Page 2 of
2 INTERVIEW A language for
the world Amartya Sen,
Nobel economist
Interview by Sanjay
Suri
background ... whether in India
or in Pakistan or in Bangladesh, or for that
matter in Egypt or Britain, it's not a relation
between a Hindu civilization and a Muslim
civilization. It could be two Indians chatting, or
two sub-continentals chatting. Or two South Asians
chatting, or it could be two people from
developing countries chatting. There are all kinds
of ways in which we have things in common. So the
civilizational division is a very impoverished way
of
understanding human beings. In fact, classifying
the world population into civilization and seeing
them in that form is a very quick and efficient
way of misunderstanding absolutely everybody in
the world.
Second, as these cultures have
grown, they have had huge connections with each
other. Indian food drew the use of chilli from the
Portuguese conquerors. British food is deeply
influenced by Indian cooking today. Similarly
maths and science and architecture travel between
regions. So does literature. So, civilizations
have not grown into self-contained little boxes.
The third mistake is to assume that
somehow they must be at loggerheads with each
other. It is just one division among many. And
there are others; there are men and there are
women. The gender division. Now if that leads to
hostility between them, that will be a different
thing. And then one has to see what kind of
rhetoric has made that possible. And if there is
lack of justice to women, how both men and women
may have a joint commitment in overcoming that
quality.
It's the totality of neglect of
these issues; the multiplicity of identities, the
non-insular interactive emergence of world
civilization which is increasingly a united one,
and the absence of the reason for a battle just
when a classification exists, these are the ways
in which the rhetoric of a clash of civilizations
is not only mistaken, but is doing an enormous
amount of harm today.
IPS:
The Commonwealth is often spoken of as a microcosm
of diversity. What could it symbolically or
practically do?
AS: We're
not trying to arrive at a position in the
Commonwealth that everyone will have the same
politics. Or exactly the same view on economic
relations. We have a variety of views. But we also
have shared interests, and a shared commitment to
peace and prosperity and to good living. These are
the commitments we want to pursue, and they can be
pursued without having to resolve all our
differences.
So the Commonwealth brings a
multilateral dialog-based approach to dealing with
each other's differences, and that's what we have
tried to deal with in the past. For example when
we were battling with South Africa overcoming
apartheid, similarly when there have been
religious divisions and riots we are concerned
with overcoming them. So the Commonwealth brings
an approach, a multilateral dialog-based approach
in which civil initiatives take priority over
military ones. That's where the Commonwealth's
contribution is.
IPS: But
whose globalization is it anyway? That of the
West? Of goods, the market? Of people, ideas?
AS: It depends on what you
mean by globalization. Globalization of ideas has
been one of the most important ways in which human
progress has occurred. People have learnt
scientific techniques from somewhere, mathematical
techniques from other places. At the moment the
non-Western world learns a lot from advancement in
the West in terms of science and engineering.
On the other hand, at the time of the
Renaissance and then later at the time of the
European enlightenment, there was an enormous
contribution of Chinese science to European
understanding. Indian and Arab mathematics which
transformed the way of the 11th, 12th, 13th
century world in which maths was done. Similarly
the Arab heritage in providing an interactive
dialog commitment in the days when the Arab world
was very powerful.
It is often overlooked
now that when Aristotle and Plato were obliterated
in the so-called Dark Ages after the classical
period, it is only through an Arabic translation
that Aristotle and Plato survived. And they were
re-translated back into Latin in order to revive
that part of Western civilization. So
globalization of ideas has been a hugely
constructive thing.
The globalization of
economic relations could be too. But it's a
question not of being against globalization, it's
a question of making sure that different
communities, different parts of the world can all
benefit from the globalization process, rather
than the benefit being unequally shared, going
mostly to some people and not others.
It's
really the sharing, the avoidance of inequality
that we are looking at. And that is not a question
of being anti-globalization. And I don't think it
is a question of whose globalization. If it's
globalization then it's everybody's globalization.
But you're right, that's a good question
to ask, to make sure that globalization is really
that of the globe. And not just one part of the
globe.
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