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A Unity of
Expectations
A certain
unifying reality is continuously imposing itself upon us, all of us,
regardless of how we choose to define ourselves or each other. This
reality is called Modernity, and it is in fact a process, a very ruthless
process, despite the ennobling ideas born out of it and those that gave it
birth.
It is so,
because it is uncompromising in its demand that our very sense of identity
should be as fluid, continuous and, so seemingly unending, as history
itself. Modernity does not accommodate a rigid sense of identity, those
who exhibit or insist on having such a sense will always be in conflict
with Modernity even when they seem reconciled with it.
This is in
fact the essence of our current dilemma. Modernity is ruthless even to
those who embrace it. Its victims, therefore, are to be found everywhere,
and it is as problematic in the East as in the West, in the North as in
the South, for the Muslims as for the Christians, and for the Liberals as
for the Conservatives. Indeed, Modernity has no pet child or prodigal son.
It pampers no one. That's why backlashes to it are to be found in all
societies. Fundamentalism, for instance, is not a phenomenon unique only
to Islam, as we all know, varieties of it exist in almost every human
society and culture. Conversely, the woes of such phenomena Globalization,
Americanization and even Terrorism, are felt by one and all. September 11,
if anything, served to underscore this all too simple fact of our modern
subsistence.
As such,
Modernity, representing itself more and more as “fate” these days, can
only be faced by openness to change and to dialogue, by participation in
its making, and by inclusion of everyone in its benefits. In other words,
Modernity has to be dealt with in the same manner an “enlightened
believer,” so to speak, deals with fate or God's perceived Will, that is
by being realistic not fatalistic. For reality can be altered, but
first it has to be accepted, in toto and as is, - denial is a mere
facilitator of victimhood.
But what sort of unity is being imposed?
The unity that is imposing itself upon us has political, economic,
cultural as well psychological implications.
On the
political level, it is
a unity of interests, and, as usual in such matters, there are winners and
losers here. Slobodan Milosevic and Saddam Hussein are losers, they both
failed to understand the nature and limits of the new post-Soviet
geopolitical realities, the first regressing to an outmoded nationalistic
thought, the second falling prey to imperial delusions of a Medievalistic
nature.
On the other
hand, Nelson Mandela and Vladimir Putin are winners, both having managed
to accommodate themselves to the established World Order despite their
dislike of it. Mandela, in fact, seems to be fundamentally opposed to
the emerging order, unlike Putin who is simply not satisfied with Russia's
lot and share in it. Both men, however, have chosen to work from within
the established system in the hope of eventually influencing it. Neither
opted for the adoption of the kind of nihilistic schemes that were
espoused by Milosevic and Hussein.
On the
economic level,
transnational corporations are simply buying up and dividing the world
between themselves, leaving no chance to developing countries to stand on
their own feet. However, one should not single out transnational
corporations for blame in this. Responsibility for the failure of many
developing economies in rising up the challenges of development and
modernization should also be borne by the governments, peoples and
intellectual and professional elites of these countries.
In the Arab
World, for instance, the failure of the process of modernization in
producing viable economic entities was not due to any lack of appropriate
natural or human resources. Rather, it was the lack of proper deployment
of these resources by the ruling class, the endemic corruption of that
class, the persistence and even revival of traditional modes of
governance, the general lack of intellectual honesty and integrity among
the Arab intelligentsia (with few exceptions), and the fundamentalist
backlash related to all of the above and to Modernity itself, that should
receive a greater share of the blame. The Arab World had had ample
opportunity to rebuild and modernize itself after the end of the European
imperialistic venture therein. Its failure to take advantage of that is
one of the key reasons why transnational corporations today are so capable
of marginalizing it as an economic force. The same analysis applies to
many other regions in the world.
On the
cultural level, the
global attraction of American pop culture is problematic for even other
western societies, as European fears in this regard testify. But the
success of American pop culture is a natural outcome of its continuous
interest in meeting and accommodating popular tastes. At the age of
democratization, popular tastes cannot be disdained anymore, nor can
people be preached at and told what constitutes good taste and what does
not. Education and the dissemination of knowledge in this situation can no
longer happen in that old fashioned way where the difference between
educator and educated is perceived in a meritorious sense. There is a need
here for both the educators and the educated to take part in the learning
process on an equal par. The role of the educator in this situation is
that of a facilitator and a communicator of knowledge not that of a
preacher or a master.
As for the
intellectuals, the artists in particular, it should be stressed here that
their traditional well-nigh innate aloofness and disdain of the "masses,"
is something that needs to be tempered by a growing realization that,
these days, the "masses" can no longer be ignored, for they are the
ones who will eventually sit in ultimate judgment of all intellectual
activities. What might help make matters a bit easier to accept here
is that the "masses" are no longer, if indeed they have ever been, that
homogenous group of people that share similar aesthetic likes and
dislikes.
As such,
democratization will only increase the global intellectual fermentation
taking place on all levels and in all fields. The success of American pop
culture, its deficiencies and shortcomings apart, is in many ways a
testament to this fact. Eventually, of course, and as is the case with
European pop culture, American pop culture will be inoculated with the
necessary aesthetic effusions coming from other cultures, which will
eventually make it more representative. In the final analysis, American
Culture is indeed the product of an amalgamation and interaction of
cultures. Just as Islamic culture was in the medieval times, and European
culture in the Renaissance and thereafter.
On a
psychological level,
the unification currently taking place in the world could be viewed as a
unification in terms of average expectations. Indeed, more and more people
around the world tend to betray similar expectations with regard to what
constitute a good and dignified life. They all want a comparable measure
of political, economic and social security. The fact that these
expectations are not being fulfilled to similar degrees all over the world
is one of the major sources of the frustration, anger and hate we are
witnessing today in the developing world.
We speak
about human rights all the time and have indeed been speaking about them
for decades now to the extant that the term, and the concept in its
essence, have become well-nigh universally accepted, and sometimes even
co-opted, which is, in essence, another testimony as to its acceptance by
a certain critical number of people, for people do not co-opt useless and
unknown ideas and notions. Nonetheless, the fact remains that most
countries in the developing world today, not to mention certain social
strata in the developed world itself, still witness tremendous abuses of
human rights, and that the developed world is playing an important part in
supporting this state of affairs.
These
contradictions, which might stem simply from the fact that the unification
taking place is not yet complete, go to the heart of the various political
and social problems we are witnessing today in many parts of the world.
What we need today, therefore, is a process of homogenizing living
standards throughout the world. And though, such a process is not
necessarily synonymous with cultural homogenization, it will most probably
be accompanied by an element thereof. Still, the emphasis here is on
material living standards in correspondence to the material, perhaps even
consumerist, expectations and aspirations that most people on Earth today
seem to hold dear.
So, "are we
all Americans now?" as some are asking today. Well, I don't think this is
the right question really, since it gives Americans an almost
inherently central role in the ongoing process of modernization and
unification. The apparent centrality of the American role in the making of
the current World Order is, however, a transient phenomenon. The US is
simply playing the role commensurate with its size and potential in a
global process in which we all have our roles to play, even if they be
passive, rejectionist or uninspiringly mimicking.
The right
question should, therefore, be: are we all ONE now? One in some realistic
sense and not only in accordance with some vague philosophical notion. And
my answer is: No we are not yet. But we seem to be heading in that
direction, a fact that is shaking, undermining and otherwise challenging
the very essence of our sense of identity. We are still, it seems, at that
stage in the process where we find ourselves as equally attracted as
repulsed by the looming unity. For though our expectations seem to have
been homogenized, our interests are far from being so.
The
challenge ahead of us, then, is to move forward from the already achieved
unity of expectations to the long hoped for, at least by idealists like
me, unity of interests.
Is such a
unity achievable? Well, a realistic idealist knows that there are no
guarantees. But, now that a certain unity of expectations seems to have
been universally achieved, we have, in fact, no choice but to pursue a
unity of interests as well, or suffer the consequences of the potential
implosion.
A presentation giving during Bridging the
Cultural Gap II Conference - "Towards a Cosmopolitan Society," organized
and hosted by the Danish Pen at Louisiana, Denmark on November 30 -
December 1, 2002. The session during which the presentation was made was
titled: Are We All Americans Now?
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