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 (3). This was mainly due to the fact that the world’s only superpower (or 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 (8)) did have some hints on the “root causes” of the resentments leading to this 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 self-denial 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.