The Clash Thesis: A Failing Ideology? | August 26, 2004
Instantly, instinctively, and unrelentingly, the American establishment has framed the attacks of September 11, 2001, in the language of a clash of civilizations. The Islamic terrorists attacked America because they hate our highest values, our freedoms, our way of life, our civilization...
This then is the ideology of America's establishment as it wages its "war against terror." The Muslims attacked America because they hate who we are. They want to destroy us because they hate our freedom, our opportunities, our democratic institutions, our way of life, our Judeo-Christian heritage. It is a hatred that is civilizational. It is rooted in the illiberal, intolerant, misogynist, anti-modernist, and anti-scientific culture of Muslims and their religion. This thesis is now spun a thousand times every day by America's politicians, press and pundits.
This ideology of the clash of civilizations is multi-layered. First, it seeks to explain to Americans and the rest of the world why the United States and the rest of the world must wage this war against terror. Secondly, the clash thesis long championed by Zionist ideologues inside and outside Israel is a device for Americanizing the war Israel has waged against the Palestinians and Arabs. Thirdly, the war against terror is itself a cover which the United States is using to establish a more muscular control over the world.
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A Predatory Orientalism: What Went Wrong?| November 06, 2002
In an earlier era, before the Zionist movement descended on the heads of unsuspecting Palestinians, the least bigoted voices in the field of Oriental studies were often those of European Jews. (View full)
Published in CounterPunch | View Acrobat PDF version here.
In the Shadow of September 11| December 11, 2001
When I crossed the border into USA in 1988, after teaching in Canada for two years, I had the curious feeling that my wife, my son and I, still brown-skinned and dark-haired, had somehow become invisible.(View full)
Published in Common Dreams | View Acrobat PDF version here.
