|
|||||||||||||||
|
American dominance: Europe, Islam and the search for new politics Progressive Malaysians too need to address threats of globalisation and US militarism
by John Hilley
Please support our work by buying a copy of our print publication, Aliran Monthly, from your nearest news-stand. Better still take out a subscription now. If you prefer to read our web-based edition, please support our work and make a donation.
The new-Right deliverance The exposure of alleged electoral fraud in Ohio shows, yet again, the darker enterprise of the Republican network. Yet, even this latest chicanery cannot disguise the authenticity of Bush’s mandate. America may be closely split, but there is no doubting its lurch to the right. We now have both houses of Congress as well as the Presidency in Republican hands. With a number of imminent Supreme Court appointments in Bush’s gift, judicial power may also swing decisively rightwards. And, through Karl Rove’s focused efforts, religious conservatives have turned out, en masse, to secure Dubya a second term. From new-found voice under Reagan to veneration of Bush, the religious right’s Republican alignment is now of critical importance. Of course, White Protestant ‘moral values’ and creationist doctrine cannot entirely explain the Bush coalition. Some 56 per cent of Catholics and 45 per cent of Latinos also voted for Bush, as did a majority of blue-collar workers, many reviled by John Kerry’s smart liberal street talk. Factor in the Republicans’ pro-Israel links, and we find a new coalescing of the religious right with wider forms of sectoral conservatism, all galvanised by Bush’s folksy appeal to God and nation. Some speak of a crisis of liberal enlightenment, others of America’s drift towards fascism. Whatever the prognosis, it is a stark reminder of the monolith now obstructing a progressive global politics. Here we see an electorate, assaulted by Fox-type propaganda, with little knowledge of external affairs, upholding a politics of patriotic and religious irrationality. Driven by neo-conservative fear-mongering, the propositions of reason and concern for others have been subjugated to the Bush mantra of selfish protectionism and defend-our-nation imperatives, all dressed up in an evangelism that would be considered simply reactionary in many other states. Re-emergence of this ‘America first’, spawned by 9/11 and now crystallised in the Bush victory, is a key moment for the new world disorder. I say re-emergence, for the Monroe Doctrine (1823) of American exceptionalism has always been a lurking subtext of US foreign policy. That declaration of self-interest over the American hemisphere became the rationale for ruthless intervention throughout Latin America. And, of course, it didn’t stop there. But now, as the Bush Doctrine of undisguised global pre-emption, it comes with a new populist voice of militarist nationalism. That doctrine has infected the wider political culture in the US. As Kerry ‘reported for duty’, it was also evident in the Democrat campaign. For all Kerry’s talk of embracing international allies and working towards global stability, there was no mention of a comprehensive withdrawal from Iraq, of ratifying Kyoto or the International Criminal Court, or initiating a realistic road map for the Middle East. Not only has America declared its place at the apex of global states, it has now consecrated it as a religious belief. Though a divided states of America, Bush has instilled in a significant part of the electorate a kind of divine conviction of America’s greatness and strength over others. As US troops massed in deadly preparation for the all-out assault on Fallujah, their pastors’ words of rightful war and deliverance was the same voice of plain-folk America proclaiming biblical notions of Christian crusade. Welcome to Dogville We must reserve some sympathy for dejected Democrats, many now reportedly seeking refuge across the border in Canada. Bewildered at how so many of their fellow citizens can support a war zealot and deny the basics of evolution, their party, in post-mortem mood, may now countenance its own rightward shift. But appeasement of the right will not solve the problem. Nor, indeed, will the continued politics of East and West coast liberalism. For behind all this conviction, sacred and secular, is the worship of something more basic in America: corporate capitalism. Bear in mind that the US Constitution was largely founded to protect private property and individual ownership. The charter may be a powerful concept with its claims to human rights. All part of the American Dream. But, from the frontier spirit land grab to the smashing of unions, capitalist expansion has been the main American narrative. The real ‘first amendment’, one might say, is not about freedom of speech, but freedom of the market. Today, ‘free speech’ in the US is the poor relation of patriot speech. While the political class and corporate media keep the citizens bonded in misty-eyed reverence for the flag, the actual framers of power on Wall Street have created a harsh neo-liberal landscape where millions of struggling Americans remain deprived of basic health insurance. While billions of dollars have gone in tax cuts to the rich and the private warmongers in Iraq, soup kitchens are now a standard means of survival across mid-west towns. And with this dogville economics has come a deepening brutalisation of politics itself, offering only the variant market ‘choices’ of Republican or Democrat style capitalism. Ultimately, there has to be a serious alternative if America is ever to move forward. Looking to Europe For all its sins of fortress economics and political closure, Europe shows little evidence of such rampant exceptionalism. So, can European social democracy act as a bulwark to US domination? Perhaps, in part. For there is also the problem of Europe’s own neo-liberal tendencies. Even though the European Union (EU) comes with a healthier array of social policies, it is still driven by the ideals of private capital. At the recent European Social Forum (ESF) assembly (London, October 2004), the writer and academic Samir Amin made the case for Europe as a political-cultural counterpoint to US dominance. Despite major problems within Europe, Amin, an Egyptian born Marxist, believes there is still a core of European values which progressive people can identify with. Leading the case against, the socialist author and activist Alex Callinicos argued that the European project, like corporate America, retains the same free-market prescriptions. Amin is in broad agreement, rejecting, like other such critics, the terms of the proposed European constitution. Yet, he still sees in the European experience itself some force for good. Others point to Europe’s dark history. And, of course, the continent has been riven by imperialist war, holocaust and, more lately, slaughter in the Balkans — though, much of it at NATO’s behest. There is also, today, repression of economic migrants and the ugly spectre of Islamophobia, with attacks on Muslims the disguised manifesto of ‘respectable’ right-wing parties. The US, in contrast, is still seen by many as an historical beacon for fleeing and oppressed peoples; a land, for Jews and others, of last opportunity. America has also been shaped by momentous political struggles, notably over black civil rights and Vietnam. Millions of protesting Americans have been politically awakened by the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. And with this comes a rich vein of radical output in the US, from alternative magazines to investigative websites. Yet, in Bush’s America, that tradition of intelligent dissent is under serious attack. Corporate control of the arts is already apparent. Academia is becoming further infused by business ideas and conservative think tanks. And there is now a creeping cultural irrationalism in classrooms. Invoking the surreal moment of Bush reading My Pet Goat with school kids during the 9/11 attacks, the British children’s author Philip Pullman recently described the now degraded view of literature and encroachment of creationist dogma in US schools as a kind of descent into facile “theocracy”. Of course, corporate America has long used mass dumb-down culture to contain public dissent. Thus, in a land which has gifted us some of the world’s most subversive literary figures, an intellectual like Noam Chomsky is routinely ignored by the mainstream media. Yet, along with manufactured security fears and the Patriot Act, new-right religion has assumed a more visible role in suppressing rational enquiry. Europe’s own reparations and cultural prejudices cannot be ignored. But neither should they blind us to the growing divergence with US society. Consider, too, the hatred and suspicion experienced by Muslims in the US post 9/11. Despite the racist strains noted, Europe still offers a positive range of social democratic achievements. For example, most Europeans strongly oppose the war in Iraq — the Spanish people kicked out their government over the issue. There is strong sympathy for the Palestinian people. Europeans still endorse the welfare state and reject mass privatisation. While consumer ‘values’ prevail, as elsewhere, there remains, particularly in France, a strong defence of intellectual and cultural life from US corporate invasion. And, unlike the US, debate over ‘moral issues’ has helped limit, rather than strengthen, conservative religiosity. In vast swathes of middle America, such politics are anathema. In its place, we have an electorate convulsed in ‘moral’ panic over stem-cell funding, abortion and same-sex marriage. Add in the visceral defence of gun ownership and capital punishment and we see a society consumed by conservative individualism. These may be important ethical issues. But should they be shaping political outcomes in such crucial ways? Expedient alliance Despite its ‘special relationship’ with America, Britain is also wary about US-style conservatism and right-wing religion. Yet, just as the Bush project is built on expedient alliances, so too is the UK’s placement between the US and Europe. Given its trade ties and traditional Atlantic leanings, we might ask why the Blair government wants to proceed with closer European integration at all. Again, in short, because Europe’s free market fits with Blair’s own business-friendly outlook, nationally, regionally and globally. The ceding of certain responsibilities to Brussels, such as legal and social policy, also suits the New Labour strategy of displacing domestic pressures, all consistent with Blair’s culture of spin and efforts to ‘de-politicise’ political life. On the other hand, UK foreign policy is shaped by militarist-intelligence obligations, mostly weighted towards the US. The role of Labour leaders here is a multi-sordid story in itself, from Harold Wilson’s forced eviction of the Chagos Islanders (for a US air base) to Blair’s current alignment with Bush — a shift so far to the unilateralist right that even many Blair acolytes are alarmed. Yet, while the PM has found common cause — and religious companionship — with the President, Britain’s involvement in the Middle East is more about maintaining its own strategic interests — as arms producer, nuclear power and Security Council member — keeping it linked, expediently, into a US rather than European policy orbit. But if high politics is built on expedience, it can’t ignore the ‘low politics’ of popular dissent. Part of the reason why France and Germany (with Russia) defied the US and UK over Iraq was their fear of being excluded from the market benefits of any occupation. Yet, that policy also reflected the prevailing political mood. Responding to French and German ‘recalcitrance’, Washington has sought to drive a wedge between ‘old’ and ‘new’ Europe by courting the East European states recently admitted to the EU. However, this expedient alliance is being tested as the harsh realities of market deregulation feed social discontent across those states. Contrast, also, Bush’s menacing threats to Iran over ‘nuclear proliferation’ with the EU’s constructive engagement of Tehran, again influenced by popular anti-war sentiment. Europe, at present, does not offer an effective check on US domination. But, with increased pressure on European governments, and the EU itself, it could. Significantly, the right-wing US Heritage Foundation recently urged a rethink of US policy towards Europe, fearing that Bush’s belligerence is now racking up European dissent to an uncomfortable degree. Meanwhile, deepening unease in countries like France, Germany, Greece, Spain and even Britain could yet grow into a more policy-directed rejection of US corporate militarism. Islam as a counterpoint With much of the ‘Islamic world’ also now mobilised in fear and anger over America’s actions, the prospects of a constructive Islamic paradigm often seem bleak. But, of course, Islam contains, at its civilised core, many ideals of egalitarian community which stand in opposition to fanaticism, militarism and market individualism. This may be far from evident in (US-client) states like Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. Yet while many Islamic countries remain stifled by internal repression and fundamentalist tendencies, a moderate and positive Islamic discourse has been evolving out of the post 9/11 situation. One such advocate of this is the Islamic scholar Tariq Ramadan. A popular figure among young Muslims, notably in France, Ramadan has been vilified by French and US conservatives, including many Jewish groups, over his Islamic thinking, alleged anti-Semitism and opposition to the war in Iraq. Despite principled credentials in all these areas, Ramadan was refused a visa recently to take up a US university post. A sign of the times, indeed. Led by Chomsky, hundreds of notable figures, many Jewish, who have signed a petition demanding Ramadan’s right to academic freedom, have condemned the US Homelands Security Department’s decision. The central feature of Ramadan’s work is a concern with harmonising Islamic scholarship in ways that allow Muslims to live within the cultural reality of the West. Explaining this, Ramadan talked at the recent ESF of the need for Muslims to work in a spirit of co-operation within their new-found countries rather than maintain an “us-them” view of society. People can, he insists be Muslims and French. But, unlike standard ‘integrationist’ argument, this does not imply nationalist subservience or diluting religious beliefs. Rather, it means being a willing part of that wider community. Ramadan sees this as the only way for Muslims to avoid racial and religious repression. But the “silent revolution” in Islamic identity he identifies also brings with it a “shared responsibility” to be part of the common push for change. As current tensions in the Netherlands (over the murder of a ‘blasphemous’ film maker by a radical Muslim and revenge burning of mosques) indicate, that process has some way to go. But, it is not necessarily the ‘struggle between liberalism and fundamentalism’ often described. Again, returning to Ramadan, Muslims have “multi-dimensional identities”, including, one must presume, a capacity for liberal reason. Hence the denunciation of such killings by most Dutch and other European Muslims. Despite the rise in hateful attacks on Muslims across the continent, there has been a quiet, but significant, change in mutual perceptions. As full citizens, practising Muslims now partake in many aspects of secular life. Mosques are an intrinsic feature of Western cities, Islamic prayer rooms a normal aspect of the workplace. Discrimination remains, varying from country to country. Yet, for all that, Islam is now a broadly accepted part of the multicultural European landscape. In similar spirit, much of the non-Muslim community opposed the recent banning of the hijab in French schools — though, reflecting Ramadan’s analysis, the ban itself has not resulted in the serious dislocation predicted. Of course, some Islamic values also remain problematic to the secular left. The rights of Islamic women, for example, is an ongoing source of contention. Yet, as the strong participation of Muslims and Muslim groups among the 20,000 ESF delegates showed, these questions are being addressed through mature dialogue in pursuit of common aims and values. Here, again, the anti-war mobilisation has been vital in generating understanding and solidarity — as in Glasgow recently where Muslims marched with others in protest at the massacre in Fallujah. This engagement promises further linkages across religious and secular lines — indeed, the reverse application of the Bush alliance. For, unlike that dangerous consortium, this is a politics of domestic tolerance and economic justice coupled with international concern for human life beyond our own borders. Malaysian input Beyond Europe, Islamic practices apply within their own national contexts. Yet, the principles noted are no less valid. Perhaps uniquely, Malaysia offers a template of how a progressive Islamic politics could yet develop. If PAS and other reformist elements can engage in a spirit of serious understanding, it not only solidifies opposition to BN rule, but acts as another ‘front’ against US domination. With the Bush cabal now upping the ‘Islamic threat’ to advance its case against countries like Iran and Syria, any fusion of a moderated Islam and leftist politics would be helpful to both domestic and international processes. For ‘progressive Islamicists’ like Anwar Ibrahim, this means helping to articulate that politics at both levels. To his credit, Anwar has used his position of late to criticise the war in Iraq and its damaging effects on the wider Muslim world — though, how that is conveyed to ‘old friends’ like Paul Wolfowitz (neo-conservative ideologue and co-director of the war) is a little more intriguing. Of course, we can’t always judge people by the company, even political company, they keep. This is not simply about diplomatic exchanges. Rather, it is about taking a consistent stand against the structural forces driving US economic and military repression. That means challenging Bush’s war doctrine and the market gurus on Wall Street. It also means tackling the corporate guardians at the WTO, IMF and World Bank, institutions which have imposed their own forms of neo-liberal terror on the poor and developing world — through unfair trade, austerity packages and aid conditionalities. As Walden Bello reminded us at the ESF, the building of any new global politics must, ultimately, involve the wholesale replacement of these agencies. Thus, the combined threat of globalisation and US militarism will need to be addressed in Malaysia, as elsewhere. Resisting US dominance is a cumulative process. This is the politics of socialist change that has swept through Latin America in rejection of US-IMF neo-liberalism. Like that shift, anti-war feeling and an ESF politics is helping to keep Europe focused on the dangers of US corporate militarism. At the same time, the assertion of a more accommodating Islam, East and West, offers valuable input to that collective process. As the neo-cons, corporate elites and evangelist right drive America towards further war, market expansion and ‘global salvation’, all these paradigms need urgent development.
Now e-mail us and tell us what you think. Your comments might be published in the Letters section of our print magazine, Aliran Monthly. | |||||||||||||||
Resisting US dominance is a cumulative process. 