INTRODUCTION

At the dawn of the 21st century, those areas known as `the West' seem set to end their relative hegemony which existed over the past five centuries. While some would see this as a natural and even positive development, a kind of extended decolonisation era perhaps, the consequences for the West are not yet clear. Along its outer rim of influence, such as in South Africa, where a microcosm of the North-South conflict has continued into the post-apartheid era, political developments have shown an inherent weakness and vulnerability which could be a realistic reflection of the changing geo-strategic and political setting of the West as a whole. The South African situation, viewed as a microcosm of this `clash of civilisations', may hold important lessons in this regard, not only for the West, but especially for a future South Africa. This article reflects on the receding Western influence amidst its changing values, the nature of intense conflict (i.e. war), the need to project power, and the discrepancies between true and perceived human costs.

THE CONDUCT OF WAR

War, as the ultimate means of projecting power, is a multi-dimensional concept not limited to the battlefield. It includes levels of intensity which range from subtle psychological subversion to bloody annihilation. There are certain myths about war, or at least its conduct, which are based upon a persistent oversimplification which stems from the fact that present-day Western society is the first in human history to experience five decades of relative `peace'. Wars fought during this period, were mostly of limited magnitude and usually so far from home that the civilian population remained free from direct involvement, free from physical and psychological exposure, but also free from gaining the experience required to be able to sit in judgement. In the absence of regular war, today's generations seem more critical of wars than their grandfathers, who experienced Dunkirk, Stalingrad and Normandy at first hand. Many aspects of war, though each unique in their own special horrors, have now become inconceivable to the broader, `Western' public. The normative, value-based distinctions between what is and what is not acceptable in the conduct of war have become blurred as the modern Western conceptual framework no longer has any relation to war as a first or even second hand experience. It is this which causes the mainly junior and certainly `unexperienced in war' journalists to incorrectly speak of "heavy artillery fire on Sarajevo", "artillery barrage on Grosny" or use terms such as "massacre" or "bloodbath" freely, even when these constitute gross exaggerations. There have simply been no experienced fathers to pass on to their sons the intricate details of combat. At the same time, sensationalism has become as much a part of Western society as fast food and the Internet. The resulting confusion is also visible in the extent to which the ability of any Western state to project power in the defence of its interests, has become a question of public support. For example, when comparing public reaction during the Vietnam and Falklands campaigns, the war of perceptions becomes the most difficult aspect in attempts to retain the capability to wage war at all. It is in such scenarios that misperceptions and often deliberate disinformation tend to replace the actual events. This partly explains how the Tet Offensive could become a "victory for the Vietnamese", when, in fact, it was a devastating defeat;<sup>1</sup> how apartheid could become the equivalent of the Holocaust and white conscripts turned into `apartheid soldiers', while East-Block aligned pro-Arab or Palestinian and PAC/ANC cadres, trained for the purpose of waging a terrorist campaign, received the moral, though militarily unjustified, promotion to "guerrilla" and "soldier". The epicentre of this confusion, with which one is confronted in the West, lies in the apparent sensitivity towards violence of any kind to the point where violence in order to combat the violence-prone has also become unacceptable. This perception thereby threatens the ability of states to provide security for its citizens² and the extent to which its citizens will volunteer to serve or contribute to the state's efforts to maintain their security by force.

Another dimension, perhaps more subtle in nature, extends into the perception field. With the advent of the `new South Africa', for example, the South African public is increasingly being introduced to a particular version of a past which, some would contend, constitutes the darkest era in South African history. The period from 1948-1994, so the story goes, deserves comparison to the `Holocaust' with an almost identical disregard for human rights, and by implication the same `unique' characteristics. Not only does this kind of argument suggest a somewhat limited knowledge of history, it also trivialises the true magnitude of the Holocaust's horrors to the point that its victims might be speechless in the face of such an unwarranted parallel. How could this perception become the generally accepted version, and to what extent is the outcome of conflicts involving Western nations increasingly determined by the so-called `war of perceptions'? How will this war of perceptions influence Western actions in future, if the East or any other grouping acts according to its own perceptions and how is a future South Africa influenced?

Having reached the level of urban legend, the events of the Holocaust, and to a lesser extent perhaps those of apartheid, are frequently declared or treated as if they are `unique' in their occurrence. The uniqueness seems more related to the relatively short absence of such practices in most of western Europe for the last two or three centuries, rather than a true uniqueness when compared to the rest of the world. Ancient and classical times saw war as a `normal' fact of life across most of the planet, periodic but consistently bloody, and generally accepted genocide to be one of its possible consequences. In Biblical times, the extermination of entire populations was not a rare occurrence, with Old Testament accounts of genocide being practised even by the Israelites, for example against the inhabitants of Jericho. Moses' treatment of the Midianites, sparing only the virgins and female children while massacring everyone else, would evoke condemnation today and almost certainly result in him being declared a `war criminal'.<sup>3</sup> Population transfers, the modern term being `ethnic cleansing', have also sometimes culminated in killing sprees and partial genocide, with almost no part of the globe being spared this phenomenon in one form or another.⁴ The Pax Romana era also saw punitive expeditions by the then `centre of civilisation' result in genocide, and rebellious Helvetians shared the fate of other Germanic tribes like the Kimbern, Teutons and Dacians, who were literally wiped off the face of the earth for challenging Rome.

The human cost of war changed little for the average person until the Peace of Westphalia in 1648, with pogroms and genocide taking turns along with the various special kinds of terror which each marauding army brought to almost every village, town and city. The rules of engagement made clear distinctions between combatant and non-combatant, but in practice would still probably disturb the modern observer in their chilling disregard for what are considered `human rights' today. As a result, the expectations among the civilian population of that time may also, by modern standards, have been comparatively modest. Since then, and with the dawn of the enlightenment age, war in the western world has arguably become increasingly humane for the individual, with the rules of engagement seeing a more or less consistent improvement of the chances for prisoners and civilians to avoid becoming the victims of random violence.

The exceptions to this apparent restraint, though limited predominantly to war between Western states or peoples, was the policy of genocide or de facto genocide employed by the British during the Anglo-Boer war (1899-1902) to force the Boer combatants to submit or else see their families perish in concentration camps,and later followed by the Nazi attempts to purge Germany and its occupied territories of so-called `racially undesirables'. The latter has evoked the disgust of most, and even present generations still learn the details of the Nazi ideology which could bring about such terror. Through its well-documented details, and the unique availability of audio-visual material en masse, the horror has been passed on to subsequent generations and has reinforced the contention that, in the absence of comparable footage on any other conflict, the Holocaust itself has been unique. To clarify this point, one may well ask why the quantitatively larger genocide practised by the regimes in the former Soviet Union, China, Cambodia, etc., has not received a comparable amount of coverage. The answer lies buried in the fact that they were never conquered, left no camps behind which were captured by advancing troops, no prisoners which were liberated, and certainly no monuments like Auschwitz to remind future generations of the deeds committed there. There are simply too few traces of the millions who died by the bullet or through neglect, in the former USSR or the killing fields in Cambodia, to challenge the Holocaust for first place on the podium of infamy. In addition, the ideological conflict which characterised most of the 20th century, provided much room for the Cold War `warriors' to amplify or down-play events selectively, depending on the value which a particular fact held within the war of perceptions, i.e. its propaganda value. The general flow of opinion and the contemporarily dominant morals in the West have traditionally been inclined to give the radical left the benefit of the doubt, while even moderately nationalist-oriented individuals and groups are more likely to be treated with suspicion and placed into the `right' or even `fascist' category of the political spectrum.

This view, as it affects non-Western regions, has only recently become challenged by images of Rwanda, although other cases of genocide, such as Biafra, have occurred sporadically throughout Africa. While some attribute much of the blame to the colonial boundaries, a point which certainly seems valid, others go a step further by drawing parallels with Europe's own occurrences of genocide.⁵ The problem with such an attempt at rationalising genocide in the developing world by leaning against European examples, is that they simply do not compare. Genocide in Europe in recent times, has had to be `hidden', and the facts of its occurrence disputed by the perpetrators, because it is not considered an acceptable practice by either friend or foe. To illustrate the extent to which this normative Western framework, culminating in modern humanism, has existed even prior to the end of World War Two can be seen by Van Crefeld's assertion that even the Holocaust had to take place in secret or would otherwise not have taken place at all.⁶ In the developing world, genocide does not, also for lack of infrastructure, take the shape of the Holocaust where a relatively small group of people involved themselves in a systematic extermination process.⁷ Here it is committed by communities against other communities, basically a St. Bartholemew's Night scenario of mass participation, leaving little room for subsequent reconciliation in the absence of ideologies or individuals which can be held responsible.8 In ethnic and religious conflict, particularly along the peripheral rim of development, community participation has been higher than in developed and more structured societies.⁹

Ironically, there is also little evidence in South Africa to warrant any comparison to the Holocaust, and yet many nevertheless seem to fail in resisting this particular temptation. There were no mass graves, though some spoke of Natal's `killing fields' when the graves of three MK operatives were found in March 1997, who had died during operations.<sup>10</sup> There were no extermination or concentration camps as there were during the Anglo-Boer War. In fact, the black population has consistently grown faster than that of the whites before, during, and after apartheid; there are remarkably healthy and vocal anti-apartheid personalities in senior positions in today's government and in civil society. It would seem highly questionable whether anti-apartheid activists, such as Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) chairperson, Desmond Tutu, Helen Suzman, and many others would be here today, or whether literally thousands of trade unionists, United Democratic Front (UDF) activists and others who were previously seen as `subversives' would have seen liberation day, if it had ever come at all, under a truly `fascist' or `Nazi' government. The standards of measurement would seem to have been adjusted since the 1940s or else the modern media use catch phrases to create specific perceptions, while ignoring facts.

THE WAR OF PERCEPTIONS

The reasons why the above comparisons are able to manifest themselves in the minds of the average person, are directly related to the extent to which the conflict has become a war of perceptions in modern times, whereby the support of people for a certain cause is determined by their exposure to the facts. Democratic and undemocratic states, though arguably the former to a far greater extent, have made considerable efforts to justify their actions, and can be said to depend on the approval of the population for the acceptable projection of power in the form of war.¹¹ Some would describe the effort which goes into this in terms of communicating `facts' to the specific audience and almost always these facts are highly selective and constitute the precise target of information as the `manufacture of consent'.¹² Much of this war of perceptions results in the creation of myths and fake atrocity stories, some of which are afterwards proven to be unfounded. To mention a few, one could start by pointing at the above-mentioned non-unique nature of the Holocaust and events in Cambodia or Russia when compared with one another. Others include:

Accusations of atrocities during the Gulf War were made when a fifteen-year old Kuwaiti girl testified before the United States Congress that Iraqi troops were killing premature babies and taking the incubators back to Iraq. The world was not told that she was the daughter of the Kuwaiti ambassador in Washington and that the Hill and Knowlton public relations firm stage-managed the performance on behalf of the Kuwaitis.¹³



The blame-culture myth related that the contact between Africans and Europeans resulted in the former being torn out of relative harmony and introduced to the ever-present threat of slavery. Prior to any European contact, an estimated 70-75 per cent of African males spent their lives in slavery, with the practice being widespread across the entire African continent. Sub-Saharan Africa's "killi" and "tegria" wars were "frequent and fought over the most frivolous provocations."¹⁴ In addition, some colonial powers dedicated much of their time and resources towards stamping out slavery, human sacrifice and cannibalism during and after the era of the `scramble for Africa'.¹⁵ The Ibo, ironically themselves the later victims of the Biafran genocide in 1970, faced a British punitive expedition in March 1902, because of their refusal to cease slave-raiding and the slaughter of new-born twins together with the torturing to death of the unfortunate mothers.¹⁶



The nature children myth declared the indigenous populations of Africa and the America's as well-meaning victims almost by default, not only of past European imperialism, but of a particular mean racist streak found in everything Europeans did and apparently still do. The indigenous population in its natural state was often wiped out by starvation, small-pox or other diseases and calamities, in advance of any direct contact with the European invaders, who themselves were quite unaware of the natural biological weapon they carried. This fact is often omitted when comparisons are made, for example between pre-Columbian and contemporary population figures.¹⁷ This is not to trivialise the atrocities committed by the conquerors, but merely to place into perspective the generally implied accusation of deliberate and consistent policies of genocide. In addition, the behaviour of the indigenous population does not live up to its reputation of the peace loving and harmonious pre-Columbian atmosphere of tolerance. Instead, some anthropologists consider the then Native American population to have been, together with the Polynesians, the cruellest humans in existence, defying the `noble savage' romanticism of that era, as well as the political correctness of it today.¹⁸ There are well-documented accounts of the disgust and fear which the Spanish Conquistadors, certainly not prudish themselves, experienced when they encountered the Aztec temples of human sacrifice, where blood-caked high priests lived in gore. The Spanish were literally convinced that they had arrived in hell.¹⁹ Cannibalism, though predominantly of a ritual nature, and torture were quite widespread among particularly the woods Indians of the Northeast,²⁰ doing little to improve their standing among the white population with which they were in contact.²¹ In short, neither side seemed to conduct itself better or worse, but in reality the Indians did not live up to their contemporary reputation, and were in fact generally warlike, a fact which is easily verifiable by the social structure of the tribes and the role which war and warrior status played in everyday life.

These are just a few of the well-known and widespread myths, and there are an abundance of them, which have also come to play a significant role in the contemporary North-South conflict. They help define heroes and villains in simplistic and trendy fashion, determined not as much by the knowledgeable, as by those who decide on the content of news bulletins. Furthermore, they serve to demonstrate how the myth-makers of society, often found in the communication field and seldom reluctant to apply the `gatekeeper' principle, replace empirical and scientific approaches to historic events with the convenience of political correctness. There are a number of problems with this kind of approach, even where it may be well-intended, namely:

To put things as they `should be' as opposed to how things `are', is to move away from reality and seems tantamount to the creation of a pseudo-reality comprised of what might be termed `fairy tales for grown-ups'. It threatens to replace clinical and critical analysis, based on rational criteria as close as humanly possible to objectivity, with subjective emotion-based wishful thinking.



By not having the full picture of past events, we are limited in our ability to predict and plan the future and our perceptions, not facts, will guide our actions and our interpretation of history creating a vicious but false circle.

THE RESULTS IN REAL LIFE

In view of this, one could argue that Western societies have already lost touch with reality to the point that they experience difficulty in understanding power and, importantly, the logic of violence.²² The entire social climate of Western civilisation, since the end of World War Two, has reflected an increasing antipathy towards violence and conflict, most visible in the changed attitudes towards capital and corporal punishment,²³ also bringing about a deep-rooted pacifism on an unprecedented scale.²⁴ It is increasingly widespread that political blunders, such as the handling of the crisis in the former Yugoslavia, are rooted in decision-making based on ethically and politically defendable or `safe' considerations, made at the expense of the pursued objectives, and frequently bringing about greater, though unintended carnage. While the intention is almost always guaranteed to be `good', the result can be more detrimental than ever expected, causing unavoidable parallels with Chamberlain's pre-World War Two policy of `appeasement'. In the case of the Srbrenica, for example, where both the Dutch ground forces and the apparent paralysis of the command and control structures of the international community signalled weakness, these resulted in provoking predatory behaviour on the part of the violence-prone. The reasons can be found in the relative absence of `civilisation disease' among inhabitants in that part of the world, allowing the underlying and instinctive understanding of what power actually is, to prevail. Neither the advancing Serbs, nor the terrified Muslim population of Srbrenica had any illusions about what was to happen. Only the Westerners seemed to submit to self-delusional thinking, because to them the subsequent events were fundamentally inconceivable, causing reluctance to launch air strikes or defend the civilians even with the limited resources available. A convincing demonstration of the will to defend the civilians, something almost any Western army of the past would have done out of, what are subsequently perhaps outdated matters of principle and honour, was notably absent in the desire of the Dutch forces to disengage and save their own lives. Even if the Dutch commander had decided to fight, and thereby lived up to his mission of protecting the `safe haven', it would have remained questionable whether the modern value systems of the average Dutch soldier would have resulted in obedience to such an order, if it meant risking death. Having seen other embarrassing examples of humiliating boldness, mostly on the part of the Serbs, and having seen almost no deterrent to their actions prior to US deployment, one may get the impression that the instincts and logic so essential in the retention of the ability to project power, have become erased from the hearts and minds of many Western states, including both military and political institutions.

Even US deployment, with its high-tech, super power status and globo-cop capabilities, should not necessarily be seen as a guarantee for successful conflict management, containment or the enforcing of Western standards, a point which the Somalia experience has demonstrated. The political considerations involved in not deploying tanks, which the ground commander had in fact requested, outweighed the needs of the forces on the ground. The sacrifice, in terms of dead and injured, seemed particularly futile in the face of a subsequent withdrawal which sent out a specific message to warlords throughout the world, besides adding another failure to the list. It is now common knowledge in Iran, Lebanon, Haiti, Somalia and Saudi Arabia that the perimeter of the world's remaining super power, and its civilisational allies, is both increasingly porous and steadily receding. The days are gone when caravans, ships and diplomatic missions were almost entirely safe from attack by merely flying the flag of a Western country.²⁵ No longer do the perpetrators of international terrorism need to fear immediate and massive retaliation in view of one or any combination of the factors mentioned here, which influence and indeed could be argued to serve as an impediment to Western capabilities to protect those interests that are deemed vital. The word is out that determined attacks against Western military outposts, whether in Somalia or Saudi Arabia, do not automatically meet with equally determined political resolve to seek and destroy the source of the attack. This reluctance is in part facilitating the return of pre-modern anarchic practices which in their contemporary version constitute symptoms of decline, such as a modern resurgence of piracy, slavery and de facto feudalism (warlords) in the darker alleys of the `global village'. The primarily economic considerations of the developed world and the moral fabric of its societies seem focused on the perceived material benefits of `globalisation' to the point that they promote their vision of the world without even considering the possibility that others might not share their enthusiasm or conviction.

Certainly, the psychological make-up of the citizens of the Far East, or of Muslim fundamentalists or of African ethnic groups, is very different to that of the West. Most importantly, if any group of perpetrators used violence against innocent South African citizens or interests, what reaction could they expect, and how does this reflect the actions of the South African Government against violent criminal action in the country today?

THE ABILITY TO JUDGE

Because Western society seems no longer able to clearly distinguish and differentiate between levels and degrees of violence, justice and retaliation, there appears to be an increasing inability to judge a situation with the necessary realism and contextual clarity provided by what used to be regarded as `common sense'.<sup>26</sup> The criticism against apartheid South Africa, for example, seems to have been out of proportion with world events elsewhere. It remains a small miracle of `perception management' that allowed South Africa to become the pariah of the international community, when in terms of human rights, the world was a rough neighbourhood indeed. How tear-gassing rioters in South African townships when the Iraqis used poison gas in Kurdistan, baton-charging students in Cape Town when the Chinese drove over pro-democracy students with tanks in Tiananmen square, building fences to keep people out while the former East block built fences to keep people in, etc., could warrant the reaction which culminated in international sanctions, boycotts and finally the TRC, seems difficult to grasp. What seems ironic, and subject to power-related factors, is that the West's commitment to end apartheid has not been repeated in other instances of human rights issues, e.g. China and Iran, nor is it currently rewarded. Instead, the South African Government has pursued a policy of realignment which has included controversial deals and closer ties with states like Libya and Cuba.

Misjudging or judging the reaction of people according to Western norms, particularly though not exclusively in the developing world, e.g. Africa, has been a characteristic of Western policies since the era of colonisation and subsequent de-colonisation. It is not the loss of the colonial hegemony alone that should be mourned, but the persistent cost in human lives, because post-colonial sub-Saharan Africa is and remains a place of endemic violence, military dictatorships and one-party states. Unlike the European experience, there has been a notable absence of efforts towards democratisation in the Western sense. The rise of African resistance groups has shown a trend towards replacing one despot and tyrant with another. As a result of this persistent trend, the idea is growing that the concept `democracy' is neither understood nor respected in Africa in the way it is in contemporary Europe, where it has come to achieve popularity more than two thousand years after Greek civilisation entertained the idea.

The world witnessed Mobuto Sese Seko's 1996 return to a turbulent Zaire, marked by jubilation among the masses welcoming him back, while the persistent 1997 victories of the rebel movement led by Kabila, caused enthusiasm to swing to the latter, primarily because he seemed likely to win the war and was seen to be carrying the bigger stick. It had little to do with the moral fibre of either man and the political ideology subscribed to by their movements. It seems inconceivable to Westerners that the value systems of people in less developed countries might differ fundamentally from their own, to the extent that the Saddam Husseins, Fidel Castros, Farah Aideeds, and Muhammar Gadaffis of this world are regarded as legitimate leaders by the people they effectively govern, even though they can safely be accused of being undemocratic by Western standards. This has resulted in past policy decisions which may prove to have been errors of judgement in future, as the global balance of power gradually tilts against the West and limits their ability to send troops to every hotbed of ethnic and tribal clashes in the world. In addition, the ability to finance such seemingly noble operations seems set to offer some restraint from Western over-extension of their values in the future.

Apart from the Western ignorance displayed towards the existence of incompatible value systems in other parts of the world, and military blunders as a result of such misperceptions, there is a third dimension of `civilisation disease' which needs to be considered. This is the issue of humanitarian assistance to war-torn areas prior to the cessation of hostilities. While the heart-breaking images of the innocent victims of war usually precede generous contributions by the international community, their real value is more a matter of soothing the conscience than helping to resolve the plight of the innocent. Providing supplies to war zones before substantial peace is guaranteed invariably leaves the donors with one of two choices, namely:

to follow humanitarian assistance with military intervention in order to secure the supplies from marauding combatants; or



to accept that combatants rely on their own food supply being secured through regular self-help from UN convoys.

Opting for too early deployment of humanitarian aid may even prolong war by taking away the basic incentives for making peace. Through the ensured presence of a reliable medical and regular food supply to the area, the combatant can go about his violent business and rest assured that both he and his family enjoy the benefits which, particularly in Africa, even in times of peace, he may not have access to. The achievement of peace may therefore be postponed because:

the withdrawal or cessation of foreign humanitarian aid is a logical, and possibly unwanted, consequence of peace, having created a de facto dependence on war in order to obtain what are often, by developing world standards, considered to be `luxury' goods which otherwise would require considerable effort or even be impossible to obtain; and



the impact of battle fatigue is postponed, as casualties are provided with access to medical care and the presence of internationally sponsored medical facilities becomes part of the psychological logistic inventory of the combatant. The combatant becomes aware that wounds obtained in combat may no longer necessarily result in death. Reducing the number of fatalities among combatants, in turn, can be expected to extend their durability as past wars have seen a decline in the willingness to continue fighting once the number of battlefield fatalities exceed a certain point in relation to surviving combatants.²⁷ In developing world environments, this should also perhaps be viewed in the historical context where an additional dimension other than tegria saw pre-firearm primitive combat with relatively low casualties when extermination or forced incorporation was not a military objective. With the proliferation of small arms, the destructive capability became substantially enhanced.

In summary, the ability of the West to judge has become impaired over time and those with good intentions rarely see the medium, let alone the long term consequences of their actions. Policy decisions are neither rational nor sufficiently tested for possible implications. Somalia, Rwanda and Yugoslavia appear to be the subjects of an entirely normative debate, causing many Western countries to lose track of the real historic, strategic, foreign policy, own advantage or interests issues, because it becomes consistently difficult not to confuse symptoms with causes. One notable example is the continued inclination among significant parts of the opinion-making media to attribute the phenomenon of nationalism to the fragmentation of the former Yugoslavia and the bloodshed this involved, whereas nationalism has been a symptom and not a cause. The real causes lay within the forced integration of fundamentally incompatible ethno-cultural units, made possible only through the presence of a totalitarian regime which lasted for almost half a century.

FUTURE WARS

Wars of the future, just as wars of the past, will have resource scarcity as a main cause. What is different though, is the intensity of both the scarcity and the competition for the resources. Overpopulation and over-utilisation of existing resources in the developing world has intensified competition, put populations into motion and caused neighbouring populations, faced with hungry masses encroaching on their territory, to react violently. In 1983, in the Indian village of Nellie in Assam, members of the Lalung tribe went on the rampage, killing 1 700 Bengali migrants in five hours of violence. The Lalung accused the migrants of stealing the most valuable farmland in the area, since they slowly migrated into the region after land shortages and sporadic floods pushed them out of Bangladesh, where the population is 130 million on an area the size of Bavaria. This amounts to 785 people per square kilometre, while the neighbouring Assam has an average of 284 people per square kilometre. The population of Bangladesh is expected to grow to 235 million by the year 2025. Hence the migration, which is believed to have expanded the population of neighbouring Indian states by 15 million, and has resulted in particular social changes, has altered land distribution and the economic power between religious and ethnic groups.²⁸ Based on this example, which is only one of many, there can be little doubt among those who have experienced the nature of conflict on the developmental periphery of the world, that wars of resources will be fought less on a structural (i.e. state) level than on an informal, almost anarchic, ethnic one. Based on the experience of war since its earliest documentation, there has been a notable flow of conflict from the periphery of development to its core, from the `have nots' to the `haves'.²⁹ This age-old flow is unlikely to change and also seems to be reflected in the North-South conflict, where:

Political antagonism and migration patterns suggest that Western countries are increasingly targeted by those who are convinced that they are owed something, a notable difference from the perceptions of citizens of these countries. The question of whether it has to be "the rest against the West"³⁰ seems to warrant an affirmative answer, given that political anti-western ganging-up in the United Nations on straightforward human rights issues, such as the shooting down of civilian aircraft by Cuba, is matched only by the consistent flow of people to the shores of developed countries which can ill afford the additional burden of generally less developed and less productive people who subscribe to a culture of entitlement based on the colonial past. It is furthermore culture which determines the way in which almost all human activity economic, social, political, etc. is conducted. To quote Fukuyama, "[o]ne need look no further than the recent performance of Vietnamese immigrants in the US school system when compared to their black and Hispanic class mates to realise that culture and consciousness are absolutely crucial to explain not only economic behaviour but virtually every other important aspect of life as well."³¹

It is also culture, with the emphasis on religion, which Huntington has identified as the "fault lines" between civilisations.³² His critics point out that his view seems contradicted in some instances where loyalties of warring factions are not determined by religion. This is true, and the instances mentioned indicate that ethnic allegiances transcend religious differences in times of crises, thereby supporting the contention that the wars of the future will be predominantly ethnic in nature. It also seems to suggest that they, in doing so, threaten to break the rules of political correctness with impunity, leaving political philosophers who base their perceptions on Western reasoning, helpless against the primordial and emotion-based reality of ethnic revival and the marginalisation of ideology.

Culture within its largest and most tangible unit the ethnic group will determine the survival of people and nations in the next century. Those who pursue deterministic materialism in the form of radical globalisation at the expense of the cultural breathing-space and political expression of ethnic groups, risk losing the basic preconditions of the market economy, namely stability and democracy. To argue that the market will also determine the fate of nations, most visible in the liberalisation of immigration laws and the movement of cheap third world labour onto the European and American labour market, seems high-risk and borders on the irresponsible. The political implications are clearly not always seriously considered in terms of creating minorities which will grow and increasingly compete with the indigenous population for jobs, housing, social benefits, and doing so first and foremost in pursuit of their own interests by those who fail to see the dangers involved, but instead propagate the culture of non-violence and human rights for all. Failing to understand that economics are still subordinate to the economic behaviour of the people involved, which in turn is essentially culture-specific and value-based, is inclined to revenge itself in a turbulent revival of ethno-nationalism in defence of what is considered to be the cultural survival of the group.



There is a diminishing ability to project power into those parts of the world which experience signs of re-emerging feudal-like regional power clusters, e.g. the warlords of Somalia and large parts of Africa which remain states only shown on maps. One is faced here with increasingly anarchic conditions in Africa,³³ together with a growing conflict potential in the Middle East. The former poses an environmental and migrational demographic challenge, threatening both Europe and the US with slow Africanisation, while the latter is related to the proliferation of nuclear weapons and religious radicalisation and fundamentalism. With regard to the first challenge, proponents of a `melting pot' approach are faced with fundamental, far-reaching, and probably unintended socio-economic, as well as political consequences for their own countries. With regard to the second, the ability to prevent the proliferation of arms of any kind has seen little success in world history, and concerns have already been raised about the impact that the flow of nuclear technology from the former Soviet Union can generate. In real-political terms, this means that the likelihood of any regional strongman state in the Middle East, or anywhere else for that matter, to allow itself to be `Desert Stormed' in future is growing increasingly remote.³⁴ In fact, Opration Desert Storm may have been the last occasion where Western powers have used their military might against an ethnically different nation while retaining their own populations' support. For once, the perceptions of the Western populations allowed the use of force, albeit limited force.

In the face of rapidly growing developing world and simultaneously shrinking populations in the developed world where in the latter, to start a family is often considered `stressful' and seen as tantamount to sacrifice materialistic benefits<sup>35</sup> the resulting growth in terms of needs is faced by a predictably shrinking ability on the part of donor countries to provide. To assume that this inability will be met with understanding and an adjustment of expectations on the part of the recipients of assistance seems naive and contrary to the historic experiences of other civilisations. The culture of entitlement is inclined to evolve along the peripheral rim of development and tends to move towards the core, aiming at the fulfilment of expectations. Proponents of such a culture have also shown a willingness to advance this objective with all the means at their disposal, often culminating in violence and even the destruction of the said core. This phenomenon epitomises the so-called `North-South' conflict, with evidence of strong parallels to the fall of Rome. Homer-Dixon's assertion that, "economic decline may corrode confidence in the national purpose, weaken the tax base, and undermine financial, legal, and political institutions; and mass migrations into the region may disrupt labour markets, shift class relations and upset the traditional balance of economic and political authority between ethnic groups",³⁶ could well be said to summarise the position of the West, with regard to its already existing non-Western minorities, as well as those still headed there from the periphery.

CONCLUSION

In the final analysis, the war of perceptions is being lost by the West through the manifestation of an almost masochistic guilt-culture, also deeply rooted in mainstream modern Christianity, which has failed to examine itself within the context of its past. While history can both be unfair and judge harshly, the surging African population must be acknowledged as much as a product of colonialism, as are the arbitrary, unjust, and troublesome boundaries of the continent. Nor has the West's conduct during its five centuries of expansionism been void of atrocities, as the size of the indigenous populations in other parts of the `new world' bears sad testimony to. However, there has also been an indisputable restraint associated with `civilised' behaviour. No matter how many instances of misconduct are listed, from a modern perspective and the unfair advantage of hindsight, the very fact that they are listed in the first place and elicit criticism from within the civilised sphere, suggests a collective self-criticism seldom found among other non-Western cultures. This, along with other normative aspects prevalent in Western societies, makes it unique, as well as generally open and tolerant.³⁷

What is the lesson for a future South Africa facing its destiny in Africa? The West has long since developed beyond the phases of predatory nationalism, colonialism, and expansionism. Together with the shift in the centre of economic development towards the East, this is making way for a new era which calls for prudence and caution. For the West to survive the challenges of the next century, it needs to maintain some capability to project power in order to protect those interests which it regards as vital. To do so, and retain the support of its population, conscript armies are inadequate in so far as they represent a cross-section of the population which in turn makes them vulnerable to political mood swings and sensitivity among a modern population which nowadays seldom has more than one son to lose. Unlike previous wars, the nuclear family also seems to reduce the ability of states to wage war in a more general sense, and holds obvious implications in that it lowers the `pain threshold' among people considerably. This, together with the moral dilemmas often provided by `civilisation disease', create a situation of potential paralyses, where nuclear super powers ironically can become (perhaps already are) vulnerable to the `needle pricks' of international terrorism, religious fundamentalism, as well as the de facto imperialism of the `have nots' in the shape of territorial annexation through migratory occupation wherein the demographic realities directly impact over time upon the geopolitical setting. Examples of this are visible throughout the developed world: the Algerians who live in France but do not feel as French as they were initially expected to; the Kurds in Germany who demonstrate how migration also invariably includes the transfer of conflict, both in terms of causes and methods; or the substantial African minority which makes parts of London no-go areas to white policemen and paints the road signs in Rastafarian colours to demarcate `their' territory.³⁸

In fact, the loss of relative homogeneity in Europe may well become deeply mourned in the not too distant future, when the fault lines of Huntington's "clash of civilisations" no longer run along the shores of the Mediterranean, the Urals and the Caucasus, but through Kreuzberg and Brixton. It is here that foreign policy may increasingly also become a matter of internal stability, when projecting power elsewhere in the world also places the lives and property of both political and military personnel and installations at risk on a magnitude unknown even in the days of ideological conflict. Westerners and South Africans seem set to be reminded that they are still subject to nature and, as Phillip Randolph remarked, "[a]t the banquet table of nature there are no reserved seats. You get what you can take. You keep what you can hold."³⁹

ENDNOTES

D Oberdorfer, Tet as the First Big Event, in J N Moore (ed.), The Vietnam Debate A Fresh Look at the Arguments, University Press of America, Maryland, 1990, pp. 265-269.



J D Davidson & W Rees-Mogg, The Great Reckoning, Pan Publishing, London, 1992, p. 64.



M van Crefeld, The Transfromation of War, The Free Press, New York, 1991.



A Bell-Fialkoff, A Brief History of Ethnic-cleansing, Foreign Affairs, Summer 1993, pp. 111-115.



A Desthexe, Rwanda and Genocide in the Twentieth Century, Pluto Press, London, 1995.



Van Crefeld, op. cit., pp. 171-172.



Van Creveld points at a number of marginalising social consequences for those actively involved in the Holocaust. The Einsatzgruppen were primarily comprised of sadists, criminals and other asocial and anti-social individuals. Ordinary soldiers referred to these, as their operational tasks became known, as Judenhelden. Transfer to such a unit was also used as a form of punishment or to avoid more severe sentencing by court martial. Finally, the level of resentment seemed underlined by the fact that the Auschwitz commander later testified that even his wife stopped sleeping with him once she learned what the function of the camp really was. All these aspects underline the fact that it was not possible even for the Nazis to ignore the fact that the Western moral conceptual framework rejected genocide as an acceptable measure.



In cases where community participation is high, e.g. in Rwanda, Western observers are increasingly forced to accept that `forgiving and forgetting' is impossible. Deep-seated antagonism developed over long periods of time is not easily overcome when certain limits to violence have been overstepped, e.g. the Serbian and Croatian hatreds which have proven to be durable over generations.



See also F Keane, No Forgetting, No Forgiving, Time, 14 April 1997.



There will almost certainly be more discoveries, as apartheid security force policy was to bury Umkhonto we Sizwe operatives killed in shoot-outs at undisclosed locations in order to avoid political `accelerators' and monuments for the `struggle'. This is not an unusual counter-insurgency practice.



The support for war tends to diminish with time. However, the cultural setting, attitudes, perceptions and value systems influence the ability of societies for sustained military efforts. The mentality stemming from a combination of such factors can cause discrepancies in military performance. The German army of World War One, though having collapsed to a large extent by the end of 1918, performed longer under severe exposure to casualties and hardship without cracking than its Allied counter-parts; see J Keegan, The Face of Battle, Pimlico Publishers, London, 1996, p. 271.



N Chomsky & E S Herman, Manufacturing Consent The Political Economy of the Mass Media, Vintage Press, New York, 1994.



A Toffler, War and Anti-war, Bantam Books, New York, 1993.



Davidson & Rees-Mogg, op. cit.



At the turn of the century, the British launched several military operations into the more remote regions of West Africa for that very purpose, encountering numerous scenes of mass sacrifice, crucifixion, massacre and ritual cannibalism; see L James, The Savage Wars, Robert Hale, London, 1985, pp. 121-124.



Ibid., p. 124.



A W Eckert, That Dark and Bloody River, Bantam Books, New York, 1995, p. 11.



J Keegan, The History of Warfare, Random House, London, 1993, pp. 106-107.



British troops were equally shocked by what they often faced in Africa, e.g. the Benin campaign. The conduct of war throughout Africa before, during and after colonialism, has apparently not changed much in terms of savagery. The level of cruelty sometimes experienced became so intolerable that British troops were seen to open fire on allied Massai tribesmen because these could not be otherwise dissuaded from butchering the non-combatants of the opposing side en masse; see James, op. cit., pp. 121-124).



Steve Bruce writes about the realities of that era saying, "[s]urrender to Indians was the Whiteman's nightmare in the 18th century. Indians were notorious for breaking their word and harming their captives after surrender." Historian, John Keegan writes in discussing the anthropological evidence, "[t]here is a cruelty in warfare of some pre-Columbian peoples of North and Central America that has no parallel elsewhere in the world." See Keegan, 1993, op. cit., p. 106.



Eckert, op. cit.



Davidson & Rees-Mogg, op. cit., pp. 34-35.



Keegan, op. cit., p. 319.



It is notable, and possibly ironic, that the stability which Western civilisation has enjoyed in the second part of this century, largely as a result of the fact that others sacrificed in order to bring down National Socialism and contain Communism, provided the opportunity for this kind of pacifism to evolve. Pacifism is almost unknown in societies where borders, property rights, and food supplies are not secured by a state and its institutions. In short, it is questionable whether pacifists could survive without the very instruments of state power which they so often despise or refuse to serve in.



Davidson & Rees-Mogg, op. cit., p. 248.



In this regard, the death of Belgian paratroopers in Rwanda may serve as an example. Accepting the offer of surrendering their weapons in order to be spared death seemed to be based on the assumption that European values would prevail and almost certainly did not include the scenario of being tortured to death and literally torn to pieces in the process, as indeed happened.



Keegan, 1996, op. cit., p. 271.



J H Boutwell, T F Homer-Dixon & G W Rathjens, Environmental Change and Violent Conflict, Scientific American, February 1993, p. 18.



Keegan, 1993, op. cit., p. 75.



M Connely & P Kennedy, Must It Be the Rest Against the West?, The Atlantic Monthly, December 1994.



F Fukuyama, The End of History?, The National Interest, Summer 1989, p. 7.



S P Huntington, The Clash of Civilisations, Foreign Affairs, Summer 1993, p. 55.



R Kaplan, The Coming Anarchy, The Atlantic Monthly, August 1993, pp. 44-46.



C S Gray, The Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, paper read at the International Summer Course, Christian Albrechts University, Kiel, July 1995, p. 2.



Focus, 24 March 1997, p. 144.



T F Homer-Dixon, Environmental Change and Acute Conflict, International Security, 1991, p. 98.



S P Huntington, The West Unique not Universal, Foreign Affairs, January/February 1997, pp. 33-34.



Certain black areas have their milk delivered in plastic bottles or cartons in order to prevent the accumulation of glass bottles which could potentially serve as molotov cocktails.



Davidson & Rees-Mogg, op. cit., p. 52.