September 11…the Extinguished Glow

During the era of President Bush, an attempt was made to direct the American national consciousness to consider the bombing of the twin towers the beginning of a new phase in United States history. With the departure of Bush, the clearing up of mysteries and the occurrence of many fundamental developments, there’s now a belief that the phase, which is truly a new one, didn’t begin with the bombing of the twin towers and didn’t end with it, even though it occupied the most distinguished place among all the events of the last two decades.

The ideological impact of the Bush era made some historians consider the September 11th attack a dividing point between the Cold War era–a period when the United States and its Western allies confronted communism and considered the Soviet Union an enemy whose main purpose, in their opinion, was to destroy Western democracy–and the period of the War on Terror when the United States with its Western and other allies consider Islam an enemy whose main purpose, like communism, is the destruction of Western democracy. Other historians will see it as the starting point for a new phase in American history, separate from the ones that preceded it.

I think that Bush and his community made a big mistake when they promoted the centrality of this event, considering it the starting point of a new phase. The bombing of the Twin Towers was an extension of important developments in American society, notably in the thoughts of the ruling class. In the two decades that preceded the bombing, brainwashing was being carried out on the public global awareness. Furthermore, I can state from personal experience, that this process affected many intellectuals and those who work in political affairs in Egypt and other Arab countries.

During that time, we were exposed to a wave of theses and concepts which prevailed and overwhelmed. At least four of these theses or concepts headed the wave: globalization, the clash of civilizations, the end of history and the war against terrorism.

There’s no doubt that globalization has always been and remains the concept that tops the list of the four concepts with a huge number of attempts at definition. These attempts intertwined politics, economy and finance with cultures and values and forms of human behaviors and practices. The results in every case were generalizations, ideological exaggerations and formations reflecting the intentions of an empire at best, and national, religious and racial instincts at worst. At the time, each of these attempts seemed to be logical, as they occurred in a historical context which enabled them to be welcomed and convincing.

America was emerging from a long conflict with the Soviet Union, proxy wars and other wars against communism. The economic gap between the rich and the poor was ready to receive different kinds of extremist thinking, which enabled it to close a part of the gap and avoid political and class explosions, particularly African Americans against white Americans.

I remember how they enlightened these concepts and spread them publicly, considering them historical absolutism or determinism. In consequence, there was a belief among many, including in Egypt, that globalization is an inevitable march imposed by some circumstances of “the era after the collapse of socialism” and it is pushed by the need of “an indispensable empire.”

Moreover, the international arena, which was free from competitive ideologies, required new blood and open markets. In addition, it urgently requested the collapse of cultural and sovereign borders in order to flatten the world, according to the expression promoted by the brilliant American author Thomas Friedman. This was the situation with excuses and attempts at definition and later on conceptual promotions of the clash of civilizations and the end of history. Both preached the end of “politics.” Both promoted the idea that international clashes break out, escalate and subside to the whims, civilized and cultural traditions and a fortiori religious ones.

For years, the thesis of civilizations’ clash occupied an important place in the political view, headed other theories of international conflicts and predominated conceptually, methodologically and practically. What was put forth was that the roles of money, force and balance of powers be replaced by clashes between historical and spiritual powers. Politics in these clashes are dependent on the clashing civilization’s powers and generally the executor of its “sacred” instructions.

This is the case with the concept of the end of the history which sprouted in the soil of neo-conservatives since the sixties, grew in the eighties and culminated in the nineties when President George W. Bush gave it a divine letter to “save the world from the forces of tyranny, economic planning theories, dreams of pluralism in the leadership of the international regime, principles of state’s sovereignty and respect for the law and international treaties.” The only recourse to realize this goal, in the opinion of the leaders of this movement, particularly Francis Fukuyama, the one who created the concept and the one who regretted it later on, is the imposition of the western liberal model represented in the United States and stopping the advance of despotic and injustice powers from the East.

“Neo-conservatives” ideated that defending America as an imperial center is achieved when neo-liberalism and trade liberalization principles prevail and when the advance of other civilizations stops, particularly civilizations that appear to be opposed to the “Western” Judeo-Christian civilization. It was necessary to achieve a victory against a model of a civilization that is contradictory to the Western civilization, exactly as it appeared necessary decades ago to achieve a victory in Vietnam against another kind of cultural opposition. This was also from the East. We know now that they chose — since the eighties and of course the nineties — what they call Islamic terrorism or jihad, as a model of a fierce enemy who deserves a very long war to be waged against him. Moreover, they chose Afghanistan as a scene for this war and Iraq to invade and occupy. The headline of the war against terrorism had a subtitle that many people didn’t notice at the time: “The Inauguration of a New Arab Era.” Its broad outlines were drafted by the “Project for a New American Century,” issued by the research center with the same name.

What happened with the definition of terrorism is similar to what happened with the definition of globalization, the clash of civilizations and the end of history. It was necessary to reject a definition agreed by the states, for the fear that the definition included the right of peoples to exercise an armed resistance in order to liberate their country from invasion, occupation and settlement.

American expects that its foreign policies, in particular its military activities around the world, will face some forms of resistance. On the other hand, the United States, other Western countries, Russia and Israel are afraid that the participation of a large number of countries in the formulation of the definition of terrorism would create difficulties for waging preemptive wars to thwart the resistance here and there. Anyway, most of the ruling Arab regimes were satisfied with the American definition of terrorism because it makes it easy to accuse their opponents on charges of terrorism, and enables them to continue working on the emergency laws.

In this context, we can understand the Western insistence on pointing to Islamic terrorism as a mortal enemy of the West during the nineties. Perhaps some of us remember Malise Ruthven, the historian who published an article in the British newspaper The Independent on Sunday, where he deliberately used the term “Islamofascism.” Two writers, Hutchison and Schwartz, used it after him in The Nation magazine for the purpose of abusing Islam which has creeped in from the East by linking it with a political doctrine, the worst ever among all Western civilization’s doctrines.

It’s no longer a secret that the concept of terrorism began to fall after the collapse of the concepts of globalization, the end of history and the clash of civilizations. Many in the West cannot imagine now that terrorism constitutes a threat to international peace and security, as it is usually described. The greatest achievement of terrorism until now hasn’t gone beyond what happened in New York when the Twin Towers tumbled. Any review of the record of terrorism in recent years will confirm that despite the casualties, chaos and destruction of buildings, terrorism is not very catastrophic–not enough to consider it an enemy to Western civilization, stability, international peace; and not enough to excuse the gathering of the largest global alliance in the history to wage a very, very long world war against it.

Let’s be clear and honest with ourselves and with future generations, and declare that what was said about terrorism does not make it the greatest obstacle facing development, democracy and progress. The countries that use it most use it as a justification to build despotism, constrain freedom and excuse its failure in development.

September 11 is losing its glow year after year. It is certainly does not represent a dividing point between two phases in American history, especially after the fall of the four concepts that cleared the way for it, namely: globalization, the end of history, the clash of civilizations and the war against terrorism.