The
Crash Of Civilizations
By Satya Sagar
15 May, 2004
Zmag
When
it all started out a few years ago the ideologues of the global War
on Terror glibly called it the Clash of Civilizations. Between the torture,
rape, murder of Iraqi prisoners by the US army and the gruesome beheading
of an American hostage by Al Qaeda what we have instead is the very
CRASH of Civilizations.
Two sets of despicable
racists, one claiming to represent 'freedom' and the other 'faith' but
both failing to uphold the basic tenets of either concept. If there
is anything at all that marks this clash it is the complete absence
of all civilized behavior and the contemptuous disregard for every law,
rule and ethic evolved through centuries of accumulated human wisdom.
(If the rest of the world allows these jokers to continue like this,
the day will come when they make Genghis look like Gandhi)
True, in terms of
their culpability one cannot really equate the armed forces of a supposedly
responsible and democratic superpower, whose leaders for long have claimed
global monopoly over the very idea of human rights, with a bunch of
armed, medieval nuts who want to take the Muslim world screaming and
kicking back to the 7th Century. The United States is far more culpable
of course, with the blame for the breakdown of all norms going all the
way up to the Commander-in-Chief and not confined to just minions lower
down the pecking order.
On the moral plane
though, today one cannot really see much difference between Bin Laden
and Bush anymore.
What else can one
say looking at the image of that naked, cowering Iraqi prisoner about
to be set upon by vicious military dogs with America's 'finest' egging
them on? Or those visuals of sexual humiliation and abuse visited upon
those long-suffering Iraqis, delivered from the feudal hands of Saddam
yesterday straight under the corporate heels of George Bush Jr today
? (And all this coming on top of a year of senseless killings of over
10,000 innocent civilians as part of the illegal US invasion)
Don't those images
from the torture chambers of Abu Gharib, each on its own, represent
the global crash of that soap opera of a 'morally superior civilization'
that US elites have proudly paraded to the world for well over a century
now? By stripping its captive, helpless victims of their clothes has
not this lonely and very LOST superpower denuded itself of its last
vestiges of legitimacy to any special global status?
After all this which
child anywhere will ever buy another toy of a uniformed US marine without
sending a shudder down his or her entire neighborhood? I bet right now,
Burma's murderous generals are sitting in the dark recesses they inhabit
laughing their heads off. (Ha, ha, ha, ha Human Rights ha, ha, ha!)
George Bush Jr.,
I am afraid, has not just allowed the corpses of his countrymen to be
mutilated and dragged down the alleys of Fallujah but buried alive the
reputation of an entire nation for at least a generation in all the
bylanes and bazaars of the world.
The land of freedom,
rule of law, respect for individual rights - the land symbolized in
popular global folklore by the Statue of Liberty with its arms reached
out to welcome the poor, weak and weary. And today, run by rightwing
goons and represented abroad by a bunch of jackbooted thugs? Is this
not indeed yet another self-styled 'God' that once flew high, flapped
around and finally Failed?
But let me say also
loud and clear - predatory Western Imperialism is not alone in its sinking
to these lows of inhumanity. There is an absence of civilized behavior
on all sides of this mean and mindless conflict that is truly frightening.
Beheading civilian
hostages in the name of Allah? Carrying out suicide missions without
concern for civilian casualties, publicly mutilating bodies of dead
opponents? Blowing up scores of ordinary Spanish citizens (most of them
probably opposed to the war on Iraq) to 'teach a lesson' to the Spanish
government? Are you guys human or horror-movie extras?
For all their prattle
about 'fighting the Crusaders' these cowards are surely no successors
to the great Saladin who fought a principled war of resistance, saving
not just fellow Muslims but also the large population of Jews under
his protection. A successful resistance that led to the great renaissance
of the Islamic world and the creation of societies superior to that
of the invaders at that time. (Read your history carefully Bin)
And not very far
from Iraq is that mother of all colonial occupations, in the Gaza and
West Bank, where the Israeli regime of Ariel Sharon is bent on putting
the Palestinians through every trauma that the Jews themselves underwent
at the hands of the Nazis. In turn, a section of Palestinian militants
are willing to stoop to the level of gunning down pregnant women and
children just because they happen to be Jewish settlers on occupied
land or dancing on the streets with body parts of dead Israeli soldiers.
Liberation from colonial oppression, yes, but liberation from all basic
human values?
I hesitate to call
all this 'barbarism', a term that for too long has been abused to describe
the 'primitive', 'tribal' people of this world - who despite their own
bouts of occasional madness have done nothing as systematically evil
as we see in Iraq and Palestine. Indeed, what we are witnessing now
is nothing short of a crisis of modern civilization and its various
concepts and institutions that have either outlived their utility or
corroded to the point of complete collapse. A situation that could either
lead to catastrophe or provide a chance to reshape the world depending
really on what all of us propose to do about it. (Nothing I hate more
than getting shot in the bloody crossfire)
The contours of
the multiple crises engulfing our globe and rendering mainstream notions
of 'civilization' obsolete are by now well known. And yet they bear
repeating simply because they help clarify the momentous tasks ahead
of the global movements for peace and justice:
Crisis of Economy:
It is not difficult to see the long and dark shadows of the Asian financial
crisis, the dotcom boom and bust, the dwindling domination of the US
dollar, the ballooning US overseas debt and the decade-long stagnation
of the Japanese economy in preparing ground for the ongoing global conflict.
Without evoking any wild conspiracy theory but going just by principles
of mainstream economic theory (which is all wild conspiracy anyway)
one can safely claim that today the world is at war simply because it
benefits those who control the current global economic order. Mega-corporations
profiteering from rising oil prices, hedge funds speculating on oil
futures, the rent-a-death arms dealers, manufacturers and mercenaries,
construction giants vying for contracts to rebuild war-torn countries-
these are the economic vultures feeding off the dying, decaying carcasses
of our global 'civilizations'. It is about time the global peace movement
went after the key financial players involved in the Iraq war, maybe
even one of them (the Carlyle group of Papa Bush to start with) and
simply vaporize the fellows. (I am thinking here of a hot sauna, of
course)
Crisis of Ecology:
The idea that there is a limit to all economic growth has been around
with us for well over three decades now. In this period it has spawned
powerful environmental movements, numerous international treaties and
pledges, as well as a plethora of institutions that urge an end to the
wanton destruction of our planet. And yet the global ecological crisis
only deepens with every passing day, propelled by the myth of unstoppable
industrial capitalism and a concept of consumption driven 'growth' that
has become the cancer at the heart of all our civilizations. Will we
have to wait for global catastrophe to change the voracious appetites
of our consuming classes or can we collectively shut their mouths from
feeding into our very future? How about seizing the assets of Exxon-Mobil
and using them to clean up depleted uranium in Iraq ?
Crisis of Democracy:
In just the past couple of months several populous Asian nations have
gone to the polls, in yet another mass exercise that equates elections
with the very idea of democracy. These include India, Indonesia, Sri
Lanka, and the Philippines.
And yet anyone familiar
with realities in these countries can tell you that for a very large
number of citizens democracy interpreted as the 'right to vote' every
four or five years makes little difference to their day to day lives.
The rich don't care who comes to power as they can buy them all, the
poor vote with great hopes only to be deeply disappointed while much
of the middle-classes chatter endlessly about this and that but don't
even bother to vote or participate in any political activity. As for
mainstream politicians, we all know why they spend millions of dollars
to get elected and become 'servants of the people' in the abstract.
(Hey, shine my shoes Mr. Prime 'Servant' Minister, India Shining Indeed!)
It is clear that
the world, everywhere, urgently needs to go well beyond the dangerously
superficial notion of 'elections = democracy' and build movements, concepts,
institutions that restore genuine representation of ordinary people
in the political and administrative structures that govern us all. The
widespread disillusionment with electoral democracy otherwise will only
be a prelude to the return of dictatorships at all levels, everywhere.
Frankly, all so-called
democracies should have regular Filipino-style velvet/ pink/ rose/rainbow-colored
demonstrations of people's power (Imagine Dubya and Rummy running away
from the American people on the lawns of the White House. Sure, I am
a Marxist on Marihuana.)
Crisis of Philosophy:
Just as in the arena of economics the concept of 'growth' needs serious
redefinition there are a variety of other globally influential concepts
that are up for a thorough overhaul. One can in fact start with the
very notion of what it means to be 'civilized'. For some strange reason
the popular idea of civilization is all caught up with archaeology,
antiques, monuments, ruins and tombstones - as if it was all about the
history of the ancient real estate business. So the Egyptians show off
their pyramids as examples of their once wonderful civilization, the
Khmers their Angkor Wat and Italians the Colosseum while America seems
to have lost its civilizational bearings with the collapse of the WTC
towers. Is not civilization really about how we relate and interact
with members of our own and other species, as well as the nature around
us? What do dead buildings have to do with a concept that should primarily
be about living life, here and now?
Here is a proposal,
blasphemous as it may sound. Before building yet another inanimate MONUMENT
to replace the WTC towers let us build a living MOVEMENT powerful enough
to replace the global trust and respect among all people of the world.
A trust, respect and solidarity demolished in the clash of the enemies
of true civilization and without which living on this planet has no
real meaning.
Satya Sagar is a
journalist based in Thailand. He can be reached at [email protected]