History Continues: Three Models of the Continuation of History

311 Pages·2022·5.38 MB·English

by  Sabri Kiçmari

History Continues
Three Models of the Continuation of
History
Sabri Kiçmari
History Continues
Sabri Kiçmari
History Continues
Three Models of the Continuation of History
Sabri Kiçmari
Embassy of the Republic of Kosovo
in Japan
Tokyo, Japan
ISBN 978-981-19-8401-3 ISBN 978-981-19-8402-0 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-8402-0
© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer
Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023
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Contents
1 Introduction 1
References 4
2 History Continues 5
2.1 Fukuyama’s Theoretical Intertwining with Kant,
Hegel and Marx 5
2.2 The Struggle for Recognition 7
2.3 The First Man and the Last Man 8
2.4 Christianity, Islamism and Protestantism 9
2.5 Democracy 10
References 14
3 The Totalitarianism of the Twentieth Century: Nazi
Fascism and Communism 15
3.1 Nazi Fascism 20
3.2 Communism 22
References 29
4 Fukuyama in the Vortex of Theories of International
Relations 31
References 34
v
vi CONTENTS
5 Ultra-Nationalism as a Model of Continuation
of the History 35
5.1 Russian Ultranationalism 38
5.1.1 Russian Empire and Russian Expansion 38
5.1.2 Attacks Against Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia 43
5.1.3 Ideological Concepts of Russian
Ultra-Nationalism 45
5.1.4 Putinism 47
5.1.5 The Wars Against Georgia, Chechnya
and Transnistria 67
5.1.6 The War in Ukraine 71
5.1.7 Covid 19 in Russia 75
5.2 Serbian Ultra-Nationalism 77
References 81
6 Islamic Fundamentalism as a Model of Continuation
of the History 87
6.1 Political Islam and Islamic Fundamentalism 88
6.2 Iranian Islamic Fundamentalism 102
6.2.1 Khomeinism and Homo Islamicus 103
6.2.2 The Islamic Fundamentalist System in Iran 112
6.2.3 Human Rights in Iran 127
6.2.4 COVID-19 in Iran 139
6.3 Al Qaeda 141
6.4 Daesh—ISIS 146
6.5 The Future of Relations Between Islam and the West 160
References 162
7 Chinese Socialism as a Model of the Continuation
of the History 171
7.1 The Foundation and Development of Authoritarianism
in China 173
7.2 Chinese Maoist Worldview 183
7.3 Socialism with Chinsese Charateristics 190
7.4 Human Rights in China 202
7.5 National Communities in China 217
7.6 Nationalism and the Idea of Uniting the Chinese
Nation 225
7.7 The Concept of “Asian Values” and China’s Relations
with Other Countries 237
CONTENTS vii
7.8 Covid-19 in China 244
7.9 China’s Way to the Future 248
References 250
8 Conclusion 261
References 269
Bibliography 271
Index 299
CHAPTER 1
Introduction
In the summer of 1989, the American political scientist Francis Fukuyama
published his famous essay “The End of History?” in the prestigious
American magazine “The National Interest”. As the esteemed reader may
notice, the question mark is put behind the title of the essay. Three years
later, he published his book “The End of History and the Last Man.”
There was no longer a question mark in the title of his book. Between
the summer of 1989 and 1992 developments took place which testifies to
the accuracy of Fukuyama’s thesis as presented in his article. The removal
of the question mark in the book reflects the developments three years
after the publication of the article.
Fukuyama’s article was published too late to warn about the beginning
of the communist fallout in the USSR and Eastern Europe. Fukuyama
himself does not see himself as a “warner”. He even writes that the
collapse of communism was almost completely unforeseen (Fukuyama
2006).
The titles of the five parts of the book “The End of History and the
Last Man” are more of a journalistic nature than a scientific one. This also
characterizes the titles of the chapters. It seems that Fukuyama intended
to make the book more popular through titles. Despite the titles, the
content of the text has a genuinely scientific and philosophical nature.
Fukuyama’s book displays an extraordinary flair for investigating and
describing contemporary social developments. What he achieves through
© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature 1
Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023
S. Kiçmari, History Continues
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-8402-0_1
2 S. KIÇMARI
this book is the return of the teleological writing of history. And with
this, Fukuyama’s book takes place in the history of contemporary political
philosophy.
Fukuyama proclaims the ideological victory of liberal democracy and
the free market system over monarchy, fascism, and communism. He
concludes in his article in 1989: “The end of history will be a very
sad time. The struggle for recognition, the willingness to risk one’s life
for a purely abstract goal, the worldwide ideological struggle that called
forth daring, courage, imagination, and idealism, will be replaced by
economic calculation, the endless solving of technical problems, environ-
mental concerns, and the satisfaction of sophisticated consumer demands.
In the post-historical period, there will be neither art nor philosophy, just
the perpetual care taking of the museum of human history” (Fukuyama
1989: 17).
In an article published five years later, Fukuyama responds to his critics
that the notion of the End of History is fundamentally normative rather
than descriptive. The End of History is not defined by the short-run
unfolding of contingent events, but by its normative nature. “If the ques-
tion is asked “Have the events of the past few years (the Gulf War, Bosnia,
Somalia and so on) made you rethink the hypothesis?” the answer is
obviously no… Fascism may be winning politically in Serbia, but no one
(even, I would guess, in Belgrade) sees Serbia as an attractive generalizable
model for the future” (Fukuyama 1995: 27–43).
Fukuyama’s thesis about “the end of history” is controversial. This
phrase, as he says, is not his own, but is sourced from Hegel and Marx. In
fact, in both Hegel’s and Marx’s concepts, the phrase refers to the end of
history as an ideology, brought about by the most advanced version of the
state system. Hegel and Marx believed in the process of history, in which
“ideas could be concretized only in a complex of dialectical movement”
(Arendt 2002: 328). Their theses were misunderstood and misinterpreted
by Nazi fascism and communism, organizing crowds with the deception
that anyone could become an actor in the realization of the ideal.
The hermeneutic method is used for the analysis of the Theory of the
End of History. This method is a systematic and practical way of under-
standing history in a reflective manner. Hermeneutic is a comprehensive
understanding method (Veraart and Wimmer 2008). To achieve the goal
of the analysis of the Theory of Fukuyama it was a need for an explanation
of the understanding of the history by Hegel, Marx and Kojève, which
are based on the hermeneutic methods of description, understanding
1 INTRODUCTION 3
and explanation (Denzing 2009). The hermeneutic method focuses on
describing the main concepts of Fukuyama, taking into account their
political, ideological, economic and cultural frameworks. The conclusions
that can be drawn from the described method previously considered the
analytical basis of the phenomenon of history.
The hermeneutic method is very suitable for understanding and
explaining Fukuyama’s theses about the “End of History” in a reflexive
way. It is a good framework for explaining phenomena in international
relations. The central principle of our methodological processing is the
understanding of the text within the context and discourse of the time
and the social, political and cultural circumstances. Context is necessary
to understand a theoretical and philosophical concept. To understand
Fukuyama’s work, its interpreter must become familiar with the historical
context in which the author’s views were published. Therefore, in accor-
dance with the tradition of hermeneutics, as a comprehensive method of
understanding, the preconditions of understanding actions and commu-
nication will be examined. This method presupposes the consideration of
socio-historical circumstances, in which the theses about the theory of the
“End of History” are presented.
Fukuyama’s book displays an extraordinary flair for investigating and
describing contemporary social developments. Through this book he
achieves the return of the teleological writing of history. And with this, it
takes place in the history of contemporary political philosophy.
However, the question arises: Has history really ended with the fall of
the socialist systems in Eastern Europe?
The phrase that Fukuyama chose for his book was not adequate.
History is not an ideology. Nor can history be ended. History will be
defined as the past, which we remember and interpret for the purpose
of orientating ourselves in the present and the future (Arnold 2001).
Fukuyama has a right to declare the victory of liberal democracy, but
must not ignore the fact that key ideological variations have not become
extinct. In the People’s Republic of China, the market economy system
has been embraced, but not liberal democracy. Fukuyama himself has
acknowledged that developments in China, specifically a process of
modernization without democracy, pose a serious challenge to his theses
(Fukuyama 2016). In Russia, authoritarianism has returned to its hege-
monic nationalist version, which is trying to challenge the values of liberal
democracy. The democratic changes that started at the beginning of this
century in North Africa and the Middle East have slipped in the direction