Cemil Aydin

Reflections Upon “Civilizationisms”

Global Politics of Theosophical Discourse of Civilizational Revival and Authenticity

I approach the recent resurgence of civilizational discourses and identities across the world from the perspective of the foundational significance of the idea of civilization for the origins of modern global order in the 19th century. Civilizational narratives were not ideologies; they were big stories to interpret the mysteriously fast globalization of the earth with new technologies and imperial projects. Ideas of Asian, African, Islamic, Buddhist and Hindu civilizational narratives of the global order emerged almost simultaneously during the last quarter of the 19th century, not only in conversation with each other, but also in clear polemical relationship with the European master narrative of Western civilization. Some tropes became common among all non-Western civilizational narratives, especially in making a distinction between good aspects of the European claims of universalism (science, progress and liberty) and its dark sides of violence, racism and exploitation in imperialism. In that sense, idea of the Western civilization was partly formulated outside of Europe in Asia and Africa during this encounter and critique.

Peak of civilizational narratives of the world order was not the post-cold war period of the 1990s (when Huntington’s Clash of Civilizations theory became an example of) or the last two decades, but early 20th century, when several Afro-Asian humanist narratives of the world order tried to challenge the Western narrative of civilizational superiority. Because of my previous research on the legitimation of both Eurocentric imperial international order and anti-colonial humanism through discourses of civilization, I treat the recent “civilizational turn” as an entangled process of “a return,” as well as refashioning of earlier foundational civilizational narratives in new political contexts. I my earlier article on the popularity and reception of Arnold Toynbee’s writings on history of world civilizations, for example, I noted how civilizational discourses never vanished during the 20th century decolonization, modernization and cold war ideological rivalries.

In my current research project on "Global Politics of Theosophical Discourse of Civilizational Revival and Authenticity", I will examine why and how early 20th century humanist and globalist visions of civilizational diversity and synthesis became transformed into conservative and majoritarian nationalist notions of civilizationism in early 21st century. I other words, I hope to trace the trajectory in the global politics of discourse of civilizational diversity to make sense of continuity and change from the generations of Tagore and Gandhi to Modi, Iqbal and Azad to Zia-ul-Haq, Liang Qichao to Xi Jinping, and Namık Kemal to Erdoğan.

In order to answer this question, I will focus on the often overlooked but highly significant role of Theosophical discourse of Eastern and Western civilizations in the 20th century political redefinition of civilizationism across the world. Theosophists argued that non-European societies should not emulate the morally decadent and materialist Western modernity, and they should revive their own civilizations and religious values to cure the excesses of Western civilization, and to offer hope for a future synthesis of humanity. Theosophy became highly significant for Indian nationalists or Hindu and Muslim revivalists’ arguments, and became the basis of post-colonial theory of modernity in many different parts of Asia and Africa. As I argued in Politics of Anti-Westernism in Asia, the seeming anti-Westernism of the early 20th century critiques of European modernity and imperialism was related to a theosophist expression of humanism and globalism, often with a goal to synthesize the best aspects of imagined Eastern and Western civilizations to remake a more just world order.

Theosophical thought impacted the notions of revival and authenticity in all the major non-European civilizational narratives after the turn of the century, shaping a confident revivalism that the values of Eastern/Oriental civilizations are necessary to cure the illness and extremism of the Western civilization that caused the crisis of modernity. More importantly, in theosophical discourses, different non-European civilizations of Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam or Asia were seen as siblings in solidarity with a common goal of taming/curing the materialist and imperialist Western civilization.  Thus, it would be mistaken to assume that civilizational narratives would be representing or creating a divergence of competing values of humanity and international order. In the first 50 years of the emerging inter-linked narratives of the civilization from the 1880s to the 1930s, highlighting the convergences of core values of each civilization was the main globalist goal. Civilizational narratives were often utopian, aiming to fulfil the Hegelian goal of emancipation as the ultimate stage in world history, hoping to overcome racial divisions to create a more inclusive global governance institution and to remake the imperial world.

Why did civilizational ideals of humanism and world order become transformed from early 20th century globalist goals to its current alignment with grand strategy and majoritarian nationalisms of various states from India, China and Russia, to the US, Turkey and Iran? How did the idea of clash of civilizations, initially seem confined only to the clash between Western imperial civilization and all other non-European civilizations, became a basis to fracture Asia and Africa from within, leading to notions of clash among Hindu, Buddhist, Muslim or Chinese civilizations? I argue that political implications and use/abuse of the contested civilizational narratives of the global order should be evaluated with caution, without assuming a natural correlation between a political formation/ideology and ideals of different world civilizations. Civilizational narratives of the world are not political ideologies, but they can shape, motivate and justify political formations, and they may have elected affinities with a set of political visions compared to others. While highlighting the importance of discontents of decolonization as partitions of the world as well as persistence in the legitimacy crisis of international order throughout the 20th century, I focus on changing political meanings of theosophical notion of revival and authenticity of each civilization in the post-colonial period. I also note the impact of the enduring civilizational pride and exclusionary sense of Western civilizational superiority that characterizes both the European Union project and transatlantic alliance on non-European polities. With a global intellectual history of theosophical discourse of civilization, I hope to make sense of why initial civilizational narratives in non-European world that aimed to deracialize and decolonize the Eurocentric imperial world became appropriated by majoritarian nationalisms, and could turn into a moral justification for conservative political projects and exclusion of minorities.