Intercultural Conflict And Dialogue From The Perspective Of Multicultural Discourse

Today s world is undergoing cultural globalization, a significant, ongoingchange that is unprecedented in its far-reaching influence. Due to itsoverwhelming effect, the world has manifested major characteristics such asmulticultural coexistence, the integration between indigenous cultures and globalcultures and the interaction between traditional cultures and modern cultures, etc.While the above cultural phenomena exist objectively in response to the inherentdemand of cultural globalization and in conformity with the inevitability of globaland historical development, they, faced with numerous unpredictable risks andchallenges, have already met certain setbacks and difficulties, which bring aboutsome countries and regions intercultural conflicts of varying types.This thesis holds the idea that, first of all, human beings are living at presentand will live in the future in a world of multicultural co-existence, andintercultural conflicts are nothing but temporary inevitable phenomena.Intercultural conflicts arising over the course of time can be resolved byintercultural dialogue, whose positive results are conducive to constructing theuniversal ethics from which all mankind can benefit. Secondly, the ultimate goalof a harmonious multicultural coexistence is to build a multicultural communitywhere there is harmonious multicultural coexistence and common prosperity. Toachieve this goal, it requires the ethical and moral support from a universallyethics-based dialogue. Therefore, based on the analysis of the representationalforms of intercultural conflict from the perspective of multicultural discourse, thisthesis is meant to generalize and summarize the deep-rooted cultural factors whichlead to these conflicts. Meanwhile, this thesis attempts to discuss and explore theintercultural dialogue, which is of great significance to overcome intercultural conflicts, possible universal ethics, which promote multicultural coexistence, andthe ultimate objective of the harmonious multicultural coexistence–theconstruction of a multicultural community.Given that this thesis is focused on the theoretical research of interculturalcommunication, it is a literature-based study. Based on the definition of“multicultural discourse”, the author has studied Huntington s “Clash ofCivilizations”, Fukuyama s “End of History” and the theory of “Dialogue amongCivilizations” represented by Swidler and Tu Wei-ming. It is found that undermulticultural discourse there coexist two thinking trends, i.e.“the pessimists”believing clash and ultimate unipolarization of civilizations and “the optimists”holding dialogue among civilizations and ultimate pluralistic coexistence. Basedon this, the author has analyzed and summarized the literature at home and abroadin the past decade on cultural pluralization and multicultural conflict, and thatabout identity issues, religious issues and multicultural dialogue issues. The authorhas also extensively read and studied Confucian and Taoist, Christian, and Islamicclassics.Based on the study of the above literature, the thesis comes to the followingmajor conclusions. First, the conflicts in the process of cultural globalization andmulticultural coexistence are mainly identity conflicts and religious conflicts.While the former are due to inadequate protection of and emphasis onmulticultural identity, multicultural rights and social responsibility in amulticultural society, the latter result from the further development of religiousfundamentalism and religious extremism in the multicultural era. Second, positive,sound dialogue between different religious cultures is the fundamental way andmeans to resolve intercultural conflict and realize harmonious multicultural coexistence. Finally, the positive results of the dialogue among civilizations in thereligious field can help build a universal ethics structure that will benefit allmankind and a harmonious multicultural community that seeks common groundwhile reserving differences and seeks harmony rather than uniformity.It is desired that through this study, it will be popular accepted that despite allthe setbacks and plights that confront cultural pluralization and all the conflicts inthe course of its development, its inevitability is neither to be negated nor doubted.In the meantime, it is also hoped that the idea of “the age of multiculturaldialogue” will be widely accepted, and that with the aid of unremitting, activedialogue multicultural coexistence will rid the world of current conflicts andsetbacks. This will allow all cultures to walk out of the “bottle-neck” that isimpeding development of multicultural coexistence so that it can advance in acontinuous, harmonious way, thus arriving at the ultimate objective, i.e. theconstruction of “the multicultural community where harmonious multiculturalcoexistence and common prosperity are possible”.