What type of dialogue?
Amidst continuing calls for a global dialogue on culture, Helmi Shaarawi* questions whether people in the South have anything to gain from participating in such an exercise
El-Sayed Yassin, a leading Egyptian political analyst, has called for a dialogue in Egypt and the Arab world on the matter of a cultural divide recently raised by US and European writers. A good idea, perhaps, and what embarrassment could it do? I have nagging doubts, however, about the starting point; about a world projected as battlefield among ideas, cultures and opinions. This is the impression one obtains about the proposed dialogue from following the debate on the opinion pages of Al- Ahram Weekly, and it is just such an approach that begs assessment.
The conditions for a fruitful dialogue between societies in conflict are sorely lacking on our part. What we face is a powerful socio-economic system that feels it owns the world and has the right to tell it what to do. With globalisation working in the interests of the powerful side on both material and cultural fronts, it seems that our counterpart is in no mood for the soul-searching it asks of us. In a nutshell, the uneven distribution of power in our world has turned the "cultural" into a tool of domination. Gone is the time of equilibrium, of a world where powers were in balance (when socialism, the non-aligned movement and even Europe had minds of their own). Back then, the exchange of ideas made sense, because it was based on tangible facts, on viable rivalry.
Before we embark on dialogue, we have to admit that the current world order, and the violence it generates, is unipolar. As such, it negates opposition, even inside its most dominant country. Intellect and culture have been assigned minor symbolic roles. Their value, and that of any ensuing dialogue, has diminished. We can hold a dialogue, of course, and it may even be stimulating, but will it change anything?
What should worry us is not the topics of such a dialogue, but the nature of the new world order that we are faced with: capitalist and despotic. Nations that live outside the centre of this order have to start thinking about the way they do things, the way they could confront this order. They may even decide, at a given time, to try to find a way to disengage from it, while perhaps maintaining a modicum of communication with it including retaining a link with its scientific and even cultural achievements.
A South-South dialogue, then, is perhaps a more pressing concern. So far no one has suggested such a project. We have a problem, obviously, and one aspect of the problem is that the dominant culture in the contemporary world treats our views with contempt. Our views are not taken seriously because, in this game of world domination, we are not considered worthy opponents, or rather, the dominant culture does not see us as such.
The Arab region is culturally rich, and its historic role as a communicator of science and art is admirable. At its apogee, it brought East to West and North to South, fusing many cultures with seamless ease. Having entered the phase of the nation-state, we maintained a certain tradition of change -- conceptual as well as structural. We revised our political, social and economic composition. Even at the worst moments of confrontation, we engaged in more than dialogue, we offered more than rhetoric and we changed our socio-political structures.
Well-connected political writers, Huntington included, are aware of what the "state" means and what the powers that be in America want. The messages we have received from America and Europe so far make it clear that what is required of us is to implement policy -- not just air views. The message going out to countries across the world is about political positions, not opinions. The content is unmistakably structural. We can, of course, go on making statements, elaborating ideas, but this will not resolve anything. If dialogue is needed, it should be undertaken first among the downtrodden nations that need to find their way ahead.
Interestingly enough, despite all the crises pitting China and India against the West, the problem of "intellectual" dialogue has never cropped up with respect to those countries. Dialogue requires a certain degree of matching power. Is it not remarkable that the socialist bloc survived for 70 years without ever asking, or being asked, to hold a dialogue with the West? It was only when the bloc was about to disintegrate that Gorbachev called for a major dialogue at a conference in Moscow. The conference was actually held. And it did pass resolutions and formulate means to ensure the continuity of exchange. Not long after, however, the whole structure that was supposed to carry out the changes came crashing down.
Our good friends in the West -- and I am not just talking of Huntington and his school -- have never pointed out the roots of evil in the world order we have come to live in or its neo-liberal methods. They have never admitted that this system is inherently aggressive and intolerant, and has always been so. Many now conveniently overlook the simple fact that the United States recruited the very men who were later to form Al- Qa'eda to fight for it in Afghanistan. This is something our Western friends do not want to face. Nor are they ready to contemplate their responsibility for problems that they fomented in the past as well as for the horror that was 11 September. Is it not bizarre that no one is questioning the roots of the current international problems, or the McCarthyism that has recently taken hold of America? And who exactly was responsible for two world wars and even for the current war against terror? Shouldn't we look into the destructive tendencies within the West just as we explore the same tendencies outside it?
There were times when intellectuals went to war, literally. Writers and artists -- the likes of Hemingway, Picasso and André Gide -- defended the republic in Spain and firmly opposed the ruling junta of Greece. They did not sit back and hold conferences. They did not propose a dialogue. So, how come our contemporaries, faced with a greater evil, are satisfied with rhetoric and speculation? Aren't we merely whitewashing the ugly façade of a despotic world order? The same goes for Israel's peace activists. We conduct a dialogue with them instead of asking them to confront their regime. Seminars and conferences are being held, but we are somehow too shy to ask the enlightened people in the West to defend the rights of our people in Palestine, Iraq and Sudan, and dispel the charges of "evil" levelled at the developing nations of the South.
The parameters of such a dialogue suggest that participation would hardly be constructive for Southerners. El-Sayed Yassin has called for the United Nations and UNESCO to sponsor the dialogue even though both organisations have been bending over backwards to please the United States. Kofi Annan, for one, has clearly given up on the principle of national sovereignty, as is clear in the case of Iraq. The United Nations has repeatedly endorsed the concept of interventionism. So, what hope is there that such sponsors would oversee a fair dialogue? The agenda must not be limited to topics the Americans and Europeans want us to debate, namely, our cultural ways.
Asian, African and Latin American intellectuals, as well as certain Europeans and Americans, should join us in formulating a new agenda. For example, in discussing the duality of global standards, the double- dealing through which the US suspends international mechanisms and acts unilaterally on world problems. One cannot possibly initiate a cultural and political dialogue with the North before formulating a consensus among the countries of the South. Racism should also be discussed. It may now fall under the rubrics of ethnicity and culture, but the unfairness is the same, and is consistently dispensed through the formulas of the World Trade Organisation, the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.
Dialogue should involve an open discussion of the collective rights of nations for self-determination and their firm need for civic freedoms. We have to address corruption, cultural stagnation and backwardness on our own side. We also have to take a position on the brain drain that is still taking its toll on our societies, while racism in the North is making it harder for immigrants to enjoy the fruits of their talent and labour. And we must express our concern over the rising tide of McCarthyism in the US and the tone this sets for the rest of the world. Our concern over domestic changes in the US is at least as justified as the US's concern over the cultural failings of our societies. This is the type of dialogue that would be meaningful, on both sides of the political divide.
* The writer is director of the Arab and African Research Centre.
