While
Bush should be commended for the search for allies in the Islamic world,
seeking an indictment within a world court framework would not have only
granted increased legitimacy – for a campaign that has been increasingly
seen like vengeance, (not to be mention economically motivated), and not
justice – but created a precedence for the trial of future terrorists (of
cyber, biological, airline and other types).
The
equation that explains terror is: perceived injustice,
nationalism/religious-ism (including scientism and patriarchy), plus an
asymmetrical world order. One
crucial note: explanation is analytically different from justification.
These acts, as all acts of mass violence, can not be justified.
The
perceived injustice part of the equation can be handled by the USA and other
OECD nations in positions of world power. This means authentically dealing
with Israel/Palestine as well as the endless sanctions against Iraq. Until
these grievances are met there can be no way forward.
Concretely this means making Jerusalem an international city, giving
the Palestinians a state, and ensuring that there are peace keepers on every
block in Israel-Palestine. It means threatening to stop all funding to both
parties (the 10$ billion yearly from the USA to Israel, for example, and
from Saudi Arabia and others to the Palestinian authority). It means
listening to the Other and moving away from strict good/evil essentialisms,
as Tony Blair has attempted to do in the Middle-East (or more appropriately
South-West Asia). Dualistic
language only reinforces that which it seeks to dispel, continuing the
language of the Crusades, with both civilizations not seeing that they
mirror each other. Indeed, at a
deeper level, we need to move to a new level of identity. As
Phil Graham of the University of Queensland writes: "We are the
Other. We have become alienated from our common humanity, and
the attribute, hope, image, that might save us – is
the "globalisation" of
humanity."[4]
However,
Bush giving increased legitimacy to Ariel Sharon once again strikes most of
the world as hypocritical. While Arafat has already lost any legitimacy he
may have had as a leader of the Palestinian people, at least he is not under
likely indictment for war crimes committed in Lebanon. For Bush to cozy up
to one war criminal and attempt to eliminate others (Mullah Oman and Bin
Laden) worsens an already terrible situation.
MACROHISTORY
From
a macrohistorical and structural perspective, the USA is a capitalist nation
with military might buttressing it. Osama Bin Laden and others are
capitalists with military strength. Both are globalized, both see the world
in terms of us/them, both use ideas for their position (extremists drawing
on Islam; American intellectuals using linear development theory). Both are
strong male. The USA builds twin towers, evoking male dominating
architecture (as argued by Ivana Milojevic and Philip Daffara, of the
University of the Sunshine Coast[5])
and the terrorists use the same phallic symbol – the airplane – to bring
it down. Boys with toys with terrifying results for us all.
And with over 50% of Americans believing that Arab Americans should
have special identity cards and the now defunct Taliban having legislated
that hindus where special insignia on their clothes, these chilling
similarities return us back to Europe sixty years ago.
In
the terms of spiral dynamics, as developed by Beck and others[6],
these are both red forces (passion) fighting each other. The world is
desperate for a Blue force, a higher order legal framework, to resolve the
violence. What has occurred
however is the elimination of one red force by a combined effort of two
other red forces, American and Northern Alliance. While the terrifying
actions of the Taliban are paraded in propaganda machines throughout the
world – the CNN lie machine – little mention of the Northern Alliance
brutalities are trumpeted. Fortunately, there is more to this world than
state power, and thus Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have
focused on all the parties (but none yet on USA bombing mistakes – such as
those costing the hands of Afghani children. Food packets being the same
color as cluster bombs can be seen as unfortunate or as paradigmatic. While
seeking indictments against US military personnel is going too far, Afghani
victims of the war should have the right to legal redress, especially
financial compensation. There can be no negotiation on this. Indeed, it is
this fear of indictments that keeps the US away from a world court.
Still
at least at the official level, American and Western leaders have called for
tolerance, for openness, for respecting Islam and muslims, for seeking
terrorists, ie criminals, and not other categories. [7]
Indeed, there have been legal cases against USA airlines for not allowing
those of south asian and middle eastern ethnicity to board on planes.
This type of legal recourse was certainly not available to Abdul Haq,
murdered by the Taliban in late
October. Not surprisingly,
Osama Bin Laden called
for a struggle against America and Jews (and now the United Nations),
resorting to tired racist and hateful rhetoric, which in the long run will
bring little solace to those suffering – essentially the language
and madness of conspiracy theory. Moreover, after the struggle against
America and the Jews, who then will it be, the shias (which are already
targeted by many Taliban supporters)? And then? Once the politics of
exclusion begins, only ever increasing dogmatic futures can result.
Interestingly, far right wing hate groups in the USA have endorsed
Osama Bin Laden's action, arguing that the Federal Government and the world
Jewish conspiracy is the problem (and as would be typical in male discourse,
saying that while they agree with politics and tactics they would not desire
them to marry their daughters and visa versa).
However,
Osama Bin Laden's demand for rights for Palestinians must be heard. Like a
child who is not heard, the shouting gets even louder. Or a body that is
sick, getting sicker and sicker, calling attention
to the disease, and even killing the host (meaning the planet
itself), unless there is some foundational and transformative change. While
the USA and others prefer the chemotherapy and radiation approach to health
(thus bombing appears natural, ie the USA exists in epistemological
reductionism) if we are
interested in the long term, then perhaps the naturopathic
homeopathic or chiropractic might work much better. Can there be a
truth and reconciliation commission?
The shouting is also getting louder as muslims are undergoing a
religious renaissance, argues Riaz Hussan of Flinders University, Australia.[8]
As they move toward increased religiosity, there is far less interest in
extremist political positions, in those who live in the conspiracy
discourse. Thus, Osama Bin Laden and other extremists find their pathways
cut off, both from within the Islamic world and as well from the globalized
multicultural world. Attacking old symbols of imperialism becomes the only
way for them to survive. Creating new futures, new economics, new cultural
texts, however, is the real challenge.
What
is especially challenging to the USA is that the demands from many muslims,
including extremists, is not for money or territory but for the West (and
nations claiming to be muslim) to change, to become less materialistic, more
understanding of the plight of the poor, and more religious – and to
return to their pre-Columbus borders. And, American public opinion appears
to share this, with a majority calling for a return to a moral core, away
from crass materialism (but not yet from jingoist war).
As Kevin Kelly has written, communism collapsed because the West
offered something better. For extremism of the Islamic variety to collapse,
more than McDonalds will have to be available.[9]
The
demands of the West on Islamic
nations generally has been the opposite: to become more materialistic, more
growth-oriented in terms of the formal economy (but not more people) and
more sensate, scientific – to develop.
From a macrohistorical perspective, each distorts what it means to be
human by focusing on one dimension, and in extreme forms.
From an individual view, we can see how
those in the periphery develop a love-hate relationship with the
center. The terrorists drinking, gambling, cavorting in strip clubs before
the 11th of September shows how they
internalized what they struggled against. It also shows how Islam for
them was strategic, a text that could be used to justify their own
pathological worldview.
In
the long run, the events of September may be viewed as an isolated attack of
terrorism, or they may be seen as: (1) events that clearly define who is the
world's hegemon ending the competing (Europe, East Asian, China) nation's
theory – Americanism, for now, and forever; (2) as a renewal of the
Islamic world, with extremists, literalists, declining in popularity, and a
new vision of Islamic modernity emerging, leading to the beginnings of a
global ecumene; (3) a challenge by the poor to the world capitalist system,
in effect, continuing the pattern of the decline of Communism, decline of
grand religions and the collapse of capitalism. In the sense, as the system
collapses, the question only future historians know is: what new forms of
power will reign? What will emerge from the chaos?
A world state?
The
second part the equation is a shared responsibility, within the Islamic
world especially, but essentially a dialogue of civilizations.
This means opening the gates of ijithad
(independent reasoning and a capacity to adapt to change) instead of blind
imitation. And here, the
crucial language is a dialogue within religions, between the hard and soft
side. Certainly the Taliban argument that Muslims have a duty to fight with
them in case of an attack on Afghanistan did not help matters.
The Taliban spent the last decade fighting against Muslims with USA
indirect support (creating what is now know as the Afghan Arabs) -
why would anyone desire to support such a state? It is the failure of
the modernist statist paradigm and support of tyrannical states by the West
that pushes groups in this extreme direction.
Unfortunately, leadership in the Islamic world that can give
legitimacy to the softer side has been silenced. As long as these leaders do
not stand up and challenge dictatorships, they will indirectly participate
in the creation of endless Osama Bin Laden's. Anwar Ibrahim is the most
potent symbol of a global muslim leader who seeks a dialogue within Islam
and between Islam and the rest of the world in language and on terms of
dignity and global ethics. Unfortunately, he remains falsely imprisoned in
Malaysia and is symptomatic of the crisis in the Third World.
While
the hard side has clearly defined the future – every bomb dropped, every
moment of bio-terror - reduces
the possibilities, this need not be the case.
There are alternatives. The
hard side (not the US military), to some extent, has become de-legitimized.
For example, even the right wing in the USA cringed when Pat
Robertson blamed the terror attacks on God ceasing to provide protection to
America because of the rise of feminism,
etc.. And Muslims everywhere,
are hopefully, beginning to see that more terror will not work and is
morally wrong. The Islamic leaders meeting in Qatar was a step forward. The
message must be: the injustices are real but non-violent global civil
disobedience (against companies, nations around the world, leaders)
is a far more potent method for long-term transformation. In
Pakistan, the elimination of the extreme right wing has given hope the
middle-class. The carrot of US$ has allowed Pakistan to move away from the
rightist politics of General Zia.
Unfortunately,
the hypocrisy in the West does not help matters, and increases daily. Until
the USA shuts down its own terror training camps, as for example, the
Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Co-operation (Whisc), change is
likely to be incremental if at all. Whisc was called the School of Americas
and argues George Monblot has trained more than 60,000 Latin American
soldiers and policemen," largely involved in death squads against their
own people. For example, in Chile its graduates ran Pinochet's secret police
and his three main concentration camps and Human Rights Watch revealed that
former pupils … had commissioned kidnappings, disappearances and
massacres."[10]Asks
Monblot, provocatively, should
there be bombings of Georgia? Of course not, still double standards do not
lead well to civilizational dialogue or world systems transformation. But
others nations perhaps should lead the USA by example, showing that
hypocrisy does not need to be how the game is played.
The
third part of the equation
really is what the social movements can and must continue, challenging the
asymmetrical nature of the world system – the structural violence, the
silent emergencies - and
pushing for a new globalization (of ideas, cultures, labor and capital,
while protecting local systems that are not racist/sexist/predatory on the
weak). The social movements can
through their practice and image of the future, show, and create a global
civil society, challenging the twin towers of capital and military.
Real transformation, as in the changes in Eastern Europe, was
pushed through partly through the people's movements. This process of
creating a post-globalization world must continue.
Resolving
the equation of terror then must be both very specific and short term -
crimes against humanity cannot
be tolerated – and must transform perceived injustices, the isms, and the
structure of the world system, the long term civilizational perspective.
New Internationalist
reminds us that on September 11, 2001, 24,000 people died of hunger, 6000 or
so children were killed of diarrhea and 2700 or so children died from
measles. [11]
Of
course, there are as well bio-psychological hormonal factors (testosterone
and chakra imbalance)[12]
that may account for the terrorist actions, but they do not always lead to
such massive horrendous actions unless there is a historical and structural
context. Thus, terrorist as
sociopath is an understandable description but there are deeper levels of
analysis.
SCENARIOS
What
then of the future? What are the likely trajectories? Here are four
scenarios for the near and long-term future. These are written – a first
draft was written september 20 - to map the future, to understand what is
likely ahead, as well to create spaces for transformation.
- Back
to Normal.
After successful surgical strikes against Bin Laden and others, the USA
returns to some normalcy. While trauma associated with air travel
remains, these are seen as costs associated with a modern lifestyle, ie
just as with cancer, heart disease and car accidents. The West continues
to ascend, focused on economic renewal through artificial intelligence
and emergent bio-technologies. More money, of course, goes to the
military and intelligence agencies. The Right reigns throughout the
World. Conflicts remain local and silent.
Over time, the world economy prospers once again and poorer
nations move up the ranks just as the Pacific Rim nations have. Already
the crusader look was presented at Jean-Charles de Castelbajac's design
collection and is considered likely to take off.[13]
La vie est Belle (but just don't look like you are from south asia or
the middle east or have an Arabic name).
- Fortress
USA/OECD.
Australia, for example, is already moving in that direction,
with basically a prison lock down ahead, especially to newcomers
(who desire to enter the Fantasy island of the Virtual West escaping
sanctions and feudal systems) and those who look different.
In the USA this is emerging through tighter visa restrictions and
surveillance on foreigners, as well as, citizens. The carrot is of
course usa citizenship being offered to informants from troubled spots.
Of course, once they gain citizenship, they can spent a life time under
surveillance.
However,
the costs for the elites will be very high given globalized world
capitalism, and with aging as one the major long term issues for OECD. The
Fortress scenario will lead to general impoverishment and the loss of the
immigration innovation factor. In
the short run, it will give the appearance of security, but in the longer
run, poverty will result, not to mention sham democracies with real power
with the right wing aligned with the military/police complex.
Increasing airport security is a must but without root issues being
resolved, terror will find other vehicles of expression. After all,
fortresses are remembered, in history, for being overrun, not for successful
defense against "others."
The
response from the Islamic world will be a Fortress Islam, closing
civilizational doors, becoming even more feudal and mullahist/wahbist, and
forcing individuals to choose: are you with us or against us, denying the
multiplicity of selves that we are becoming. The economy – oil – will
remain linked but other associations will continue to drift away.
3.
Cowboy
War - vengeance forever (with soft and hard fascism emerging).
Bush has already evoked the Wild West, and the Wanted – Dead or Alive
image, indeed, even calling for a "crusade" against the
terrorists. We have seen what that leads to all over the world, and the
consequences are too clear for most of us. Endless escalation in war that
will look like the USA has won but overtime will only speed up the process
of decline. They will remember
the latest round, and the counter-response will be far more terrifying, with
new sorts of weapons. In any case, with the USA military, especially the
marines rapidly increasing its
percent of its members who are muslim (through conversion and demographic
growth rates)[14],
cowboy war will start to eat at the inner center. And once state terror
begins, (or shall we say continues) there is no end in sight. Bush has
already stated the assassination clause does not apply to Bin Laden and
others since the USA is acting in self-defense. Cowboy war, again, will work
in the short run. Crowds will chant USA, USA, until the next hit. The CIA
can get back to business (already 1 billion has been appropriated and Bush
has asked Congress to increase the Pentagon budget by 50 billion usa $), and
continue to make enemies everywhere. Most likely, this will globally lead to
an endless global “Vietnam”, well, in fact, an endless Afghanistan.[15]
However,
there are signs that Bush and others are listening to a tiny portion of
their softer side and seeking to focus on the action of terror and not on
Islam or any other wider category.[16]
They could use the sympathy from the rest of the world to
“eliminate” terrorism (just as piracy in the high-seas was ended
earlier) and, hopefully, in the longer run, seek solidarity with all victims
of violence. The trauma from the bombing could lead Americans to genuinely
understand the traumas other face in their day to day existence, to a shared
transcendence, or it could lead to creating even more traumas. We can hope
he – and all of us – keeps on listening and learning,
and with the war in Afghanistan over, the soft future may be
possible. But if health in Afghanistan and the Islamic world is not
resorted, there will be more trauma on the way. For All.
Thus
in this future, there will be no real change to the world system. Once all
the terrorists are caught
– well actually the
perpetrators are already dead - no
changes in international politics or international capital will occur,
OECD states simply become stronger, while individuals become more
fearful and anxiety prone. A
depression of multiple varieties is likely to occur (economic and
psychological). The depression
will likely lead to anti-globalization revolts throughout the world, either
leading to states to bunker
themselves in for the long run, or possibly - transform. Most likely, we
will see a slow but inevitable movement toward global fascism – the soft
hegemony of the carnivore culture (and anti-ecological in terms of land use)
of McDonalds’s with the hard side of Stealth bombers.
The West will become a high-tech fortress, using surveillance
technology to watch its citizens. Dissent is only allowable in peace times,
and since the war against terrorism is for ever, submit or leave!
However,
“Fortress” in the long run may be difficult, as the globalization forces
have already been unleashed and the anti-thesis in a variety of forms has
emerged (the socialist revolt, decolonization movements, and even,
terrorism). “Cowboy war” will likely only exacerbate the deep cleavages
in the World Economy (that the richest 350 or so own the same as nearly 3
billion individuals). Indeed, a case can be made that this was Bin Laden
preferred scenario. Bush attacks lead to destabilization in the Arab world,
with the possibility of a nuclear accident and leading to extremists in
Islamic nations rising up against modernists.
Over
time in this scenario, there may be a transition in who plays the central
role in the world system, and is among the reasons the attacks have led to
global anxiety – world system shifts are not pretty events or processes.
The periphery tends to see its future through the lenses of the
Center; if the Center can be bombed, what future is there for the
impoverished periphery?
The
deep divide cannot be resolved, however, merely by the “hearts and
minds” strategy for this involves making traditionalists modernist, ie
from loving land and God to loving money and scientific rationality. Rather,
it involves moving from tradition to a transmodernity, which is inclusive of
multiple but layered realities (the vertical gaze of ethics), moving toward
an integrated planetary system (loving the
planet and moving away from exclusivist identities but transcending
historical traumas). But can this transition occur? Can there be a Gaian
polity? This is the fourth scenario.
4.
Gaian Bifurcation.
A Gaia of civilizations (each civilization being incomplete in itself and
needing the other) plus a system of international justice focused not only
on direct injustices but structural and cultural.
This would not only focus on Israel/Palestine (internationalizing the
conflict with peace keepers and creating a shared Jerusalem)
as well as ending the endless sanctions in Iraq, but highlighting
injustices by third world governments toward their own people (and the list
here is endless, Burma, Malaysia’s
Mahathir, India/Pakistan/Kashmir). The first phase would be
far more legalistic, developing a world rule of law system with the
context would be a new equity based multicultural globalization. This aspect
would have an hard edge, developing a global police force and a military
force. The second phase would be values driven, moving from military to
peace keeping to anticipatory conflict resolution. In this phase, this
future, the USA would move to
authentically understanding the periphery, seeking to become smaller,
globally democratic. This means transforming the world system, focusing on a
post-globalization vision of the future, and moving to world governance.
Specifically, this means: [17]
·
human
and animal rights;
·
indexing
of wealth of poor and rich on a global level, that is, economic democracy
– employee ownership;
·
prama-[18]based-
creating a dynamic balance, between regions, rural/city, seeing
the world economy through the ecological metaphor but with
technological innovation;
·
self-reliance,
ecological, electronically linked communities (becoming more important than
states);
·
gender
partnership;
·
and
a transformed United Nations, with increased direct democracy, influence of
the social movements and transparency within multinational corporations.
It
means moving away from the modernist self and the traditional self, and
creating a transmodern self (spiritual, integrating multiplicities and
future-generations oriented).
In
terms of epistemology, this means moving from the strategic discourse, which
has defined us for hundreds of years, to the emergent healing discourse
(within, toward others, toward the planet, and for future generations).
Healing means seeing the earth as an evolving body. What is the best
way to heal then, through enhancing the immune system, listening to the
body, or through massive injection of drugs?
In
workshops run around the world,
Islamic, Western and East Asian nations, for example, this alternative
future emerges as a desired future. Muslim leaders in a March 1996 seminar
in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia on the Ummah in 2025
desired a future that was based on:
·
gender
cooperation
·
a
cooperative economic system (and not capitalism)
·
self-reliance
ecological electronically linked communities (glo-cal), and, a
·
a
world governance system
This
perspective appears to be generally shared by
the cultural creatives, an emerging demographic category in the West
(www.culturalcreatives.org) In the Non-West as well there is a desire to
move away from feudal structures but retain spiritual heritage, to be
“modern” but in a different way.
DIRECTION
To
move toward this direction, ultimately means far more of a Mandela approach,
what Johan Galtung is doing via the transcend (www.transcend.org)
network, than the traditional short term Americanist approach.
Indeed,
9/11 must be seen in a layered way. How it is constructed defines the
solution. If we use the piracy discourse, then
a global police force must be developed to combat terrorism. If,
however, it is a natural consequence of globalization, of a shadow NGO
attacking a world hegemon, then the focus should be on the pathologies of
globalization. If this is
essentially about injustice, about deeper worldviews being extinguished by
modernity, then structural transformation and conversations with the other
are far more important.. Depth peace is needed. While there may need to be
short term actions against criminals, rehabilitation requires changes of
culture and of economic opportunities, ie dismantling of the interstate
system which allows capital to travel but not labour, and certainly
restricts ideas from the periphery to travel and circulate freely.
In
this sense, the fourth scenario is about the long term and about depth. This
fourth scenario is a vision of a global civil/spiritual society. It stands
in strong opposition to the declared nation-statist position and the
extremist groups all over the world. It challenges the strategic modernist
worldview as well as the short termism of most governments.
The
first scenario continues the present; the second is a return to the imagined
past; the third the likely future; and the fourth, the aspirational .
This means moving beyond both the capitalist West and the feudalized,
ossified non-West (and modernized fragmented versions of it) and toward an
Integrated Planetary Civilization.
On
a personal note, in utopian moments, I can see this civilization desperately
trying to emerge at rational and post-rational levels,
and there are huge stumbling blocks – perceived injustices, the
isms, the asymmetrical world
order, and national leaders unwilling to give up their "god-given"
right to define identity and allegiance.
Do
we have the courage to create this emergent future? As we move into 2002,
the aspirational future moves further and further away – the window of
opening for cultural dialogue, for understanding deeper issues, has all but
closed. But it will open again. Let us hope that opening does not come in
the same fashion as 9/11 did. And I hope we will learn from all the mistakes
committed this time.
Notes
[1]
Professor, Tamkang University, Taiwan; Sunshine Coast University,
Maroochydore; and Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane.
Co-editor, Journal of
Futures Studies (www.ed.tku.edu.tw/develop/jfs), Associate Editor, New
Renaissance (www.ru.org). s.inayatullah@qut.edu.au,
www.metafuture.org. Inayatullah
was born in Pakistan and raised in Indiana, New York, Geneva, Islamabad,
Kuala Lumpur, and Honolulu.
[2]
Around 500-700 Pakistanis are presumed to be missing, as based on data
from SBS Television Australia and Pakistan's The
News. It is not only Americans that is being attacked by certainly
Muslims (possibly around 900 or so in the WTC and
some in the Pentagon, perhaps, not to mention attacks of terror
toward Muslims in the last 15 years from all sources) as well. As of
September 23, the figure is 200 pakistanis. http://www.pak.gov.pk/public/transcript_of_the_press_conferen.htm.
By February 2002, this figure has been revised downwardly to 3000. The
number of non-Americans killed is unknown.
[4]
Personal comments. September 18, 2001.
[5]
Personal comments. September 16, 2001.
[6]
Jo Voros of Swinburne University offers these thoughts (email, October 8,
2001):
What's really going on (in Spiral
language) is that purposeful-authoritation higher-order-seeking BLUE is
activating its fundamentalist side and is becoming entrenched on both
sides of the conflict. And each side of the conflict is basically talking
about God being on *their* side (the classic
Higher Authority invocation) therefore, the "others" are
unjust, unrighteous and deserve to be damned forever. BLUE needs a
clear-cut right and wrong; by default "we" are right and
"they" are wrong, which is the dynamic now playing out on either
side.
Therefore, we have the US talking
about "bringing to justice" (punitive arm of BLUE) those
responsible for WTC attacks. The US talk of a "crusade" is a
RED-BLUE effect; unrestrained RED asserts power and domination, often with
violence, and when aligned with the "righteousness" provided by
the higher authority, this violence is assumed to be righteous, resulting
in violence glorified, allowed and exalted in the name of the Higher
Authority. This is the same dynamic as on the West Bank between the
Israelis and the Palestinians. Once you strip out the context-specific
content, the same dynamical process is easily seen. On the facing side,
the fundamentalist Taliban are saying the same sort of stuff -- that it is
the US who are terrorists and criminals, and thus unrighteous, etc -- and
invoking "jihad" -- the semantic equivalent of
"crusade". The RED is starting to flow, both figuratively as a
Spiral Dynamics vmeme, and as the blood of the now dying in vain. *sigh*
So, what we really need in this
conflict is a super-ordinate Even Higher Authority to provide
"good" authority (as opposed to the excessive fundamentalist
form present on both sides) and bring the two sides to heel.
Unfortunately, this is not present on Planet Earth. Each side claims
sanction and legitimation from the Ultimate Higher Authority (God), so any
non-God authority is, by definition, beneath this level.
[7]
Of course, one friend of mine, commented that if he did know me, because
of my name and facial features, he would have problems flying on the same
plane as me. Another commented: "They are everywhere" (meaning
arabs/south asians/muslims).
[8]
See Hasan's Faithlines:
Muslim Conceptions of Islam and
Society. Oxford University
Press (forthcoming).
[9]
Kevin Kelly, "The New Communism," The
Futurist (January-February, Vol. 26, No. 1, 2002), 22. Writes Kelly:
"I think we need to enlarge Western civilization so that we have
something young Islamic believers want. Providing it will be the only way,
and the only honest way, to triumphh." (22)
[10]
George Monblot, "Looking for a terror school to bomb? Try Georgia,
USA. Sydney Morning Herald (November 1, 2001), 12.
[11]
New Internationalist 340,
November 2001, 18-19.
[12]
In the Indian health system, there are seven chakras. When the chakras are
imbalanced, then negative emotions and behaviors can result. Yoga,
meditation and diet are ways to balance the bodies hormonal system.
[13]
Sally Jackson, "Star-spangled fervour in style," The
Australian (October 31, 2001), 15.
[14]
Ayeda Husain Naqvi writes in
"The Rise of the Muslim Marine" (NewsLine,
July 1996, 75-77) that while
hate
crimes against Muslims rise all over the world, surprising the US military
is one of the safest places to be a Muslim. Indeed, Qasem Ali Uda
forecasts that in 20 years, 25% of all US marines will be Muslim. Given
the incredible influence that that former military personnel have on US
policies (ie a look at Who's Who in
America shows that military background and law school education are
the two common denominators on the resumes of America's most influential
people), inclusion is the wisest policy.
[15]
I am indebted to Mike Marien, of the World Future Society for this
insight.
[16]
As the conflict matures, Colin Powell and others have understood that
surgical strikes as well as seeing the other in far less essentialized
terms (the many Islams, the many Afghanistans) is crucial for strategy and
success. Bush entering a mosque, without shoes, and publicly stating that
this is a war against terrorists and not Muslims are all excellent steps
forward. In addition, protection of minorities in the USA against direct
violence is as well to be lauded. Even his willingness to change the title
of the American Infinite Justice operation to Enduring Freedom confirms
that he is getting some good advise, or rapidly growing up.
However, if total lack of capacity to understand the role of honor
in Pushtun culture once again shows that Americanism can be dangerous for
the world, in that complexity, other ways of knowings are not only not
misunderstood but not seen as relevant at all. An approach that understoon
Pushtun culture would search for honorable ways for them to withdraw from
this conflict.
[17]
See, Sohail Inayatullah, Understanding
Sarkar: The Indian Episteme, Macrohistory and Transformative Knowledge.
Leiden, Brill, 2002.
[18]
Prama means inner and outer balance.
For more on this, see, Sohail Inayatullah, Sitatuing
Sarkar. Maleny, Gurukul Publications, 1999.