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| Arabia |
| World 'Moving Closer to Clash of Civilizations' |
| 2002-11-09 |
| Participants in an international symposium in Sanaa this week stressed that the world has moved closer toward cultural polarization after Sept. 11, but at the same time witnessed serious calls for dialogue between nations. That's because one civilization declared war on the other, and the other for some reason just won't pretend it never happened and forget the fact... Intellectuals from Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Germany, France, Switzerland, Britain and Japan met in a three-day symposium to discuss the implications of Sept. 11 on international relations. Titled War in Times of Peace and International Relations after Sept. 11, the symposium dealt with three major issues: the West, the East, and the regional order. Sounds ever so impressive. Pray, tell on... Some participants believed that Sept. 11 has proved the validity of the clash of civilizations model, and has fuelled ideological radicalization, while others felt that the dangers imposed by such clash had urged more vigorous cultural dialogue between civilizations and cultures. That means some of the participants think the time for yakking is past, and other think they can continue to bat their gums until hell freezes over... The participants also discussed the price some countries are paying for their cooperation with the US in its war on terrorism. Prince Turki Al-Faisal, chairman of the King Faisal Center for Islamic Studies and Research in Saudi Arabia, highlighted the impact of the Sept. 11 attacks on the Arabian Peninsula. He criticized the title of the symposium saying it should have been Peace in Times of War for the region has been living in war for a long time. He said the region needs reform, democracy and human rights. Human rights includes freedom of religion, which the Soddies would no more accept on their own than they'd accept being gutted. At an even lower level than that, they're culturally unable to accept the idea of people being left alone. There's no cultural disapproval of people who demand that other people not do things they don't approve of. One of the main issues that should be addressed is the US bias toward Israel. This issue provokes backlash with Arab and Muslim peoples, Al-Faisal noted. It also provides an all-purpose excuse, to be trotted out whenever things aren't looking perfect, which is near-daily... Dr. Abdul Kareem Al-Iryani, Yemen's former prime minister, who is now working as an adviser to President Ali Abdullah Al Saleh, said: "Sept. 11 has raised a lot of questions on how the international relations should be... Our frustration has partly resulted from Sept. 11. What has made it even worse is the American bias toward Israel, the Israeli intransigence, and the total helplessness of the Arabs." See what I mean? 9-11 had nothing, in the American mind, to do with Israel or with anything else except for a bunch of Arabs, mostly Soddies, hijacking four planes and killing thousands of innocents. The "total helplessness of the Arabs" doesn't seem to stand up to scrutiny when one looks at the network of terror machines that are funded by Arab princes and Iranian theocrats and driven by spittle-spewing mullahs and ayatollahs. Uncovering the machines gives us something to fight back against — the military and diplomatic problem boundaries are much more clear than they were a year ago. In the Muslim world the alignment is still going on, and they're still making progress. A large hunk of Pakistan wants on the Soddy bandwagon to an Islamic future, and Turkey's wobbling toward Islamism. We'll be able to tell we're winning the fight when Muslim nations start discovering that their bread is buttered on the Western side. If they don't discover that, the fight will become more vicious with time, more ideological, and they might find themselves facing a genuine "crusade" when we start pushing freedom of religion. A hundred years from now Islam might be a quaint little cult, confined to a few remote corners of a world that's majority Christian and/or agnostic. Professor Mohammed Ahmed Al-Afandi, chairman of the Yemeni Center for Strategic Studies, said combating terrorism should not be used as a pretext to oppress moderate Islamic movements. Guess that depends on one's definition of what's "moderate," doesn't it? If there are firearms involved, most people in the U.S. don't consider it to be "moderate." If there are explosives involved, most people in the U.S. don't consider it to be "moderate." And the Salafists do a pretty thorough job of oppressing non-Salafist Muslims. Abdul Azeez Al-Maqaleh, chairman of the Yemeni Center for Research and Studies, stressed the importance of dialogue for eradicating terror. The use of force in dealing with terrorism is illogical and unacceptable. There is a need for dialogue and for studying every case individually, Al-Maqaleh said. (GN) If responding to force with force is illogical, God help logic. If killing people who want to kill us is illogical, there is no logic. It's impossible to hold a "dialogue" with people who are determined to kill us and destroy our civilization. Masato Iizuka, a Japanese professor, said: Japans foreign policy was formed with two major objectives: keeping good relationship with US, the biggest customer of Japanese products, and building friendly relations with Muslim countries to secure a supply of oil. That's a pretty good example of trying to cover one's ass with both hands, isn't it? Dr Michael Ehrke, German political scientist, presented a paper on common grounds and tensions in American and European foreign policies. He reviewed the options of the EU vis-a-vis the U.S saying three options are considered: a policy of rearmament and military modernisation aiming at balancing the American military power; a policy aiming at increasing the strategic value of Europe for the U.S. and, consequently, increasingly influence on American decision building; and a policy of appeasement and the abandonment of an autonomous global political role of the EU. If they intend to rearm to "balance" American military power, that raises that possibility, even the probability, that at some point in the future their military will find itself on the other side of our military. The option of "increasing the strategic value of Europe" seems to involve periodic opposition to our goals, even when they logically coincide with those of Europe. The appeasement option seems already to have been chosen — and it's not the U.S. that's being appeased. |
| Posted by:Fred Pruitt |