BANANACUE
REPUBLIC
Vol II, No. 07
Feb 16, 2005

 
 
 social criticism by
 Jojo Soria de Veyra

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2004
2005



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The Next Cold War

THE ISLAMIC revolutionary army called the Abu Sayyaf group has claimed responsibility for yesterday's simultaneous Valentine’s Day terrorist bombings in areas including the Makati financial district, Davao City, and General Santos City. The group, needless to say, cannot but be aware of the impact of such attacks. What the group may or may not be aware of is the overall context cum burgeoning realization that the Philippine and perhaps the global majority may now have for and towards such acts.

In the American novel Cosmopolis by Don DeLillo, an axiom was proposed that since dissent or rebellion or protest is already one of the founding principles of American society (and other democratic societies), only the most extreme acts of radicalism could get special notice.

Understandably, it is special notice and immediate attention that Islamic-based terrorism (or any religious- or ethnic- or ideology-inspired terrorism) is seeking. However, I would tend to argue that violent radicalism could work only in the communist or rightist format of armed revolution or doing a coup d'etat and possibly only turn on itself through the presently trendy formats of terrorism.

IT DOESN’T matter to terrorists that terrorism is perceived by the so-called democratic world as adult tantrums by an uneducated or mal-educated percentage of the world’s population. The perceptions of the democratic world are necessarily perceived in the radical world as products of a prejudiced and oppressively propagandistic culture. But this democratic world knows very well that, like teenage rebellions, adult tantrums spell danger and demand immediate attention. And it is precisely attention towards their demands that terrorists aim for in their deeds.

Yet radicalism must perchance take a moment to consider what might happen if it channels its ire and demands through its representations in government. The case of Philippine-based Moslems could perhaps be effectively coursed through the Islamic representations in Congress and the executive branch of government, unless radicalism qua radicalism is not exactly seeking reforms but capitulations.

The Macapagal-Arroyo government has been accused by some parties of having this wont to capitulate to terrorist demands, first in the popular withdrawal of the Philippine contingent in Iraq and now in the review of the Misuari rebellion case that seems to want to process the Islamic revolutionist’s release. Such a release is already being touted as a most appropriate action that would safeguard the Philippine populace from the threats of terrorism. It is this flip-flopping between a lip-serviced policy that terrorism will not be acceptable and a resolve to protect the Philippine population by whatever means including capitulation that is hounding the Philippine government’s political philosophy or lack thereof.

THIS ESSAY does not wish to campaign for a rethink in the government’s policy or resolve. I believe that the government, as is its wont, will simply follow what the world will dictate upon it as the appropriate action. (Perhaps the US government, on behalf of US arms manufacturers like the Bush family’s United Defence, will take the opportunity to lobby for further arms purchases by the Philippine taxpayer.)

This essay seeks rather to communicate with Islamic-based terrorism itself. In democratic terms, let me repeat, why won’t radicals course their demands through the Moslem representations in government instead of demonstrating their radical wrath in the murder of civilians just trying to survive within the system and culture given them (civilians who may even perhaps be considering alternative systems and cultures as they walk to their employers’ offices)? In strategic terms, also, are the radicals considering for even a minute the potential ramifications of historic international terrorist activities? Let me elaborate on these.

When terrorists go on a murderous “tantrum”, a certain context in the so-called democratic world is worked on a global scale towards what to them has become a clearer picture of the radical campaign: to the global citizen, it is a campaign against the perpetuation of free speech. In short, the “tantrums” have manifested to the democratized eye the radicals’ distrust of democratic processes and an accompanying desire for a Middle Ages-like atmosphere of religious stake-burnings. This is the increasing perception or understanding of the recent global protests of Islamic terrorism, a perception that’s not entirely correct considering that Islamic groups do not have a uniform model or utopia, but the global perception nonetheless. It is a perception by a global populace whose habit is to take to the streets in protest whenever a subject is hot in the polity. Its general habit is not one of taking to building basements with bombs in contempt of the society that embraces them. And in light of this perception, I ask, is this message or reading within the roster of the radical's desires? Or could this reading, perhaps, be self-defeating to the radical campaign?

To discourse further on this possibly self-defeating route, let’s consider certain realities. When radicals continued their support for Saddam Hussein in the Iraqi leader’s need to keep the myth that it was ahead of Iran in the Iraq-Iran arms race, taunting the United States Republican administration to invade its territories, what were the losses of the radical cause? Who came out the winner with billions of profits from weapons supplies to the US government (not to mention a hold on Iraq’s ample oil supply)? Bush’s and the bin Ladens’ United Defence and Cheney’s Halliburton came out as the biggest winners in both Afghanistan and Iraq. Saddam, therefore, as did Usama bin Laden, virtually serviced these corporate triumphs. These realities, grounded on such facts as the Bush-bin Laden connection and the Saddam-CIA connection that goes back to the 1950s and even the Gaddafi-Halliburton connection even at the height of the first Gulf War, have even pushed theories that terrorism is not exactly a produce of fundamentalism but a produce of the use of fundamentalist leaders by Western or Saudi corporate interests for the manufacture of wars that would in turn manufacture profits for everyone upstairs. Terrorist leaders like Usama bin Laden get rich and go free, their men die, and so the theory goes.

But going back to the strategic terms, namely, a consideration of potential ramifications of all the increasing international activities of terrorism, the following could be deduced. Given a certain system of processes will necessarily create a system of reactive beliefs. One of these burgeoning beliefs -- currently very popular in Amsterdam and even the UK -- is that should the Islamic terrorist campaign radically increase in the world, an appropriate action might be found in the abolishment of the Islamic faith as a national and constitutional security measure in and for certain national territories. The philosophy behind that belief goes that if the Islamic faith appears to state that God is a God of war, then a democratic constitution supposedly framed from a philosophy desiring peace might perhaps find a rebelling entity in Islam and thereby abolish its presence within -- or inclusion in -- the responsibilities of the constitution. In short, this will divide the world into two territories.

The globe was hitherto divided in Western minds between the communist-sympathizing territories and the democracy-maintaining and -seeking world. Such a globe -- which has now virtually erased the conviction that communists are anti-world trade -- will now be transformed into two divisions, one side abolishing the Islamic faith and the other side in total embrace of it. (One positive note about this sci-fi seeming picture might be the democratic world’s transformed landscape that may have turned to the earth-friendly harnessing of alternative energy sources besides the nuclear; the negative note is that an Islamic country might in this light be forced to turn to other sources of income from international trade, given that it might now be solely trading with fellow oil-producing Islamic countries.)

This global division may or may not come drastically. Certain powerful nations like the United States might vote against it, in view of what its government's corporate backers stand to profit from the absence of that division, notwithstanding the lives to be sacrificed in view of the absent wall. The United States, for one, has not exactly demonstrated a respect for global opinion on its reputation, as amply demonstrated by its snubbing the Kyoto Protocol to service its companies' headway in the carbon-emitting manufacture of its globally-patronized products. Still, like the possible boycott of the rest of the world of many American products to protest America's sought exemption from the responsibilities of the Kyoto Protocol, many in the world might also be inspired to follow Israel's example in the fight against terrorism. Build that wall, despite the protestations of such entities as Unocal and Halliburton and British Petroleum and American and European arms manufacturers.

The corollary question is where the United States (and perhaps Britain) will end up siding with.

Another opposition to the division will certainly derive from Moslems themselves who do not share the interpretation of the Koran as a book of/for war or oppression. However, the world may overwhelmingly blame these same for the proliferation of Islamic radicalism, dangling the question as to whether they did enough to curb the ideological explosion. Specialized groups in the democratic world, e.g. the global feminist movement generally against the veil and the general Islamic regard for women, will almost certainly support the global wall. The earlier French dictate to abolish the veil is already one manifestation of that wall creation. Certainly non-violent Moslems will suffer, thanks to the violent parties within or claiming to be within the faith who will have ruined the whole Islamic name in the violence-loathing international arena, and the non-Islamic world will be given no choice but to give in to the necessity of ramming the mental wall of division into the many border zones of the planet's physical geography. 

THIS SEEMING “prediction” of a new world order I neither essay here as a proposal, for I am merely announcing or echoing its increasing popularity in many a talk show in international cable TV, nor as a negative threat to the Islamic nation, considering that maybe such a global landscape is precisely what Islamic radicals desire.

This essay seeks only to ask: is this division truly the long-term objective of Islamic radicalism? Does the radical intelligentsia generally know this to be where terrorism might be leading us all towards? For is not this division the inevitable direction the world is heading towards, being its only clear choice? And, barring expansionist motives, will this division ultimately be good or bad for everybody?

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Posted 02/15/05. Send comments to: bananacue_republic@yahoo.com

". . . many in the world might also be inspired to follow Israel's example in the fight against terrorism. Build that wall, despite the protestations of such entities as Unocal and Halliburton and British Petroleum and American and European arms manufacturers."