2000 – 2009: A Black Decade for the Human Condition

“The process of transformation, even if it brings revolutionary change, is likely to be a long one, absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event – like a new Pearl Harbor…”

-Project for New American Century (PNAC)

This sentence, taken from the PNAC document entitled “Project for a New American Century” and introduced by American neoconservatives, in many ways explains today’s current world situation, and the current president is, to a large extent, obliged to follow this “project” in its broad form. Although his methods are perhaps more sugar-coated with beautiful speeches and less brutal than those of his predecessor, the end-result is always the same: the supremacy of the United States at all cost. Old Europe is there only as an auxiliary to follow whatever the master of the universe decides.

Everything accelerated about 20 years ago. In 1989, the Berlin Wall falls. By the fall of 1991, the Soviet Empire – the evil empire in Western public opinion – is only a shadow of its former self. It crumbles in a few weeks, and on December 25 loses half of its population and a chunk of its territory to Republics whose first concern is to declare independence and to attach themselves to the West. The Western steamroller does not stop there. It has constantly stoked rivalries in the world, and the Russian crises with Ukraine and especially Georgia – crisis of the summer of 2008 – are part of this effort toward the destabilization of all who oppose “Western civilization”- the only one authorized to “dictate that which is the norm.” According to that framework, it has established a true global government that remains nameless. It is this “Western government of the world” that has fundamentally shaped the 2000-2009 decade.

So it is that, gradually, globalization has overtaken the world, weakening economies and breaking tariffs for the benefit of products manufactured in the West. To that end, the WTO was created to regulate the market. The price of raw materials in the South is decided in stock exchanges in the North (New York, London, Rotterdam, Paris). Later, following the financial crisis of 2007-2009 brought about by stock manipulations that ruined millions of small investors (though not the banks, which were bailed out to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars), the G20 was formed. It brought together the twenty largest economies of the world, and for the first time emerging nations are included, the better to control them…all for naught.

More and more, multilateral organizations are marginalized, as in the case of the United Nations, that “big thingy” as De Gaulle called it, whose role is as feeble as the U.N. Secretary General and its agencies (UNESCO, FAO, UNICEF, UNDP). Jacques Diouf, managing director of the FAO, requested $50 billion to eradicate hunger. The resulting promises by the United Nations in 2000 to eradicate world hunger have become an unbelievable notion. Everything is decided by the Security Council. The three principal members do whatever they want under the sole direction of the United States. Better yet, the strong arm of the world’s government is NATO, which was supposed to go away with the disappearance of the Warsaw Pact, but which is still there and more aggressive than ever.

Besides, the market for weapons has never been better, currently at $1.2 billion. Weapons are sold by pyromaniacs (United States, Great-Britain, France, Germany, Russia, Israel), who, being Westerners, then play firefighter under the guise of the right to interfere for humanitarian reasons. This concept- drummed up by that Dr. Kouchner, who also only speaks of war, civilization, and Western values meant to deliver democracy by air freight- serves to impose death and misery in the name and at the calling of the master of the New Rome.

After the fall of the Soviet Union, the West found a new Satan to put in its place – Islam – as predicted by Huntington. The civilization of Confucius is “spared.” PNAC’s Project for New Age Century [sic] represents the doctrine around which the United States’ global policy is articulated, ensuring first and foremost the sustainability of energy supplies. If the price to pay to get rid of Saddam Hussein is 500,000 Iraqi children- killed as a result of the blockade- it is money well paid, Madeleine Albright would say.

Israel, Always

During this decade, besides the dead Palestinians resulting from Israeli fire, we have twice seen the same Israelis destroy a country and its infrastructure since July 2006. We can reproach many things about the Hezbollah movement, except that they, in fact, defeated the Israelis, something all the Arab armies guided by Egypt could never accomplish. The same happened during three weeks over December 2008-January 2009. Israel discharged all its hatred and a barrage of fire on the Gaza Strip – 1,400 dead, among them 400 children. After the fact, Israel is still just as arrogant under the complicit eye of the West – that of Bush for eight years, but also that of Obama, whom we had hoped could control Israel. It is a lost cause. He cannot and does not want to control Israel.

Why then, we ask, is this a black decade for humanity? There has not been one conflict that did not have material or ideological underpinnings. It is even worse when the two markers of this decade converge, as we will see. Wild capitalism and globalization have weakened the economies of the most vulnerable nations by making countries that cannot repay their debt poorer and poorer. When a child dies every five seconds, there is something rotten in humanity.

When considering this decade, we must also not forget the death of thousands of Iraqis and the invasion of Iraq, itself, notwithstanding the French veto. Let us remember: On February 15, at least 10 million people in 600 cities around the world demonstrated against this war. On April 9: Sadam Hussein’s regime in Iraq fell. In a power grab by the United States, it installed a proconsul. On December 13, 2003: Saddam Hussein was arrested in Tikrit. Television broadcasts insisted upon demonizing him by showing him disheveled and confused. On December 31, 2006, Saddam Hussein was as dignified as a sacrificial lamb during his execution, which was filmed on the day of Aid el Adha. Bush’s United States took great care to give the appearance of a purely Iraqi “justice” (knowing full well that the majority of the government was Shiite). The execution of Saddam Hussein, a “Sunni,” by a Shiite government on the very day of Al Adha, December 31, 2006, could only have had one purpose in the end: to exacerbate sectarian tensions and at last provoke the civil war that the Iraqis had until this point avoided despite all the efforts deployed. With the civil war having finally broken out, American troops are withdrawing from Iraq. Just like the Britons did in Palestine in 1948, and the Israelis, as well, after destroying Palestinian unity.

Americans and their allies who invaded Iraq based on a lie – weapons of mass destruction – through the use of phosphorous bombs, cluster bombs, and depleted uranium, have killed, maimed, devastated, and destroyed a civilization that was the cradle of humanity. The first GI’s did not try to protect the Museum of Baghdad – unique in its kind – but rather, the Petroleum Ministry. To massacre bodies is not enough, one must also go after what human beings hold most private, as they did at Abu Ghrab, as they did by photographing and broadcasting images around the world, as they did on that day of al Aid, a day of truce and joy for a billion and a half Muslims. The response was ridiculous, but it made the rounds worldwide. It was given by Montadher Az Zaidi, who threw his shoes at Bush, the U.S. president in 2008 who had come to visit an Iraqi country in tatters. Around the world, the “Wretched of the Earth” rejoiced for a rare moment.

At any rate, it was not the Muslim leaders who received the message loud and clear. There has been a complete surrender of open land, beginning with Kadafi, who pledged allegiance by sacrificing all that was left of his dignity, and continuing with the rulers of the Gulf who allowed the demolition of Iraq. It is now the case with Egypt, which looks more and more like a goon at the service of Israel and, as a supreme insult to human dignity, has erected a Wall of Shame to prevent the wretched of the earth from obtaining fresh supplies so as not to die from the inhumane blockade of Gaza. A fatwa issued by the Council for Islamic Study of Al Azhar, presided by the imam Mohamed Sayed Tantoui and named by President Hosni Mubarak, described “the legitimate right of Egypt to erect a fence to prevent the nuisances from coming through the tunnels built under Rafah.”

How does one explain “the fierce determination of the West to impose its norm on Arab countries all in the name of the struggle against Muslim fundamentalism?” Merick Freedy Alagbe dates the matter to the end of the 1990’s. He writes:

“In his current euphoria, Francis Fukuyama publishes The End of History and the Last Man to explain his vision of a world marked by the supremacy of Western liberal democracy. For him, humanity has reached the end of its ideological fertility and the Western model imposes itself as the successful form of government for the human race. In the absence of a viable alternative, the world from then on could only be homogeneous. Is this ethnocentric condescension or wishful thinking? In any event, this picture, as reassuring as it may be, will not be able to withstand the Cassandra-like prophecies of Samuel Huntington who will cast a shadow of uneasiness over it. The end of ideologies, far from resulting in the emergence of a peaceful world, with the globalization of values and political systems espoused by the Christian West, opens instead a new chapter in history where the early symptoms of a ‘clash of civilizations’ have never been more evident…This becomes quite clear in aftermath of the September 11, 2001 attacks and the military involvement of the United States in Afghanistan and later in Iraq, under the slogan of a “Crusade” against terrorism.(1) Indeed, from the synoptic presentation that S. Huntington gives us of the major fault lines between the different civilizations, two major and distinct entities that seem radically opposed command our attention: the West, steep in Judeo-Christian culture, and the Middle East with its Islamic tradition. The other communities- Buddhist, Taoist, Shinto, Hindu- also suffered the risk of anomie when faced with the rising power of the Christian West – advanced by technology – but have been able, at times, to resign themselves to this hegemony all the while preserving themselves from destruction. Incidentally, the tactic seems to be bearing fruit today, for, in their capacity to adapt to the different mutations affecting the world, these nations are slowly recovering their economic dynamism and their former prosperity.”

This is the case of China, Japan and India, whose economic dynamism during the past decade can only make the West dream. Indeed, between 1999 and 2009, the global economy has seen huge upheavals. Their common denominator: the speed with which they occurred. At the same time, another factor is equally influential: the acceleration in the rhythm of these changes. First of all, the Chinese acceleration: With an annual growth of 10%, China doubles its gross domestic product every seven and a half years. It took the United Kingdom 58 years to double its revenue per capita at the end of the 18th and the beginning of the 19th Centuries; 47 years for the United States between 1839 and 1886; 34 years for Japan between 1885 and 1919. China did this more than three times since 1978. In 1999, it ranked 7th in the world, behind Italy. Next year, it will be No. 2 behind the United States.(2)

One and the Other

“But the reaction of the Muslim communities,” continues Alagbe, “essentially concentrated in the Arab-Persian Gulf and in North Africa, will not be identical. Resistance to Western supremacy and its cultural splatter turns at times to overt confrontation, often illustrated by terrorist acts. A. Meddeb described the situation in these terms: ‘Since the end of the 18th Century, Islam has not found the means to counter Western hegemony. Today, many are those who feel so powerless in the face of the American superpower that sacrificial violence appears to be the only answer… As constitutionalism and liberal democracy, with all the liberties it implies, prevails in the West, which sets the norms for the acquisition and use of power, on the other side of the Bosphorus and in North Africa, the inherited monarchies, the autocratic powers, the dictatorships…still have sunny days ahead of them.”(1) This we already understand: the refusal to alternate power is one of the causes of the immaturity of these countries, which may be rich from an undeserving annuity but are underdeveloped. When it comes to Asian countries, which are nipping at the heels of the West according to the diplomat Mahbubani, they have for centuries felt excluded from world history. Today, they are ready to become full-fledged players, having adopted Western “best practices” – market economy, science and technology, meritocracy, the rule of law, pragmatism, a culture of peace, and the development of education. According to Kishore Mahbubani, those are the “seven pillars of Western wisdom” from which Asian nations inspired themselves to grow by leaps and bounds.

Will the West be able to stand up to the dizzying economic ascension of Asia? Asia has no intention to dominate the West; it only takes from it the solutions that will permit it to permanently turn the page on poverty. But it also cautions us: the West will in turn have to renounce its domination, especially in the case of international institutions. (3) Then, the West will become just a “region of the world,” according to J.-C. Guillebaud, with only 9% of the world’s population in 2005. Will it allow it? This new decade will give us the answer.

(*) Ecole nationale polytechnique

(*) enp-edu.dz

1.Mérick Freedy Alagbe: The Unthinkable Clash of Civilisations. Agoravox 2 January 2010

2.Frédéric Lelièvre: Accélération, Key Word of the Decade. LeTemps.ch. 23 December 2009

3.Kishore Mahbubani: The Asian Challenge. Editions Fayard 2008