Contemporary Worlds (II)

Solzhenitsyn continues:


There is the concept of the Third World: thus, we already have three worlds. Undoubtedly, however, the number is even greater; we are just too far away to see. Any ancient deeply rooted autonomous culture, especially if it is spread on a wide part of the earth's surface, constitutes an autonomous world, full of riddles and surprises to Western thinking. As a minimum, we must include in this category China, India, the Muslim world and Africa, if indeed we accept the approximation of viewing the latter two as compact units. For one thousand years Russia has belonged to such a category, although Western thinking systematically committed the mistake of denying its autonomous character and therefore never understood it, just as today the West does not understand Russia in communist captivity. It may be that in the past years Japan has increasingly become a distant part of the West, I am no judge here; but as to Israel, for instance, it seems to me that it stands apart from the Western world in that its state system is fundamentally linked to religion.

How short a time ago, relatively, the small new European world was easily seizing colonies everywhere, not only without anticipating any real resistance, but also usually despising any possible values in the conquered peoples' approach to life. On the face of it, it was an overwhelming success, there were no geographic frontiers to it. Western society expanded in a triumph of human independence and power. And all of a sudden in the twentieth century came the discovery of its fragility and friability. We now see that the conquests proved to be short lived and precarious, and this in turn points to defects in the Western view of the world which led to these conquests. Relations with the former colonial world now have turned into their opposite and the Western world often goes to extremes of obsequiousness, but it is difficult yet to estimate the total size of the bill which former colonial countries will present to the West, and it is difficult to predict whether the surrender not only of its last colonies, but of everything it owns will be sufficient for the West to foot the bill.
___________________________________________________________

KMB's comments:

Solzhenitsyn continues to draw out his basic theme: that the Western worldview is essentially flawed, especially in how it prevents the West from realizing the depth and complexity of world cultures. I have described this flaw as the lack of a “Mythic” or “Epic”-view which other cultures retain, a grand vision that lends the culture / nation / people an identity of cosmic significance. Using Israel as an example, he hints here at the core point that drives his argumentation – a state system fundamentally linked to religion.

But, as Solzhenitsyn further articulates his big idea, we’ll see that by “religion” he means something more than the typical Western view of religion. Not an atomistic unit of belief that can be generalized, personalized and added in as a discrete, exchangeable component of life, but a formative force that constitutes the core of life itself. Take away the religion and the people become shallow, anemic and aimless. Discount the formative role of the religion (as the West does) and you utterly fail to understand the underlying principles that drive the life-task/focus of the people.

It’s worth noting that, even in 1978, Solzhenitsyn includes the Muslim world among the “worlds” that the West cannot adequately comprehend. We arrogantly and ignorantly (though “stupidly” might be a better descriptive) presume to deal with the Muslim world at a political level alone (the level of empty diplomacy and mercurial violence, according to Solzhenitsyn), but those assumptions that seed the Muslim heart and feed its intents are inaccessible to us, “riddles and surprises to Western thinking.” Primarily because we discount the depth and complexity of the formative core.

The Muslim Mythic-view in a nutshell: “Where do we come from? We are born out of the sheer, all powerful will of Allah. What are we about? Submission to and propagation of the will of Allah which is Islam. What is our destiny? To bring all the peoples of the Earth under subjugation to Allah through Islam.” This rubric forms the core of Muslim identity.

But the West doesn’t get that. Instead, we misunderstand it as a political ideology and ascribe it to “radicals.” That basic misunderstanding has infected every aspect of Western relations with the Muslim world, including everything that led up to and everything that has followed the events of 11 September 2001. And all indications portend that it will continue to do so.