Joining hands
Can war become the crucible for more progressive alliances, asks Anouar Abdel-Malik
Crucial days have passed since Sunday, 15 February, leaving the imprint of their sometimes luminous, though often sorrowful, pages on the modern global consciousness. 15 February: the day when the peoples of the world demonstrated against US-Zionist war schemes (supported by Britain and Spain, unfortunately and shamefully).
The figures were unparalleled in contemporary history, even at the height of the global intifada (uprising) against the war in Vietnam. Tens of millions of people across five continents came out to condemn the scheme of aggression to reshape the world, a scheme that has been hitched to a crusade against the Arabs and the Islamic world that began in Afghanistan and is now homing in on Iraq.
There followed a spate of international and regional conferences to defend international legitimacy and protest against America's policy of war. It was as though the global conscience was racing to meet a deadline with a preordained fate, even though the hegemonic power's plans to dismantle the global order, jettison international legitimacy and usurp the rights of other peoples and nations to freedom, independence, sovereignty and progress have been in full swing since 1991. The voice of protest was first sounded by France and Germany, which prevailed over the bloc of nations from Eastern and Southern Europe -- the "new Europe" as US Secretary of Defense Donald Ramsfeld called them -- thereby producing a virtually unanimous EU denunciation of the US war drive against Iraq and, simultaneously, an appeal to address the plight of the Palestinian people. This voice was joined by Russia and then by China in response to the popular demonstrations and in deference to their diverse national interests. There then followed the African Summit in which 58 nations, including North African nations from the Atlantic to Suez, affirmed their solidarity with the French position.
Then came the conference of Non-Aligned Nations, chaired by Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamed, the eminent statesman and pioneering thinker on the interface between the Chinese and Islamic civilisations in Southeast Asia. International television networks and major Western newspapers agreed that the new dimension added by this conference was its emphasis on the anti-Islamic nature of the American war project. Awareness of this civilisatonal dimension received its first embodiment in the spirit of the founding meeting of the Asian-African Conference in Bandung in 1955. Egypt's voice was oddly silent in the Non-Aligned Nations Summit, considering that it was one of the founding members of the Asian-African Conference, which gradually evolved into the Non-Aligned Movement.
Soon afterwards came three definitive days in Egypt. On 28 February the mass demonstrations that took place in Cairo brought together all political forces and Egyptian schools of thought. Among their foremost exponents were the Rector of Al-Azhar and the Coptic Pope, whose joint presence signalled the path to a united national front -- the message of the Egyptian nationalist movement since its inception. Then, on Friday 28 February, from the heart of Al-Azhar, Sheikh Mohamed Sayed Tantawi delivered a sermon that made all sit up and take heed. He described the US and its allies as criminals bent on striking Iraq and proclaimed it our duty to stand up against the aggressors and defend our rights, dignity and person. Self-defence is a duty ordained by God, he said. He appealed to the participants at the Arab summit, scheduled to meet the following day, to issue the appropriate resolutions to protect Arab and Muslim peoples from encroaching perils and to safeguard their dignity and honour. He urged Arab leaders to make their presence felt at a time when our Palestinian brothers face the cruelties of occupation and massacre and when the criminals threaten to lash out at our brothers in Iraq. It was our duty to support our oppressed brothers. "God grant victory to our brothers in Palestine!" he proclaimed, and the voices of thousands of worshippers rose up in unison: "There is no god but God. Zionists are the enemy of God!"
Lastly, on Saturday 1 March, Arab heads of state met at Sharm El-Sheikh, producing a closing statement in defence of the rights of Iraq and condemning a prospective war. It was expected that the summit would issue resolutions invoking a major, comprehensive historical action instead of contenting itself with reacting to actions taken elsewhere. While there is no doubt that the Arab Summit added to the contributions of the EU, Islamic Conference and OAU summits, it could have turned its attention to the other major movements and circles of influence in the world, specifically the Non-Aligned Movement, Russia, China and Latin America. But, enough said, since I have the fullest faith that our Egyptian and Arab intellectual and political colleagues are doing the best they can.
At this juncture, we must ask who it is that we are dealing with at home and abroad. Firstly, there is Germany, staunchly opposed to war. This is not the broken Germany in the wake of World War II, directionless, brought to heel under NATO and at the constant mercy of Zionist blackmail. The new Germany, following reunification in 1990, has once again begun to feel the full vigour of its national character and to realise its centrality in the European continent. In addition, this Germany, from Willy Brandt to Schröeder, has begun to effectively fathom the substance of its national foreign policy, Ostpolitik. Perhaps slowly, but certainly surely, it began to realise that it was the first partner of the Soviet Union, and now Russia, in a link extending from the heart of Europe, through Asia to the Pacific. For this reason, since 1978, it has continued to sustain its place as the second largest investor (after Taiwan) in China, the world's largest market. Germany's rejection of war is, thus, no anomaly or extravagance, but rather testimony to the emergence of an enormous centre of power spanning Europe and Asia and coalescing around three axes: China-Russia, Germany-Russia and Germany-China.
Meanwhile France, under Jacque Chirac, has pioneered the reaffirmation of the spirit and principles of international legitimacy, human rights and national sovereignty, the cornerstones upon which the edifice of the contemporary international order has been constructed. With this banner aloft, France is drawing closer and closer to a crucial partnership with Africa, the Arab world and even the tributaries of modernisation in contemporary Islamic civilisation. That this France and this Germany should link arms against the horrors of America's war policy is of major significance.
Against this backdrop Pope John Paul II, the most exalted and revered religious authority in Western culture, proclaimed: "War always signifies the resignation of mankind's conscience." Suddenly, in a period of history in which nationalist and Zionist thinkers had declared that the spiritual factor was verging on extinction, world leaders raced to Rome as the Pope, especially since January 2003, lifted his voice to rally the hearts of the world around two primary goals. The first is to check and eliminate the American ultra right which, having linked its self-serving interests to those of Israel and international Zionism, has come to threaten the foundations of the Catholic Church in the heart of its civilisational circle in the West. The second goal is of more profound interest to us. In his capacity as the most eminent spiritual leader in Western civilisation, the Pope's opposition to criminal war plans and his defence of the right of the Palestinians, Iraqis and peoples of the world to a safe and secure life represent a powerful gesture towards Islam. The significance of this gesture cannot be underestimated at a time when the hawks of American-Zionist supremacy are seeking to ignite the flames of hatred between Christianity and Islam. The initiatives taken by the Pope of Rome, Iranian President Mohamed Khatemi, Al-Azhar and the Jesuits indicate that a broad segment of the two major monotheistic creeds supports a meeting of the West and Islamic East to rescue world peace and promote commonly-held spiritual and humanitarian principles and values.
And what of that so-called "New Europe", to use the war hawks' term? Eastern Europe, that bloc of ten nations that had formerly belonged to the Soviet Union, along with five that had not (former Yugoslavia, Cyprus and Malta) are now paying the bill for the US having welcomed them so warmly into NATO. If "Old Europe" is solidly -- apart from Blair's Britain -- against war, "New Europe" is now engaged in the field of military logistic intelligence and psychological media warfare against the Arabs, Iran and Islam in general. The focal point for this activity is Prague, thanks to the late Czech President Havel, Europe's number one dependency client and Zionist agent.
Eastern Europe's support for America's war policy is, in essence, a base attempt to obtain a piece of the cake: the spoils from the forthcoming war. Perhaps then, these countries think, they can begin to compete with the surplus historical value the major European powers accumulated from the 15th century until 1945. Yet in its very pursuit of this course Eastern Europe is declaring its continued affiliation with the cultural backwaters of the West and its intention to remain mired in the law of the jungle, internecine violence, regional wars and grovelling dependency. "Old Europe", by contrast, has learned how to overcome the logic of warfare, how to put those horrors behind it and strive towards the ideals of peaceful coexistence and cooperation. Clearly, the "Old Europe" to which Ramsfeld referred is, in fact, the "New" in every sense of the word, while the truly old and outmoded Europe resides in those countries that continue to revolve in a world of rancour, violence and dependency.
It is worth our while, here, to open the file labelled "Democracy" and examine its contents. Figures in this file indicate that popular opposition to the war ranges between 60 to 95 per cent in democratic Europe and North America. One might have thought that the democratically elected leaders of those countries would respect the opinion of the overwhelming majority. That this opinion remains ignored in some countries underscores a widespread confusion between two different aspects of democracy: formal practices such as free elections (to the extent that bribery, political arm-twisting and media pressure allow), on the one hand and, on the other, the "authority of the people". The latter is realised through diverse mechanisms for ensuring broad public participation in three processes: decision-making, implementing decisions and reaping the benefits from the decisions.
In this regard we note that within a single week the two most important nations of Eastern Europe have just witnessed the collapse of their leadership teams. In Poland public opinion ousted the government of Miller while the people of Czech elected the right wing Claus who has declared his refusal to participate in the war. Meanwhile the positions of the prime ministers of Britain and Spain are growing shakier by the day.
We turn now to Russia, subject of endless American threats sprouting in abundance from the fertile Zionist ground that surrounds the US presidency. Nevertheless, Russia's national interests dictate that it cannot accept a mammoth offensive on its southern flank or American control over Iraqi oil. Russia has thus gradually fine-tuned its position, bringing it into line with that of France and Germany.
Far away from Europe -- on the surface, for below the surface extend increasingly strong economic and cultural bonds -- stands China. China's primary source of energy comes from precisely that region being targeted for America's war. It knows, moreover, that the same applies to Japan, Korea and Southeast Asia, the very region in which China is focusing its energies to create a circle of full economic partnership by 2010.
Just an observation in passing. We have before us a rapprochement, perhaps a partnership in the making, between Western civilisation centred in Europe and Eastern civilisation with its centre in China. This process represents a second stage in the convergence of Islamic and Western European civilisations.
How should we deal with the disparity in the rates of progress and the pace of movement in this crucial phase at the beginning of the formation of a new world threatened by war?
I will beg the reader's indulgence, here, as I bring up the subject of maritime caravans. When, in World War II, Hitler's control over Europe seemed to threaten the survival of an independent Britain, the US, under Roosevelt, hastened to build a "bridge" over the Atlantic to Churchill's Britain. Soon German U-boats began to pick off US freighters in alarming numbers, far higher than had been anticipated. US strategists began to ask themselves why. Most of that generation of ocean-going freighters travelled at speeds ranging from 8 to 16 knots. Initially the system was for dozens of ships to set off together in a caravan, which meant that the entire caravan could move no faster than the capacity of its slowest ship, with the result that they all became easy targets. Then the US admiralty hit upon a solution. Ships would be divided into two classes: those that travelled at lower speeds and required more escort ships to protect them, although the protection afforded was less than before, and those that could travel faster and would require less protection. The plan proved highly successful in terms of the objective. Most of the ships in the faster caravans arrived to their destination safely, enabling Britain to survive the German blockade. On the other hand loss rates among the slower caravans climbed. That was the price of lagging behind, which the allies would never have allowed to mar the glory of victory.
The lesson from this should not escape us. If we want to safeguard the Arab nation the central Arab nations must lead the way, in accordance with the plans and the pace set, above all, by their peoples and governments. If the Arabs followed this advice they would soon be able to vie with the leadership of Old Europe and New Asia. This is the Arab world's proper status and its duty.
Al-Ahram Weekly Online : 20 - 26 March 2003 (Issue No. 630)
Located at: http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2003/630/op2.htm