CIVILIZATIONAL COOPERATION AND CULTURAL COEXISTENCE

Hossein S. Seifzadeh

H. S. Seifzadeh is currently Professor of Political Science
at Tehran University. He holds a Masters Degree in Political Science from
Tehran University, and a Masters Degree in Public Administration from
California State University. He also works as the Director of a study group
at the Center for Strategic Research, and is Senior Research Fellow at the
Institute of Political and International Studies. He is also a former Fellow
at the Center for Middle Eastern Studies, Harvard University. He has
published 11 books and 76 articles.

After the controversy over Huntington's "Clash of
Civilizations" Khatami's "Dialogue of Civilization" was welcomed across the
world. Against Huntington's academic analysis, Khatami's proposition is taken as
a foreign policy doctrine of Iran. In both of these scholarly views,
civilization and culture are used interchangeably, though with contradictory
connotations. According to Huntington's pessimism, policition of various, ethnic
and sectarian groups will make the international scene conflicutual. Khatami
opposed this argument optimistically. Accordingly, the various cultural groups
do not necessarily clash. Thanks to the human wisdom and love, they can
substitute dialogue for the clash.

As it appears then, the above counter-argument is not only the
difference in tone. Rather, the two phrases point to two contradictory
philosophical orientation - pessimism VS. optimism, and two opposing description
and interpretations of human relations at the global level. This difference led
to the four research questions of this paper.

The first question refers to the descriptive and interpretive
power of these views. The second questions point to the reason behind these
various account. An extension to this question is to assess the validity of
either of these approaches to the objective reality. The third question refers
to the possibility of the ways in which these contradictory views could become
complementary. It is hypothesized here that Huntington's analysis describes and
interprets the emerging relations, and Khatami's version is a prescription for
future international relations. Last, but not the least it refers to the
differentional cultural context of these two propositions. In this article, an
attempt is made to elaborate on these questions.