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| Address by Nadia Yassine for Medlink meeting 2007 | |
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| (Rome, 14-16 December 2007) |
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| Hello,Thank you for your invitation. I am very pleased to be in Rome, the cradle of Western civilization, but even more pleased to be at Medlink, the space where develops the relationship between those who seek an alternative to this world of violence. Chico Whitaker introduced yesterday this kind of space as an area of convergence. It certainly is, but it also contains many differences. Though discussions are held on various topics, it can be argued without hesitation that an element of convergence definitely exists: it is the identification of a common enemy whose name is: savage neoliberalism, the disastrous alternative of a war ineptly named "cold". Expressed with words, sometimes poetic, neoliberalism is the "new world disorder", "Megamachine" (1), "the empire of shame" (2). Expressed with numbers, it is for example 1035 Billions of dollars for armament (3) (USA holds 45% of this figure) against 9 billion dollars for water supply and sanitation (4). Subcomandante Marcos (5) says "in the new world order there is neither democracy nor freedom, neither equality nor fraternity".He presents the new order as a seven part puzzle: |
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| 1) Centralization of wealth, expansion of poverty; 2) Globalization of exploitation, by way of example only: from 1960 to 1970, 200 million people earned less than one dollar per day. By 1990, that figure had risen to 2 billion. The United Nations called it: "Jobless growth". 3) Migration: a flow of workforce composed of millions of people. The logic of the migration policy of savage neoliberalism is the destruction-depopulation, reconstruction-reorganization. 4) Financial globalization and spreading of crime that now obeys the logic of enterprises. 5) Violence of local authorities that, unable to provide economic security resort to security measures and oppress their societies. 6 ) Mega-politics and dwarves. "The world-wide power of the financial markets is such that they are not concerned about the political complexion of the leaders of individual countries: what counts in their eyes is a country’s respect for the economic programme. " 7) Pockets of resistance: Alter-globalization is the clearest manifestation of these pockets of resistance which constitute a positive element in this globalized world. |
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| But we all know the means employed against pockets of resistance that the movement, now universal, represents especially since Porto Allegre. Anxious, the G8, main actor in this savage neoliberalism, waged a real war against this trend using several means: -- violence: more than 1400 cartridges were fired; -- Legal means: we can cite the spurious lawsuits against Bruno Basini which resulted in 13 charges and $ 1 million in fines. -- The ideological struggle: it is common knowledge among alert observers who study this global phenomenon that the real resistance is the one against the standardization it requires; it is uniqueness and difference. Chico Whitaker reminded us at the beginning of this debate that this space is certainly not an area of decision-making, given the excessive differences that characterize the different participants. I think that this is precisely what makes it a space of questioning and thinking par excellence. I will hence raise some very important issues, since the central theme is Islam and the clash of civilizations that tends to always loom in the backdrop whenever this neologism is mentioned. |
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| What if this savage neoliberalism had detected an unparalleled power in Islam, the reference to its renewal and the particularly tenacious resistance it represents because of its thinking completely different from the uniformity that the new world order exacts? What if the reference to Islam was perceived by the new empire as promoting an irreducible singularity? What if the ones that scorn Islam and consider political Islam or Islamism to be synonymous of terrorism were victims of this encompassing war delivered by savage neoliberalism against any resistance force? I would like to conclude this statement by making a small useful remark. Many speakers wishing to go against the tide of systematic demonization of political Islam defend the idea of a manifold Islam. I, in my turn, wish to stress that however important it is to know that Islam is multiple and complex, it is more important to know that there is an Islam of the rulers and another of the governed. Since the Umayyad coup d'état, the Islam of rulers was, quite simply, an instrument of stupefaction of the masses, an "opium of peoples". The Islam of the governed should be an instrument of emancipation that a liberating theology and a contemporary ijtihad should reclaim in order to win back hearts and consciences. I take this opportunity to pay tribute to Chico Whitaker, one of the founders of the theology of liberation in the context of Christian faith. His presence and his way of being which is a school of humility for all of us, prove that we may very well combine the spiritual and the temporal in a large-scale operation that proposes another face to the world than that of war and hatred. Thank you. |
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| -------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------------------ (1) a term of Serge Latouche (2) "The empire of shame", a book by Jean Ziegler, Ed Fayard, 2005 (3) According to the GRIP (Group for Research and information on peace and security) statistics 2004 GRIPS(4) UNDP report 1998 (5) Cf. Manière de voir 75 in "armed forces, force of reason" |
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