Alexander Tomov. The Fourth Civilisation
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© Alexander Tomov, Sofia, 1996
© David Mossop (English Translation), Sofia, 1996
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Sofia 1996
Dedicated to the memory of my dear mother, Radka Tomova,
whose dream was to be able to read this book.
Contents
Foreword 7
Section One The Crisis
Chapter One
The Birth Of The Global World And The Crisis Of Modernity
1. Integration And The Transition Of Civilisation 11
2. The Birth Of The Global World 20
3. The 20[th] Century - The Search Of A Model For The Global
World 24
4. The Common Crisis And The Collapse Of The Third Civilisation 28
Chapter Two
Collapse No.I: The Explosion in Eastern Europe
1. Decline And Death Throes 33
2. Reform And Illusions 39
3. Two Options And The "Mistake" Of Gorbachev 43
4. The Collapse Of Perestroika 46
5. The Explosion In Eastern Europe 51
6. Return To A Difficult Future 54
Chapter Three
Collapse No.II: Global Disorder
1. The Danger Of Chaos 56
2. Geopolitical Collapse 61
3. Economic Turbulence 63
4. The New Masters Of The World 65
5. The March Of The Poor 67
6. A Number Of Pessimistic Scenarios 71
Section Two The Fourth Civilisation
Chapter Four
Theory In The Time Of Crisis
1. Forewarning Of The End Of The Two Theoretical Concepts 74
2. A Return To The Roots Or The Main Thesis 82
3. Main Conclusions And A Message To Alvin Toffler 85
4. A Similar Message To S.Huntington 89
5. The Need For A New Theoretical Synthesis 92
Chapter Five
The Fourth Civilisation
1. Why A New Civilisation? 96
2. Some Thoughts On The Transitions Of Civilisations 99
3. The Distinguishing Features Of The Fourth Civilisation 103
4. Inevitability And When It Will Happen 106
Chapter Six
The Dimensions of a New Synthesis
1. Socialisation And The Deregulation Of Ownership 108
2. Post-Capitalism 116
3. Post-Communism 120
4. The Approach And The End Of The "Third World" 126
5. Balanced Development 129
Chapter Seven
Obstructions
1. The Defenders Of The Third Civilisation 134
2. The Great Threat - Media Imperialism 136
3. Post-Modern Nationalism 139
4. The Egoism Of Politicians 141
5. Militant Religions 143
6. A Cup Of Coffee In Apenzel 144
Section Three Alternatives To The Fourth Civilisation
Chapter Eight
The New Economic Order
1. The Economic Heart Of The Global World 146
2. New Growth And New Structures 150
3. Who Shall Dominate The World Economy? 154
4. Is There A Need For Global Economic Regulation? 159
5. Vivat Europa And The Death Of The Introverts 163
6. The Levelling Out Of Economies 166
Chapter Nine
The Culture Of The Fourth Civilisation
1. The Beatles, Michael Jackson And The Bulgarian Caval. 170
2. The Travelling Peoples 174
3. Man Without Ethnic Origin Or The Rebellion Of Ethnicity 179
4. Global Awareness 183
5. Multiculture And The Global Culture 186
Chapter Ten
The New Political Order
1. The Twilight Of The Superpowers 190
2. From Imperialism To Polycentralism 193
3, The Fate Of The Nation State 195
4. After The Crisis Of Political Identity 198
5. The Global Coordinators 200
CONCLUSION
THE NATIONS WHICH WILL SUCCEED 202
APPENDICES
Bibliography
INTRODUCTION
At the end of 1989 over a period of just a few months one of the two
world systems collapsed. Together with the two world wars this was clearly
the third turning point in the history of the twentieth century. For quite
some time now researchers and politicians in a number of countries have been
attempting to find an explanation for the collapse of the Eastern European
totalitarian regimes and the consequences for the world. Thousands of
publications and political statements have come to the concluded that
"capitalism swallowed up communism" and that "liberalism has conquered the
world". Fukoyama even went as far as to declare the end of history and the
establishment of a liberal world model. Others see it only as the end of the
Bolshevik experiment and the social engineering of a series of political
philosophers from Rousseau to Marx. After the victories of the former
communist parties in Poland, Hungary and Bulgaria in parliamentary elections
in 1993 and 1994, liberal passions grew cold and talk of the new ascension
of left wing thought has appeared on the political agenda.
What really did happen after 1989? Where is the world heading? To the
left or to the right? Towards unified action or to division into new blocs?
Towards long-lasting peace or newrisks?
Almost everyone - theoreticians, researchers and politicians in both
the East and the West were caught unprepared by circumstances. The map of
Eastern Europe has changed tragically beyond all recognition. Dozens of
bloody conflicts have erupted. Europe is being thwarted at every moment in
its attempt to unite peacefully. The United States now without an enemy in
the world has felt an increasing need to change its global policies. Germany
and Japan have also increased their economic power and their political
confidence.
In short, the collapse of the Eastern European communist regimes has
profoundly affected the present and the future of all nations and has
changed the entire world, not just small elements of it. These profound
changes have touched contemporary human history in so far as they were a
consequence of inexorable global trends. For this reason we have to go back
in history to look for more general processes in order to reinterpret the
dynamics of modern life. It is time to look beyond than the ideological
euphoria of the changes caused and to attempt to define exactly what
happened and what we can expect in the future.
This is not my first book, but it is the first which I have written in
complete freedom, without censorship or self-censorship, without the
patronage and supervision of academic councils and "political friends". In
this book I have searched for the truth from the point of view not only of
the cultural environment which surrounds me but also of the world which
revealed itself to me in its inimitable diversity after 1989. The changes
which have taken place in Bulgaria can not be seen purely in terms of black
and white. We attempted hastily to overcome the absurdities and limitations
of our past and now, five years on we are still at the very beginning. The
task has proven much more difficult than anyone could have imagined. At the
same time much of the dignity which the Bulgarian people managed to preserve
until 1989 has been sadly lost.
Today in Bulgaria and the other countries of Eastern Europe not only is
the value system in a state of chaos but there is also chaos surrounding the
interpretations of what has happened and what must happen in the future.
Many people are disappointed by the changes and they have rejected by
looking back to the system of social guarantees, voting for the past. I can
not say that all the votes cast for the former Eastern European communist
parties are votes for the past, but most of them are. Hundreds of thousands
of people in Bulgaria, Poland and Hungary have said to themselves "Under the
former regime, I managed to build a house and bought a car (albeit poor
quality). Now, I haven't the slightest chance of doing so." The comparison
of the benefits to the majority of the population in the 1970's and 1980's
and those of the first five years of emergent democracy, does not favour
modern times. In terms of concrete facts and figures, this is indeed the
case. However, this is far from the truth if one looks at the situation in
the future and tomorrow in terms of the potential possibilities which
freedom offers.
I remember life in 1989 well, because up until then I had lived for 35
years in a totalitarian society. At first glance everything seemed all
right. There was full social security during childhood and guaranteed
education. Everyone had a job and a salary. The population was able to live
in a society without crime. However despite this, in that world called
socialism, we still asked ourselves many questions: Why do we produce less
and poorer quality goods than the West? Why are our shops empty more often
than not? Why are there chronic shortages of goods? Why do we have money and
nothing to buy for it? Why are we forbidden to do things which seemed so
natural?
I have often observed my daughters' parrots at home. Just as in a
totalitarian society, they have everything they could ask for: guaranteed
food, security and hygiene. They are "happy", because they have everything
which they could ever imagine. But they do not have freedom and for this
reason when they are let out of their cage they cannot fly. Without freedom
progress is impossible. In his cage, man cannot reveal his enormous creative
potential to take the best from the past generations and to give the best of
himself to the future. In the old totalitarian system we achieved much, but
we lost much more. Sooner or later that world had to change, not only
because it was suffering from crisis of its own identity but because the
world itself had changed...
My first encounter with politics was at the age of 11. I was on holiday
with my father in the Rila mountains. In a remote mountain lodge, 2000
metres above sea level, a portrait of Khrushchev was being taken down. They
were a few months late doing this and were obviously in a hurry to get rid
of it. I asked my father who that man was and why until yesterday his
portrait had hung proudly in that spot and today - it was gone. I later
learnt that he had been a "revisionist". For a long time this was how I
learnt all truths - ready-made and without any commentary. I was taught to
believe that I was living in a perfect society and, what was more important
was that any problems existing today would certainly be rectified for the
future. The formula, "any imperfections are due to the fact that we are as
yet in the first stages of communism" must be the most exquisite piece of
demagogy and propaganda which I have ever encountered. We believed in the
glorious future of communism, just like others believed in life after death.
We were unable to compare our daily lives with anyone and with anything
because we all watched the same television, listened to the same radio and
read the same newspapers in which the truth was written by other people.
In the 1960's and 1970's there were many people who did not believe and
who heretically opposed the aggression of the regime. However, the majority
of the population knew nothing of this. In Bulgaria there had been none of
the civil unrest of the Polish workers, the Hungarian uprising and the
Prague spring. It was only late in the 1970's that we began to realise that
perhaps things were not as they should be and it was possible to live in a
different way, that Eastern Europe was not the proponent of supreme human
progress. One reason for this was the opening up of Bulgaria to the Western
World, the appearance of new audio-visual media and the expansion of
scientific and technological exchanges. We were then able to see another
model and were able to make comparisons. Another reason was the admission by
the existing regime of the need to improve economic mechanisms and their
recognition of the importance of primary stimuli.
However, even then in the 1970's and 1980's, even during the years of
perestroika under Gorbachev, when the entire truth about Stalin became
public knowledge, our notions of the future were limited to the idea of
convergence. What happened in 1989 and especially what happened subsequently
was totally unexpected by everyone, both in the East and the West. I am not
afraid to admit this because I know very well that even the best political
scientists in the world and the academic centres specialising in Eastern
European studies had no idea of the impact and the diversity of the changes
which were taking place at the end of the 1980's. Even Gorbachev himself did
not expect it. The chain reactions of turbulent demonstrations which took
place in the whole of Eastern Europe after perestroika and the mass
dellusions that everythong would be just like Switzerland, as well as the
obvious geo-political changes - these are all factors which lead me to write
this book.
The basic question, which I have endeavoured to answer is this: What
did really happen at the end of the 1980's and why did the changes which
took place in Eastern Europe have global ramifications? Some of my
conclusions I date back to as early as 1982. In particular this is my view
of the relationship between communalisation (socialisation) and autonomy and
of the insubstantiality of statism at the end of the 20[th]
century. Other conclusions were formed in the late 1980's after
participating in a series of discussions at the congresses of the World
Federation for Future Studies which helped me to understand the situations
in other countries and to make comparisons with the situation in Eastern
Europe and other parts of the world. The third group of conclusions are
based on my own political experience as Deputy Prime Minister in the most
decisive period of reform processin Bulgaria and as a member of the
Bulgarian parliament from 1990-1994. My meetings with dozens of the world's
leading politicians during this period were of enormous influence in the
formation of the conclusions in this book. I cannot express adequate
gratitude to my colleagues from the World Organisation for Future Studies
and to my colleagues from the 21[st] Century Foundation in Sofia
- a young and promising group of people who helped me greatly with ideas and
critical commentary as well as the practical work in preparing the book for
publication.
At the risk of being paradoxical, there is little in this book which
relates directly to Bulgaria, despite the fact that my main motivation in
writing it were the problems facing my own country. While working on the
book I realised that it is impossible to understand what is going on in
Bulgaria if we do not make an attempt to understand what is happening in the
world, and what we want to do, to a great extent depends on global
processes. Today, no-one can develop in isolation. Such a future would be
absurd, if we do not want to go back into our cage. The entire world is
bound with common cords which no-one who want to move with progress can
ignore. For this reasonI have left my analysis of Bulgaria to a separate
book which will be published later.
The fourth civilisation is a book about the global transition which is
taking place in the world, its basis in history, the consequences of the
collapse of the regimes in Eastern Europe, the danger of global disorder and
chaos in which we are living today and the future and ways in which we might
overcome them There are three possible directions for the world to develop.
For the greatest part of the twentieth century the world has followed the
path of division on the basis of culture, religion and political blocs,
aggression and dramatic conflict. This was the world of the cold war, of
confrontations between socialism and capitalism. This was the path of social
Utopia, imaginary models and politicalf ormulae. The second path is the path
of liberal development, victorious capitalism and the vested interests of
the richest social strata. This is the path of domination of people by other
people, of countries over other countries and nations over nations. I would
call this path, the "path of the jungle", where the strong eat the weak.
What these two models of development have in common is that they both belong
to the past, they both complement each other and cannot exist without the
other.
There is a third path which will be discussed in this book. It is not
on the immediate horizon, it may be a difficult path, even Utopian. However,
it is, in my opinion, inevitable. My conviction is based on the fact that
the modern technological revolution is leading to the creation of a
different world civilisation. It could be said quite confidently that the
end of the twentieth century will mark the end of an era in the development
of civilisation. The twentieth century was an era of nation states,
aggression and conflict between nations for more living space. It was an era
in which the historically dominant countries imposed their cultures with
force. The apogee of this anti-humanitarian absurdity came in the form of
theories about the superiority of one race over another and of the need for
the "lower" races to be destroyed.
Today, this is all over, but we are far from a state of affairs where
there is no longer any danger from new aggression. Although we could in fact
be moving forwards a new, free civilisation there is still the possibility
that may just be reproducing recidivists for the next century. We are living
in a dangerous world, requiring absolute coordination, where there is no
clear order or established principles. The question is the choice which we
shall make. The aim of the "Fourth Civilisation" is to be part of the
discussion surrounding this choice.
We could possibly change the fate of world development in an improbable
way. For the first time since man has come into existence, we are able to
view our own existence not through the prism of individual tribes, classes
or nations, but from the point of view of global perspectives. This is a
unique chance, but it is also the responsibility of the era in which we
live.
Section one
The Crisis
Chapter One
THE BIRTH OF THE GLOBAL WORLD AND THE CRISIS OF MODERNITY
1. INTEGRATION AND THE TRANSITIONS OF CIVILISATION
During its centuries-old existence, mankind has passed through many
stages. The uncivilised period lasted more than 100,000 years. The civilised
period has lasted for between 5-7 thousand years. his is a period which has
seen the realisation of the essence of humankind and consists of three major
stages. They are three epochs which are synonyms for the progressof
humanity. Three civilisations with distinct levels of progress. At the end
of the 20[th] century we are living through the final days of the
Third civilisation.
F
rom the first appearance of human society to the present day there has
been a constant growth in the mutual dependence of people, nations, their
customs and culture. The first manifestations of the human race, of tribes
and inter-tribal links, the first city-states show that throughout history,
from epoch to epoch mankind has become more and more integrated and the
people of the earth have become more and more dependent on each other. I am
not in a position to argue with anthropologists about the exact date when
human life began and since there are so many different criteria relating to
the transition between animals, humanoids and Homo Sapiens I consider this
discussion to be of little benefit. Evidently during the palaeolithic period
(about 100,000 years ago) man established his domination over the over forms
of life and began methodically to conquer nature. At some time between 70
and 40 thousand years B.C. man began to tend animals, to create stone
cutting implements and to form social relations which were untypical of
other types of animals.
In the late palaeolithic period human populations began to resettle
from Africa through Asia to the northern parts of America. I am not
convinced, however, that civilisation began from only one root disseminated
by ambulant migrants or primitive forms of transport. I am more inclined to
believe that in the earliest societies the spreading of the seeds of
civilisation was of secondary significance to the growth of local
civilisations in various regions of the world.
The first manifestations of civilisation or limited social relations
are not only to be found in Egypt or in Greece, nor are they the fruit of
only one root. Between 3000-2000 B.C. not only did the cultures of Egypt and
Mesopotamia begin to develop but also the culture of ancient India. During
the same period the cultures of the nations of the Andes, South America were
also in their ascent. Ancient Greece with its highly developed
manufacturing, culture and philosophy also flourished at the same time as
India. These phenomena can only be explained with the overall changes in the
natural environment and very possibly with the increased radioactivity of
the sun. Such a conclusion is very significant since it shows that human
civilisation appeared in different parts of the world establishing pluralism
and diversity as a natural law. In other words, the human race developed
from different natural and cultural roots at the same time and is moving
towards integration without destroying its diversity.
There is something else which has lead to the constant expansion of
communities and for people to seek answers to the problems caused by
integration. This something is the connection between the processes of
domination of man over nature and the process of integration itself. With
the expansion and development of transport, culture, manufacturing and
trade, our forebears began to realise that the fate of mankind is
indivisible from the processes of its expansion and integration. Over the
centuries, mankind dominated more and more new territories, populated more
and more regions of the world and subsequently linked these expanded
territories into unified systems.
There is a certain logic in the development of human life from its
earliest manifestations to the present day - that progress is indivisible
from the increase in human communities, from the growth in the compactness
of populations and the mutual dependence of people. Every historical epoch
confirms this conclusion - from the first signs of early civilisation in
modern Africa and the development of tribal communities, to the appearance
of cooperative grain farming in Eastern Asia and the appearance of the first
developed dynasties in Egypt and the Near East and the expansion of art in
the ancient world. The development of human integration has passed through
many different forms: tribal/warrior alliances and slave owning states,
imperial states combining religions and cultures. The overall trend has been
constant, each subsequent form of human civilisation is either greater than
the previous or more integrated and dependent on the environment in which it
exists.
There are two phenomena which clearly show this process:
The first is the population of the world. From its first appearance to
the present day mankind has been growing constantly: about 6,000,000 in 8000
B.C.; about 255 million in 1 A.D.; 460 million in 1500; 1.6 billion in 1900;
2.0 billion in 1930; 3.0 billion in 1960; 4.0 billion in 1975; 5.0 billion
in 1987 and over 6 billion in 1994.[(]
The second important phenomenon is communications. With the appearance
of human civilisation sounds and gestures then language and fire were the
main forms of communication. As society developed man began to develop more
intensive forms of communication. All the activities of man are directly or
indirectly linked with the development of new communications - roads, sea
and airways, all manner of forms of transport, postal links, telephones and
telegraphs, computers and optical fibres, satellite television.
Communications (transport, information exchange and processing) are the most
accurate bench mark for the development and progress of civilisation. There
is an obvious logic involved in this. Over the centuries people have been
building bridges between each other and have been using them to exchange the
fruits of their labour and to influence the world in which they live.
I consider that from the outset I shall have to draw a very obvious and
necessary conclusion: the further human society progresses, the more compact
and integrated human society becomes and the more nations and individuals
become dependent on each other. This is an incontrovertible law which we can
do little to stop. It is also clear that this is an element of the overall
development of the Earth and an accompaniment to the entire history of the
human race and the overall development of our planet.
This, perhaps, gives rise to the question whether economic development
and the general development of human civilisation has definable limits or
whether there are limits to the growth in world population. Will human
progress lead to the disappearance of the primary differences between races
and nations? Will mutually dependent human existence lead to new phenomena?
Will states disappear to be replaced by international communities? These are
questions which will have to be answered.
I believe that notwithstanding the cyclical nature of its development,
the human race will irreversibly and logically move towards a mutually
dependent and integrated existence and from there to constant structural
reformation. The main reason for this is that human progress is becoming
more and more profoundly dependent on nature and the unity of nature is in
its turn influencing the unity of life on earth. The unity of nature has
become transformed into a unity of independent social communities. Producing
and consuming, harvesting the oceans, the seas and the care of the earth and
space, people are beginning to find themselves living in a more integrated
community and are becoming dependent on each other. Individual processes of
production lead to general pollution. The exploitation of natural resources
has caused overall changes to the environment. The development of
communications has created a common environment for the transfer of
information.
It can be stated with confidence that the process of overall world
integration is universal. It includes manufacturing, culture and religion
and the processes of human thought. This process is directly connected with
the universal philosophical problem of the integrity and dialectical nature
of nature. There is no doubt that by revealing its diversity nature is
becoming more unified. However, any claimsof its absolute unity are as
absurd as claims of its extreme fragmentation.
When historical processes are in their initial stages and civilisations
are still poorly developed, they tend to reflect closely the conditions and
the specific nature of the local natural conditions with their climatic,
geographical and other particular features. People are born different, live
different lives and believe in different gods. In Africa people are born
black, in Europe - white, in America "red" and in the East "yellow". Today
these differences for the most part are disappearing. Races, cultures,
religions and values systems are merging. This is not because nature is
being outdone, but that its localisation is being outlived.
The closer people become to nature the more their lives, consciousness
and behaviour become dependent on the common essence of nature. Individual
and specific elements disappear to become merged in the common elements of
life. In my opinion this is the meaning and the dialectic of progress. In
order to defeat the lions and the wolves, man had to unite and to join
forces and ways of thinking, to build on what he has so far achieved in
order to make further progress. In this way, year after year, century after
century man conquered increasing areas of nature, reached its profound
depths, exploited its common natural resources - the earth, the forests, the
air and the water. These resources have been exploited for the same reasons
- that in order to make greater use of nature, it is necessary to use the
combined efforts of individual human resources. The opposite is also true,
the more we use nature, the more we become dependent (or place other people
in a position of dependence) on it.
This is the link between integration and progress, between integration
and civilisation. The entire existence of the human race shows that
integration is a constant process. Moreover, civilisations as forms of
organised social life are an expression and product of integration. When we
speak of civilisations, it should be noted that they do not coincide with
the five social and economic formations defined by Karl Marx or with the
three technological waves of A.Toffler. Marx divided world development into
five large "social structures" according to the forms of ownership. This was
an undoubted intellectual contribution but an artificial and unilateral
approach. The exclusive use of the criteria "forms of ownership" (Marx) or
"technology" (Toffler) or the criteria of "spiritual development" (Toynbee)
is misleading. The specific nature of the civilisation approach is in its
complexity, in the indivisible connection between economics, culture and
politics. This approach cannot absolutise either technology or property or
any other sphere of human activity. This excludes the possible creation of
artificial formations and social constructions in the aims of "progress"
being isolated within only one part of human existence. Civilisations cannot
be seen merely as branches which reflect one side or another of human life
but as a common cultural process. They are distinct in terms of the way of
life of the ancient peoples who lived in that part of the world and secondly
in terms of the differences in the historical epochs in the development of
humanity. Further on I shall return to the second of these aspects of the
definition of civilisation. This shall release me from the strictures of the
formational approach and the ideologisation of history. Such a method can be
used to show the graduality of transitions and to explain the general and
individual elements in the development of different parts of the world. To
this end I shall define civilisation as: 1. the common and connected levels
of human development; 2. the character of this development during the
various epochs of human existence. Civilisations are not divided one from
another on the basis of revolutionary acts, a change of monarch or president
or armed conflicts. "Civilisation", according the great historian A.Toynbee,
"is movement rather than condition; sailing and not the
harbour."[2]. For this reason, I consider civilisation to be the
common essence of human development and its different forms are the stages
of its development.
How many civilisations are there at the moment? Is it, indeed, correct
to speak of a multitude of different civilisations?
Civilisation[3] and civilised behaviour are a synonyms for the
human essence, something which makes man different from the animal world and
the fundamental role of man as a transformer, harmoniser and creator of
nature. This role is fundamental to the essence of humanity and also a
measure of its development. Civilisation springs from more than one source -
in the ancient world there were about 26 initial
civilisations[4], or seen in another way, 26 sources of the same
civilisation. It is possible that there were direct links between them as
well as exchanges of cultural achievements and information. Even if this was
the case this was not the most typical feature of their development.
The ancient peoples developed in different ways since they were
reflections of their different natural environments. They formed the basis
for the appearance of a particular natural species and created the
preconditions for a unified civilisation while programming its diversity.
The more ancient the civilisation, the greater the differences between them.
Despite this, the way in which they appeared, their primitive economic
relations and their state and political structures speak of common elements.
This is why I use the term ancient civilisations or ancient
civilisation. The Egyptians, the Assyrians Shumerians, Greeks, Indians,
Chinese, Romans, American Indians etc. differ greatly in terms of their
daily life, culture, the colour of their skin but have much in common in
terms of the level of their development, their means of manufacturing and
their state-political structures. The zenith of the ancient civilisations
was attained no doubt by the ancient Greek city states and Rome. However,
India at the time of the Mura dynasty (322-80 BC) was also very advanced.
Together with the achievements of the ancient Chinese, Koreans, Mongolians,
Vietnamese and American Indians, they made up the culture of the first
civilisation of the first great epoch of human development.
To use Marxist criteria, the First civilisation can be divided into two
strata: primitive communities and slave owning. I am not convinced that this
is useful. First of all for reasons of the semi-human (uncivilised)
existence of the primitive community and secondly for reasons of the
non-social links within one "social" structure. The first civilisation was
replete with a diversity of forms of ownership, cultures and mechanisms of
government. These were its specific elements and what made it distinct from
subsequent civilisations. In Europe the first civilisation was primarily
slave owning, but this was not the case in Asia. Frequently, slave ownership
was accompanied by other forms of administrative and economic compulsion.
Europe during the first civilisation was mainly patriarchal, while ancient
China was until the second millennium B.C. matriarchal. Only the
civilisation approach can serve to explain these differences and at the same
time determine find the common elements in the lives of our forebears.
What the First Civilisation has in common and makes it distinct is the
undoubted dependence of the people on primitive production tools, the use of
force and the enslavement of some nations by others and the formation of
imperial state structures and the maintenance of permanent aggressive
armies. The peoples of the First Civilisation left us the first examples of
large-scale art which exist today amongsts the ruins of the Cheops pyramid
and Mayan towns, in ancient Chinese and ancient Indian architecture. These
decorations of human civilisation are at first glance different from one
another but they also have a lot in common. The materials, their dependence
on the gods and the supernatural, the philosophy of human life with
new-found self confidence can be seen everywhere and show once again the
common elements of the First civilisation.
The First Civilisation can be considered to have begun at some time
between 4500 - 3500 B.C. and to have come to an end during the
3[rd] century A.D. It would not be wise to place strict and
absolute dividing lines between the civilisations or the era of human
development since they tend gradually to merge one into another. Certain
peoples at certain times have tended to lag behind during the time of
transition but then somehow seem to manage to catch up. During the
5[th] or 6[th] century A.D. the Second Civilisation
began as a result of the structural, social and industrial changes taking
place first in Asia and then in Europe. The Second Civilisation is
frequently linked with the Middle Ages. If the First Civilisation lasted for
between 4000 or 5000 years the Second lasted only 1000 years from the
5[th] to the 14[th]/15[th] centuries. Each
subsequent civilisation as an era in the development of humanity is shorter
than the one which precedes it. This is a consequence of the accelerated
rate of progress arising from the accumulated material benefits of previous
generations. A very typical feature of the Second Civilisation was the
feudal nature of its manufacturing industries. However, as a defining
feature this is neither adequate nor sufficiently universal. Another key
feature of the Second Civilisation was the huge mass resettlement of peoples
and the inter-mingling of diverse cultures. During the First Civilisation
the processes of integration were manifested in terms of the concentration
of people and power in the city states and empires. These were destroyed by
the Second Civilisation which persued a process of integration of cultures
through the violent intermixing of ethnic groups, traditions and religions.
Between 400 and 900 A.D. new peoples begin to enter the annals of world
history. Integration at this time was a byword for aggression. At one and
the same time, as if on command, the Ostgoths and Westgoths, Huns and Avars,
Tartars and Mongols, Proto-Bulgarians and Slavs, Turks and Arabs began to
search for new lands and dominions. Although the intermingling of cultures
via war and aggression leading to the resettlement of peoples it was a
significant quality of the Second Civilisation, I cannot agree that the
Middle Ages were exclusively a period of destruction, plague and
Inquisition. It was also a time of the powerful integration of cultures and
production, new achievements in learning and art. There are many examples of
this, beginning, perhaps, with the magnificent architectural achievements of
the Byzantines, e.g. the wondrous cathedral of St.Sofia (532-537) in
Istanbul. Other examples can be taken from West European art, which has left
us magnificent works from its three most creative periods - pre-Roman, Roman
and Gothic: the court cathedral of Charlemagne in Aachen (795-805), the
castle of the Gailleurs on the River Seine (12[th] century) and
innumerable Gothic cathedrals, including Notre Dame in Paris built between
the 12[th] and 13[th] centuries. The Second
Civilisation created abundant cultural riches in the Near East and the
Middle East, North Africa and Mauritanian Spain, India, China and Japan.
The Second Civilisation was a time of the further rapprochement of the
nations which had been divided during the First Civilisation. In the
5[th] century, Samarkand was the heartland of a powerful culture
and a bridge between the Chinese, Turks and Arabs. The masterpieces of
Chinese culture and paper manufacturing technology reached Europe through
Iran, Byzantium and Arab dominions. If during the period of the First
Civilisation, the Romans, Macedonians and Indian copied technology, arms
manufacturing and methods of animal husbandry from each other, then in the
Second Civilisation a standard method of measuring time was established. An
important event took place in 807 when Charles the Great received a water
clock from the Harun al Rashid from Baghdad leading to the subsequent
arrival of Chinese and Arab clocks in Europe. People from all over the world
learnt to tell the time simultaneously. This lead to the further
standardisation of the criteria of life and history. During this period the
Chinese Empire further developed the achievements of the Greeks and the