Variety of Spirits
I
have been told that during 1950s an Indian thinker came to Europe to study philosophy. After 5 years of living in Europe, he went back home and wrote about his experiences in Europe. His experiences and learning were all included in one sentence: “Europe is very well organised but without spirit” That was during the 1950s and the 1960s and many other thinkers from all around the world agreed with him, including some Arabs. But that was just after the WWII. The WWII was an explosion of change – not for the best - in Europe, which put a very thick shadow all over the world. This shadow remained until the collapse of the Soviet Union. Then the world became one block with one philosophy, the philosophy of the market economy that spread everywhere. The clash of spirits was the next war and this time it was harder because defences and aggressions started and touched the spirit of the people; the new war was a “clash of civilisations”. I do not agree with the term “civilisation” as such, I believe that civilisation has some kind of globality and one centre; and this centre moves from one place to another through history. It was in Greece, it was in Rome, it was in Baghdad, it was in Paris, it was in London and now it is in the USA.
