From The Trap Of Geopolitics To A Geo-Civilizational Paradigm

According to Noema Magazine, Portuguese diplomat and scholar Bruno Maçães argues that civilizations—not nation-states—offer the only path out of geopolitical conflict. His new book contrasts Western dualism, which splits the world into good and evil, with India's ancient philosophical tradition of Advaita or nondualism. In Advaita, the deepest consciousness recognizes all beings as expressions of a single universal self; conflict becomes a sign of spiritual blindness. Yet India itself—after independence—adopted the Western nation-state model and tested nuclear weapons in nineteen seventy-four and again in nineteen ninety-eight. Pakistan conducted its first nuclear test later that year. This geopolitical race directly contradicts the Advaitic principles Maçães cites. He argues that only by recovering civilizational wisdom can nations escape the dualistic trap that forces them to see enemies as projections of their own shadow selves. As historian Arnold Toynbee said, 'A chapter which had a Western beginning will have to have an Indian ending. It will be either the Indian way or the bomb.'

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