In his 1987 best selling book Thriving on Chaos, Tom Peters has this to say about chaos and uncertainty: ‘The winners of tomorrow will deal proactively with chaos, will look at the chaos per se as the source for market advantage, not as a problem to be got around.’ Ten years earlier, Ilya Prigogine won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for incorporating uncertainty in the fundamental laws of nature. Incorporating uncertainty in the laws of nature allows us to resolve the paradox between scientific knowledge—that leads to precise predictions about the state of the world—and our freedom to choose and innovate—which eliminates our ability to predict. Prigogine tells us that we can only predict within the time horizon of certainty.
What is true in the world of markets of Peters, and in the natural world of Prigogine, also holds true in the socio-political world we experience around us. When Samual P Huntington, in The Clash of Civilizations, rejected the hypothesis that the world is engaged simultaneously in a process of integration and fragmentation, he did away with the problem of uncertainty. We can not blame him, as he asserted correctly that this hypothesis would make it impossible to set forth the circumstances under which one trend would prevail over the other.
But what if the world is indeed engaged simultaneously in a continuous process of integration and fragmentation? Then predicting the state of the world is meaningful only as far as understanding the trends of integration and fragmentation at any given historic moment and within the time horizon of certainty. If it can be proved that we can not predict the financial markets, and it is also proved that we can not predict physical phenomena, then why should we expect to predict socio-economic phenomena? When asked by his friends ‘Which way will the markets move?’ the successful investor replied ‘The markets will move!’. Similarly, the astute foreign policy advisor should reply ‘The world will change’. (Although I would not recommend such a response if career advancement is a major consideration.)
So, then, what drives the world? What drives fragmentation and integration?
In great measure, fragmentation is driven by nationalism. That is, by the strong desire to organise our societies around a nation-state, a self governed sovereignty that has jurisdiction over the lives of a people of the same nation. And to which nation-state the people are willing to defer some of their freedoms in order to enhance their safety and well being. Nation-states want the national borders to encompass the whole nation. When two or more national groups co-exist in the same geographical location, then the nationalism of the one will conflict with the nationalism of the other. This had been the case in Cyprus. The nationalism of Greek Cypriots wanted a state of the whole Greek nation, and a way to achieve this was ‘enosis’, or union, of Cyprus with Greece. The nationalism of Turkish Cypriots wanted a separate state for Turkish Cypriots, and a way to achieve this was ‘taksim’ or separation.
Why wouldn’t either side prevail? Because the other force that shapes the world is integration. That is, the process through which nation-states come closer together in response to a changing world that make it increasingly difficult for nation-states to control the flow of money, ideas, technology, goods and people. State borders become increasingly permeable and nation states are suffering losses in sovereignty, functions and powers.
Nationalism is a strong force, because it satisfies our basic human needs for stability and security. In our nation-state we know who we are, we know with whom we deal, we understand those that have power over us. The forces of integration are also strong, as they give us better opportunities for growth and prosperity. But they also bring us uncertainty as we do not fully know any more with whom we will deal, we do not completely understand those that have power over us.
Are these two forces destined to clash? Or are the modern societies destined to shift smoothly between varying levels of fragmentation and integration?
The recent enlargement of the European Union provides an interesting test case to study the challenges for peaceful and creative coexistence of sovereign nation-states within a powerful supranational organisation. This enlargement is posing for us the major challenge of defining the European identity. We are called upon to embark on a process of self-realisation as European citizens. So that all those elements of the nation-states, that form the essence of the European identity are integrated, without being assimilated, within the whole of the community.
This is not an easy road. And it is a road, that in Cyprus we have failed to follow, filling with our failure many blood-stained pages in the history of our country. Leading some to argue that we could be providing, perhaps, a living example of Huntingdon’s ‘clash of civilizations’?
But the clash of civilizations is not a universal law of human nature or of social structures. It is a state of affairs that applies when some conditions fail to exist. It is not a law of human nature that to know ourselves we should ignore the others. Indeed, to know who we are we should also know who we are not. It is not a law of human nature that to love what we are, we should hate what we are not. Indeed, to love what we are, we should respect those who love what they are.
These truths are not self evident. They require capacity for complex thinking and the ability of recognising that both integration and fragmentation are features of the world, that both certainty and uncertainty are part of the human condition, and that both predictability and unpredictability characterise human lives.
And these opposing forces will clash when the universal values of tolerance, respect for the democratic process, and commitment to dialogue fail.
But these values are precisely the values of the scholar, of the perennial pursuer of truth. In no other part of the world has the failure of the university to cultivate these values been felt so strongly than in my home country. But then, we should remember, that in no other part of the world did society fail for so long to establish a university.
So, my message is twofold. First, I emphasise the role of universal values as the oil that smoothes the friction between the forces of integration and fragmentation. And second, I highlight the roles of the institutions of higher learning — such as the Academies and the Universities — in cultivating these values. Our ware is now more valuable than at any other point in the history of humankind. Because now it is not only the specific knowledge we generate that has value, but the very same process on which scientific discovery is based, the principles of scientific inquiry, have intrinsic value well beyond the walls of our ivory towers.
And if we fail?
Cyprus is now the easternmost part of the European Union. At the easternmost part of the island stands the Monastery of Apostolos Andreas. In the yard of the Monastery merchants are selling their products to visitors.
The Monastery, abandoned by a military administration that wants the island divided along ethnic and religious lines, is falling apart waiting in vain for the Christian pilgrims. The Muslim merchants are waiting in vain for the buyers.
The Monastery, and the merchants, are a grim reminder of the price of failure.
Stavros A Zenios is the Rector of the University of Cyprus and Senior Fellow of the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, USA. This article is based on the address he delivered to the International Symposium on Universal Value, Academy of Athens, May 26—28, 2004.
