The Fate of Democracy in the New World Order

In the generally accepted characterization, globalization takes two forms

Allow me first to cor­rect the ti­tle of my pa­per. It ap­peared by mis­take on the con­fer­ence agen­da as “The Fate of Democracy in the New World Era”, but the cor­rect ti­tle is “The Fate of Democracy in the New World Order”. I want to dis­tin­guish clear­ly be­tween era and order, to make sure of this dis­tinc­tion at the start of any dis­cus­sion on glob­al­iza­tion in order to pre­vent con­fu­sion. For con­fu­sion ex­ists: it lies be­hind the sharp po­lar­iza­tion of de­bate about glob­al­iza­tion, be­hind the fixed po­si­tions held by both sides, which nul­li­fy the val­ue of di­a­logue. I think the de­bate is be­tween two poles of opin­ion, and the po­si­tions held are most­ly about two dif­fer­ent things. That is why there is no gen­er­al­ly ac­cept­ed def­i­ni­tion of what I mean. But, to bor­row from what I said in my book The Globalization of Terror, there are two kinds of glob­al­iza­tion: the first is a re­al­i­ty; the sec­ond, on­ly a prob­a­bil­i­ty.

The first is rep­re­sent­ed by the “com­pres­sion of time and space” through glob­al pro­gress in tech­nol­o­gy and fast means of com­mu­ni­ca­tion. Tremendous pow­ers bring in­finite choic­es and a con­stant­ly re­newed test­ing of hu­man ca­pac­i­ties. This glob­al­iza­tion can­not be de­nied or re­versed; its pro­gress can­not be stopped. The world has be­come small, and hori­zons have ex­pand­ed or are des­tined to ex­pand. This glob­al­iza­tion is praise­wor­thy, and man has a vi­tal in­ter­est in ac­cept­ing it and tak­ing part in it. It is one of the most im­por­tant char­ac­ter­is­tics of the fu­ture, or the pre­sent stretch­ing in­to the fu­ture.

The sec­ond kind of glob­al­iza­tion is the po­lit­i­cal, mil­i­tary, eco­nomic, fi­nan­cial, and cul­tur­al pro­ject of the New World Order. It is the glob­al­iza­tion of neo-lib­er­al im­pe­ri­al­ism. Unlike the first, it can be de­nied and re­versed: its pro­gress can be stopped, and it can be brought down, be­cause it is a pro­ject in the mak­ing, not a re­al­i­ty. Nevertheless, it strives to seem iden­ti­cal to or con­form­ing with the first kind of glob­al­iza­tion, in order to ben­e­fit from the con­fu­sion be­tween them. Thus, it claims that, like the first, it is the on­ly al­ter­na­tive, that its des­tiny is ir­re­versible, and that to chal­lenge it would be vain. It al­so claims to be praise­wor­thy and that man’s vi­tal in­ter­est lies in ac­cept­ing it and en­trust­ing it to guar­an­tee the fu­ture, be­cause it is the fu­ture. Yet, in fact, this kind of glob­al­iza­tion is found­ed upon a con­cept be­long­ing to the past, or to the pre­sent ex­tend­ing back in­to the past. Nevertheless, it is in­trud­ing upon the pre­sent and fu­ture by their own means. It at­tacks them with their own weapons.

The New Order among us: the project of wars

Our topic is the sec­ond glob­al­iza­tion, the New Order, which can al­most be sum­ma­rized, for us at least, as a pro­ject of shift­ing war, be­gin­ning in Palestine and Iraq, in order to draw a new map not just for the states of the re­gion but even more for the life of its peo­ples. The sub­ject of this con­fer­ence is “The Democratic Experiment in the Arab Countries”. I think that the New World Order and its wars in the re­gion, those hap­pen­ing now, to­geth­er with those promised and threat­ened, are the prime fac­tor to con­sid­er when ob­serv­ing the re­al­i­ty of the demo­crat­ic ex­per­i­ment and its fu­ture in the Arab coun­tries. By “fu­ture”, I mean the near fu­ture, mea­sured in weeks and months, not years and decades. But the­se weeks and months may have vast ef­fects, both im­me­di­ate­ly and in sub­se­quent re­ac­tions. Later, it may be re­vealed that we are now fac­ing a his­tor­i­cal wa­ter­shed, and one that was planned to be so. This would ex­plain the dan­ger of im­mi­nent col­lapse in cru­cial aspects of our lives, espe­cial­ly free­dom and the chances of a demo­crat­ic life.

The ques­tions are: in light of the New Order, what is the fate of democ­ra­cy, espe­cial­ly among us? In our so­ci­ety, what demo­crat­ic op­por­tu­ni­ties re­main, are be­ing estab­lished, or are be­ing called for? What are the con­di­tions for estab­lish­ing democ­ra­cy, and what is the des­tiny of demo­crat­ic forces? And espe­cial­ly, what is the fate of demo­crat­ic cul­ture and its val­ues in the light of this order, which can al­most be sum­ma­rized for us by the war-pro­ject? I shall con­front the­se ques­tions and try to an­swer them, but I have not time to look at democ­ra­cy per se: democ­ra­cy in our coun­tries and so­ci­eties is the mat­ter at stake. Thus, my ap­proach will not dis­cuss democ­ra­cy per se, as a cul­ture, a his­tor­i­cal ex­per­i­ment, or a mech­a­nism, nor will it dis­cuss democ­ra­cy’s con­cep­tu­al am­bi­gu­i­ties. But it will dis­cuss the po­si­tions of our so­ci­eties and states in the light of the new mil­i­tary pro­ject, and it will fo­cus on the chances for democ­ra­cy among us. My dis­cus­sion of the mil­i­tary pro­ject will be lim­it­ed to its ide­ol­o­gy and its strat­e­gy. In my view, the­se are wreck­ing the chances for democ­ra­cy among us and may drive our peo­ples and states in­to coun­ter­act­ing democ­ra­cy. Indeed, signs of this coun­ter­ac­tion have be­gun to ap­pear among us through the mil­i­tary op­er­a­tions and me­dia as­saults now tak­ing place, and through the ex­pec­ta­tion of ap­proach­ing or promised wars. Nevertheless, we can speak about the fu­ture on­ly in terms of ex­plana­to­ry prob­a­bil­i­ties, not in terms of inevitabil­i­ties. The fu­ture stops when man acts. We may re­gard fu­ture dan­gers as like­ly prob­a­bil­i­ties, but we should not give up our rea­son or sur­ren­der to the­se dan­gers as if they are inevitable. Rather, we should use our rea­son again­st them, ac­cept­ing our re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to act again­st them.

The effect of this project on societies

We have been asked why we fo­cus on the dan­gers of the­se wars for democ­ra­cy. Wars al­ways hap­pen. But have we emerged from them more de­ter­mined and more demo­crat­ic, or with bet­ter chances of estab­lish­ing democ­ra­cy, as is claimed by the su­per­pow­er lead­ing the mil­i­tary pro­ject?

In my opin­ion, the an­swer is that this war is not like tra­di­tion­al wars, and not just be­cause of its new de­struc­tive pow­er. The ter­ror of its weapons is less than the de­struc­tion that can be wreaked upon hu­man so­ci­ety and the gen­er­al qual­i­ty of our lives and re­la­tion­ships. At the very least, the­se trans­form­ing (not just de­struc­tive) ef­fects re­duce the chances for democ­ra­cy; they may de­stroy them for a long pe­ri­od through the evil ef­fect they have on our so­ci­eties, our states, and their in­ter­re­la­tions, which are all in a bad con­di­tion al­ready. Increasingly, the trans­form­ing ef­fects of this war are lead­ing to:

The tri­umph of con­fronta­tion­al-closed val­ues and con­cepts in our so­ci­ety, be­gin­ning with clo­sure again­st the ex­ter­nal Other and con­fronta­tion with him, and end­ing with the de­nial of or anger at the in­ter­nal Other, whether this be a group or an opin­ion.

The rise of ex­trem­ism, de­spair at the prospects of po­lit­i­cal strug­gle, and in­creas­ing re­sort to vi­o­lence, first ex­ter­nal­ly and then in­ter­nal­ly.

The in­creas­ing fo­cus of our states and or­ga­ni­za­tions on se­cu­ri­ty func­tions.

The in­creas­ing vi­o­lence used by states and or­ga­ni­za­tions again­st their peo­ples in re­spon­se to ex­ter­nal pres­sures made on the pre­text of an­ti-ter­ror­ism.

The widen­ing gap be­tween our states and peo­ples, caused by in­creas­ing vi­o­lence on the part of both, and re­sult­ing in the poli­cies of hu­mil­i­a­tion and ag­i­ta­tion that the su­per­pow­er is now un­der­tak­ing again­st both of them alike.

In the fi­nal anal­y­sis, our so­ci­eties will en­joy less demo­crat­ic cul­ture and few­er demo­crat­ic val­ues be­cause of the­se wars; and our states and or­ga­ni­za­tions will act less on be­half of democ­ra­cy and have less re­spect for it than ev­er be­fore. These neg­a­tive de­vel­op­ments for free­dom and democ­ra­cy stand in con­trast to pre­vi­ous decades.

This con­di­tion gives rise to the war-pro­jects tak­ing place among us, and it will wors­en as the wars un­fold. In one sense, this wors­en­ing con­di­tion is a grad­u­al and in­vol­un­tary re­sult stem­ming from the na­ture of the wars. But in an­oth­er sense, it is an in­tend­ed re­sult stem­ming from vol­un­tary ac­tion to­wards a strate­gic goal. In our view, we should un­der­stand two fun­da­men­tal points about the na­ture and strat­e­gy of the­se wars, which are driv­ing us to con­front free­dom and democ­ra­cy. These are: the ide­ol­o­gy of war again­st evils, not again­st evil it­self; and the strat­e­gy of war again­st so­ci­eties, not just again­st states and or­ga­ni­za­tions.

Ideology of war against evils

I be­gin with the fol­low­ing ques­tion: in its al­leged war again­st ter­ror­ism, why does the su­per­pow­er not de­fine ter­ror­ism? If ter­ror­ism is the evil, and if the war again­st ter­ror­ism is a war again­st evil it­self, then why does it not de­fine this evil?

In my opin­ion, the an­swer is that the war is not again­st evil but “evils”. Not just since 11^th September, but for a quar­ter of a cen­tu­ry be­fore­hand, the slo­gan of “rogue-states” has been pro­mot­ed (no­tice the Manichean sug­ges­tion in this ex­pres­sion) and the su­per­pow­er has been speak­ing about the strug­gle again­st evil, yet with­out defin­ing it. In con­trast, it has spec­i­fied and point­ed to evils and con­stant­ly comes up with new slo­gans for them.

Evils bring evil, and evil is em­bod­ied in evils, so the dif­fer­ence be­tween evil and evils may seem triv­ial or se­man­tic. But this is not the case. For the trans­for­ma­tion from the strug­gle again­st evil to the war again­st evils is dan­ger­ous. It has been dan­ger­ous and de­struc­tive in his­to­ry, and it is pos­i­tive­ly dis­as­trous and sui­ci­dal in the twen­ty-first cen­tu­ry. To clar­i­fy, take an ex­am­ple in his­to­ry, the his­to­ry of Christianity. Christ called for a strug­gle again­st evil, but not for a strug­gle again­st “evils”. “Let he who is with­out sin cast the first stone at the wom­an”, and “Why do you see the speck in your broth­er’s eye and not the log in your own eye?” Christ de­nied the ef­fec­tive­ness of evil, and he rid the wom­an of it. But he al­so de­nied that others had the right to spec­i­fy evils. When Christians op­posed this prin­ci­ple in the name of Christianity, there arose the lead­ers of the Inquisition in Spain and their many coun­ter­parts in other coun­tries and pe­ri­ods. The prin­ci­ple yield­ed to his­tor­i­cal ex­pe­ri­ence, and ev­ery­one will agree that the re­sults were hor­ri­fic for all: for ex­e­cu­tion­ers and the vic­tims alike. And yet, for a quar­ter of a cen­tu­ry now, we find that op­po­si­tion to Christ’s prin­ci­ple has re­turned un­der the name of the war again­st “rogue-states”. Moreover, it has been con­firmed since 11^th September by a com­plete ide­ol­o­gy that spec­i­fies the “ax­is of evil” and the world of evils, mak­ing them the tar­get of the war now be­ing waged by the American-Israeli su­per­pow­er.

The negative transformation in society’s relationship with itself

Much has been said about the dan­gers of this war for us, about its de­struc­tive ef­fects and its po­lit­i­cal-eco­nomic aim to dom­i­nate us and plun­der our re­sources. I do not deny what has been said; in fact, I agree with most of it. But I wish to lim­it my sub­ject to the ide­o­log­i­cal dan­ger of this war, which rests on the cul­ture of stereo­typ­ing the “Other”, on spec­i­fy­ing con­tin­u­ing evils, and on wag­ing con­tin­u­ous pre­ven­tive war again­st them. The dan­ger of this ide­ol­o­gy to our so­ci­eties may sur­pass the dan­ger of the ac­tu­al mil­i­tary op­er­a­tions. These are most­ly aimed at our pos­ses­sions, re­sources, and home­lands, but the ide­ol­o­gy of this war aims at our­selves. It threat­ens us from two an­gles: the stereo­typed im­age it aims again­st us, and our im­i­ta­tive re­ac­tion to this im­age. In other words, the ide­ol­o­gy of this war threat­ens to in­fect us with its own stereo­type. There is the dan­ger that the stereo­type may be re­al­ized in our lives as it comes to dom­i­nate our view of other peo­ple and opin­ions in our so­ci­ety. The stereo­type is most­ly char­ac­ter­ized by uni­for­mi­ty of opin­ion, ex­trem­ism, vi­o­lence, the rise of in­stincts, the re­treat of ra­tional­i­ty, and anger at the opin­ion and very ex­is­tence of the Other. The re­treat of democ­ra­cy is ev­i­denced by the stereo­typ­ing of life, thought, and re­la­tion­ships with­in so­ci­ety.

The negative change in the relationship of society to state

This neg­a­tive change is not lim­it­ed to re­la­tion­ships with­in so­ci­ety; it al­so ex­tends to so­ci­ety’s re­la­tion­ship with the state, which has changed in­to a re­la­tion­ship of con­fronta­tion, vi­o­lence, and loss of trust. The su­per­pow­er is prac­tic­ing a mil­i­tary ide­ol­o­gy of stereo­typ­ing, a me­thod­i­cal pol­i­cy of hu­mil­i­at­ing states and peo­ples in gen­er­al, and our own in par­tic­u­lar. Humiliation is worse than star­va­tion for peo­ples, and it has been the main cause of rev­o­lu­tions and wars through­out his­to­ry. We now wit­ness a strong up­surge of pop­u­lar anger again­st states, or­ga­ni­za­tions, and gov­ern­ments that sub­mit to such hu­mil­i­a­tion, pre­tend to ig­nore it, or some­times even try to jus­ti­fy it. All this widens the gap be­tween them and their peo­ples. The gap means loss of trust, the in­crease of ex­trem­ism, hos­til­i­ty again­st any man­i­fes­ta­tion of the Other, the deep­en­ing of pop­u­lar de­spair at the use­ful­ness of po­lit­i­cal strug­gle, and the con­se­quent re­sort to vi­o­lence.

The gap be­tween states and their peo­ples is be­ing widened by the su­per­pow­er. In the ide­o­log­i­cal con­text of the war again­st evils, the su­per­pow­er re­quires states, and in­deed obliges Arab-Islamic states in par­tic­u­lar, to get rid of evils by at­tack­ing them with the ut­most vi­o­lence. Moreover, it pun­ish­es the­se states by ac­cus­ing them of col­lab­o­rat­ing with evils and the ax­is of evil if they do not do ex­act­ly what is re­quired of them. Yet, it does not spec­i­fy or de­fine evil. It in­sists on not defin­ing the no­tion of ter­ror­ism and in­stead spec­i­fies evils with­out mea­sure or lim­it. Hence, the de­mands made by the su­per­pow­er upon our states are widened ar­bi­trar­i­ly to em­brace in­creas­ing sec­tions of our pop­u­la­tion. Expelling evils by con­tin­u­ous­ly widen­ing their own area of op­er­a­tion has be­come the main task of our states. These states and their em­ploy­ees are now sup­posed to act pri­mar­i­ly as a po­lice for pun­ish­ing evils and driv­ing them back. The list of de­mands upon the­se states grows dai­ly, and the tar­gets list­ed in­clude groups, foun­da­tions, and in­di­vid­u­als. The ac­cu­sa­tions (al­ways stem­ming from an in­tel­li­gence source) vary, and pres­sure grows on states through all means of in­tim­i­da­tion, in­clud­ing eco­nomic sanc­tions and threats.

Thus, we now wit­ness a new po­lit­i­cal and se­cu­ri­ty si­t­u­a­tion in our re­gion, one far more dan­ger­ous than the pre­vi­ous si­t­u­a­tion, bad as that had been.

Exactly as in the orig­i­nal case of the Palestinians, our states now find them­selves upon an anvil be­tween the two ham­mers of pop­u­lar anger and su­per­pow­er sanc­tions. They tried at first to strike a bal­ance. But the in­creas­ing de­mands of the su­per­pow­er are now forc­ing them to upset the bal­ance and en­ter in­to con­fronta­tion with their peo­ples.

On the other hand, our so­ci­eties are suf­fer­ing from con­fronta­tion with our states and sharp di­vi­sions that may de­vel­op in­to in­ter­nal strug­gles and per­haps civil war.

In sum­ma­ry, the ide­ol­o­gy of the mil­i­tary pro­ject is lead­ing to a re­gion of states en­tan­gled in con­fronta­tion with their peo­ples, and peo­ples hos­tile to their states, if not al­so di­vid­ed in civil strife. This is ex­act­ly what the ide­ol­o­gists in­tend.

The des­tiny of democ­ra­cy with­in this si­t­u­a­tion of to­tal and con­tin­u­ing war again­st “evils” is part of the des­tiny of man. The cul­ture of the new war may lead to the deep­en­ing and gen­er­al­iza­tion of a new to­tal­i­tar­i­an cul­ture that crush­es man him­self. This is more dan­ger­ous than tra­di­tion­al to­tal­i­tar­i­an or­ga­ni­za­tions that dom­i­nat­ed and op­pressed man’s ac­tiv­i­ties, with­out aspir­ing to or be­ing ca­pable of crush­ing man him­self.

The strategy of war on societies

This term may seem a stranger to the mil­i­tary dic­tionary, but it ex­press­es the strange re­al­i­ty of the war fac­ing us.

It is on­ly be­ing ap­plied in our re­gion, which is why the world does not un­der­stand this strat­e­gy. However, it seems strange that we too do not un­der­stand it.

The strat­e­gy of war on so­ci­eties means that the war aims first­ly at so­ci­eties, not at states, or­ga­ni­za­tions, and armies. It is a strat­e­gy of Israeli orig­in and American de­vel­op­ment. Its roots stretch back far in­to Zionist his­to­ry, but it has on­ly been an ac­tive strat­e­gy of the Israeli state since the 1960s, when Israel de­feat­ed the Arab armies and, hence, their states. Israel then de­cid­ed to ex­tend its war again­st the Arab peo­ples, be­gin­ning with our peo­ple in Palestine. The last three decades have abound­ed with doc­u­ments re­veal­ing this strat­e­gy and events con­firm­ing it. The Israeli peace pro­ject and the na­ture of Israeli ne­go­ti­at­ing con­di­tions are part of this strat­e­gy. The Israelis plan to cre­ate a new Middle East in ac­cor­dance with a new map for the life of their peo­ple. Shimon Peres mis­rep­re­sent­ed this pro­ject un­der many bright-sound­ing slo­gans, espe­cial­ly the slo­gan of spread­ing democ­ra­cy.

The New World Order pro­mul­gat­ed by the American-Israeli su­per­pow­er promis­es a new map for our re­gion in ac­cor­dance with the plan to spread democ­ra­cy. We are be­ing told this so sharply and clear­ly as to be left in no doubt about its mean­ing. Consequently, most Arab lead­ers are hur­ried­ly tug­ging on some ar­ti­cles of demo­crat­ic cloth­ing and has­ten­ing to be cleared of sus­pi­cion. Some of those call­ing for democ­ra­cy are putting on their best clothes to wel­come it as it ac­com­pa­nies the new map.

There are two ques­tions. First: what is the na­ture and aim of the new map? And sec­ond­ly: what is the des­tiny of democ­ra­cy in this map?

In an­swer to the first ques­tion, the new map is not so much a po­lit­i­cal one re­lat­ing to states as a so­cial map re­lat­ing to so­ci­eties. Its aim is to achieve what Israel wants: so­ci­eties that are ei­ther de­stroyed or frozen.

In an­swer to the sec­ond ques­tion, the new map will de­stroy free­dom and the chances for democ­ra­cy. Its ef­fects re­in­force and com­plete the ef­fects of the war again­st evils.

As ev­i­dence of that, I will give two cur­rent ex­am­ples, which I hope will be suf­fi­cient. The first ex­am­ple is what is hap­pen­ing in Palestine. The American-Israeli name for the war be­ing waged again­st the Palestinians is re­form of the Palestinian Authority and a change of lead­er­ship in the in­ter­est of democ­ra­cy. But the re­al­i­ty is not the grant­ing of the Palestinian right to free­dom, but a war again­st Palestinian so­ci­ety in order to take away its very right to life. This is a me­thod­i­cal war of ex­ter­mi­na­tion led by the lead­ers of so­ci­ety. They are sep­a­rat­ing ci­ties from their sur­round­ings, vil­lages and farms from their lands, stu­dents from their schools and uni­ver­si­ties, pro­duc­ers from con­sumers, and the whole so­ci­ety from the out­side world. They are un­rav­el­ing the so­cial tex­ture, the very foun­da­tion dis­tin­guish­ing hu­man from an­i­mal so­ci­ety. Moreover, the grad­u­ates of mil­i­tary academies are help­ing them to de­mol­ish the foun­da­tions of so­ci­ety by de­priv­ing that so­ci­ety of any rea­son for liv­ing. And American-Israeli pro­pa­gan­da is mis­rep­re­sent­ing all this by call­ing it a strike again­st the in­fras­truc­ture of the Palestinian Authority with the aim of re­form­ing it in the in­ter­est of democ­ra­cy. But the ques­tion not be­ing asked is: which Palestinians will still have the lux­u­ry of tak­ing part in democ­ra­cy, and how, where, and when will they do so?

The sec­ond ex­am­ple is Iraq. The American line (of Israeli orig­in) on Iraq is the same as its line on Palestine: top­pling the lead­er, chang­ing the regime, and re­form­ing the sys­tem in the in­ter­est of democ­ra­cy. But some brief state­ments give us an idea what kind of fu­ture Iraqi so­ci­ety will be prac­tic­ing this democ­ra­cy. President Bush Sr. said, “We will put Iraq back to the stone age”, and, some­what more mer­ci­ful­ly, his Secretary of State, James Baker, said, “We will put Iraq back in­to the pre-in­dus­tri­al era.” Both state­ments were made about Iraq in the 21^st cen­tu­ry, but they echo the Biblical psalm (137): “Y­ou, Babylon, doomed to de­struc­tion, a bless­ing on he who seizes your ba­bies and dash­es them again­st a rock.” It re­mains for President Bush Jr., who is go­ing to bring democ­ra­cy to Iraq by spear-point, to tell us what kind of democ­ra­cy will be prac­ticed by a stone age or pre-in­dus­tri­al so­ci­ety. It re­mains for him too, espe­cial­ly, to tell us about the “new map” series an­nounced for our re­gion im­me­di­ate­ly after the Iraqi episode is over, and how the ex­am­ple of democ­ra­cy will be trans­ferred from the Iraqi and Palestinian episodes to the whole series. How will his staff of so­cial sci­en­tists be able to move the whole re­gion back to long-gone eras? And will the democ­ra­cy promised for this re­gion take a sin­gle gen­er­al­ized form, or will it take a va­ri­ety of forms de­pend­ing on the var­i­ous “I­raqs”, eth­nic groups, con­fes­sions, sects, and ide­o­log­i­cal fac­tions – or per­haps de­pend­ing on the new his­tor­i­cal stage in all of the­se group­ings, start­ing with the stone age and grad­u­at­ing up to the pre-in­dus­tri­al age? And who will mon­i­tor the good be­haviour of the­se new trib­al democ­ra­cies as they en­gage in mu­tu­al strug­gle? Finally, who will guar­an­tee that this demo­crat­ic “ax­is of good” can be con­tained, so that it does not go be­yond its geo­graph­i­cal lim­its and spread its pi­oneer­ing ex­per­i­ment to the civ­i­lized world, which is still rather back­ward in this re­spect? It thus re­mains for President Bush to an­swer this weighty ques­tion, first to him­self, and then to the peo­ples of America and the whole world: will the world, espe­cial­ly America and Israel, be more se­cure or less se­cure when this mis­shapen map be­comes the new re­al­i­ty for so­ci­ety and man in our re­gion?

The responsibility of intellectuals and the media

In con­clu­sion, I would like to face Arab in­tel­lec­tu­als and me­dia peo­ple in gen­er­al, and those among them in par­tic­u­lar who de­sire a fu­ture of free­dom and democ­ra­cy. These wars again­st our so­ci­eties are now the main threat to such a fu­ture. They may give rise to new si­t­u­a­tions in our so­ci­eties and states that make our cur­rent wretched si­t­u­a­tion ap­pear mer­ci­ful. Thus, we say that help­ing to stop the­se wars must be the first con­cern and re­spon­si­bil­i­ty of those de­sir­ing free­dom and democ­ra­cy. And the re­spon­si­bil­i­ty of in­tel­lec­tu­als and the me­dia is pri­ma­ry. For the­se wars, to a large de­gree, are cul­tur­al and me­dia-ori­ent­ed. The su­per­pow­er, which pos­sess­es the great­est arse­nal of war in his­to­ry and in our con­tem­po­rary world, feels the need to win the po­lit­i­cal and cul­tur­al-me­dia war be­fore any­thing else. It un­der­stands the spe­cial im­por­tance of this mat­ter and is mak­ing a po­lit­i­cal and cul­tur­al-me­dia ef­fort equal to, if not sur­pass­ing, its mil­i­tary ef­fort.

Even though we can­not op­pose the su­per­pow­er and its bel­liger­ence by mil­i­tary means, we can op­pose its cul­tur­al-me­dia war. In this are­na, we are now in an in­creas­ing­ly strong po­si­tion be­cause world pub­lic opin­ion is be­com­ing aware of the risks in­volved in the­se wars, and move­ments have arisen to op­pose them. Pens and voic­es are in­creas­ing­ly ex­press­ing and nour­ish­ing this op­po­si­tion all over the world, in­clud­ing America it­self. In large cir­cles world­wide, both pop­u­lar and of­fi­cial, a po­lit­i­cal will is be­gin­ning to be formed. In con­se­quence, we see the lead­ers of the su­per­pow­er press­ing for­ward their mil­i­tary op­er­a­tions in a race again­st grow­ing pub­lic aware­ness and op­po­si­tion. In this dan­ger­ous race, how­ev­er, we lack Arab pens and voic­es to en­gage with world pub­lic opin­ion, in Europe and America espe­cial­ly, let alone other coun­tries. It seems that most of our in­tel­lec­tu­als and me­dia peo­ple have re­tired from this are­na; they have as­signed the task of ex­ter­nal con­fronta­tion to the Arab states and then lim­it­ed their con­cern to blam­ing the­se states, though ful­ly aware of their in­ca­pac­i­ty and loss of po­lit­i­cal will.