Could Western civilisation finally collapse? It’s a serious question and one which Western leaders need to dwell on. In one way or another, all previous civilisations have gradually collapsed. The Egyptians, the Greeks, the Romans, the Khmers, the Mayans, the Byzantines, and so the list goes on. Where once there were great civilisations they ultimately collapsed.
There were two characteristics of the last years of those failed civilisations: the first was internal weakness and division. The second was that their enemies were able to capitalise on their internal divisions and weakness of leadership and finally destroy them. It’s hard to imagine that Western civilisation, with its prosperity, its democratic liberalism, its relative humanity and its scientific and technological achievements, could ever collapse. That is an assumption we should not make.
The Middle East is turning out to be a major test for Western civilisation and so far it hasn’t been doing well. Let’s just take the reaction in Western countries to the cold-blooded execution of six Israeli hostages by Hamas.
President Joe Biden appropriately condemned the killings but then criticised the Israeli government for failing to negotiate a hostages-for-peace deal with Hamas. Egregiously, two days after this brutal execution of six innocent people, the British government announced it was imposing bans on certain arms sales to Israel.
From the point of view of Hamas, the criticism by Biden and the decision by the British government just encourage the terror group to keep and maltreat those remaining hostages who are still alive. And the Australian government? All Anthony Albanese could bring himself to do was express his sorrow at the deaths on X. It wasn’t worth more than that. After all, he wouldn’t want to get on the wrong side of Muslim political activists in western Sydney.
You would think the moral case was simple. Hamas is a terrorist organisation and has demonstrated its wickedness and its medieval methodology over and over again. It wants to eliminate a state that is part of our civilisation. Israel is a liberal democratic state, governed by the rule of law and a hugely successful market-based economy. Yet apparently our governments are equivocal in their support for that country.
By failing to give unqualified support, they are giving comfort to an organisation that is not only committed to destroying Israel but is an illiberal supporter of authoritarian rule, is homophobic and misogynist, and financially corrupt. For Hamas, October 7 has been a propaganda triumph. It has ignited left-wing support for the Palestinians and hostility to Israel in the West. Worse, it has successfully unlocked a wave of aggressive anti-Semitism.
The West has demanded the Israelis negotiate a ceasefire and has played straight into the hands of Hamas’s hostage-taking strategy by linking the ceasefire to the release of the hostages. Surely it’s simple enough for the West to demand Hamas release the hostages unconditionally and cease attacking Israel. If it had resolve, surely you would expect the West to pile the pressure on Iran to stop arming and financing surrogates such as Hamas and to accept a two-state solution in the Middle East. Surely, in our civilisation, hostage-taking is regarded as an immoral crime. That seems to be too difficult a point for Western leaders to make.
What’s more, countries such as our own have used the Hamas attack on Israel as an opportunity to demand the Israelis accept a two-state solution. But hang on, Hamas and Hezbollah don’t accept a two-state solution and nor do their masters in Tehran, but the Israelis should? How is that going to be remotely possible? The more Iran and its proxies create chaos the more the political left in the West puts pressure on its governments and the better that is for those who wish to destroy Israel altogether.
At the heart of this problem in the West is weak leadership. Instead of having simple, clear moral positions on international issues and a very strong sense of the preservation of Western civilisation, Western political leaders are increasingly just responding to the ephemeral vagaries of public opinion and media-driven narratives. This is as much a problem in our country as it is in Europe and North America.
Leaders and their parties have increasingly become beholden to political advisers and consultants. The consultants do the polling, they focus-group the slogans, they find the best formula to win an election, and then the election is won. But once the election is won, what do the leaders of these parties actually want to do?
It increasingly looks as though they only want to do one thing – stay in power. No one would criticise a political leader for wanting to stay in power. That’s understandable. But if that person is to be a leader, then he or she must be just that: someone who has thought through very carefully the directions the country should take and then explain to the public what policies will make that happen. If leaders just respond to public opinion they’ll never satisfy that public opinion.
The reason is simple. Public opinion is contradictory. The public want more services and less tax. Who doesn’t? Unfortunately, the two cannot be reconciled and someone should explain that. That’s the job of a leader. It’s the same in foreign policy.
The public understandably want peace and they want threats to peace to go away. But just telling the adversaries of our liberal democratic civilisation such as Russia, Iran and China to go away won’t work. We have to show resolution in support of our civilisation, and sometimes showing that resolution is not universally popular.
Resources have to be diverted from welfare to defence. Economic links with adversaries can be disrupted. And, above all, resolution brings with it risks. Deterrence is the best strategy for avoiding war but if an adversary decides to take a risk then that can lead to war. Understandably that is not popular. The West is still led by America and the American presidential election will be a pivotal moment in the evolution of Western civilisation.
Whether the winner will abandon the populism of the campaign and have a clear sense of direction in support of liberal democratic ideals, we can only hope. Otherwise our Western civilisation will continue to decline.
Alexander Downer was foreign minister from 1996 to 2007 and high commissioner to the UK from 2014 to 2018.
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