Cracking Cultural Competition

IntroductionAs human civilizations began to emerge nearly 5,500 years ago, cultures based on ethnic and linguistic groups began to form, developing into complex unifying forces that continue to have a substantial impact on vast groups of humans. These cultures are so distinct from one another that it is often unclear whether any universal standards in values and ideals exist, permeating the invisible, unspoken boundaries between different cultures. Competition, defined by Dictionary.com as “rivalry for supremacy”, is a value commonly deemed individualistic and is rarely placed into cultural context. However, when observed in terms of world culture, it is questionable whether competition is a trait unique to certain cultures or a universal cultural value.

PoliticsThe competition exhibited by modern political affairs has a surprisingly strong connection to culture. One of the most pronounced examples of cultural competition’s influence on politics is the doctrine and practice of self-determination. Although self-determination had been loosely practiced since the foundation of early civilizations, the term was officially coined during World War I by United States president Woodrow Wilson as the establishment of political boundaries so that the people of a single race rule themselves.

As was initially intended by the World War I Allied Powers, the doctrine of self-determination promoted formation of new Eastern European countries based on distinct racial groups. In all, nine new countries–Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Finland, Czechoslovakia, Austria, Hungary, and Yugoslavia–were founded following World War I. However, the scramble to establish these new nation states precipitated unexpected racial tensions and political competition. In 1919, Czechoslovakia seized Poland’s Teschen territory, and “in 1920, Poland invaded...Russia and Lithuania”. Eastern Europe was not the only region of the world to experience the violent cultural competition involved in politics, though; once African states began being relinquished from colonial holdings, tribes and cultural groups began to quarrel over control of pre-established colonial government systems. For example, Ethiopia’s federalist system “provides for secession of any ethnic unit” from conflicting municipal governments, but as a result increased the number and prevalence of cultural groups fighting for national control of the Ethiopian government. Because of such issues, Africa, as have all world regions that have employed self-determination, “has witnessed a plethora...of political and policy initiatives for managing democratic ethnic competition and conflict”. Instances like these demonstrate the mounting competition between cultures and racial groups in the formation of nation states and show that cultural competition can be found worldwide.

ReligionReligion has proven to be an essential component of culture. Although religion holds the power to unify a cultural group, belief systems may also pit different cultural groups against one another. This was made extremely evident when “India’s Muslim leaders demanded a Muslim homeland as a condition for independence [from Britain] in 1947” in a territory now known as Kashmir. The newly independent and predominantly Hindu nation of India would come to have massive struggles over the annexed Kashmir valley, which was predominantly Muslim. The civilians of Kashmir tend to identify more closely with their fellow Muslims in Pakistan, the bordering nation in the north, which escalated already high tensions between Pakistan and India over control of Kashmir. This issue over Kashmir has been so pressing that it has been the subject matter of two of the three wars that have been fought between India and Pakistan. In fact, disputes over Kashmir became so heated that “in 1998, both nations successfully tested nuclear weapons” in an effort to instill fear into and threaten the opposing side, ultimately introducing the new form of nuclear warfare to South Asia. As of today, India still retains Kashmir as a state, but is reminded daily of the territory’s internal religious disputes through protests and ongoing violence. The strained relations between Pakistan and India continue to represent cultural competition brought about by religious disputes.

The tense competition that religion sparked between the cultures of India and Pakistan was also characteristic of the Jesuit Christian missionaries. The Jesuits, typically from Western Europe, aimed at first “to work for the conversion of Muslims”, and later focused on American Indian conversion. Despite the resistance posed by the Muslims and American Indians, missionary efforts persisted, emphasizing the competition between the cultural groups to either uphold traditional religion or to convert nonbelievers. As shown through the Kashmir and Jesuit disputes, cross-cultural-competition has simply been a way of life for humankind, especially in terms of religion.

ConclusionEach of the roughly 7 billion inhabitants of Earth belongs to a unique culture based on ancestral lineage and linguistic ties, and though no two of these cultures are exactly alike, they may share some commonalities. As exemplified through the political scope, a wide variety of cultures readily embraced the nation state building doctrine of self-determination, and in the aftermath, competed with neighboring cultures for territorial gain and supremacy. Cultural competition was also found to be rooted in religious strife, as exemplified by resistance to Jesuit efforts and the ongoing violence in Kashmir. Such examples, drawn from numerous differing cultures from around the world, lead to the assertion that all cultures value competition in some manner.