This trivial question has generated numerous theories. The best known one is that by Samuel Huntington about the clash of civilizations. The most popular answer is the quotation from Rudyard Kipling which goes that East is East and West is West. But the subject is still being debated…

Our conversation with Doctor Vladimir Plastun, started with the well-known quotation from Kipling. But Plastun prefers the extended version:

Oh, East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet,

Till Earth and Sky stand presently at God’s great Judgment Seat;

But there is neither East nor West, Border, nor Breed, nor Birth,

When two strong men stand face to face tho’ they come from the ends of the earth.

Recently, I was pleased to discover Muhammad Ali Islami Nadushan, an Iranian scientist and philosopher, who says that the East is Asia, and the West is Europe. Notably, he writes, “Asia is the land of treasures and gold, and because of it, the greedy eyes of Europe, which was after these treasures, have long been fastened to it. For people of the East, the West was the land of bigger equality and prosperity, and this was the reason for its attractiveness.”

The Iranian scientist is positive that the Western people have very strong principles of the world outlook. In the East, they have less in common with regard to the world view. How true is this today, in your opinion?

If you understand the West and the East as mentality (the way of life, traditions, customs), they will never meet. And there is no such need. It has been so for centuries. This was not someone’s whim, but it was brought about by the natural conditions of life. Notably, the purdah, the hijab, the turban, the ritual of circumcision, obligatory ablutions, etc. appeared in the Muslim world not as mullahs’ caprice, but due to necessity.

Retarded Europeans, who hadn’t washed for centuries, did not understand it until they learned it from Muslims during the Crusades. This is why, by the way, oriental incenses were so popular in Europe even before the Crusades. They turned Europeans’ heads and made them want to conquer the East, where there was gold, spices and these incenses.

People in the East, in their turn, finally appreciated the price of gold, to which they had not attached much importance before. But offering its treasures, the East implied trade, while the West, which had better military equipment (invented by the Greeks), preferred to conquer, despising commercial simpletons. It was at that time that the confrontation arose and was actively supported by religions, Christianity against Islam, and vice versa.

But the East is not uniform: some have water and date trees and some don’t. Hence the conclusion: common traits appear when there are common interests (domestic and foreign political) that reflect economic interests.

Let me repeat, I am positive that a world view emerges, develops and gets established depending on economic interests. Prophet Mohammad received the boding not for his personal use or for comforting the afflicted, but for uniting Arab tribes in order to, speaking in modern terms, improve their living standards. The rest is derivative.

Still, let us define the notions of East and West. How do you understand these terms? Where do we belong?

Pondering on Kipling’s idea, one can come to mutually exclusive conclusions. First of all, Kipling is not the possessor of the ultimate truth. He just expressed his understanding of the situation. Secondly, the Russian translation is not quite accurate. Where he wrote Border, Breed, Birth, the Russian version says Tribe, Motherland, Clan. Overall, the idea of Kipling’s poem is that when there is battle, it doesn’t matter whether it is in the East or the West, neither borders, nor your clan and tribe, nor origin matters. He is trying to explain that “when two strong men stand face to face,” war will go on till the Judgment Day.

And it was the West, the eternal colonizer of the East, which started this confrontation. The East awakened and is beginning to avenge the humiliation, robbery and murders.

Here is an example of differences in the world views of oriental societies: Islamic radicals prefer bombs, while Buddhists choose peaceful expansion. Isn’t the clear statement made by German Chancellor Angela Merkel that the attempt at creating a multiculture has failed signally enough for you? I understand her. This summer I went to Germany, I saw it all with my own eyes and after talking to Germans I realized: immigrants do not want to “reconcile” with the West and to “fit” into a new culture, they demand a special status.

The Iranian scientist argues that the demarcation line between the world views of the East and the West dates back to the war between ancient Iran and Ancient Greece. Muhammad Ali Islami Nadushan says Iran’s geographic location allowed it to always be in the epicenter of historic events, the guard of the gates to both Europe and Asia. Does today’s Iran remain the guard between the two civilizations?

Remarkably, geopolitical demarcation now goes between the East and the West, but inside both Western and Eastern countries, it goes between the North and the South. Here we again go back to the Nature: when the once single continent called Earth broke up, natural resources for some reason remained in the north. The south got mountains and deserts. As a result, the mentality of northerners and southerners, defined once again by natural and climatic conditions, is significantly different, and this results in a confrontation.

Post-Soviet countries are not similar, too. All of them are Muslim, all are Sunni, but they are beginning the division process. In Tajikistan, they are not Turkic. Those who are Turkic, are each beginning to praise their respective nation as the best one.

Nazarbayev, who is bringing back the idea of Eurasian unity, is completely right. We are Eurasians. Speaking of Russia, you may recall the brilliant, in my opinion, saying by Vladimir Solovyev, “Russia is a bridge. Between two continents. If you feel European in Asia and Asian in Europe, it means you are Russian.” This is a popular saying.

As to Iran, it really used to be at the crossroads of all routes to India (and they were several). This destroyed it, because it had to bow to each conqueror. But Iranians have survived and preserved their language and their culture. But, please, there is no need for threats. Don’t be like Americans. Remain Iran and remember Persia.