Ryszard M. Machnikowski
"War on Terror: the New Clash of Civilizations?”
Islam is the best, but we Muslims are not the best. The West is neither
corrupted nor degenerate. It is strong, well – educated, and organized.
Their schools are better than ours. Their cities are cleaner than ours.
The level of respect for human rights in the West is higher, and the care
for the poor and less capable is better organized. Westerners are usually
responsible and accurate in their words. Instead of hating the West, let us
proclaim cooperation instead of confrontation.
BOSNIAN PRESIDENT ALIJA IZETBEGOVIC
Terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and probably the Capitol (this was a
relative failure and ended in Pennsylvania) (1) brought to the attention of the world’s public opinion the
question of modern (or rather post-modern) terrorism. Before September 11, 2001, the clear and
present danger posed by the terrorist groups was obvious only for a bunch of specialist in the
counterterrorism field and security officials (with certain exception of the societies of Israel, Sri Lanka,
Peru, Colombia and Kashmir)
(2)
. Afterwards, terrorist threat was discussed by mass media across the
globe, capturing public attention for some time. This date was adapted by historians, politicians and
media commentators as a terminal line for the end of a previous century and the start of a new one –
the age of global terrorism
. This was mainly due to the fact that the world’s only superpower (or
(3)
even hyperpower in French parlance) designed terrorism, as its primary enemy in the post-Cold War
era. Global mass media, dominated by the USA, passed this message to the world public: the United
States was at war – at war with terrorism (and as a consequence significantly altered its national
security doctrine) (4). That very notion has raised eyebrows of numerous specialists claiming that it was
deeply confusing – terrorism should not be treated as a legitimate enemy, cause it is considered to be a
method (albeit a cruel one) of warfare used by the enemy rather than the independent phenomenon
(5)
. Consequently, there is no “single terrorism” but there are many conflicts (“terrorisms”) when this
tool of “asymmetric warfare” is deliberately used to diminish the overwhelming conventional
advantage of one side. So one cannot combat “terrorism” as such but only concrete terrorist groups as
well as individuals, organizations or states supporting them. They were obviously right, though it was
not the lack of proper expertise but political correctness, deeply rooted in American public life, which
effectively prohibited the Bush jr. administration from naming its true enemy correctly. They simply
could not too openly declare that America was going to fight militant Islamic radicals, because it would
resemble Samuel P. Huntington’s “offensive” thesis of the “clash of civilisations”, widely (and wildly)
rejected by the “progressive” owners of the public discourse - one can imagine the media headlines,
soon to be abbreviated, especially in the Middle East, as the war with Islam, as it did in fact happen.
This was reasonable, as nobody in the U.S. government wanted to fight the whole Muslim civilization
but only a loud groups of political and religious extremists who claimed monopoly to speak in its name
and held this religion hostage to achieve their wicked political goals.
Hence, the misleading slogan “war on terror” conquered the minds of the public, deepening
confusion and misunderstanding. In fact, the U.S. was to continue its lasting at least one decade
struggle with militant, anti-American Islamic groups, which were willing to use terrorism as a method
of fight against the “Great Satan”. Since 9/11 this war was to be performed with less degree of secrecy
and with far more powerful resources and popular support, at least in America. Hidden (and rather
reluctant) warfare carried out by the consecutive U.S. administrations, known in details only to “quiet
professionals”
(7)
and responsible policy makers, emerged from the ashes of the World Trade Center
and the Pentagon and became open to the general public. It was spurred by a potentially devastating
attack on the American soil – an event without a historical precedence, even considering Pearl Harbour.
The former CIA director James Woolsey neatly described what September 11, 2001 has really
changed: “Al Qaeda has been at war with us for the better part of a decade. What’s new is that we
finally noticed. ”
“The punch in the face of the American hegemon” (as it was frequently called, especially
through the Middle East) has been noticed with shock and awe by the American society, and with
declared sympathy towards the victims by the large part of the world. However, there were some
places, where these attacks were met with open joy and support, and European solidarity with America
quickly vanished and was superseded by the feeling of shadenfreude. “Why do they hate us?” and
“what went wrong?” were the most frequent questions in the USA, as ordinary Americans seemed not
to know the answers. They finally encountered the fact that even after the end of the Cold War America
had an enemy clever and resourceful enough to make a significant harm. However, a large sector of the
world’s public opinion (as well as some notorious American authors like Noam Chomsky, Michael
Moore or Gore Vidal
) did have some hints on the “root causes” of the resentments leading to this
(8)
savage, anti-American attack. It was the USA itself to be blamed for what happened on 9/11. Its sole
power, arrogance, annoying unilateralism, ruthless exploitation of the world’s resources (most notably,
Middle Eastern oil) and, last but not least, support of Israel against the Palestinians, had caused
resentments leading to this outrageous act of barbaric atrocity. In the eyes of radical (and sometimes
even not so radical) thinkers and large sector of the “World’s public opinion” (especially in the Muslim
“street”, but also in Western Europe), the perpetrators of these cruel attacks were at least partially
validated by the presumed atrocities committed by the “Imperialist” America to the rest of the world.
(9)
. Its greatest current sin was hidden under the banner of “globalization”, which apparently concealed
the enormous (and evil) influence exerted by the American civilization. Seemingly, “globalization” was
a concept, which was used to present the aggressive spread of essentially Western values and ways of
life, trade and government over the globe, as if it was a “natural” and inevitable process, excluding any
coercion. America obviously has been considered the main agent of this transformation, as it is the
strongest Western state. A critical approach to that concept presumably revealed cultural, economic and
political “neocolonialism” and “imperialism” standing behind it as well as a coercive nature of this
process – it was perceived as a forceful Westernization of the world, though some preferred the word
“Americanization” as a more close to the “truth”.
Therefore, it should not come as a surprise that soon after 9/11, the U.S. government received
advice from engaged intellectuals to turn the other cheek to the masters of the terrorist attacks, and
meet their demands based on these “legitimate grievances” (do not attack the Taliban, stop supporting
Israel, withdraw from the Middle East, halt globalization etc.). It seemed that nothing short of total and
final self-rejection of any political and cultural influence exerted by the U.S.A. on the world, and selfdenial of the so called “American values” (what conventionally is called isolationism), could win the
sympathy of the pacifist European public opinion, French and German leaders and columnists included
(10)
. Though immediately after 9/11 the governments of Western European countries hurried up to
declare verbal support, they did it apparently in order to have a minimal control of the superpower’s
prospective actions, and possibly to constrain them. All in vain, as contrary to these voices, Bush
administration, led by the neocon desire to change the world rather than to understand it, invaded
Afghanistan and quickly ousted the Taliban regime, what left Al Qaeda without a base. U.S.
government soon has declared, with outrageous sincerity, that this country no longer be a “benign
hegemon” and will actively pursue its security policies. The Americans start to perceive a whole world
as a battleground for their fight with the terrorist groups hidden under the banner of Al Qaeda. Bush jr.
was clearly following Ronald Reagan, who after a decade of rather shaky foreign policy, successfully
achieved democratic transformation in Central and Eastern Europe, surprising many experts (so called
“sovietologists”), who usually forecasted a longstanding well-being of the USSR. Enormous economic,
political and military pressure on the Soviets led to subversion and eventual collapse of the Soviet
system. Certainly, it is worth mentioning here that this transformation seemed to be much an easier task
in comparison, as large parts of Eastern European public had desperately been longing for American
liberation, which is certainly not the case, when we consider the population of the Middle East. While
huge sectors of Polish, Czech or Hungarian societies have felt they were actually oppressed by the
Soviet domination, a lot of people in the Middle East believe that their real oppressor is the U.S.A.
itself, so they do not need more American presence there. Hence, it is not yet clear whether American
pressure succeeds with the transformation of the Middle East, an obvious goal of the current American
foreign policy.
In Washington D.C., Western European support was considered as insignificant, what was a
clear result not only of a unilateral mood, so fashionable today in the U.S. corridors of power, but also
of Bosnia and Kosovo lessons. American administration clashed many times with the Europeans over
the use of force to stop the atrocities committed in the former Yugoslavia, and this experience
strengthen their disdain for asking “Europe” or “the World” for their permission for U.S. action in Iraq.
The people standing behind the terrorist attacks were labelled “evil doers” and “mad fanatics”,
deprived of any popular support, what made the impression that the Bush administration was not
interested at all in countering the presumed motives of terrorist actions, and limited itself to targeting
the perpetrators and those who supported them. Some of the U.S. officials have even uttered that war
on terrorism could be finally and decisively won (by the simple extinction of terrorists) – the clear
result of an approach chosen by them to “explain” the terrorists’ actions (11).
Unfortunately, this vision of an isolated enemy of America, lacking any wider support or
sympathy is far from being true. The sheer scale of anti-American resentments, so much visible today
on every continent, has indicated that many societies are willing to reject, or at least limit, the influence
exerted by this country. Even if they did not openly support violent attacks, they felt no constraint to
justify these attacks, and at least partially exculpate the perpetrators. Al Qaeda seems to be an extremist
and violent vanguard of this wide and growing movement rejecting Western (primarily American)
civilization (hidden under the banner of globalization) and its rapid spread over the whole globe. Can
we talk about the sudden and unexpected revival of Samuel P. Huntington’s claim that we should
expect a violent reaction against this forcible attempt of a civilizational unification called
“globalization”? Or is it only a struggle of political actors in which the cultural factors can be
disregarded?
Certainly, there is a lot to be said about the importance of the strictly political reasons affecting
this problem. Nobody can exclude purely political motives standing behind the actions of numerous
actors involved in the “war on terror”. E.g. Iran and Syria, Sudan, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan have long
been supporting various forms of religious extremism and terrorist activity to increase their influence
and preeminence in the Muslim world or to preserve their regimes, as well as to achieve some goals of
their internal and foreign policy. Particularly interesting in this respect is a competition between Saudi
Arabia and Iran for the ideological leadership in the Muslim world. It was the reason why these
countries have supported religious extremism to gain proper leverage on the Muslim societies. In the
80s, America had widely used the religious zeal of the warriors of jihad to subvert the Soviet Union,
with a stunning final effect. It seems also clear that all these countries have unleashed forces they are
no longer able to control, and which turned the rage against their former generous patrons (with an
obvious exempt of Iran, still supporting extremists). Nevertheless, for the purpose of this article, I
intend to limit my analysis to the cultural factors affecting this conflict and focus my attention on the
global, cultural perspective.
The idea of the clash of civilizations reappeared in the West with an article of the American
political scientist, Samuel P. Huntington. This highly controversial and rather short text
(12)
evoked
heated debate and its author decided to present his arguments in a more extended way – hence the
appearance of the lengthy book
(13)
. His claim was widely understood as a justification of American
imperialism, though it was exactly the opposite – it was a warning cry against the “cultural
universalism”, presented earlier by another famous and controversial American thinker – Francis
Fukuyama. Fukuyama, expressing American optimism of the end of the Cold War and its proclaimed
victory over the Soviets, has suggested that after the fall of communism, liberal democracy and free
market capitalism have no serious contenders as they meet the desires of any human being in the best
possible way. The rest of the history would be a witness to the slow, and perhaps somewhere even
violent, process of the subjugation of other civilizations to this new, global liberal culture and
economy. Some can call his position as a universalistic liberal fundamentalism or even “cultural
imperialism”. Although Western liberal civilization may encounter some local challengers, in a long
term they are not fit enough to pose a real threat to the universalistic message of the West. He has even
noticed that Islam might be the most serious contender, as it is “ (…) a systematic and coherent
ideology (...) with its own code of morality and doctrine of political and social justice. The appeal of
Islam [was] potentially universal, reaching out to all men as men (...) And Islam has indeed defeated
liberal democracy in many parts of the Islamic world, posing a grave threat to liberal practices even in
countries where it has not achieved political power directly (...). Despite the power demonstrated by
Islam in its current revival, however, it remains the case that his religion has virtually no appeal outside
those areas that were culturally Islamic to begin with. The days of Islam's cultural conquests, it would
seem, are over. It can win back lapsed adherents, but has no resonance for the young people of Berlin,
Tokyo, or Moscow. And while nearly a billion are culturally Islamic - one-fifth of the world's
population - they cannot challenge liberal-democracy on its own territory on the level of ideas. Indeed,
the Islamic world would seem more vulnerable to liberal ideas in the long run than the reverse.”
(14)
He perceived militant Islamic fundamentalism as a potential source of troubles, including terrorism
as a method of diminishing presumed Western supremacy, but in a long term, even the Muslims would
be persuaded by the advantages of the liberal Western culture and finally might accept it. Otherwise,
the Muslim world would remain within a realm of a “historical” world, with all its shortcomings and
sufferings like war, famine and dictatorship. For Fukuyama, the choice had been pretty simple: either
you accepted liberal culture with its passport to peace and welfare, or you would be excluded from
these undeniable achievements of this social system and left in a limbo.
It is worth saying that though seemingly naive, Fukuyama’s thesis does not lack an interesting
and sophisticated philosophical reasoning. Like Kantian space and time, Western liberal culture gives
the basic social freedoms for human development, encompassing any other set of rules. Western
liberal-democratic nation–states provide the right and open framework, necessary for the growth of
divergent ideologies, which are actively suppressed by the other social systems. Western states accept a
huge flow of political dissenters and refugees from the countries, where their ideology has been
ruthlessly eradicated. Lively Saudi, Algerian, Syrian, Jordanian and Egyptian political opposition is
based mainly in London, not in Riyadh, Algiers, Damascus, Amman or Cairo, as these countries have a
long tradition of repression and extermination of their political opponents, including Islamic radicals.
British authorities have granted considerable margin of liberty even for such radical clerics as Omar
Bakri, Abu Hamza or Abu Qatada, who openly wowed to subvert democracy in the United Kingdom
and establish the Islamic state based on Sharia there. By September 11, they probably have been
considered as a minor nuisance, not a serious threat. Surely, British government’s actions were severely
limited by the existing law giving the inhabitants of this country freedom to worship any religion,
including the most extremist interpretation of them, the privilege non-existent in some of the harshest
Muslim regimes. As Walter Laqueur strikingly observes: ”If a neo-Nazi group had called for killing
all the blacks in England, they would have run into difficulties under the Race Relations Act, but
the Islamist preachers of hate were considered religious dignitaries and therefore immune to
prosecution. (…) [T]he British and French governments were not inclined to interfere in what they
considered the internal affairs of religious communities, which enjoyed full freedom under existing
laws.“
(15)
At the same time, the religious extremists from Algeria, managed to target not only the
population of this country, but also France, which granted their fellow-citizens freedoms of expression
unavailable in their homeland, in two series of violent terrorist attacks aimed at civilians in 1995 and
1996. It seems that 9/11 plot was refined in Al Qaeda cells not only in Afghanistan, but also in
Germany and Spain. Security institutions then did not preoccupy themselves too much with a potential
danger posed by the Islamic radicals living and studying in this country long before this deadly attack.
To excuse intelligence agencies one should note that at least some of the warriors of jihad seemingly
came there undetected, as they received proper training aimed at ensuring they would not be recognized
as dangerous people. The same happened when they moved to the U.S.A. They did not express their
views openly and behaved like not very religious persons - some of them allegedly gambled, drunk
alcohol and visited “go go” bars and night-clubs
(16)
. Despite all that, they despised American culture
and were willing to harm this country. The fact that fifteen of them were Saudi citizens, the country
recognized then as a loyal ally of America was probably also significant. By September 11, 2001,
Usama bin Ladin and his organization were considered by a majority of policy makers as a nasty but
not deadly serious danger, despite many of his anti-American fatwas, declaration of war against
America
(17)
, August 1998 attacks on U.S. embassies in Africa, USS Cole destruction and the
“millennium plots” disbanded by the Federal agencies. After the end of the Cold War America and the
world seemed to be a safe place and nobody wanted to hear about the “clash of civilization thesis”,
rejected previously by many serious thinkers. Those few, like Richard Clarke, the head of the CSG,
who openly expressed their warnings against Islamic extremists, were labelled “alarmists” and their
claims were largely ignored. Hardly anyone then predicted that a Saudi outlaw, living in a Middle Age
like “rogue state”, could find a destructive weapon against the world’s only superpower and dare to use
it
. The era of a “state-to-state only” hostilities was finished – the infrastructure of the West was
(18)
effectively used by a non-state actor like Al Qaeda to achieve a deadly end – to humiliate the hegemon,
and create an impression that its power was as elusive as the towers destroyed.
Fukuyama has claimed that Western values and methods of resolving social crises are universal
in the sense that the rest of the human kind could accept them, regardless the local cultures shaping
their mentality and customs. Huntington forcefully rejected Fukuyama’s principal thesis of the
universality of the Western culture and predicted that its rapid, due to globalization, spread would
inevitably encounter resistance, sometimes extremely violent. He has perceived Western values as
necessarily local, and refuted the idea that each alien culture is ready and willing to embrace them and
transform itself. If the West insists to impose its ways of existence over the rest of the human
population, the result would be likely the clash of civilizations. Therefore Huntington has advocated the
preservation of Western forms of life in these localities, where they have been successfully
implemented, and being particularly cautious in transferring them to the regions where they have great
chance to be rejected. Huntington’s thinking was defensive rather than offensive, conservative rather
than liberal and, in a way, though initially only a few were so subtle to grasp it, his position could be
considered as a similar to those who advocate moderate anti-globalism. He intended to prevent rather
than preach the inevitability of the cultural clashes after the end of the Cold War.
Certainly, his line of thinking has been based on two major (and highly questionable)
assumptions: first, that it is reasonable to find some coherent cultural identities called civilizations,
which are shaping human behaviour; second, that the major conflicts in a post-Cold War world would
be between the most (socially, not geographically) distant of them. In case the West was still pressing
with its cultural supremacy and visible presence, he had expected some possible violent responses from
the Chinese (through war) and Muslim (through terrorism) civilizations. These close encounters of
civilizations were likely to be militant, as they were fundamentally different and they would forcibly
defend their cultural identity, presumably assaulted by the West. As Chinese civilization is more likely
to defend only its domain of influence, the Muslim civilization, in its most virulent form – Islamic
integrism, is more prone to assault the Western core, namely America. According to Huntington,
Chinese civilization has limited universalistic inclinations, it is simply too difficult to be properly
comprehended, so it should not take any offensive actions, unless not openly assaulted (e.g. over
Taiwan). Because Islam, like Christianity, tends to be a highly universalistic religion, it is easy to
grasp, and has a long tradition of clashes with the West in the past, the action coming from the
extremists there might be more offensive, though the justification for it is purely defensive – it is done
to prevent the West from entering the realm of Islam. Obviously, this universalistic message of the
Muslim civilization is even stronger among Islamic fundamentalists, who are ready to carry the torch of
jihad through all societies their brothers and sisters managed to inhabit. They tend to perceive
globalization as a Western plot to deprive the Muslims of their unique identity, and at the same time as
a prime competitor to their own ambitions to impose the will of their God on the world. Paul R. Pillar,
the author of “Terrorism and U.S. Foreign Policy”, notes: “The U.S. commercial and cultural
presence overseas - although it cannot be linked as directly to U.S. policies as diplomatic or
military installations can - has also been the target of terrorism conducted solely for reasons of
symbolism and hatred (as distinct from more instrumental uses of terrorism such as hostage taking, in
which U.S. business has also figured as a target). (…) The Islamists oppose it violently because to them
it is the font of a torrent of dirty water that is polluting the pond where they live. There is so much
about American culture for the Islamists to hate, from its overall materialism to the role of women to
the more sensual aspects of popular entertainment. And the cultural torrent is not only polluting the
pond, it is making waves that are destroying old and fragile structures that were built along it. The
American-originated changes in what people throughout the Muslim world are seeing and hearing, on
the airwaves and on street corners, is tearing down mores on the obedience of children, the relationship
between the sexes, and much else. The Islamists see these changes as wrecking a traditional social
fabric without putting anything in its place that offers self-respect and stability, or even-for most
Muslims-a more prosperous life. The face of America that much of the world sees through the global
mass media is not its best face. It is a face that reinforces some of the worst stereotypes that Islamists
hold about the United States. News coverage that naturally focuses on troubles rather than good news
can easily leave an impression of an America that is dominated by racism, drug abuse, the breakdown
of families, and other societal ills. American popular entertainment, especially some forms of popular
music, appalls the Islamists even more. The more debauched parts of this ubiquitous segment of
American culture have been targets of social critics in the United States. It should not be surprising that
the revulsion an Islamic fundamentalist feels is even greater, to the point in some cases of contributing
to a predisposition toward anti-American violence. Many Islamists take the popular entertainment to be
truly representative of the United States. A Pakistani fundamentalist group, for example,
denounced two stars of American pop music, Michael Jackson and Madonna, as "the
torchbearers of American society, their cultural and social values (...) that are destroying
humanity. They are ruining the lives of thousands of Muslims and leading them to destruction,
away from their religion, ethics, and morality." The group said the two entertainers are "cultural
terrorists" who should be brought to trial in Pakistan.” (19)
It also seems that the idea of the clash of civilizations is not alien to Islam itself. Pillar observes:
“Most of the Islamists' animus toward the United States does not reflect tenets of Islam (even the
more fundamentalist interpretations of them) as it does a more general religious self–righteousness
confronting secularism. Islamists share with the extremists of other religions a view of themselves as
part of a cosmic struggle, with their religious belief giving a moral sanction to violence. It is a common
trait of all such extremists that they deem the lives of individuals who may die in the course of battling
a cosmic enemy (including ones who die in terrorist attacks) to be of little importance. Certain aspects
of the Islamic worldview do, however, lend themselves more than other belief systems to the
notion of an inevitable and violent clash with the U.S. -led West. The division of the world in this
view between Dar al – Islam (The Realm of Islam) and Dar al – Harb (The Realm of War), the
obligation of Muslims to try to expand the faith (the idea of jihad), and the lack of a clear
distinction between temporal and spiritual matters all contribute to this. These and other tenets of
Islam are subject, to multitudinous interpretations, and for the great majority of Muslims they do not
dictate violence, let alone terrorism. Jihad can take many peaceful forms. That is why Huntington's
concept of a religiously based clash does not describe the interactions that most Muslims, and
most Muslim states and organizations, have with the United States and the West. It does
describe, however, the view of the Islamist terrorists. If bin Ladin or someone of his ilk were to
read Huntington's work, the reaction would not be surprise or shock but rather
acknowledgement that this indeed is the conflict in which they believe themselves engaged. In the
terrorists' perception, it is a conflict that is based on religion, involves resistance to cultural
intrusion, is inevitable, includes their own terrorist operations as a leading part, and in which the
enemy is the West, whose core state is the United States of America.” (20)
The ideology giving legitimacy to these furious attacks directed against the symbols of the
Western power has been created in the Middle East and Central Asia in the late 20s and early 30s,
refined in the 50s and 60s, widely spread in the 70s along the demise of the secular Arab nationalism,
and hardened in battle in the 80s and 90s of the previous century. It was Islamic fundamentalism
proposed by the Egyptians Hasan al Banna and Sayid Qutb, the Pakistani Abu al Ala al-Mawdudi and
the Iranian Ruhollah Khomeini, who refined intellectual tools of this religiously motivated political
ideology aimed at the defence of Islam against modern idolaters, and spread its message, through the
export of the Islamic revolution. It’s worth noting that al Banna, (who was killed in 1949),
denounced the West as decadent, tyrannical and unjust and wowed to crush it in a jihad more
than sixty years ago, even before the age of global, TV oriented, pop culture. Consequently, it is
rather hard to prove that these were precisely the unilateral actions of the Bush jr. administration, which
could have outraged al Banna, when he wrote his letter to the heads of Muslims states in 1946.
However, without an active support of the Islamic states (especially Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and
Iran), these thinkers would have remained to be known only to the scarce group of their followers. It
was the House of Saud that supported the global spread of the extremely virulent, Wahhabi
interpretation of Islam, with money; gen. Ziaul Haq who decided to introduce the Sharia in Pakistan
and support Islamic schools – madrasas – the centres of radical deobandi interpretation of Islam (21). It
was Ayatollah Khomeini’ s Iran and his idea of the export of the Islamic revolution, which backed
various terrorist groups in the Middle East and Central Asia. With a notable exception of Iran, the two
countries were actively supported by the U.S.A, and used to forward its anti-Soviet policy during the
Cold War.
Warriors of Jihad are willing to impose the ideology of Islamism, first on the Muslim societies,
and second on the rest of the world, which seems to be even more difficult to achieve. They, quite
rightly, perceive the global civilizational and military presence of the USA, as a primarily obstacle to
this (over)ambitious idea, and that is why they are fiercely attacking the U.S. targets as well as
countries they associate with the “Great Satan”, like recently Spain. They do it in the name of the
defence of the Muslim civilization from the presumed Western assault, though it is clear that their
vision of their own civilization is not shared by the large segments of Muslim populations - otherwise
they would have already taken firm control of them. Afghanis were severely exhausted by the religious
regime imposed in the name of God by the Taliban, backed with money and military support from
Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, so they welcomed American assistance with open arms. Dar al Islam, in
Taliban’s interpretation, appeared to be the country of gross human rights violation, cultural terror,
tribal war and oppression aimed at women, who were locked in their homes, excluded from their
society and subjected to the almost total male control. In Iran, young population of this country
frequently protests against the ruling caste of religious clerics, though it is still too weak to subvert
their regime. In Algeria, ten years of the civil war between the Islamic warriors and the ruling military
junta, caused at least 100 000 deaths in numerous barbaric slaughters of its tired population. In Sudan,
the main ideologue of the Holy War, educated at Sorbonne and London University, Hassan al Turabi,
was finally brought from power by his former military accomplice, gen. Omar al Bashir, as his policy
caused international isolation of this country. The Islamic government of Sudan widely used human
slavery and trafficking as a method of war against its non-Muslim south.
(22)
As British conservative
thinker, Roger Scruton notes: “Islamism is not a nationalist movement, still less a bid to establish a
new kind of secular state. It rejects the modern state and its secular law in the name of a "brotherhood"
that reaches secretly to all Muslim hearts, uniting them against the infidel. And because its purpose is
religious rather than political, the goal is incapable of realization. The Muslim Brotherhood failed even
to change the political order of Egypt, let alone to establish itself as a model of Koranic government
throughout the Muslim world. Where Islamists succeed in gaining power - as in Iran, Sudan, and
Afghanistan - the result is not the reign of peace and piety promised by the Prophet, but murder
and persecution on a scale matched in our time only by the Nazis and the Communists. The
Islamist, like the Russian nihilist, is an exile in this world; and when he succeeds in obtaining
power over his fellow human beings, it is in order to punish them for being human.” (23)
This leads Gilles Kepel, widely known French specialist in the Middle East studies to assert that
the religious ideology of Islamism was about to fail, and 9/11 attacks were designed to revive it and
gain new backers and followers.
(24)
As we can see, so far Al Qaeda essentially has succeeded, and
attracted new recruits for its fight against America, especially in Iraq. U.S. military response to 9/11,
toppling regimes in Afghanistan and Iraq seems to be, for those who strongly believe it, the
confirmation of Western imperialism and its anti-Muslim stance. Usama bin Ladin managed to gain
sympathy as a lone warrior against the infidels (Jews and Crusaders in his parlance (25)) fighting for the
liberation of the Holy Land, being almost a new, Islamist incarnation of Che Guevara. His prophecy
gained self-confirmation – making American administration attack Muslim regimes, he apparently
proved to his fellows anti-Muslim intentions of the West. But if we consider Kepel’s hypothesis true, it
undermines Huntington’s second claim, that of the primacy of clashes between civilizations in the
contemporary world. It seems that what we really observe today are deep crises inside civilizations,
which are extended behind their borders, and involving others to respond. Civilizations are definitely
less coherent and they generate internal tensions, which are shattering and tormenting them. If the
Muslim society were so coherent, we should expect recently a unified reaction there - an overwhelming
support for Al Qaeda - which is certainly not the case. Michael Scott Doran claims that the 9/11 attack
on the U.S.A. was ultimately aimed at Saudi Arabia as an attempt to shift the relations of power there
(26)
. Though hardly unsympathetic towards Usama’s aims, the Muslims did not uniformly back him,
though the level of support for him may be enigmatic for the Westerners. Many Muslim regimes have
not had any other option but to support U.S. military efforts and started to combat their own militant
groups. Perhaps Usama has managed to make his name and face a world famous icon of resistance to
the influence of America, but it is hard to say that he gained uniform support and solidarity even in his
own cultural “sphere of influence”. After all, few American soldiers ousted the Taliban regime – there
were fellow Muslims, the soldiers of the Northern Alliance, backed with American money and
technological support, and Russian weapons, who entered Kabul after a pretty short military campaign.
Therefore, it is difficult to claim that Muslim civilization, even if such exists, is coherent and unified in
its desire to clash with the West. It is exactly the opposite – it is deeply divided, entangled in many
internal crises and weak. Probably this overarching feeling of weakness is the reason for both the
restraint in hostilities by the majority of the Muslims, and the outburst of militancy directed against the
U.S.A. by those few of them, joining the ranks of Al Qaeda.
Moreover, it should be noticed that a crucial in this respect notion of “the Western civilization”
is nowadays thoroughly questioned
(27)
, as large parts of Western Europe, most notably France and
Germany, have openly joined anti-American camp, widening Transatlantic gulf already existing there
since the end of the Cold War. French intellectuals, long before 9/11, perceived Americanization as a
clear threat for the French superior culture. Many French and German commentators have claimed that
it is the U.S.A. and its imperial zeal, not Al Qaeda, which posed the greatest and real danger for the
world’s stability. German governing elites cleverly utilised pacifism and growing anti-Americanism of
its population to prevail in the upcoming parliamentary elections. In these two countries numerous
books predicting the inevitable fall of the “American Empire”
(28)
, as well as suggesting that the C.I.A
(and surely Israeli Mosad) were the true, deeply hidden puppet masters of the attacks, designed to
justify future acts of aggression to be committed by the U.S.A. (or even that the whole “9/11 affair”
had been fabricated, became bestsellers
(29)
. Franco-German efforts were soon joined by Russia,
dreaming about the “multipolar” world, where the influence of the sole superpower was effectively
constrained by the coalition of the local powers and, albeit with some reluctance, by China. Any
remaining sympathy towards America finally ended, when the Bush administration had decided to
wage a war against Saddam Hussein and his oppressive regime, in order to start a radical
transformation of the whole region towards some form of a participatory political system, providing a
minimum of freedom for its inhabitants. Ironically, the idea that democracy may be brought to the
Middle East on American tanks, has been rejected by the leading European intellectuals, like Daniel
“Red Danny” Cohn-Bendit, as the Neo-Bolshevism. They eagerly used this opportunity to de(con)struct
it and reveal the “real” motives of the American aggressors – primarily their greed for oil and the will
to conquer the world.
(30)
This war has provided a perfect opportunity for all “peace lovers” to justify
the thesis that the real oppressors are usually the Americans, driven by the murky interests of the
corrupted administration, and ready to subject all other countries to their neo-colonial will. In
comparison with George W. Bush, Islamic terrorists, like Usama bin Ladin, and tyrants like Saddam
Hussein and Kim Dzong Il seemed to be a group of (a little flawed) idealists and possible harm being
done by them looked rather limited. After all, the latter two have usually massacred their own
populations, or their close neighbours, distant from the European continent. Objecting West European
political elites received huge support from their citizens, taking part in many loud and widely
broadcasted protest marches, organized along Western Europe. Ultimately, after a decade of hidden but
growing tensions, the “Old” Europeans managed to detach themselves from an alliance with the
country, which successfully guarded their territorial integrity against the Soviet Union since 1945
(through NATO), and supported the slow process of economic and political unification with money
(Marshall’s Plan) and tacit political support. What has been impossible during the Cold War, when the
political leaders of the European societies firmly attached themselves to the leadership of America, is
clearly possible now, when they tend to limit American presence in Europe. The clear result of this
message, so widespread in the European media is that today, according to a recent EU public opinion
poll, the Europeans deeply believes that only Israel outstrips the U.S.A. as a country posing the greatest
threat to world’s peace.
It seems that French political elites prefer to suggest that actions mounted by the ideologues of
jihad and their followers are now directed solely against America, its power and culture, and they try to
forget this country bloody experience with Islamic terrorism from the middle 90s. They also think that
ideas and practices forwarded by America are significantly different from those originated from the Old
Continent. This view received a powerful support from an American neoconservative, Robert Kagan
who claimed that “the Americans are from Mars and the Europeans are from Venus”
(31)
. Influential
intellectuals on both sides of the Atlantic have started to believe that growing Transatlantic tensions
over Iraq allow them to bury the concept of the “West”, traditionally consisting of (Western) Europe
and (Northern) America, based on social practices and institutions coming from a long, common
cultural history. So far, the most visible tensions were to be observed in the UN Security Council,
where U.S. administration clashed not only with China and Russia, but primarily with France and
Germany, over the UN resolution allowing America to use force to oust Saddam. As we know now,
ultimately U.S. officials failed to persuade their opponents to accept such a resolution
(32)
. Only
recently, with a new round of hostilities, U.S. Department of Defence rejected the possibility of
granting French and German firms the privilege to participate in the development programs in Iraq
under the DoD’s management and financed by the American taxpayers’ money.
The rift between the two sides of the Atlantic is an obvious and inevitable result of the end of
the global rivalry between the U.S. and the Soviet Union more than a decade ago (due to the demise of
the latter). Potential Soviet threat firmly kept both sides of the Atlantic united in their resistance, what
gave them a ground for common political actions, when necessary. It cannot come as a surprise: lack of
a common enemy is a frequent cause for disenchantment in human societies. Now, when this uniting
threat has long been gone, both sides are prone to perceive each other as potential competitors in the
global economic struggle, which superseded former ideological and military conflict, framing the globe
during the Cold War. Integrational processes in Western Europe, which now include Central Europe,
are providing the European Union an unique opportunity to make itself independent of the American
protection. Soviet Empire no longer endangers the security of Western Europe, so it does not need
American military help anymore. This continent has to strive with its own power and weakness
(particularly with the newly reunited Germany, this continent’s colossus, being in the past frequently a
European troublemaker). Current U.S. administration is no longer willing to support the further
integration of this continent, as it may create a serious challenger to the “new American century”.
Hence, it is trying to use some “Old” and some “New” European countries, widely known for their
unconditional support for U.S. actions, to slow this process and diminish the closeness of the economic
and political bounds. On the other side of the Atlantic, some are willing to build a new European
identity on the anti-American fundament, following advice of the two famous European philosophers:
Jacques Derrida and Jurgen Habermas (accidentally being the French and the German). As Dominique
Moisi recently has observed: “It is as if, divided over its institutional and geographic future,
Europe feels that it must exist as an alternative to the United States - a different and better West.
European intellectuals, such as J. Habermas and Jacques Derrida, see in the recent antiwar
demonstrations the emergence of a European civil society that chooses to define itself negatively
against the United States. It is unfortunate that Europeans have not chosen to define themselves
positively in the name of a clear project from Europe. Unlike anti-American sentiments in the past,
this breed of anti-Americanism is not so much a reaction to what the United States does as a
reaction to what it represents. Although French President Jacques Chirac was clearly not speaking in
the name of most European governments when he spectacularly opposed the United States over the war
in Iraq, he was in tune with European public opinion.” (33)
As a result of these actions, the division on the European “core” (led, obviously, by the FrancoGerman alliance joined by the coalition of willing) and “peripheral” states, consisted of those who are
not happy with the aforementioned leadership in Europe and less economically capable, may finally
emerge. The revival of the concept of Europe of “concentric circles” or “multi speeds”, especially after
the failure of the recent EU summit in Brussels, incapable of accepting EU constitution, is particularly
significant. This summit shows that Europe is deeply divided over the Franco-German leadership and
its project for this continent’s prospective role and functions. While these Transatlantic and
intereuropean divisions grow much wider, we may expect the disappearance of the “Western”
civilization and be witnesses to the reappearance of (Western) European and American civilizations (34).
What sort of contacts between them would eventually prevail – open hostility, reluctant co-operation
or, not very likely, true friendship based on common interests - today remains a mystery. Let us hope
that it would not lead to the “renationalization” of the European politics, with its consequences known
well from the early beginning of the previous century.
Certainly, all these changes have been spurred by the complex process of globalization. Though
it was born in a specific locality - the West - due to its technological and economic primacy, it deeply
affects and transforms all places in the world today, including its place of birth, causing different crises
and evoking resistance. Roger Scruton notes that: “Globalization does not mean merely the expansion
of communications, contacts, and trade around the globe. It means the transfer of social, economic,
political, and juridical power to global organizations, by which I mean organizations that are located in
no particular sovereign jurisdiction, and governed by no particular territorial law. (…) Whether in the
form of multinational corporations, international courts, or transnational legislatures, these
organizations pose a new kind of threat to the only form of sovereignty that has brought lasting (albeit
local) peace to Our planet. And when terrorism too becomes globalized, the threat is amplified a
hundred – fold. With al-Qa'eda, therefore, we encounter the real impact of globalization on the
Islamic revival. To belong to this "base" is to accept no territory as home, and no human law as
authoritative. It is to commit oneself to a state of permanent exile, while at the same time resolving to
carry out God's work of punishment. But the techniques and infrastructure on which al-Qa'eda
depends are the gifts of the new global institutions. It is Wall Street and Zurich that produced the
network of international finance that enables Osama bin Laden to conceal his wealth and to deploy it
anywhere in the world. It is Western enterprise with its multinational outreach that produced the
technology that bin Laden has exploited so effectively against us. And it is Western science that
developed the weapons of mass destruction he would dearly like to obtain. His wealth, too, would be
inconceivable without the vast oil revenues brought to Saudi Arabia from the West, to precipitate the
building boom there from which his father profited. And this very building boom, fueled by a
population explosion that is itself the result of global trade, is a symbol of the West and its
outreach.”(35)
Scruton argues that although the processes of globalization transform each civilization (Western
included), they are perceived by the rest of the globe, and most notably by the Muslims, as a direct
attack from the West at their dearest social and cultural institutions. On the one hand, globalization
endangers sovereign, “personal” nation-states developed by the West, on the other it threatens the
cultural values of other civilizations by exposing them to the pressure of an individualistic, secular,
tolerant and excessively libertarian Western pop culture, with its fixation on sexual freedom and
deprivation of the religious life. That stands in clear opposition to the tradition of Islam, concentrated
on the submission to God, not the freedom of an individual, as God’s will is (supposedly) clearly
declared in the Koran. They feel that their sacred heritage is undermined by so a radically different
cultural offensive coming to them via global media from the Western Hemisphere. Moreover, Muslim
conservative scholars, following contemporary Western radical left, think that globalization is
forwarded and directed by the transnational organizations, which are controlled primarily by America.
But, Scruton suggests, militant attacks on an unprecedented scale, were enabled only by that very same
process of globalization, making possible to travel freely, communicate instantly and use the complex
infrastructure of the American state against its authorities and inhabitants (36). Al Qaeda is spreading its
message using global mass media and the Internet, created by Western science and technology.
Without all that, Usama bin Laden would have still been sitting in some Afghan cave and hardly
anybody could even be aware of his existence.
It seems that anti-Americanism of radical Islamists is not far from anti-Americanism of so
called anti-globalization movements, as they all perceive American influence as a primary threat for the
cultural identity of their local societies. However, it would be a gross oversimplification to put
Western European pacifist movement on the same footing as a militant Islamic radicalism, cause they
are totally different forms of resistance against presumed American assault. Western anti-globalization
movement so far significantly varies from global, Islamist terrorism, not only, what is the most
obvious, when we consider the methods of action, but also the presumed aims and results. Islamic
radicals intend to create a State of God, ruled by the Sharia everywhere their umma is present. Antiglobalists do not have a single, coherent vision of a perfect, new society. They quite well know what
they do not want, but still they do not know what they want instead. Consequently, the majority of
them strongly reject extreme violence, used by the Islamic extremist groups, as a method of achieving
their goals. Though the rhetoric used by their spokespersons sometimes resembles those of Islamic
radicals, it is totally deprived of the religious language, as European activists want to keep the secular
and strengthen the tolerant, multicultural character of Western society, while the Islamists intend to
unify it along their raw interpretation of Islam, what makes a significant difference.
So, what we observe today, are various forms of local, culturally unique resistance against the
impact of globalization, and we should be very careful before we try to link them. In modern world it
has been a fashionable truism that everything is linked and connected, but different populations have
divergent and largely unconnected forms of opposition towards the emerging global culture, which is
derived from their local traditions. Global media, showing them altogether, are creating delusive
impressions that they present a single movement of protest and dissent, which is certainly not the case.
It is also rather hard to claim today that the most important clashes are taking place between
coherent Muslim and Western civilizations. It seems that they both are full of internal tensions and
fierce struggles. The war we observe today between liberal American interventionism (37) on the one
side, and Islamic extremism on the other, is certainly cross-cultural. Both sides of this conflict deeply
believe that their sets of social rules are universal and may be accepted, with the use of violence if
necessary, by the rest. It should be stressed, however, that there is indeed a huge difference
between them. The former do bring (in a long term) the hope for political and religious freedom,
while the latter results in indiscriminate killing, oppression and violation of the most basic
human rights, so let us hope that the latter will never prevail. But when these two sides collide,
which is certainly the case as far as “the war on terror” is concerned, it resembles a bit Huntington’s
thesis, but certainly does not reflect the attitude of all Muslims and Westerners who, I still wish to
believe, prefer to co-operate and live in peace.
Tekst ten zostanie zamieszczony w nowej publikacji Wyższej Szkoły Stosunków Międzynarodowych w Łodzi pod redakcją
Mariana Wilka p.t. „USA we współczesnym świecie”.
Notes:
(1)
George Mascolo, Holger Stark, Operation Holy Tuesday, Der Spiegel, no. 44/2003
(2)
Bruce Hoffman, Inside Terrorism, Victor Gollancz, London 1998, particularly last chapter
(3)
Walter Laqueur, No End to War: Terrorism in the 21st Century, Continuum, New York 2003
(4)
John Lewis Gaddis, A Grand Strategy of Transformation, Foreign Policy, November/ December
2002
Paul Pillar, Terrorism and US Foreign Policy, Brookings Institution, Washington 2001
(5)
(6)
(7)
(8)
(9)
(10)
(11)
(12)
(13)
(14)
(15)
(16)
(17)
(18)
(19)
Elizabeth Drew, The Neocons in Power, The New York Review of Books, vol. 50, no. 10 (June
12, 2003)
See: Steve Coll, Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan, and bin Laden, from the
Soviet Invasion to September 10, 2001, Penguin, london 2004; Anonymous, Through Our
Enemies’ Eyes. Osama bin Laden, Radical Islam and the Future of America, Brassey’s,
Washington 2003; the undisclosed author is a senior intelligence official working in Central and
South Asia.
Noam Chomsky (an interview by David Barsamian), The United States is a Leading
Terrorist State, The Monthly Review, November 2001; or recent: Noam Chomsky, Hegemony or
Survival: America's Quest for Global Dominance (The American Empire Project), Metropolitan
Books, 2003; Gore Vidal, Dreaming War: Blood for Oil and the Cheney-Bush Junta, Thunder's
Mouth Press, 2002
Phil Scraton (ed.), Beyond September 11. An Antology of Dissent, Pluto Press, London 2002;
Letter from United States Citizens to Friends in Europe, at: _letter_to_europeans.html
Jean-Marie Colombani, the author of the famous article Nous Sommes Tous Américains published
in Le Monde next day after 911, has soon written a book showing a little bit different attitude
towards the USA: Tous Américains? Le monde après le 11 septembre 2001, Fayard, Paris 2002
David Frum, Richard Perle, An End to Evil: How to Win the War on Terror, Random House, New
York 2003
Samuel Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations?, Foreign Affairs, Summer 1993 (vol. 72/3)
Samuel Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order, Simon and
Schuster, New York 1996
Francis Fukuyama, The End of History and the Last Man, Hamish Hamilton, London 1992, pp.
45-6
Walter Laqueur, No End to War: Terrorism in the 21st Century, Continuum, New York 2003, p. 61
John Miller, Michael Stone, Chris Mitchell, The Cell: Inside the 9/11 Plot, and Why the FBI and
CIA Failed to Stop It, Hyperion, New York 2002
See these documents in: Yonah Alexander, Michael S. Swetnam, Usama bin Laden’s al-Qaida:
Profile of a Terrorist Network, Trasnational Publishers, Ardsley 2001;
Gerald Posner, Why America Slept: the Failure to Prevent 9/11, Random House, New York 2003
(20)
Paul R. Pillar, Terrorism and US Foreign Policy, Brookings Institution, Washington 2001, pp. 624
Ibidem, p. 65
(21)
Husain Haqqani, Islam’s Medieval Outposts, Foreign Policy, November/December 2002
(22)
Randolph Martin, Sudan's Perfect War, Foreign Affairs, March/April 2002
(23)
Roger Scruton, The West and the Rest. Globalization and the Terrorist Threat, Continuum,
London 2002, pp. 126-7
Gilles Kepel, Jihad. Expansion et declin de l’islamisme, Editions Gallimard, Paris 2000
(24)
(25)
(26)
(27)
Appendix 1B in: Yonah Alexander, Michael S. Swetnam: Usama bin Laden’s al-Qaida: Profile of
a Terrorist Network, Trasnational Publishers, Ardsley 2001
Michael Scott Doran, The Saudi Paradox, Foreign Affairs, January/February 2004
(35)
Dominique Moisi, Reinventing the West, Foreign Affairs, November/December 2003 at:
www.foreignaffairs.org/20031101faessay82607/dominique-moisi/reinventing-the-west.html
Emmanuel Todd, Apres l’empire. Essai sur la decomposition du systeme americain, Editions
Gallimard, Paris 2002;
Thierry Meyssan, La Terrible Impostura, El Ateneo 2002; (English ed. 9/11: The Big Lie, Carnot
USA Books 2002); Gerhardt Wisnewski, Operation 9/11. Angriff auf den Globus, Droemer/Knaur
2003
Tzvetan Todorov, Le nouveau desordre mondial. Reflexions d’un Europeen, Robert Laffont, Paris
2003
Robert Kagan, Power and Weakness, Policy Review, June/July 2002 at:
www.policyreview.org/JUN02/kagan_print.html; Robert Kagan, Of Paradise and Power. America
and Europe in the New World Order, Random House, New York 2003;
Michael J. Glennon, Why the Security Council Failed, Foreign Affairs, May/June 2003; James P.
Rubin, Stumbling Into War, Foreign Affairs, September/October 2003
Dominique Moisi, Reinventing the West, Foreign Affairs, November/December 2003 at:
www.foreignaffairs.org/20031101faessay82607/dominique-moisi/reinventing-the-west.html
Will Hutton, The World We’re In, Abacus, London 2003; Andre Glucksmann, Ouest contre Ouest,
Plon, Paris 2003; Charles Kupchan, The End of the American Era: U.S. Foreign Policy and the
Geopolitics of the Twenty-first Century, Knopf, 2002
Roger Scruton, op. cit., pp. 127 – 128
(36)
Thomas Homer-Dixon, The Rise of Complex Terrorism, Foreign Policy, January/February 2002
(37)
Paul Berman, Terror and Liberalism, W.W. Norton & Co., New York 2003
(28)
(29)
(30)
(31)
(32)
(33)
(34)