Disordered world, p.2
Disordered World, page 2
It is true that from time to time upheavals occur which bring unexpected benefits. At such times we may begin to believe that when humanity gets itself into an impasse, it will inevitably find its way out by some miracle. But soon after, other kinds of turbulence come along which reveal quite different human impulses — darker, more familiar ones — prompting one to wonder if our species has reached its threshold of moral incompetence, and whether humanity is still advancing, or has in fact gone into reverse, threatening to undermine all that countless previous generations worked to build.
To avoid any misunderstanding, let me emphasise that I am not one of those people who want nothing to do with the modern world. I am fascinated by what our age has to offer. I eagerly await the latest inventions and am quick to adopt them. I am conscious of belonging to a generation that is highly privileged compared to every previous one, if only by dint of advances in medicine and information technology. But I cannot calmly enjoy the benefits of modernity if I am uncertain that generations to come will be able to enjoy them just as much.
Are these fears disproportionate? Sadly, I don’t think so. In fact, they strike me as fully justified, as I will try to show in this book. I shall do so not in order to accumulate a mass of evidence, nor to defend my belief out of vanity but simply so that my cry of alarm is heard. My main aim is to find a way to persuade my contemporaries, my travelling companions, that the ship we find ourselves aboard has gone adrift. It is off course. It has no destination and no compass, and it is hard to see the way ahead on a stormy sea. Emergency action is required if we are to avoid shipwreck. It is no longer enough to stick to our current course, for better or worse, somehow navigating by sight, avoiding obstacles as they rear up and leaving it to time. Time is not on our side; it is our judge, and a suspended sentence has already been pronounced.
If maritime images come to mind spontaneously, perhaps I should first make my fears explicit with this simple, clear assessment: at the present point in our evolution, humanity faces new dangers never before encountered in our history. They call for unprecedented global solutions. If they are not found in the near future, it will not be possible to save any of the things which give our civilisation its greatness and beauty. Yet to date there are few indications that provide reason to hope that humanity will be able to overcome its differences, devise imaginative solutions and put them into effect. There are many signs that suggest that the world is so severely out of joint that decline will be hard to prevent.
In the pages that follow, I shall not treat each different form of disorder systematically or as a separate case study. My approach will rather be that of a nightwatchman in a garden in the small hours after a storm when another more violent storm looms on the horizon. With his lantern, this man carefully picks his way, shining its beam first on one flower bed, then another, exploring one path, then retracing his steps and bending over to inspect an old uprooted tree. Then he makes for a promontory, puts out his light and tries to take in the whole scene.
He is neither botanist, nor crop specialist, nor landscape gardener, and nothing in the garden belongs to him personally. But this is where he lives with people he cares about, and everything which might affect this land matters greatly to him.
I. Misleading Victories
Chapter 1
When the Berlin Wall fell, a hopeful breeze blew across the world. The end of the stand-off between the West and the Soviet Union removed the threat of a nuclear cataclysm which had hung over our heads for forty years. We believed that democracy would now gradually spread until it encompassed the whole planet; the barriers between countries would fall; the movement of people, goods, images and ideas would develop unimpeded, ushering in an era of progress and prosperity. On each of these fronts there were some remarkable advances to begin with. But the further we went, the more disorientated we became.
An example of this confusion is the European Union. For the EU, the disintegration of the Soviet bloc was a triumph. One of the two paths offered to the continent’s peoples had turned out to be a dead end, while the other opened onto new horizons. All the former countries of the East came knocking at the EU’s door, and those which were turned away still dream of being admitted. And yet, at the very moment of its triumph, when so many peoples were gravitating towards it in a kind of dazed fascination as though it were an earthly paradise, Europe lost its bearings. What was it supposed to be a union of? And what was its purpose? Who should it exclude and on what grounds? Now more than ever, the EU is questioning its identity, its borders, its future institutions, its place in the world. And it is not clear what the answers are.
If the EU understands perfectly well how it came into being and is aware of the tragedies which convinced its peoples of the need to unite, it is less clear about the direction it should take from here. Should it set itself up as a federation akin to the United States of America, inspired by a continent-wide patriotism which will transcend and absorb those of its constituent nations? Should it possess not only economic and diplomatic power on the world stage, but also political and military power? Would the EU be ready to take on such a role, and the responsibilities and sacrifices that go along with it? Or should it be content with being a flexible partnership between nations which jealously guard their own sovereignty and playing a supporting role as a global power?
For as long as the continent was divided into two rival camps, dilemmas such as these were irrelevant. Since then, they have become obsessive. Of course, there will be no return to the era of European wars and no new Iron Curtain. But it would be wrong to believe that these questions are just quarrels between politicians or among political scientists. The very destiny of the continent is at stake.
I shall come back to this question in more detail later, as I believe it is an essential one and not just for the people of Europe. I wanted to mention it here as an example of the loss of direction, the sense of disorientation and disorder which affects humanity as a whole and all of its constituent parts.
In truth, when I look at the various regions of the world, Europe worries me least, because it seems that more so than elsewhere it has taken stock of the scale of the challenges facing humanity; because it has the necessary people and institutions to debate them effectively and work out solutions; and because the EU provides a project to commit to and strong ethical concerns, even if sometimes it seems to take them too readily for granted.
Regrettably there is nothing comparable elsewhere. For decades the Arab-Muslim world had been sinking deeper and deeper into a historic pit from which it seemed incapable of extricating itself. It felt rage against the whole world — the West, the Russians, the Chinese, the Hindus, the Jews, and so on — and above all against itself. The countries of Sub-Saharan Africa, with rare exceptions, are plagued by civil wars, epidemics, sordid trafficking, widespread corruption, disintegrating institutions, a fraying social fabric, mass unemployment and despair. Russia is struggling to recover from seventy years of Communism and the chaotic way it ended; its leaders dream of regaining their former power, while its people remain disillusioned. The United States, meanwhile, having defeated its principal global adversary, finds itself engaged in a titanic enterprise which is wearing it down and leading it off course: trying to tame an untameable planet almost single-handed.
Even China, which has experienced a spectacular rise, has reason to be worried. For even if now, at the beginning of this century, its path seems clear — to relentlessly pursue economic development while carefully preserving its cohesion as a society and a nation — its future role as a political and military power is beset with serious uncertainties, as much for China itself as for its neighbours and the rest of the world. The Asian giant still possesses a more or less reliable compass, but it is getting close to a point where it will no longer be of use.
In one way or another, all the people on earth are in the same storm. Rich or poor, arrogant or downtrodden, occupiers or occupied, they are — we are — all aboard the same fragile raft and we are all going down together. Yet we go on insulting and quarrelling with each other, without heeding the rising tide.
We might even cheer if a devastating wave heading towards us engulfed our enemies first.
Chapter 2
There is another reason why I chose the European Union as my first example: it provides a good demonstration of a phenomenon known both to historians and to each of us in our own lives — namely that failure may turn out to be providential and success may turn to disaster. The end of the Cold War seems to me to be a deceptive event of that sort.
The fact that Europe’s triumph has caused it to lose its bearings is not the only paradox of our times. One could argue in the same way that the West’s strategic victory, which should have consolidated its supremacy, has accelerated its decline; that the triumph of capitalism has precipitated the worst crisis in its history; that the end of the ‘balance of terror’ has created a world obsessed with ‘terror’; and also that the defeat of a notoriously repressive and anti-democratic Soviet system has greatly diminished the quality of political debate all over the planet.
I want to focus on the last of these points first, to underline the fact that with the end of bipolar confrontation we went from a world in which divisions were mainly ideological and the debate incessant to a world in which the divisions are mainly on identity lines and leave little room for debate. Everyone asserts his own allegiances in front of others, utters his curses, mobilises his own people, demonises his enemies — for what else is there to say? Adversaries today scarcely speak the same language.
That is not to say that I miss the intellectual climate of the Cold War (which was not to begin with cold everywhere — it splintered into numerous side conflicts which cost millions of lives, from Korea to Afghanistan, Hungary to Indonesia, and Vietnam to Chile and Argentina). It seems to me nonetheless legitimate to deplore the fact that the world emerged from the Cold War at the lowest level, by which I mean heading towards less universalism, rationality and secularism; towards a reinforcement of inherited allegiances rather than acquired knowledge; and thus towards less open debate.
During the ideological confrontation between Marxism’s supporters and its opponents, the whole planet resembled a huge amphitheatre. In newspapers, universities, offices, factories, cafés and homes, most human societies were buzzing with endless discussions of the pros and cons of this or that economic system, philosophy or way of organising society. Since the defeat of Communism, when it ceased to offer humanity a credible alternative, these exchanges have lacked a subject. That may be why so many people have turned their backs on their tattered utopias and sought shelter under the reassuring roof of their community. It may also be the case that the political and moral defeat of resolutely atheist Marxism has renewed enthusiasm for the beliefs and forms of solidarity which Marxism sought to root out.
The fact remains that, since the fall of the Berlin Wall, we find ourselves in a world in which allegiances — especially religious ones — are stronger; in which coexistence between different human communities is as a result a little more difficult each day; and in which democracy is constantly at the mercy of identity politics and one-upmanship.
This slide from ideology to identity has had devastating effects all across the globe, but nowhere more so than in the Arab-Muslim world, where religious radicalism, long the preoccupation of a persecuted minority, has achieved massive intellectual predominance within most societies as well as in the diaspora. In the course of its rise, this tendency began to adopt a violently anti-Western stance.
This development, set in motion by the advent of Ayatollah Khomeini in 1979, has become more pronounced since the end of the Cold War. As long as the confrontation between the two blocs lasted, most Islamist movements were markedly more hostile to communism than capitalism. They may never have had any sympathy with the West, its politics, way of life or values, but the Marxists’ militant atheism provoked their hostility. At the same time, the Islamists’ local enemies, especially the Arab nationalists and left-wing parties, followed the opposite path, becoming allies or clients of the Soviet Union. This alignment was to have disastrous consequences for them, but it was in a way dictated by their history.
For generations, the modernist elites of the Arab-Muslim world sought in vain to square the circle, that is to say, to Europeanise without giving in to the hegemony of the European powers which dominated countries from Java to Morocco and which controlled their resources. Their independence struggles had, after all, been fought against the British, French and Dutch, and each time their countries tried to take control of key sectors of their economies, it was Western oil companies — or in the case of Egypt, the Franco-British Suez Canal Company — that they came into conflict with. The emergence in Eastern Europe of a powerful bloc which advocated rapid industrialisation, touted the slogan ‘friendship between peoples’, and firmly opposed the colonial powers struck many of them as a way out of this impasse.
In the aftermath of independence struggles, looking to the Communist states seemed reasonable and promising. In hindsight, it turned out to be disastrous. The elites of the Arab-Muslim world didn’t achieve development, national liberation, democracy or social modernity; all they got was a local, nationalistic brand of Stalinism entirely lacking the attributes that had given the Soviet regime its international influence: its internationalist rhetoric, its massive contribution to the defeat of Nazism from 1941 to 1945, and its ability to build a military power of the first order. Instead, all that the so-called ‘progressive’ Arab regimes were able to imitate were the Soviet model’s worst defects: its tendency to xenophobia, police brutality, notoriously ineffective economic planning, as well as the confiscation of power by the party, a clan or the leader. Saddam Hussein’s secular regime was a telling example of this.
Deciding whether to blame the age-old blindness of Arab societies or the age-old greed of Western powers matters little today. Both positions can be defended and I shall return to them. What is certain — and what weighs heavily on the world today — is that for several decades the secular, potentially modernising elements of the Arab-Muslim world fought against the West, and in so doing headed down a dead end materially and morally, and that the West fought back, often with devastating effectiveness, and sometimes with the support of Islamic religious movements.
This was not a true alliance, merely a tactical arrangement to confront a powerful common enemy. But it meant that at the end of the Cold War the Islamists were on the winning side. Their influence on daily life became visible and far-reaching in all areas. Now a large part of the population identified with them, all the more strongly as they adopted all the social and nationalist demands traditionally championed by the left and resistance movements. While it remained based on the clear application of the precepts of faith, often interpreted conservatively, Islamist discourse became politically radical: more egalitarian, more supportive of the Third World, more revolutionary and more nationalistic — and from the end of the twentieth century, resolutely hostile to the West and its protégés.
A comparison comes to mind in relation to this last point: in Europe, right-wing democrats and communists who had been allies against Nazism during the Second World War found themselves enemies in 1945. Likewise, it was predictable that at the end of the Cold War, the Islamists and the West would become implacable foes. If somewhere suitable for the touch paper to be lit was required, Afghanistan provided it. That was where these former allies were last united in battle against the Soviets; that was where, after their final victory in the last decade of the twentieth century, their breach became definitive; and it was from there that, on 11 September 2001, a deadly attack was launched against the US. The chain reaction which followed is well known — invasions, insurrections, executions, massacres, civil wars and countless further terrorist attacks.
Chapter 3
The idea that the West is facing a handful of terrorists who take the name of Islam in vain and whose actions are condemned by the vast majority of believers doesn’t always match reality. It is true that monstrous acts of carnage, such as the one perpetrated in Madrid in March 2004, arouse feelings of disgust, awkwardness and sincere condemnation in the Muslim world. But if you look closely at the different ‘tribes’ which make up humanity today across our planet, their reactions to terror attacks, like those to armed conflicts and political shows of strength, are rarely the same: what causes some people to feel outrage may be justified, excused or even applauded by others.
We are obviously in the presence of two interpretations of history, which crystallise around different perceptions of ‘the enemy’. For some, Islam has shown itself incapable of adopting the universal values advocated by the West, while for others, the West above all possesses a will to universal domination, which Muslims have tried hard to resist with their limited remaining resources.
For someone able to listen to each ‘tribe’ in its own language, as I have done for many years, this spectacle is at once instructive, fascinating and depressing. For, as soon as you accept certain premises, everything can be interpreted coherently without needing to hear the other side’s opinion.
If, for example, you accept the conjecture that the great calamity of our time is the ‘barbarity of the Muslim world’, looking at Iraq will only confirm your view. You will see a bloody tyrant whose reign of terror lasted a third of a century; who slaughtered his own people and squandered their oil wealth on luxuries and military spending; who invaded his neighbours, defied the great powers, became increasingly boastful, to the delight of the Arab masses, before folding without putting up a real fight. Then, after his fall, watch as the country sinks into chaos and see the different communities begin to massacre each other, as if to say: ‘You see, it took a dictator to keep a people like this in line!’
