land’ of western liberalism [ 5 ]. Indeed Fukuyama openly states that conflicts will continue, but that ultimately there will be an acceptance that western liberalism has no superior. So the Arab spring does not constitute an argument against Fukuyama. However, the prospect of a unified Islamic state may offer legitimate, material proof of inherent fallacies in Fukuyama’s theory. Despite his quick dismissal, some find it irrelevant that non-Muslims would not initially want to emulate the proposed state. If the Islamic state did come into being it would represent another, alternate form of government. However, for this to comprehensively reject Fukuyama’s theory then there must first be a massive increase in popularity for the proposed Islamic state to the point where it cannot be merely rejected as a small group of idealists failing to win over public support. As without a uniform acceptance of this state across a majority of the Islamic faith then the proposal and indeed ISIS, alongside traditional fundamentalist Islamic groups such as Al-Qaeda, can be dismissed as not a complete ideological contender, but just an event that ‘The End of History?’ is not forced to regard under its argument. Then, even if the movement achieved this, it can still be dismissed by the Fukuyama as, again, not having the characteristics to constitute a global ideology due to the limitations of its appeal. Though here is where Fukuyama’s thesis presents an uncomfortable paradox. The essay states ‘it is not necessary that all societies become successful liberal societies, merely that they end their ideological pretensions of representing different and higher forms of human society.’ If an Islamic state were to exist, in the hypothetical size that it would be, it would surely offer a society that deems itself superior by virtue of its religious nature, that as its people would undoubtedly consider Islam the most important aspect of their lives and their society would conform most strictly to its principles. Thus the prospect of an Islamic state, whether it comes in the form of a caliphate or not, raises the issue that perhaps Fukuyama dismissed the issue of religion all too prematurely. As for the continued development of China, still a single party ‘communist’ state, many consider it also to counter Fukuyama’s thesis through its economic success and current stability. Though Fukuyama countered these thoughts with the example of Chinese economic reform, indeed this reform has continued to this day where the Chinese ‘Socialist market economy’ has moved even further towards the free markets of the West [ 6 ]. He suggested that despite the efforts of the Chinese government ‘the pull of liberal ideas’ was dragging China, slowly but surely, towards an eventual homogenous western liberal state. However, with China’s economic growth, there has not been a gradual slide into multi-party democracy. Instead in recent years China has taken steps to solidify its communist single party base [ 7 ], even cracking down on Hong Kong’s rights to democracy [ 8 ]. It is difficult to see where this fits into Fukuyama’s thesis, whether a stronger Chinese dedication to communism is a direct challenge to the western liberal ideals or whether it fits into Fukuyama’s vague category of not having ‘pretensions of representing’ a ‘different or higher’ society. While the Chinese communist party has indeed abandoned and shown resentment towards Maoism, the nation has clung to its own brand of Communism almost in a manner of defiance [ 9 ]. So instead of Fukuyama’s initial response to the ‘problem’ of China, the current alternative, which once again demonstrates how ‘The End of History?’ is still correct in its idea, is that China’s cracking down on the more liberal aspects of its society in recent times is as a result of the fear of succumbing to western liberal democracy [ 10 ]. The Chinese ‘Big Chill’ policy came into place in mid-2011 [ 11 ], just as the Arab Spring had caught the world’s attention. Despite the lack of actual success achieved by many Arab revolts, the Chinese communist party perceived that it was still under threat from a possible revolution aimed at bringing democracy. So whilst Fukuyama may have been wrong about the response to the gradual pull of western liberalism, it could be argued that it has been in effect. 5 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012%E2%80%9313_Egyptian_protests 6 http://www.cato.org/policy-report/januaryfebruary-2013/how-china-became-capitalist 7 http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/china/8373060/China-will-never-be-a-multiparty-democracy.html 8 http://www.sacbee.com/2014/08/31/6668782/hong-kongs-democracy-in-peril.html 9 http://itself.wordpress.com/2014/04/25/is-china-a-communist-country/ 10 http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2012/04/how-china-the-worlds-oldest-marxist-state-proves-marx- wrong/255390/ 11 http://www.newyorker.com/news/evan-osnos/china-the-big-chill 2.2 China and its continued growth
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