On September 11, 2001, when the
nineteen Arab hijackers from Al-Qaida struck the most visible icons of
America’s military and financial power – the Pentagon and the Twin Towers
– there were more than a few pundits who concluded with some satisfaction
that the "clash of civilizations" they had been predicting had finally
arrived.
The concept of a "clash of
civilizations" was first drafted in 1990 by Bernard Lewis, a committed
Zionist, to describe the conflict between political Islam and the West.
"This is no less than a clash of civilization – the perhaps irrational but
surely historic reaction of an ancient rival against our Judeo-Christian
heritage, our secular present, and the worldwide expansion of both."
Unable to adapt to modernity and secularism, Islamic societies had
rejected Western values and were now transforming Islam into a militant
movement against the West.
A few years later, in 1993, Samuel
Huntington, elevated the thesis of a clash of civilizations into a
universal historical principle. Civilizations are the largest human
aggregates that command human loyalties; and conflicts between
civilizations account for much of the bloodshed in recorded human history.
The Cold War marked a brief departure from this principle, but now that
this aberrant period was happily over, civilizations could go back to
their old pastime – waging wars against each other. In this new era,
Huntington predicted, the most serious challenge to the West’s hegemony
would come from Islam and China.
The Huntington thesis was an instant
success that is not hard to explain. The military establishment seized it
as a suitable replacement for the loss of the Soviet threat. If Islam and
China could be inflated into worthy enemies, they could save the military
budget and NATO. Other substitutes – such as the drug cartels – were
examined but they weren’t worthy opponents of imperial United States. The
thesis was manna to the Zionists, who had been working hard to convert
their war against the Palestinians into an American war against Islam. It
gave comfort to right-wing Christian zealots who see Islam as the chief
adversary in their war to win souls for Christ.
And so when Osama’s men struck, it
instantly produced demands for a "civilizational war" against Islam. Not
surprisingly, the Zionist voices were the most insistent and articulate.
Within a few hours of the terrorist strikes, I had seen every current and
former Israeli leader on the major US networks, not counting less eminent
Israeli representatives, all of whom were urging United States to carry
the war against Islamic terrorists to their home ground – in Iraq, Syria,
Iran, Lebanon, Libya and Pakistan. It was no time to mince words. The
United States and Israel now had the same enemies. They were fighting the
same war.
The call to arms was loud and clear.
Writing on October 29, 2001, in The Weekly Standard, William
Kristol and Robert Kagan, strong supporters of Israel, were predicting
that Afghanistan will only be an "opening battle" in a long war that will
"spread and engulf a number of countries in conflicts of varying
intensity." More ominously, they declared, this war "is going to resemble
the clash of civilizations everyone had hoped to avoid." Other
pro-Israelis were more direct. Norman Podhoretz, editor of the
Commentary, a leading Zionist monthly, was urging the United States to
be ready to "fight World War IV – the war against militant Islam," and to
"impose a new political culture on the defeated parties." There was an air
of triumphalism in Zionist pronouncements.
It is a testimony to the power of the
pro-war lobbies that the Bush administration lost little time in embracing
their plans for a civilizational war against Islam. After a quick but
illusory victory over the ragtag Taliban regime in Afghanistan, United
States moved quickly to convert the campaign against terrorism – a
campaign in which it has received the cooperation of nearly every Muslim
country – into a war against countries that oppose Israel’s hegemony over
the Middle East. President Bush’s embrace of Likudnik policies was
complete when Ariel Sharon, admonished by his own Courts for complicity in
the massacre of Palestinians at Sabra and Shatilla, was declared to be a
"man of peace."
Is America’s intimate embrace of
Likudnik policies, its ongoing war against Afghanistan, its impending war
against Iraq, and projected wars against Iran, Syria and Pakistan, proof
that the clash of civilizations has begun? Hardly. This only demonstrates
the power of the lobbies that have been planning, predicting and promoting
the "clash" against Islam. They were predicting what they were planning to
carry out in due time. The attacks of September 11, 2001 only advanced
their war plans.
The sharpest refutation of the
Huntington thesis comes from the West itself. A growing chorus of Western
voices now proclaims that the war against Iraq is not their war. In
poll after poll, they have been asserting that this is not a just war,
that Iraq does not pose an imminent or mortal threat to their security,
that United States constitutes a greater threat to world peace than Iraq
or South Korea. They know that Iraqis are mostly Muslims, but that has not
stopped them from recognizing their common humanity; this has not
diminished their outrage over economic sanctions that have killed half a
million Iraqi children. There are many in the West now who feel that
they have more in common with the oppressed Iraqis than they do with
Bush and Blair, or the warmongers that control and use them. Perhaps for
the first time, the imperialist warlords have failed to use religion to
divide mankind.
The partisans of war claim that Islam
is evil, it preaches terror and hatred, and it must be destroyed before it
destroys us. It is a tribute to the moral clarity of so many in the West
that they are not buying into this Manichean duality that apportions all
virtue to one’s own tribe and all evil to one’s adversary. Most
remarkably, it is the Christian leaders in the West who have valiantly
rejected this Manichean vision, and who now stand tall in their opposition
to the war against Iraq. They are challenging the bigotry of Pat
Robertsons and Jerry Falwells. Even Bush’s own Methodist Church has
declared that the war against Iraq is "without any justification according
to the teachings of Christ."
If the thesis of an inevitable clash
between the West and Islam still had any semblance of credibility, it was
shredded by the global anti-war rallies of February 15, 2003. It is
estimated that some 30 million people joined these rallies in more than
600 cities across the world. Significantly, the most massive of these
rallies were staged in the capitals, cities and towns of Western
countries. It was Westerners who took the lead, while braving freezing
sub-zero temperatures, to tell their governments that they did not want
this war against Iraq. These demonstrations were most massive in countries
– such as Britain, Spain, Italy, Australia and United States – whose
governments supported the war.
The war-mongering Bush-Blair team may
still go ahead with the war, disregarding the clear democratic verdict of
their own people. But so massive a rejection of war cannot be ignored
without consequences; and by this I mean not just consequences for the
personal careers of Bush and Blair. When the voice of the people is so
blatantly flouted, it will undermine the illusion so sedulously cultivated
of democratic societies that pay heed to the will of the people. In one
instant, the charade of democracy, of a free press, of governments
following the will of the people will have been tested and shown to be
hollow.
But I also read a deeper, more hopeful
message in the massive rallies of February 15. In the past, the great
powers have nearly always succeeded in manipulating their citizenry into
supporting their overseas adventures, even when these have destroyed
millions of lives. However, I can sense the stirrings of a new
consciousness amongst the privileged sections of the world’s populations,
an awareness that their privilege contributes to the misery of so many
across the world, that our global apartheid cannot endure without
destroying everyone.
It appears that they are beginning to
understand that their privilege places a special burden on them: that they
must act to restrain and rectify the rapacity of their own governments and
corporations. At the least, they are now demonstrating that they will not
permit their governments to murder in the name of the values that they
cherish. Once before, slavery was abolished when its degradation became
morally unacceptable to a growing number of people in slave-owning
countries. Now for the first time, with the anti-war movement, the people
of privilege are beginning to say that global apartheid is unconscionable.
We cannot doubt that these developments
are causing alarm in the inner sanctums of the war-mongering parties. Even
as world conscience shows signs of evolving towards a new post-tribal
stage, we can be sure that plans are underway to reverse this. When the
dominant cliques in the Core countries are frustrated in their hegemonic
designs, they will not hesitate to shed their democratic façade. They will
redouble their efforts to sow fear, raise alarm, breed mistrust, incite
hatred. They will seek to curtail liberties in the name of national
security. They will attempt to suppress dissent on the pretext of
suppressing terrorism. Perhaps all this is already underway in United
States. And only the coming days, weeks and months will reveal whether
United States will follow the path of other capitalist democracies in
trouble – and descend into fascism – or the forces of justice and
democracy, true to the highest human ideals, will triumph over the dark
forces that have held ascendancy over the fate of mankind.
