Civilizational State

The world has always seen the dusk and dawn of many civilizations, majority of those civilizations were destroyed and become extinct from Earth, but a few were able to save themselves from the attackers, for years and years, making themselves victorious in the history of wars and continue their legacy of greatness on earth by establishing their united sovereign states in the modern era of humankind. These States which protected themselves, their culture and religion and had become much powerful in modern era and are known as the civilizational state. 

But civilizations like the early American  civilizations which include Aztecs, Incas  and Maya, the Mesopotamian civilization, the Minoan civilization, the Egyptian civilization, and the Russian civilization were not able to save themselves from the threats of invaders or from the huge cultural and religious influence of other corners of the world or because of horrible natural disasters ( like flood and volcanic eruption ) and thus, they were not able to maintain their civilization and became extinct.

Now, here is a list of civilizations which persists in the modern era as civilizational states: 

1. India (Indus valley civilization)

The Indus valley civilization has its own distinct roots on the Indian subcontinent from 3300 BCE to 1300 BCE which has an enormous drainage system to cater the needs of its people and so the civilization has many developed structures along with a well-defined culture and a stable economy because of a flourishing trade with Rome, Mesopotamia and other civilizations of world, but due to various reasons, it’s people migrated to other corners of India and were successful to maintain their culture and religion but the civilization got extinct. 

According to historians, the reason for the abandonment of civilization can be climate change which caused flooding of the entire region or huge droughts which forced the people to leave the area. The religion of the Indus valley civilization was Hinduism, so they migrated and get dispersed into various parts of India and then various Hindu Kingdoms begin to emerge, and then the period of ancient India from the rise of Mahajanapadas started from the 6th century BCE to 4th century BCE. After this period, the Mauryan Empire came to power in united the whole Indian subcontinent and it was these Mauryas who protected India from the attack of outsiders, but after the end of Mauryan Empire, many small kingdoms were again begin to emerge but the real challenge emerge when in the 7th and 8th century AD, the invaders from Arabia attacked India but many kingdoms resisted those attacks like the Nagabhatta I, Bappa Rawal and Lalitaditya muktapida.

Until the Mughals, under Babur attacked and established the Mughal Empire and then the British attacked India in 1757, thus establishing a colonial rule of 190 years in India. But during all these courses of events, Indian have tried so hard to save their religion and culture and so they were successful and as a result, after 1947, we are an independent and United Civilizational state. 

       2.  Japan

Many political scientists, theorists and historians doesn’t consider Japan as a civilizational state because it’s a very small nation and have a very less influence on others but according to me, Japan is definitely a civilizational state, because it has not only saved its culture but it has also saved its religion “Shintoism” from any outside influence. 

Japan has a long history of courage and bravery and of how a good leader preserves its nation. There were various instances when Japan was attacked in history, like the Mongols attacked Japan in a 1274 and 1281 but both the times Japan won. In 1592, Japan had won a war with Korea and the most important war was the “Russo – Japanese war” in which Japan became the first Asian country who had defeated Russia (an European imperial power). Thus, after defeating Russia, Japan became the most powerful Asian imperial power which began to challenge the other European imperial powers. 

But at tragic incident happened when the United States has dropped atomic bombs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki and has devastated Japan very much and the Japanese economy was also at its lowest after the end of second World war. But even after the war, Japan maintained its culture and religion and has developed its economy so much that it became the second largest economy in 1968 and remain the second largest until 2010 when China had taken over the Japanese economy (in GDP nominal). 

     3. China (civilization of ancient Chinese dynasties)

China is one of the ancient and most economically developed civilization of the world, as in ancient times, India and China were the two economic superpowers for many centuries and so the superpowers were replaced in the subsequent 17 to 19 centuries by European powers. China is one of those civilization states because it has always followed its cultural teachings of Taoism, certain folk religions and mainly Confucianism and later on Buddhism also played a vital role in Chinese society and its development. 

China is a land of ancient dynasties where many rulers have ruled for hundreds of years, like the Xia dynasty, Shang dynasty, Zhou dynasty and many more. These dynasties have created various systems mostly on the basis of Confucian values, like a bureaucratic system based on merit, the right of education to everyone including the right of every Chinese to learn the Chinese language, the values of unity and how to correctly behave and live in the society harmoniously. 

These values are passed on from generation to generation and are inculcated in their political and educational institutions. Also, the Chinese were never fully colonized by the western powers, although China has been exploited economically and their land were to some extent captured but not wholly because of a large population and an enormously large area. There were also religious and cultural influences of the west which tried to change China and its people, but the west was not successful because of their continuous efforts of resistance like the Taiping rebellion (1850 – 1864), China's self-strengthening moment (1861 - 1895) and the boxer rebellion (1899 - 1901).

 Although China has also failed many times, but they tried and finally they created a communist state in 1949 under the leadership of Mao Zedong, which is also known as a Chinese revolution, and it was a defining factor which establish China as a powerful and a civilizational state. In this modern era, China is successful in maintaining their culture and their economy, although, there are certain restrictions on the religious activities in China, but China is overwhelmingly successful in saving its people and civilization since ancient times. 

Other than these three, many other states like the United States of America had claimed itself to be a civilizational state but its native population is already vanished and it’s the Europeans and the British who were living in the United States since the establishment of the first permanent settlement in Virginia, in the year 1607 and so United States of America is a relatively new state and in my opinion it's not a civilizational state. Although a debate on this is already going on.

And one more thing, the civilizational state of Japan is in great crisis as the population of Japan is shrinking, which develops a threat of extinction of Japanese people. If you want to know more about it then write in the comment section and I will definitely write an article on it. 

Till then stay updated.