioning future hosting on conformance to Western views on marriage, we may well see a competing championship created to serve the 80 percent of the world that disagrees with the West.
When the Western media attack Qatar’s laws on homosexuality, they offend not only the ruling family and people of Qatar, but an overwhelming number of the nearly 2 billion Muslims in the world - as well as significant numbers of Hindus, Christians, Buddhists, Sikhs and others.
The West seems to believe that its wealth is a source of legitimacy, giving it the right to impose its views on other, less-rich regions. Given that much of that wealth was obtained coercively from poorer nations, I very much doubt that this view is as universal as our media and political elites in the West seem to think.
It is likely that institutional schisms will arise in sports before other international bodies. That is, I think we are likely to see two competing World Cups or two competing Olympics before we would see the United Nations splinter.
China certainly has the resources and motivation to help set up a World Cup that is not under the control of Europe.
And if Islamic nations are to be denied the opportunity to host future World Cups - or Olympics - due to their traditional views on human sexuality, then the Western powers should not be surprised if these nations choose not to participate in our tournaments at all.
While India, Indonesia, Nigeria, Bangladesh, Pakistan, China, etc., may not be soccer powerhouses, they are home to more than half the world’s population. Having them walk away would certainly undercut the legitimacy of any championship awarded from such a schismatic tourney.
In fact, no “World Cup” that happens without their participation has any claim to such a title.
None of this is to suggest that Western secularists don’t have every right to question traditional views of human sexuality, to argue that same-sex relationships should be given legal standing, or to promote any other viewpoint they want.
But the high-handed, Kiplingesque condescension being displayed is a proven loser at convincing others of the rightness of your cause. Treating those with divergent views as “backward” or “childish” is no way to win friends or influence people. One-fifth or less of the world trying to censor the other 80 percent is to invite an increasing resentment.
Indeed, all it seems to be accomplishing of late is pushing billions of potential allies into the waiting arms of our adversaries.
The end result of all this Western moralizing is likely to be an increased isolation of the West from the rest of the world, with less opportunity for us to try to convince other cultures that our practices are the right ones.
And that would seem to be placing us squarely on the wrong side of history.
Due to a recent illness (a nasty bout of flu that sent me to the emergency room) and some pending travel, there will be no Lost in Cyberspace next week. Have a blessed and safe Thanksgiving, and we’ll see you the following week.
-30-
Pride goeth before the fall!
Will we never learn?
Hope you feel better soon. Nice thought provoking work. Thank you.