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Dialogue of
Civilizations.... What Credibility ?(*)
By Dr. Muhammad 'Abed Al Jabiri
Alternative Concepts :
In the last decade of the twentieth century, there
emerged a number of concepts taking often the form of slogans that overshadowed,
or eclipsed other concepts and slogans that had enjoyed a strong presence on the
intellectual arena and, in some cases, clearly dominated the scene for almost a
century. Among the concepts and slogans that had disappeared or were
overshadowed we may mention: ideology, the clash of classes, class conscience,
nationalism, international imperialism, the people's liberation movement, the
right of people to self-determination...etc. These concepts constituted the
fundamentals and basic guidelines for an intellectual system that we do not wish
to describe here as such or such. Suffice it to say that it was the system that
prevailed almost throughout the whole twentieth century.
In contrast to these concepts, a number of new
concepts saw the light in the last two decades of the century, either
simultaneously or within two or three years of each other, and served as a
foundation for a new, completely different intellectual system. The most
prominent and widespread of these novel concepts were the new world order, the
end of history, the clash of civilizations, identities, globalisation, and, last
but far from least, the dialogue of civilizations!
Islam and the dialogue of civilizations, assessing
the credibility of the concept :
In the present essay, we shall try to address the
last concept, a concept that has become one of the most profusely discussed in
our times, given its prominent importance at the intellectual and geopolitical
level. No further proof of the excessive interest taken in this subject than to
say that the United Nations proclaimed the year 2001 as a 'Year for
Intercivlizational Dialogue', thus giving rise to a series of seminars and
symposia dedicated to this theme on the four corners of the globe, sometimes
under the heading of the dialogue of civilizations, sometimes the word culture
is used instead of civilization.
Notwithstanding the difference that may be made
between the two terms and which varies from one language to another, what really
draws one's attention is the strong emphasis placed, in the West as well as in
the Islamic world, on one specific issue, namely Islam and the dialogue of
civilizations. Such is the importance granted to this matter that one may think
that the purpose behind it is merely this interest taken in debating it, when in
actual fact this dialogue covers many other subjects! One question that has not
been raised though it is cardinal to this issue is: Why Islam in particular? And
what is exactly meant by Islam. Why do we never hear of a seminar or round
tables on Christianity and the dialogue of civilizations, or Judaism and
dialogue of civilizations, or Buddhism, or any other religion for that matter?
Needless to say that this limitation of the phrase civilizations to one religion
raises doubts as to the objectivity and neutrality with which this issue is
tackled. Our objective in this study is to take these doubts to their extreme
limits and question the credibility of the thesis of the dialogue of
civilizations.
The Dialogue of Civilizations as a substitute
for the Clash of Civilizations :
Let us start by saying that the expression of
dialogue of civilizations was only coined a few years ago, as a substitute for a
thesis introduced in the early nineties of the previous century and which gave
rise to heated and widespread debates that still persist to date, namely the
theory of the clash or conflict of civilizations. Let us then ponder the
conditions and factors that led to the emergence of such a thesis, and judge
after that to what extent one can use the thesis of the dialogue of
civilizations as a substitute for the first.
One may go so far as to say that this exaggerated
interest in this subject, whether at the international scene or at the level of
strategic and geo-scientific studies, spread starting the late eighties and
following the collapse of the Soviet Union and the Eastern block that fell under
its umbrella.
The significance of the fall of the Soviet Union :
The collapse of the Soviet Union was not only
about the fall of a certain ruling regime, or the disintegration of a pact that
had bound a number of countries. The fall of the Soviet Union was also, and
perhaps first of all, that of a whole social, economic and intellectual system,
a system that projected itself as a necessity for the future, a new
civilizational project that was referred to as the international communist
regime. It heralded new relationships in the production chain, a new local and
political system, a new ideology, and in short, the beginning of a new history
of mankind.
Being a new and multi-dimensional civilizational
project, it was inevitable for communism to enter into conflict with the
existing regime from the bowels of which emerged capitalism. The conflict
between the two systems spread to the economy, politics, values, thought and
international relations...etc. Since this conflict never escalated into an armed
one, contrary to the two World Wars, thanks in part to the nuclear deterrence,
it took on the shape of a conflict over strategic points and wealth
concentrations, but also the form of an ideological conflict in which were used
religion, sciences and culture in general.
The fall of one party in the conflict, and I mean
here the communist block, no doubt represented a victory of the capitalist camp,
but it is a victory of a special kind that did not occur as a result of a
confrontation where the two parties carry a share of the losses, nor did it come
as the result of an ordeal that forced all parties to adapt to the course and
results of battle, in which case they would have had to adjust to the changes
occurring at varying degrees in their entities and methods of operation! It was
a free victory, no price paid for it. It was in fact more of a cancellation of
the match before it actually took place because of the unexpected withdrawal of
one of the competing teams. The Soviet Union collapsed, dragging with it the
communist block, following an internal attempt at rebuilding the regime and
started a fissure that soon spread to become a chain of intertwined gaps that
resisted to control and monitoring, and hence led to the final collapse. As for
the other camp, it remained intact, with its military, economic, strategic,
scientific and intellectual armada, but also remained in a state of mobilization
and readiness, with no enemy. It was left alone to fight on both sides of the
arena.
But with whom?
America and the search of an enemy :
This is the problem faced by the United States of
America as of the early eighties. The problem of a state, or rather a whole camp
that built its economy, policy, strategy, culture and vision of the future on
the basis of its facing an enemy who stood eagerly to pounce on it, and suddenly
the enemy vanished to reappear one more time behind his old opponent making
every effort to embrace his way of life, become part of him and even turn into
an ally!
This is not an easy problem, the problem of the
'me' that fails to recognise itself except through ‘the other’ confronting him,
and all of a sudden loses this “other” that had identified with him. What can we
expect from this ‘me’? Do we wait for it to dismantle and then rebuild itself
with new markers? How? When his entity, as a whole and as many parts of one
whole, is focused on opposing the entity of the other? This is the dilemma that
raised its head before decision-makers in the United States of America and drove
the people who work in the innumerable strategic study institutions that were
created during the Cold War to monitor the enemy and propose means and ways of
confronting it. It is important to recall here that the word strategy is a
military term, the expert in strategic studies can only think in the context of
a confrontation between two enemies. Once a protagonist withdraws, it becomes
necessary to immediately find a substitute; otherwise the strategist would fall
into chaos. Like the chess player, the strategy analyst cannot play alone!
This is precisely what happened in the United
States in the late eighties and early nineties of the previous century. The
question that was raised immediately after the fall of the Soviet Union was: Who
will be the enemy tomorrow?
Barry Buzan and the policy of Neo-realism :
One of the first theoreticians who raised this
question was Mr Barry Buzan, the renowned journalist, author and lecturer at
Warwick University. Buzan published in the Foreign Affairs journal of 3 July
1991, an article titled "The Realist Policy in the New world: New Forms of
International Security in the 21st Century"(1), sometime before Huntington
published his famous article on the "Clash of Civilizations" Since the article
of the latter is nothing but an elaborate, provocative and aggressive rehashing
of the ideas put forward by Barry Buzan with much serenity and precision in the
above article, we will limit our analysis to his article as being the original
item.
The phrase "Third World" loses its meaning :
In his article, Buzan tries to depict an image of
the probable/anticipated developments of some events which had, in fact, already
started to unravel at the international level following the demise of what was
known as the communist block. He starts by discussing the international
classification that was prevalent prior to the collapse of this block and
according to which the world was divided into three worlds: the capitalist camp
(First world), the communist camp (Second World) and then a group of countries
that were grouped under the label of the (Third World). As a consequence of the
fall of the communist superpower, the expression (Third World) lost its meaning
since the Second World, as opposing the First World, had disappeared. The Third
World was not, in fact, one world but a group of countries that had nothing in
common apart from their belonging neither to the first nor to the second world.
Since the second world no longer exists, the author of the article wonders: What
justifies the gathering of all these countries that belonged to what was known
as the Third World into this one group? What can bring together countries such
as South Korea, India, Malawi and Bahrain in such a way that one can speak of
them as a distinguished entity? What the term West itself means since it can no
longer be defined by the Other, the communist block? In the case of countries
such as Australia and Japan, classified as part of the West- (First World)
because they were defined by the communist Other which included China, what,
after the demise of communism, can possibly justify their classification among
the (West) when they are located in the far reaches of the East? What does the
term North mean politically and economically, particularly since this North
gathers countries such as Germany, Rumania, Russia...etc? And what does the
South mean when Korea is considered one of its members and not Australia?
The world as a center and a periphery : source of
threat :
The author wishes to establish that the
classification followed by the world since the end of World War II has lost its
meaning after the downfall of the communist regime, and that the need is
therefore strong for establishing a new classification that would help
understand the new world order. The classification that the author proposes and
on which he built his analysis is one that divides the world into two parts: a
centre and a periphery. The centre is a main block of capitalist economies that
dominate the whole world, and the periphery is a number of countries that are
weaker in terms if industry, finances and politics and that evolve within a mode
of relations established by the centre in the first place. The main objective of
the author from this classification is to address what he calls the new modes of
international security in the 21st century. It is also clear from his thinking
process that what he means by "international security" is that of the West only.
The security of the other party, and I mean the Third World, has no bearing
whatsoever on his thinking as he does not consider this world threatened in its
security. Only the West can be under threat!
How? and Why?
These are questions that are left unanswered by
this strategic analyst who is used to an outlook on the world that reduces
everything to the "threat" presented by communism to the West. In other words,
what we face here is the case of a strategist leading an army that faces an
enemy who fills up the horizons and prevents it from seeing anything else. Then
suddenly, this enemy retreats leaving behind a large vaccum while the first army
stands mobilized. The mind of the strategist, filled with the feeling of threat,
seeing nothing in the horizon but threat, starts searching for the source of
this real/probable threat! And since, in the new classification, there are only
the center and the periphery then the threat must be originating from one of
them?
Does the source of the threat lies in the West,
the center itself, as it was the case in the two World Wars, or does it come
from outside?
Developments that immunised the West against
internal threat :
The author of the article considers as very slim
the probability of the treat emanating from within the center itself in view of
a number of positive and important developments that occurred during the Cold
War. The most important of these developments are the following :
- Firstly, there is the phenomenon of the
multi-polarity within the center which has become a (superpower). This
multi-polarity reduces the chances of this superpower or another of expanding
within the center itself or dominating it, as was the case before the Cold War.
- Secondly, one of the results of the
disintegration of communism was the emergence of liberal capitalism as (the most
efficient and widely accepted mode of political economy). As a result, the
center becomes less divided from the ideological point of view than was the case
at any time since the spreading of industrialisation.
- Thirdly, from the times of the Cold War, the
center has inherited security groupings (military alliances such as NATO), that
make up the main centres of capitalist superpower: North America, Europe, Japan
and Australia. The feature that distinguishes these groupings or alliances is
their highly unlikely resorting to military force in their dealings with each
other. This strengthens their economies and increases their capacity to face the
challenges coming from outside.
- Fourthly, the consolidation of the power and
efficiency of the (international community) which is made up of international
institutions of which the assistance is sought by the countries of the center in
coordinating their endeavours and in achieving their goals. Such institutions
are the United Nations, the European Union, the International Monetary Fund, the
GATT agreements, the G8...etc, all of which are formations and institutions that
fall under the control of the center.
Impact of these developments on the position of
the Periphery :
The author considers that the developments
undergone by the Centre have made it a strong and self-sufficient entity that
cannot possibly give rise to a threat from within. Will this threat then arise
from outside, i.e from the periphery, and most aptly, from what is referred to
as the Third World?
In order to answer this question, the author
starts by taking stock of the impact of developments in the center on the
countries of the Third World, not as one world, for it no longer carries this
characteristic since the (Second World) has disappeared, but as multiple parties
that are of interest to the West and with which it has established some type of
relationship.
In this respect, five theses are introduced by the
author:
- Firstly, the collapse of communism has resulted
in the disappearance of the ideological and strategic impetus that pushed the
two camps to compete in obtaining the alliance and allegiance of Third World
countries. Furthermore, the slogan upheld by this world as a political stance
that distinguished West from East, the slogan of non-alignment, has also lost
its justification. Thus the peripheries lost the framework that brought them
together, paving the way for the emergence of disputes and conflicts on the
legacy left behind by colonialism, most particularly the issue of borders of
which the legitimacy is difficult to defend.
- On a second level, and as a consequence, the
role of the Security Council will become more important as an entity for the
arbitration of disputes and for conferring legitimacy on the system of
collective security. While it is highly probable that the West would let the
conflicts opposing the parties take their course, should it deem that
intervention costs were too high, it will definitely come in with all its might
should the dispute concern the Middle East, as a way of guaranteeing the
continuity of oil flow.
- Thirdly, the periphery will remain as such
because of obstacles inherent thereto, as well as due to the intervention of
institutions controlled by the center and the burden of foreign debt. It is not
unlikely, the case being this, that a new form of institutional colonialism
takes place at the practical level.
- The fourth theory to which the author grants a
lot of importance is what he refers to as collective security in the
relationship between center and periphery, meaning here (the dangers and
weaknesses that influence the patterns of societies, identities and cultures).
The author considers immigration from South to North and what he calls the
(clash of contending civilizations and identities) the most important aspects of
this matter. Immigration, especially from the South to the North of the
Mediterranean represents, in his opinion, a (threat to the security of the
countries of the center as it threatens their civilizational identity, in
addition to the creation, within these countries, of a fifth row). As for the
clash of identities and civilizations, it is in his opinion clearly manifest
between the West and Islam by virtue of the intrinsic contradiction that exists
between the secular values prevailing in the West and Islamic values, the
historical competition between Christianity and Islam, the jealousy of Muslims
from the might of the West in addition to the geographical proximity.... Thus,
the author maintains that if the threat of immigration is coupled with the clash
of cultures, it becomes easy to formulate a conception of a kind of social cold
war between the center and part of the periphery, most particularly between the
West and Islam.
- The fifth element that determines the security
of the West through its relationship with the periphery concerns environment
mainly. Though this matter is a concern of an economic nature, the operation of
working out the costs of the pollution resulting from industrial activity, the
global aspect of environment will supply the center with justification to
interfere in the internal affairs of the periphery under the pretext of
environmental security).
The content of this analysis:
Let us sum up the content of this analysis in the
following few words:
1- The communist, (the other/the East), that
defined the (me/West) has collapsed. Who shall replace it?
2- The Third World is no longer a third party, and
it is not in a position to become the Second World. It is a handful of weak and
diverse countries that no ideology brings them together and that cannot be
considered as enemies of that capitalism that has triumphed in a final and
definite manner. Added to this is the fact that these contending countries have
inherited from colonialism problems that feed the enmity and hostilities among
them.... etc.
3- Yet, in this weak and divided Third World where
conflict reigns uncontested exist two factors that put the security, identity
and civilization of the West at risk. First of these, is immigration. The second
is the civilizational identity of migrants contrasting that of the West.
4- Since the most dangerous type of immigration is
the one emanating from south of the Mediterranean sea, and given the fact that
these immigrants are part of "Islam", the identity most likely to clash with
that of the West is the Islamic civilizational identity for reasons that go back
to geographical proximity, to traditional historical competition and to the
dissonance of value systems. International security in the twenty-first century
will be subject to what our author calls (the clash of civilizational
identities), this clash that he sees embodied in the social cold war between
the West and Islam.
The inevitability of conflict :
How does one assess this mode of analysis?
There is no doubt that the author takes as a
starting point a historical event of considerable importance that incites one to
ponder its impacts on the future, namely the disintegration of the communist
block that was the second of the three parties into which the world was divided
for more than forty years. One can notice at first that the author omits to
address the factors that have led to the disintegration of the collapsing block
while understanding these causes is a matter of great necessity of which we wish
to understand the possible consequences of this event that nobody expected to
happen.
Why then this omission?
The only answer that could be inferred from the
article and the general thinking pattern prevailing is that the author did not
address the issues as an unbiased researcher in the quest of truth, whether this
truth pleased him or not, but as one party to the conflict, as the "West"
triumphing over the defeated "East". It is a well-known truth that the prime
concern of a victorious leader after any battle is his achievement, even if the
defeat of his opponent was the result of factors independent of his own will.
Thus, the author of the article identifies with this victorious leader, and
speaks on behalf of the "West" as the opponent of the East. The background that
provides the framework of the author's thinking is " conflict ". The influence
of this background has dominated his thinking process when he attempted to take
stock of the consequences that may be generated by the victory of the West.
This is clear in the course followed in the
author's analysis. Buzan noted the developments brought to being by the Western
camp in response to the requirements of the cold war, focusing only on those
that had an influence on the situation in the Third World in terms of its
relationship with the West. This means that the leitmotiv guiding his
examination of the results of the cold war is governed by the idea of the
continuity of conflict.
But with whom?
The answer that automatically comes to mind in the
face of this mode of thinking is the fact that since the Second World has
withdrawn from the conflict, the First World had to find out a new enemy, the
Third World. But how, with the third world being militarily and economically
feeble and dominated by strife...etc? The omission by the author of the logical
and conscious factors that could cause conflict, with the economic factor
leading the pack, has forced him to search for "causes" of conflict within the
realm of the unconscious and the illogical, such as factors that find their
explanation in the geography, history or specificities of the identity! Thus the
conflict becomes inevitable since it is conditioned by supra-human factors:
geography, history and identity!
Reorganising colonial relationship: promoting
civilization :
This shift of the conflict from the logical fields
of economic interests and the quest for supremacy, to those of the subconscious
and the inevitable geographical, historical and cultural identity, has made our
author skip the whole collapsing Second World and consider it as incidental,
therefore, drawing the relationship of the center with the periphery back to its
state before the cold war when there existed only two worlds, the colonising
west, and the colonised east. Strategic analysis shall then focus on
reorganising the same relationship as prevailing between the two worlds at the
times of colonialism.
How can one read this reorganisation?
When the West embarked on its colonial enterprise
and invaded eastern countries back in the 18th and 19th centuries, the pretext
claimed by Western authors to justify this expansionist thrust was the spread of
civilization....! In their eyes, the world was divided into two categories, a
civilized world and a savage one. They believed that through colonialism, the
colonised countries would rise above the state of barbarism to that of
civilization, as if the conflict between East and West at the time had anything
to do with civilization and barbarism! Does this not imply that the West
recognised no civilization as such other than its own?
Being familiar with the countries of the East
during the decades of colonialism, the West discovered that these countries had
their own civilizations that can in no way be described as savage. But, being
the master and the ruler, the coloniser chose to consider these civilizations as
obsolete and backward in terms of progress, that whatever greatness they had
achieved in the past had fizzled out leaving them shut to progress. However,
this view of the West soon changed after these civilizations regained their
independence after a long and bitter struggle. It so happened that this
coincided with the emergence of the conflict that opposed the capitalist West
with the Communist camp which had sprang in the West itself. The West then
endeavoured to gather all governing regimes of these countries under its wing,
and all the countries of the Third World fell to serving the capitalist camp in
its conflict with the communist block despite the non-alignment motto that
remained nothing but a political slogan. To serve its own interests in this
conflict, the West put to use what it referred to as the civilizational
specifities of the Third World and mobilized them in fighting the threat of
communism! When the latter collapsed, the West changed its view of the Third
World and begun to consider it as the domain of the enemy who will replace the
vanquished communism!
The civilizational cold war between the West and
Islam :
Instead of dedicating itself to solving the
problems it had created or caused in the Third World through colonialism and the
Cold War, and thus rebuilding its relationship with its old allies on new bases,
it reverted back to its old view, but with a difference this time. Instead of
the pretext of barbarism, the West started to use the concept of the diversity
of civilizational identities, thus turning the conflict in which it imagined
that it needed to engage, into a conflict between its civilization, with its
host of beliefs and values of progress and democracy...etc, and civilizations
that it accuses of disregarding these values, with the Islamic civilization
foremost among them (Islam). Thus, realpolitik and the new order of
international security in the 21st century, become governed by a new cold war
that the author does not hesitate to name the civilizational cold war between
the West and Islam.
Islam, and not Islamic Civilization, as opponent
to Western civilization :
It is necessary here to point out that western
authors who promote the thesis of the clash of civilizations arbitrarily place
as the opponent of the West and the Western civilization Islam, and not the
(Islamic civilization) or the (Civilization of Islam), hence the confusion and
ambiguity that arise from this. The theory of the (cold war between the West and
Islam) that the author considers as the prominent feature of the 21st century,
places the West, a geographical term and a cultural and civilizational concept,
opposite Islam, a religion. This in itself is an act of hostility since it
represents a provocation of religious feelings. The Muslim in this case feels
that his religion is targeted. Why then present the matter under this light: Why
Islam and not the Islamic civilization? Why avoid opposing the Islamic
civilization to the Western civilization and by doing so, remove all ambiguity?
Islamic civilization : a civilization of openness
:
In truth, no one, whether in the West or the East,
can pretend that the Islamic civilization is a closed one, that it tends to
favour conflict at the expense of a give-and-take process or that it slams the
door to dialogue. Since its emergence, the Islamic civilization has been and is
still the crossroads of civilizations, cultures, systems and values. Everyone
knows that the Arab Islamic civilization started in the Arab peninsula. It
coexisted side by side with the Persian civilization and adopted most, if not
all, of its civilizational components, not only at the level of dietary habits,
dress and private family life, but also in the field of arts, literature, social
order and governance, to such extent that a sociologist such as Ibn Khaldoun
concluded that imitation in human life is not always one-sided and that it is
not always the emulation by the defeated of the victorious, giving the example
of the victorious Arabs who excelled at imitating the defeated Persians.
Furthermore, the Arab Islamic civilization opened up to an international
cultural rivalry, not only between Arabs and Persians, but one that developed
with time to become what was historically known as the Shu'ubiyya movement. This
movement was dominated by a spirit of cultural and civilizational dialogue that
brought the pro-Hellenistic thinkers who strove to glorify Greek civilization
against and the pro-Persian intellectuals. Thus, and within the same Arab and
Islamic civilization emerged a competing disputation between the Persian and
Greek cultures. This in turn motivated the champions of Arab and Islamic culture
to enter the arena of competition to highlight the excellence of Arabs and the
virtues of Islam while recognising the merit of other civilizations. All this
has served to consecrate the relativity in civilizational thought in Arab and
Islamic thought and largely contributed to alleviating the vainglory in this
thought.
This aspect of a multiparty dialogue that marks
Arab and Islamic civilization is well known in the West. In fact, the West knows
about it from the study of the history of this civilization. Westerners know
that the Creek civilization was transferred to them through Arabs and Muslims.
Openness onto the West in modern time :
Western thinkers also perfectly know that the
openness of the Arab Islamic civilization is not limited to a past age. It still
remains the most prominent feature in modern times. Arabs and Muslims opened up
to the West, its sciences and its civilization since contacts were established
between the two civilizations in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Though
this interaction came in the shape of colonialism and expansion on the part of
the West, there has always existed in all Arab and Islamic countries a clear
distinction between the aggressive colonialist face of the capitalist West and
the other face, that of the renaissance, sciences, progress, pragmatism,
freedom, democracy...etc. This distinction was not, however, restricted to one
social class in the Arab Islamic society to the exclusion of others but
prevailed among all people, including religious institutions and their graduates
from the champions of authenticity and tradition. Jamal Eddine El Afhgani,
Muhamed Abduh, Tahtaoui, Khairuddine Attunisi, Al Kawakibi and many others who
were strongly attached to the Arab and Islamic reference in their revival
actions dealt with the human and scientific aspect of Western civilization in
the same manner that Muslim philosophers and scholars dealt in the Middle Ages
with Hellenistic philosophy: they sought inspiration from sciences and
philosophy and disregarded anything related to religion, acknowledging the right
to religious difference and raising the banner of: "you have your religion and I
have mine".
But without going so far back in the past, let us
look at the present. Here in Moroccan universities, as is the case in all Arab
and Islamic universities, we study as compulsory subjects, and depending on the
branch: the geography of the Western world, in particular the European one, we
study its history, literature, philosophical currents, and all aspects of its
civilization without a reciprocity on the part of the West. In the event of
there being something to this effect, it is often limited to isolated and
optional departments reserved for the study of other civilizations, while in
most Arab and Islamic countries, Western civilization is present in educational
curricula as compulsory subjects. It is enough to mention that the baccalaureate
students here know much about Western civilization, while their counterpart in
Europe or the United States know nothing that pertains from far or near to the
Arab Islamic civilization other than what is dished out by Zionist-dominated
media, distorted images of Arabs and Islam. Furthermore, I can assert that our
students know more about the West than do some of the Western youth themselves
on their own countries and civilizations. When I was in the United States, I was
astonished during a conversation with a group of university students, when I
realised that they knew absolutely nothing about the Arab and Islamic world. It
dawned on me then that they probably also knew little about their own country,
so I asked some of them: "Where is located the Mississippi". I was dumbfounded
to discover that many did not know of this river that divides up their country
in two parts.
Of course, this is not the case with the experts
of strategic and oriental studies in the United States and in Europe. They know
perfectly well that the Arab Islamic civilization has been and is still today
open to all civilizations, including the Western one. So when they promote the
theory of the clash of civilizations, they avoid to place the Arab Islamic
civilization opposite the Western civilizations, and opt rather for Islam. So
what could they mean by Islam?
Islam: the constant preoccupation of the West: a
West looking for its interests :
Islam has been for the last two decades the
constant preoccupation of the West. Only recently, the West considered Islam
its ally against communism, in slogans and ideology fostered as well as at that
of support and protection of governments that ruled in the name of Islam. The
West supported with funds, arms and expertise revolutionary movements that
brandished the banner of Islam, as was the case in Afghanistan under the rule of
communism. It even supported the Iranian revolution, orchestrated at the time by
Al Khomeini from Paris with the full cognisance of Britain and the United States
of America that preferred to abandon its desperate ally - not to say its
collaborator- and his army alone in the face of the revolution droves who
carried the banner of Islam: "Allah is Great". Back then, the West did not see
in Islam a threat, but considered it an ally against communism, and therefore
preferred a young Islamic revolution to an obsolete and corrupt collaborating
regime.
That was in the recent past. Today Islam is
something different in the eyes of the West. It is the enemy number one, and if
it is not already so today, it will certainly become that tomorrow. So what has
changed? Why this (new) or rather (renewing) fear of Islam?
Today's attitude of the West towards Islam is
reminiscent of its old position towards Pan-Arabism. Early of the past century,
Great Britain, which then assumed the role of leadership in the West, did not
oppose the establishment of Pan-Arabism (the movement of Sherif Husayn). In
spite of Zionist pressures and the Balfour promise, the project of an (Arab
unity) continued to enjoy a degree of acceptance from the ruling class in
Britain until the concept took shape in the Arab League which gave its blessings
to these rulers. But as soon as Egypt nationalised the Suez Canal, within the
framework of a drive for Pan-Arabism that advocated the 'Arab oil for Arabs',
Arab unification became in the eyes of the West the greatest threat in the
Middle East, unequalled except by the communist threat in Europe. But as the he
West sought in Islam an ally against communism, it also used it against
Pan-Arabism, inciting governments in Iran, Pakistan, Turkey and Iraq to join the
Baghdad Pact under the leadership of Britain.
How do we explain this duality in the position of
the West towards Islam and Arabs?
The history of the West, since this became a
political strategic concept, reveals the following: changing attitudes and an
unchanging constant. The stance of the West vis-à-vis the Arabs, or Islam, or
China, Japan or any other country in the world is an ever-changing one. It may
shift from one extreme to its opposite if need be. The constant, however, that
never changed is the (interests), and nothing other than interests. When the
interests of the West are at stake or are endangered, then positions are
immediately reversed.
Thus, Britain and the West at large fought in 1956
the project of Pan-Arabism under all its forms for fear that the liberation and
nationalisation drive should reach Arab lands and riches in the name of
Pan-Arabism. What made the Americans, and the West in general, turn against the
Islam they had been courting was the step taken by some governments that ruled
by the name of Islam, with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia leading them, of cutting
the flow of oil towards the West in protest against its support to Israel in the
1973 war. Later on, Iran's recovery of the right to dispose of its oil resources
through the Iranian Revolution, carried out in the name of Islam, this same
right that was advocated by Dr Mussadegh in the early fifties, and which
resulted in his government being overthrown by the West (through the Shah), and
with the support of the then leader of the Islamist movement, Ayatollah
Ash-Shaqani.
The way the West treats Arabs and Islam is the
same way that it treats all other countries, whether it is China that was the
enemy number one of the West when its policy was to support that of the Soviet
Union. When the relationship between Moscow and China suffered a freeze, the
West's attitude changed to the opposite and China was recognised by the
Americans who simply relegated their own peon in the region, known then as
Nationalist China, and which held a seat at the Security Council, a seat that
has since been filled by the People's Republic of China. After the demise of the
Soviet Union, China once again became the enemy and the (Yellow Threat), because
of its ownership of the atomic bomb, its independent policy and its embarking on
an economic takeoff that may culminate in its becoming a real competitor for the
West's economic interests in East Asia.
The West is nothing but interests. Any dialogue
with it or thought against it that does not start by acknowledging this truth is
but a digression and a fall in the trap of the misleading and ambiguous
discourse that prevails in the West and that seeks to divert attention from
these (interests) in a way that would camouflage them and serve in their stead
in the mobilization of public opinion, such as civilization, culture, religion,
fundamentalism, etc...
The thesis of Western liberal values :
Indeed, there are some Western authors who try to
avoid addressing the (issue) in this irrational way and seek an approach that
would seem more expressive of reality. Of these I can mention Graham Fuller, a
researcher at the American Rand Corporation, and the view he presented in an
article he published in the American "Foreign Affairs" journal in reply to
Huntington's theory of the clash of civilizations and where he says that the
civilizational clash is not so much about the Christ or Confucius or the Prophet
Mohammed as its is a conflict caused by the unequal distribution of force,
wealth and power, and the historical contempt with which great nations regard
smaller ones. Fuller does not deny that the Western system carries certain flaws
that he calls for correcting. He also acknowledges as legitimate some of the
grievances made by the Third World about the practices of the West. Yet, he
concludes that Third World countries represent the main challenge of the West in
spite of the ideological, ethnic and religious differences that prevail among
them. In his view, this is due to the fact the West adopts values the essence of
which is rejected by others in the Third World, or even opposed by Islam above
all. These three values are:
1. Capitalism and the free market
2. Human rights, democracy and secular liberalism
3. The State/nation as a framework for
international relations.
Islam rejects capitalism and the free market? How
could it be the case when Islam is the religion that stipulated the right to
ownership, to trade, to buy and sell? Islam rejects liberal values such as
democracy, human rights, etc...? How could this be the case when Islam is a
religion that calls for shura (consultation) and honours man? But then, what is
meant by Islam here? It is religion? In which case, can we say that
Christianity, Judaism or Buddhism oppose or embrace these values? If the target
is the Islamic civilization, then can we say the same for the Christian, Jewish
or Buddhist civilizations?
Let us leave these comparisons aside and limit
ourselves to asking: if the West defines its enemy as that who refuses or does
not adhere to liberal values such as democracy, secularity, human rights and
such, why then does it support governments, Islamic and otherwise, that do not
uphold these values and even persecute those who advocate them? Was not the West
behind many of the military coups and dictatorships that the Third World had to
endure during the Cold War?
Dialogue of civilizations, ambiguous concept that
needs to be defined :
The (clash of civilizations) is therefore a
corrupt and even malicious thesis that was promoted by strategists in the United
States of America to protect their (national) interests in the world. This is
clear. What was then the reaction triggered in the Arab and Islamic world by
such a thesis?
There have been and still are two categories of
reactions: the reaction of those who fell to the trap and interpreted the clash
of civilization as that between the forces of evil and those of good represented
by the champions of justice and equality. It is clear that this kind of reaction
responds to and espouses the strategy of the enemy and, thus falling into a
closed duality that sees no outcome but through the victory of good over evil.
Determining who represents the forces of evil and who represents those of
goodness will always remain a matter of morals because each of the parties
considers himself the representative of good and his opponent that of evil, the
result being the consecration of the inevitability and perpetuity of the clash
of civilizations and, therefore, acknowledging and justifying the strategy of
the (cold war against Islam).
As for the second type of reaction triggered in
the Arab and Islamic world by the theory of the clash of civilizations, it
consisted of raising the banner of dialogue instead of clash, and hence the call
for the dialogue of civilizations. There is no doubt that this approach causes a
measure of embarrassment for the introducers of the thesis of civilizational
clash in that if they persisted in such a thesis, they would present themselves
as champions of conflict in the face of those who call for dialogue. Yet, the
slogan of dialogue is a noble and rational one, and the stance of those who
uphold it only in word is misleading and full of ambiguity. In fact, dialogue
among civilizations can either be spontaneous as a result of the natural
exposure of one civilization to another, in which case it takes the form of a
process of exchanges in response to the historical course. This kind of amalgam
of civilizations does not require any call and is not a premeditated act but a
natural historical process, or, if one can say so, a transaction governed by the
quest for what is best, as the past and present tradition of the Arab Islamic
civilization that we discussed earlier witnesses to.
Mutual solidarity among all constituents of
civilizations :
If the main purpose is the organisation of a
conscious dialogue between the people of a civilization and that of another,
this task is not as simple as it may appear at first. For the people of a
civilization are not always in agreement with each other, or with those of
another civilization, they are diverse groups among whom conflict occurs in one
form of the other. If we limit ourselves to the common classification of (left)
and (right), or capitalists and proletariat, what happens is actually a process
of solidarity that binds similar groups within different civilizations against
their enemies within their own civilizations. This also applies to groups
defined according to other divisions such as religion, ethnicity or others.
This is not a mere theory but actual reality that
was proved by western authors who oppose the thesis of the clash of
civilizations and who attempt to penetrate the concept of the West itself. In an
article written by an American researcher from the Michigan University in
response to the champions of confrontation between Islam and the West, the
author maintains that Muslims should in particular understand that very few
westerners, including himself, go a long a way in understanding how the
relationship of the West and Muslims should be, since what is needed today is an
alliance between the preachers of tradition and authenticity in the West and
Muslim conservatives, in order to face up to the persistent challenges of
modernism that threaten us today. (Cf. article of Anthony T. Sullivan in the
"Diplomat" journal, issue of 15 February 1995). Do we need to say that there
exist in the Arab Islamic world modernists who would be ready to enter into an
alliance with Western modernists against what they also can refer to as (the
challenges of the persistent fundamentalist challenges that threaten us all
today)?
A balance of interests instead of the clash of
civilizations :
The (dialogue of civilizations) is a slogan that
may not be innocent, and is at best surrounded by mystery and ambiguity. I
personally think that it is necessary to call a cat a cat. The essence of the
issue at hand, namely the relationship of the West with Arabs and Muslims is
that of (interests), the interests of the West, oil and the Arab markets being
foremost among these. It is only natural that the West feels that any progress
that could be achieved by Arabs and Muslims would be at its own expense because
its interests in the lands of Islam would suffer, and this is perfectly
understandable. But it must also be understood that Arabs and Muslims cannot, in
present times, achieve progress without dealing with the West. Oil in the lands
of Islam and Arabs will have no value if it is not bought by the West, and the
same applies to other raw materials such as minerals and phosphate, citrus and
other fruits and manufactured goods destined for the West. If we add to these
the proceeds of tourism and the money transfers of immigrants, we would
understand the interrelationship between the interests of the First World and
those of the Third World.
The real problematic in the relationship of the
West and the countries of the Third World is, in fact, the lack of balance in
the exchange of interests. As it stands currently, the relationship between the
West on the one side, Arabs, Muslims and the Third World on the other side, is a
relationship of master and servant: the master exploits the slave but needs him
as long as many of his own affairs depend on the slave, and the slave endures
under the master but also kept in need of him. Disturbing this relationship is
no longer possible through a slave revolution considering the nature of the
current stage -marked as it is by globalisation. Indeed, the current juncture
allows the West to use and abuse mass media and camouflage tactics, in addition
to its military destruction power which it will not hesitate to use in a replay
of what it carried out in Iraq, what it is doing in Afghanistan and what it is
threatening to do in other parts of the world. The only option that remains open
in the current circumstances is to endeavour to achieve a certain balance of
interests that would put a limit to the hegemony and tyranny of the (Master), by
resorting to the mode of struggle adopted by labour unions. This struggle would
entail the solidarity of all Third World countries, or of its regional blocks,
and the exercise of a style of pressure similar to that used by labour unions
and which ranges from the statement of grievances to strikes, using at the same
time the game of dialogue and the principle of (take, then demand). Experience
has proved that this method of struggle can be successful as proved by a number
of examples: the OPEC which, thanks to its solidarity and perseverance managed
to maintain oil prices within the limits it considered reasonable, and the
example of Morocco in its determination to remain attached to the principle of
dialogue in preserving the balance of its interests in negotiating with the
European market on fishing in Moroccan waters.
What about cultural interests...?
Another aspect of the relationship of Arabs and
Muslims with the West should also be subjected to the principle of the balance
of interests, it is the only aspect that may give the expression (dialogue of
civilizations) a clear and unambiguous positive content : that is the cultural
aspect. A little earlier, we have mentioned the strong presence of Western
languages and cultures in our schools and universities. Why could there not be a
similar or relatively similar, presence of our language and our culture in
Western schools and universities? Should this become a reality, it will mean the
inauguration of a new era in the dialogue of civilizations, a dialogue during
which each party will come to know the real face of the other. It is strange
that many of our intellectuals who have strong ties with the Western culture do
not stop stressing the need to (really know the other) the West. Would it not be
preferable if they went to the West and made the same plea about the need to
know the (other) Arabs and Muslims for what they truly are, and not as depicted
in a media manipulated by malicious hands.
Let us then sum up by saying that instead of
discussing a hazy, irrational and hostile concept such as the (clash of
civilizations), or the vague capitulatory phrase that refers to nothing tangible
of (dialogue of civilizations), let us struggle for the achievement of a balance
of interests, in economy and trade as well as in languages and cultures.
_________________________________________________________________________________________________
(*) Text of the opening lecture given by the
author at the Faculty of Arts and Human Sciences, University of Hassan II,
Casablanca (Ain Chock) in Morocco.
(1) The translation used here is the one
presented of this article by the magazine 'Strategy' which used to be published
by the Palestinian Liberation Organisation (Planning Centre) in Tunis. The
article was published in its edition of 25 February 1992.
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