Online at: http://politicalaffairs.net/article/articleview/210/1/32/

Book Review - Who Are We?, by Samuel P. Huntington

2004 – online click here for related stories: right wing watch

Samuel Huntington, Harvard professor and chairman of its Harvard Academy for International and Area Studies, has drawn both criticisms and praise for his writings regarding the major divisions in the world in the post-Soviet world. In reality Huntington is an ideologue presenting a world model in which imperialism and the different people’s struggle to resist and destroy it have nothing to do with the conflicts in today’s world.

In an article published in Foreign Affairs, a few years after the counter revolution in the Soviet Union and other European socialist countries, Huntington titled The Clash of Civilizations and his subsequent book with the same title he put forward the idea that neither economics nor ideology would be the cause of conflicts, but different values based on history, traditions, language and religion.

For Huntington there is no struggle between socialism and imperialism, nor is there any struggle over control of a country’s own resources by its people against control by imperialistic powers in favor of the transnational corporations, nor class struggle as the motive force today.

For him the conflicts center over cultural values of different "civilizations." The one which seems to dominate his thinking the most in his mind is the clash between the "West" and the Muslim world. Huntington is involved in what Columbia University professor Edward Said called "The search for a post-Soviet foreign devil," and that "foreign devil" for Harrington are Muslims. As such, Huntington’s view that it is cultural values and differences as the true cause of conflicts is clearly chauvinistic and racist.

Widespread acceptance of Huntington’s views are a danger to the people’s movements throughout the world. If the conflicts in society are between different cultures there cannot be international unity among all peoples’ that are oppressed, nor can there be unity among the working class. Nowhere are the problems of the world caused by neoliberal economic policies of imperialism in this stage of the development of capitalism, and, of course, in the end the whole system of capitalism itself.

For the working-class of developed capitalist countries proposals would be that all peoples of a given nation rally around the imperialist policies of the US and Europe, i.e. The "Western World" against the Muslim, Eastern, Asian, African and others, but primarily the Islamic world. There is not one word about the economic system that this would support.

Lately Huntington has turned his attention internally to the United States where he attempts to apply a variation of his thinking to the domestic scene. His ideas would similarly deprive the peoples of the US of a powerful weapon for social progress – unity.

In his book Who are We?: The Challenge to America’s National Identity, Huntington aims his ideological guns at the people that he considers a "major potential threat to the country’s cultural and political integrity" – Latin Americans. Even among Latin Americans he is mostly concerned about Spanish-speaking Latin Americans, leaving out the Portuguese-speaking Brazilians and the French creole speaking Haitians.

Among the Spanish-speaking Latin Americans he singles out the largest Hispanic minority in the US – those of Mexican origin and ancestry. At the same time he does not leave out Puerto Rican, Cubans and Dominicans.

Huntington’s position is a rallying call to Americans to stop the flow of immigrants from Latin America, otherwise it would " be the end of the America we have known for more than three centuries." While Huntington predicts there a "nativist" movement will rise up in response to Latino immigration, his writings, both in regards to the international as well as domestic issues, seem to be a rallying call for just such a chauvinistic movement. Alan Wolfe, director of Boston College’s Center for Religion and American Public Life, criticized Huntington as endorsing, not just predicting, a "white nativist movement" and calls his book a "Patrick Buchanan with footnotes."

In Huntington’s historical revisionism he claims that this immigration is different from past ones. He says that earlier immigrants were assimilated into the white, Anglo-Protestant culture of the American nation. Even then he has to admit that "Contributions from immigrant cultures modified and enriched" the culture of this nation." Yet, in his insistence on calling the US an "Anglo-Protestant" country he ignores the Catholic, Jewish, Muslim, African and Asian contributions of immigrants throughout the years, as well as those of the native peoples of the Americas.

Huntington’s view of Mexicans and other Latin Americans as a threat to the US nation is due to six factors: contiguity, scale, illegality, regional concentration, persistence, and historical presence," which to him seem to be problematic and new.

With regards to Mexicans, all six factors originate from wars of imperialist conquest fought by Americans against Mexico in the second third of the 19th century.

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While Huntington decries the use of Spanish by new immigrants and the learning of Spanish by Mexican American adults who were brought up speaking only English, he is critical of dual-language programs where children, both immigrant and native-born, are taught in two languages, thus becoming bilingual.

Huntington opposes the concentration of Mexicans in the southwest, Puerto Ricans and Dominicans in the New York area, and Cubans in southern Florida. Yet he considers the movement of Latinos to other areas, such as Mexicans going directly to Southern states with no stop-over in places like Texas or California, Puerto Ricans to the Orlando and Tampa areas in Florida, or in other areas of the country, as "establishing beachheads," a term referring to the vanguard of an invading military force.

Huntington blames a whole series of social ills on US Latin Americans. He claims there would be more unity in the country if there were to be less immigration of Mexicans to the US At the same time he completely ignores the divisions which his chauvinistic positions can create. In what seems as an effort to cause disunity between Latinos and African Americans, Huntington blames the former for the high unemployment among the latter, saying that the new immigrants take occupy the low-paying jobs that would otherwise go to African Americans.

Huntington portrays himself as a "patriot ... [who is] deeply concerned about the unity and strength of my country ..." But what does his characterization of himself say about his feelings about the rest of us who disagree with his reactionary ideas, especially US Latin Americans who would be the most to disagree with him? That they are unpatriotic and thus a menace to US society?

Unfortunately, among liberal critics of Huntington’s positions there are those that accept some of his basic assimilationist premises. These argue, for example, that Huntington is wrong, that Latin American immigrants do assimilate. They offer as part of their "proof" that most of these immigrants learn English and many become US citizens.

A fully democratic position must be a people have full rights as a national minority. Especially so, when they come from Mexico, a country that lost half its territory due to imperialistic plunder.

The case for Puerto Ricans is similar. The Puerto Rican national minority in the US exists because of the economic hardships which Puerto Rico suffers as a US colony. Democracy demands that all sovereign powers be transferred from the US to the people of Puerto Rico so that island-nation can join the international community as a full and equal partner. At the same time the 3.4 million Puerto Ricans in the US must be guaranteed all rights to their language and culture, a right which must be extended to all other Latin Americans in this country.

A question begs to be asked. Why now? Does US imperialism need to find another "foreign devil" within its territory, as well as one outside?

US Latin Americans are being seen more and more as a potent political force due to their population growth and increasing numbers who are becoming citizens of the country. Many have seen the devastation that neoliberal economic policies are having in their country of origin. They oftentimes come to the US as economic refugees and to escape the social unrest resulting from anti-people economic policies. Only to find that because of national and racial discrimination they are relegated to the lowest-paying, most dangerous jobs, when they can find employment.

As Latinos grow in numbers within the United States and gain the vote they are being seen as a potent political bloc which in unity with other people’s forces can affect life in the US for the better. The GOP right (and to some extent the Democrats, too) is courting the Latino vote using what National Council of La Raza president Raul Yzaguirre calls "piñata politics" – photo opportunities in the various Hispanic communities eating, dancing and speaking Spanish as opposed to talking to the issues affecting those communities and offering real solutions.

Huntington is not just a disinterested academic observer with extreme views. He is part and parcel of the ideological apparatus of the right.

Harvard University has received over $4,700,000 from the John Olin Foundation during a 15-year period for programs directed by Samuel Huntington. This foundation, whose family made its fortune in chemicals and munitions, has also funded right-wing ideologues like Olin Foundation has given over $8 million to Heritage Foundation from 1985 to 2002; over $6,600,000 for the American Enterprise Institute; and the Manhanttan Institute for Public Policy Research which former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani considered "a preferred source of information" because the MIPPR "advocates privatization of sanitation services and infrastructure maintenance, deregulation in the area of environmental and consumer protection, school vouchers and cuts in government spending on social welfare programs," according to People for the American Way.

The Manhattan Institute has in turn funded the work of Charles Murray, co-author of The Bell Curve and Losing Ground, which attempts to make the argument that social programs hurt, rather than help, people in poverty and racial minorities.

If Huntington’s words were to be coming from the mouths of avowed fascists or members of the Ku Klux Klan, they may be easier to dismiss as the ranting of the lunatic fringe and maybe articles like this one wouldn’t be as necessary. However, Huntington is an accepted member of academia and respected in many circles including liberal ones. His views reach the decision makers in the federal government, both Republicans as well as Democrats. This makes his views more dangerous.

--José Cruz is editor of Nuestro Mundo.

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