By Augusto Zamora and - -
MADRID, Feb 16 2006 (IPS)

What is being attacked in the Muslim reaction to the publication of cartoons of Mohammed is not the freedom of expression but its abuse, writes Augusto Zamora, professor of International Public Law and International Relations at the Universidad Autonoma de Madrid. In this article, the author states that the vehemence of the reaction cannot be attributed solely to religious feeling. The cartoons seem to have been the last straw after decades of wrongs that have grown increasingly frequent in recent years. Though no one is admitting as much, this vast and populous Muslim region is undergoing a new and intense process of colonialist reoccupation which has turned it into the most fragile area in the world. Though the US and its allies justify the military occupation in the context of the war against terrorism and promoting democracy and human rights, the real motive is winning geopolitical control of the region and its energy resources. It is thus not surprising that terrorism has intensified and that so many Muslims loathe the West. The future course of the Near and Middle East will be determined by the policy the West decides to pursue in the coming months and years. If it persists in its current approach of unrelenting militarism, the number of wrongs will continue to mount and trigger more and more conflicts, which could build into a major war.

But reports on the crisis suggest that no one in the Islamic world has framed the conflict in terms of freedom of expression but rather respect for the central figure of the Islamic religion, the prophet Mohammed. In other words, what is being attacked is not this freedom but its abuse, in the form of the mocking and caricature of the founder of Islam.

All one needs to be able to grasp the Muslims’ position is a modicum of empathy. For the illustrator Baha Bujari of the Palestinian newspaper Al Ayyam, of Ramallah, ”Mohammed and religion are not subjects for the press” ; cartoons make it possible to ”touch on all subjects with a smile”, with the exception of religion, which is ”a matter between one’s self and God”.

In the opinion of Walid Wattrabi, also of Al Ayyam, a drawing of Mohammed with a bomb on his head, which was one of the cartoons published, is an insult to millions and millions of people and cannot be justified as an exercise in freedom of expression — a freedom that penal codes stipulate must respect truth, dignity,and honour. It is not a matter of freedom of expression but of the will –or lack of it –to respect the values and beliefs of other cultures, even if we do not like them or find them irritating.

There is another aspect that has received little attention: the cause of the massive protests, which have resulted in a dozen deaths and hundreds of detentions in about a dozen countries. The vehemence of this reaction cannot be attributed solely to religious feeling. The cartoons seem to have been the last straw after decades of wrongs that have grown increasingly frequent in recent years.

Today two Muslim countries, Afghanistan and Iraq, are occupied by –and at war with– western troops under command of the United States. Another Muslim country, Palestine, has suffered for sixty years an unrelenting campaign of oppression, assassinations, and the plundering of its land by Israel, backed by the West. Somalia was occupied by the US and then abandoned after a peace operation became a war of conquest. Lebanon is the site of a powergrab by Syria, France, and the US, the goal of which is to unseat the Syrian president Bashar al Assad and liquidate the last Arab government hostile to Israel.

The Arabian peninsula is full of American military bases. And Iran finds itself in the crosshairs of the major Christian powers. The days preceding the cartoon crisis saw a head-on collision between Iran and the European Union over the nuclear question. To foil what the West considers a plan to create an atomic weapon, there has been an unrestrained campaign of threats and pressure on Teheran. This zeal is in striking contrast to the absolute tolerance shown over the same issue to Israel, which has more than 200 atomic weapons, thanks to the support of the US, France, Great Britain, and Germany, the same countries taking such a hard line against Iran.

German chancellor Angela Merkel, after comparing the situation in Iran to the beginnings of Nazism, stated that Teheran had crossed ”a red line” of tolerance. Shortly after, she asserted in Tel Aviv that there was ”not the slightest difference between the points of view of Germany and Israel” regarding Iran. The ”red line” statement raises suspicions that Europe and the EU are preparing an armed intervention against Teheran as well as fears that Washington is merely waiting for the right occasion to attack Iran unless it gives in to US demands. This would open the door to a new major conflict that could be characterised as a clash of civilisations.

Though no one is admitting as much, this vast and populous Muslim region is undergoing a new and intense process of colonialist reoccupation. Though the US and its allies justify the military occupation in the context of the war against terrorism and promoting democracy and human rights, the real motive is winning geopolitical control of the region and its energy resources. It is ths not surprising that terrorism has intensified and that so many Muslims loathe the West.

It is not a coincidence that the most violent protests have been in countries occupied or threatened by the US or where elections were won by organisations of political parties hostile to the West. Religion acts as a force of combustion in societies that feel victimised by the military, cultural, and economic imperialism of a group of Christian powers that in their arrogance have no compunction about offending the most sacred symbol of the Islamic faith. Were there not this broad and deep well of discontent, the publication of the cartoons would have been a passing episode. But it wasn’t, and the fundamental causes must not be overlooked, unless the West chooses the path of wilful blindness.

The future course of the Near and Middle East will be determined by the policy the West decides to pursue in the coming months and years. If it persists in its current approach of unrelenting militarism, the number of wrongs will continue to mount and trigger more and more conflicts, which could build into a major war.

But there is another path, though few place it on their agenda: the renunciation of threats and force and the true and committed embrace of the judicial system of the United Nations.

But the cartoon crisis could yet produce something of use. It could show the self-satisfied and arrogant West that allowing the massive build-up of discontent and rancour among vast sectors of the Muslim people creates a powderkeg that could blow up at the slightest pretext. The crisis of the cartoons is a clear warning. The future depends on the manner in which the disagreements with Syria and above all Iran are resolved, and the promptness with which justice is brought to the Palestinians. It is up to the West to make the first move. (END/COPYRIGHT IPS)

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By Augusto Zamora and - -
MADRID, Jan 1 2004 (IPS)

Few seem willing to question what seems unobjectionable, namely that the US, victor of the Cold War, is now the single global superpower, writes Augusto Zamora, professor of international public law and international relations at the UAM. However, is the US in fact the only pole of power, or does its hegemony rest on an array of circumstantial facts that will disappear in the years to come? the author asks in this article. The danger of today\’s militaristic whirlpool is that to hold onto power the right-wing that rules the US will have to keep the country and the world in a continuous state of war, in the purest Orwellian sense. Europe (and the world) should understand that guaranteeing any more of Washington\’s military imperialism could generate an interminable conflict combining religious fanaticism, 19th century geopolitics, and lite fascism. As Henry Kamen said, \’\’The preservation of the Spanish Empire was due to the general passivity of all other powers.\’\’ The same holds true for the hyperpower of the US. But as with Spain its hegemony will be ephemeral. Questioning the heretofore unquestionable power of the US is the price humanity will pay for a safer, multi-polar world.

It has become commonplace to speak of the unipolar world. As with the process mis-named globalisation, few seem willing to question what seems unobjectionable, namely that the United States, victor of the Cold War, is now the single global superpower and the country around which the world turns.

However, is the US in fact the only pole of power, or does its hegemony rest on an array of circumstances that will disappear in the years and decades to come?

Regarding American military pre-eminence, it should be noted that the US has never faced an equal adversary alone. Its territorial expansion –the mythologised and Hollywoodised conquest of the West– was the first planned genocide in history. Then came Mexico and a lagging Spain, defeated in 1898. Then Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Panama. US participation in World War One was symbolic, while in WWII, though its role was far greater, it fought alongside allies like the USSR, which had broken the back of Nazi power by itself.

There was, luckily for the world, no war between the US and USSR, though there were two conflicts in which the US fought against China and, indirectly, against the USSR. In Korea in 1951 US troops were almost expelled from the peninsula by the Chinese army. The war ended in a stalemate that showed the impotence of the US. The case of Vietnam goes without mention.

Until a few years ago the costs of the Cold War were shared by western powers and Japan. In the Gulf War the US fought at the head of a coalition made up of 50 countries and funded by ten of them.The war in Yugoslavia was the work of NATO, which footed the bill.

In Afghanistan, the situation changed. Though made less costly by the assistance of Russia and Europe, the war in Afghanistan was conducted at Washington’s expense. The Iraq War has to be entirely paid for by the US, with a minimum contribution by the UK. Both are clearly deficitary wars, whose costs not even Iraqi oil could compensate for when you consider the enormous financial toll they have taken (50 billion dollars according to the World Bank) plus the expense of maintaining the occupation for a substantial period of time, at 4 billion dollars per month.

It could be said that the US has passed through four stages of imperialism. The phase of local imperialism, with its absolute benefits, lasted from its independence to 1898, during which the country’s extensive expansion and industrialisation, and its capitalisation of the benefits of this period, transformed it into a major power. Then came the phase of economic imperialism, with net benefits, lasting until the Second World War, during which the US was not interested in being a major global player but merely in expanding and consolidating its economic and financial power. The third phase could be called deficitary global imperialism, given the fact that, as shown in the Korean and Vietnam wars, the US economy could be affected by the need to keep up with the USSR.

The fall of the Soviet Union opened the present and final phase, in which the US appears as the absolute victor of the Cold War and the sole planetary hyperpower. Though it may seem paradoxical, for the first time in its history the US has entered into a period of net-loss military imperialism in which it is required to consume gigantic quantities of resources to maintain its status as superpower hegemon, with diminished economic and political benefits. Its most recent military adventures have been paid for by the US itself and failed to produce any form of income. Given its notable lack political credibility, this new phase of net-loss military imperialism will tend to increase for various reasons.

The first reason is that the US is no longer the world’s major industrial or trade power: the EU is, and the inclusion of the new EU nations will further cement this status. As noted by Emanuel Todd, the US has become an economy that is dependent on the rest of the world. Its federal budget went from a surplus of 2.3 percent in 2002 to a deficit of the same percentage in late 2002, ballooning to 500 billion dollars in 2003. Domestic savings have dropped from an average of 5 percent in the 1990s to an historic low of 1.3 percent. To compensate, the country has had to absorb surplus foreign savings, producing a major current accounts deficit.

This situation will only be made worse by the drastic tax cuts, which will benefit the richest 1 percent of the country and force a reduction in social programmes.

It is in the traditional military area that the US has no rivals. Its budget of 460 billion dollars –45 percent of total military spending worldwide– is impossible to compete with. The problem is that this spending has little practical use. If we accept the assertion that terrorism is the principal threat to the US, tanks and fighter jets are useless in fighting it, as Israel knows well.

If the target is instead enemy nations, Washington’s present strategy seems far from successful as well. The US toppled the Taliban in Afghanistan but its control of the country is limited to the area around Kabul, and the war continues. Two hundred soldiers US have died since the victory over the Taliban. In Iraq, guerilla actions have caused more casualties than the war itself and will continue. How long will the US accept this situation given its aversion to casualties? And how long can its economy hold on before falling into crisis?

Washington’s about-face with regard to the UN is perhaps the clearest signal that among the few sensible elements of the Bush administration there is the conviction that the US alone cannot control the situation in Iraq, not to mention the inferno in the Middle East. Bush has asked for 87 billion dollars to ”finish winning” the war, yet wants other countries to pay a substantial amount of the economic and human costs. In this uncertain landscape, only the oil sector and military-industrial complex stand to benefit from the waste and global insecurity produced by the rampant militarism of Bush.

The danger of today’s intensely militarised environment is that to hold onto power the right-wing that rules the US will have to keep the country, and the world, in a continuous state of war, in the purest Orwellian sense. War will be peace, and oppression, liberty. For this to happen, there will need to be rogue states and a continuing hysteria about the threat of terrorism.

The real problem for the US is not the group of weak and isolated poor countries that it has reduced to pariahs. Its problem is what to do once Russia, when it recovers from the disasters of Yeltsin and China, when it reaches the level of power that it is consolidating with Asiatic patience, reclaim the international positions that they are due. The United States cannot go to war against them without destroying the world. Nor can it challenge them in their spheres of influence. The continued US presence in Afghanistan depends on Russia’s goodwill, as shown in 2001. If this goodwill fades, the situation will become precarious.

The other problem is the euro. If more and more of the world’s savings are ploughed into this currency, how will the United States finance its chronic deficit and military spending? Will it resort to economic war to destroy the EU? Will it use its allies from the ”new Europe” to dynamite the European project?

Behind the apparent omnipotence of the US, powerful forces are at work. Europe (and the world) should recognise this and understand that guaranteeing any more of Washington’s military imperialism could generate an interminable conflict combining religious fanaticism, 19th century geopolitics, and lite fascism. As Henry Kamen said, ”The preservation of the Spanish Empire was due to the general passivity of all other powers.” The same holds true for the hyperpower of the United States. But as with Spain its hegemony will be ephemeral. Questioning the heretofore unquestionable power of the US is the price humanity will pay for a safer, multi-polar world. (END/COPYRIGHT IPS)

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