F or a work written at high speed in response to the unfolding events, and which is in fact expansion of an article, “Clash of Barbarism” has a surprisingly wide sweep and deep insights.
The book goes to the root of “fight against terrorism” to explain how the fight is a clash of “barbarisms” and not “civilisations” as predicted by Huntington in his little read and much talked about book.
The events of 09/11 were indeed remarkable in as much as they display “narcissistic compassion” – a compassion which goes beyond normal sympathies one may have for the victims of such attacks – of western societies. It is this narcissism, which demands that others too should grieve with same intensity as the Americans did. This narcissism explains why all those who interpret these events in terms of reaction to the US actions in different parts of the world are condemned as anti-US. This breeds rabidity with which they say that the attackers were against civilisation itself – civilisation as represented by the achievements of US.
At a time when equivalents of 09/11 were taking place in Iraq everyday due to malnutrition and disease on account of sanctions; close to 3 million deaths had taken place in fratricidal wars in Kinshasa-Congo war in 3 years from weapons supplied by these powers; or when a quarter of Africa was threatened by “bio terror” of AIDS; 09/11 was like other ordinary act of terrorism, except that it took place in USA. Narcissistic compassion of elite of these societies demanded that all obey their prescriptions of dealing with terror. Anyone who questioned the credentials of these people in fighting terror was dubbed anti-US – it was a choice of “Us” versus “Them”.
It is against this background that the book tries to contextualise the problem. It reflects on the origins of Islamic Fundamentalism in the West Asia and the role of US in it. It talks of “anomie” – a vacuity in spiritual life arising of out of absence of composite world view – reflected in absence of role models in Islamic countries and of consequent rage.
It is here that the author comes up with the central thesis of the book – that threat of terror and sledgehammer response on the part of the US elite to it represent clash of barbarisms. Author says that all civilisations develop their own kinds of barbarisms in dealing with the dissent. The barbarities in the Roman empire are different from barbarities of today represented by daisy-cutter bombs. Within individual civilizations as well as between different civilizations at a point of time there exist ways of dealing with threats posed to elites. These ways of dealing are an outcome of civilizing process itself – in other words barbarities secrete out of civilisation. This is the dialectic of civilisation. Author contends that barbarities are by no means inevitable. From time to time these get upper hand. The only way out is to eliminate fundamental causes of barbarities. The only effective solution is political prevention – which should include withdrawal from Saudi Arabia, resolution of Arab-Israel conflict and reassessment of its attitude towards Iraq. However, as it happens with all hurriedly formulated paradigms, the author does not emphasise why it became necessary to develop the paradigm of ‘barbarisms’ to counter the Huntington’s parameter of ‘civilisations’, when the key paradigm of imperialism versus people of the third world itself explained much better than ever the attitudes displayed in the context of 9/11. Because here is the catch – in developing the paradigm of ‘barbarisms’ the author has to willy-nilly accede credence to the paradigm of ‘civilisations’ as well!
GCG