"Can Asians think?"

Singapore's ambassador to the U.N. talks about his controversial new book and the gulf between Western and Eastern minds.

By Suzy Hansen

Mar 25, 2002 | If the title of Kishore Mahbubani's collection of essays seems provocative, a quick look through the book will convince you that the author takes the question "Can Asians think?" very seriously. In his introduction, Mahbubani, the Singaporean ambassador to the United Nations, writes, "Can Asians think? Judging from the record of Asian societies over the past few centuries, the answer should be no -- or, at best, not very well."

According to Mahbubani, some experts believe that the size of the economies of Asia will surpass that of the West by 2050. By then, Mahbubani maintains, Asian societies will be 90 percent of the world's population and Europeans and North Americans will make up only 10 percent. How will the East manage this change? And, perhaps more important, how will the West react to it? Although Mahbubani is concerned about the flexibility and capabilities of the Asian mind, his essays strongly suggest that Westerners must also transform their ways of thinking. For example, he maintains that Western-initiated human rights campaigns amount to putting the cart of civil liberties before the horse of civic order and economic development. (Freedom House, a New York-based human rights advocacy group, criticized Singapore's government in a 2001 report for excessive government control and ownership of the nation's broadcast networks, for censoring film, music and television and for monitoring citizens' Internet usage. In its 2000 report, Freedom House listed Singapore in the lowest "Not Free" press freedom category.)

A native of Singapore, Mahbubani has lived in New York for three years. He feels that he's strangely part of two distinct mental universes. If anything, the events surrounding Sept. 11 have only just now informed the West of the existence of a uniquely Asian mental universe, one that Mahbubani feels is poised for its own renaissance. "Can Asians think?" is an urgent, sometimes ominous book, but it's also optimistic. Mahbubani hopes for a "fusion of civilizations," if only both sides take a long, hard look at the last millennium and the years to come.

Mahbubani spoke to Salon from his office in New York about how the East really feels about the West, why he's critical of Western human rights campaigns and why he believes that the Western mind is troubled.

You mention in the book that some people were offended by the title. Who was offended and why? What do you mean by "Can Asians think?"

We live in a politically correct age. The idea that you can actually ask whether or not ethnic groups can think upsets people. I have friends who travel on planes with the book and the guy or lady next to them will say, "How can you read a book like that?" I keep emphasizing that this is not a frivolous question. What happened was that the International Conference on Thinking had its biannual meeting in Singapore some years ago and they wanted a Singaporean thinker to give one of the keynote addresses. That's when I thought of the question.

The reason why is actually quite simple: In the year 1000 the most successful, the most flourishing and the most dynamic societies in the world were Asian. Europe was still struggling out of the Middle Ages and North America hadn't been discovered. One thousand years later you get the exact reverse of that: the most dynamic and flourishing societies are in North America, Europe is one tier below and Asia is far behind. And my question is why? How did societies that were once at the leading edge of global civilization lose an entire millennium?

Is it that they fell behind or is it that there were certain things about Western societies that were so advanced and progressive?

It's a combination. There was a magical leap in the Western mind.

What do you mean?

There was the Reformation, the Renaissance, the scientific revolution -- wave after wave of advancements. I'm curiously a child of both the East and the West and the only advantage this provides is that I can actually enter the mental universes of Asia and of the West. By being able to do so, I can see that there are two different mental universes. They haven't become fused into one mental universe. To me, it's quite puzzling that so many Asians can't realize that they have to ask very hard questions about themselves if they want to succeed and not waste another millennium.

What sort of questions do you think they should be asking?

The most fundamental question is: Why are their societies so backward? Why is it that, even at the end of the 20th century, only one Asian society has fully modernized -- Japan? Three or four others are almost there, but not fully. It has to do with the forms of political, social and economic organizations that they have. But I try to go beyond the usual answer that what you need is capitalism and democracy. I suggest that the most fundamental reason why Western society has succeeded is because of the principle of meritocracy. When I was at Harvard in 1992, I was amazed at how ruthless Harvard was when it came to selecting professors. They want to find out who's the best in the field. You can come from Columbia, Yale, Stanford, Oxford, but only if you're truly the best will you be selected. They don't care what nationality or what race you are. That's what makes Harvard such a great university. In the same way, Asian societies could pick the best man for the job, rather than someone related to you, which unfortunately is what happens.

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