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World
Intellectuals See a Future of War and Religion
By
Steve Smith, IOL Washington correspondent
WASHINGTON,
March 11 – The anti-Muslim rhetoric that stormed the United States
after September 11 attacks was echoed in many parts of the world,
particularly in Western countries, where anti-Muslim feelings were
at their peak, says the new edition of a leading US foreign policy
publication.
The
latest issue of the Council on Foreign Relation’s semi-annual
publication, Correspondence: An International Review of Culture and
Society, reports on the foreign debates triggered by the September
11 attack and the different views expressed on the US and Islam.
“Debate
on the nature of Islam and of terrorism, on the role of the United
States, on immigration and national identity have dominated the
front and editorial pages as well as the cultural sections of
newspapers and magazines from Buenos Aires and Johannesburg to
Copenhagen and Jakarta, from Port-au-Prince and Islamabad to Paris
and Rome,” wrote Alexander Stille.
The
issue publishes reports from Haiti, Mexico, Brazil, Indonesia,
Russia, and all the regions of Europe, with related stories on
Europe's battles over immigration and minorities.
The
report notes that for example, in France, Jean Baudrillard, one of
the country's foremost philosophers, expressed his
"jubilation" at the World Trade Center attack on the front
page of Le Monde.
In
Italy, the country's top newspaper set off a similarly inflammatory
debate by publishing a 12,000-word diatribe by journalist Oriana
Fallaci insisting that the attack was indeed a war of religion and
that Italy must rise up in defense of Western values and protect
itself from the "reverse crusade" of Muslim immigration.
In
Germany and elsewhere, an interesting phenomenon came up, which the
Council termed the "substitution phenomenon," in which
articles by a series of internationally known intellectuals (the
Indian novelist Arundhati Roy, linguist Noam Chomsky, the spy
novelist John Le Carré), which were highly critical of U.S. policy,
were given great prominence in different parts of the world.
This
was at a time in which it was unthinkable for local politicians and
writers to express anything but unity with the victims of the
terrorist attack in the West and in the US.
Those
internationally reknowned intellectuals have written in various
countries in order to say things that writers in those countries
hesitate to say in their own name.
The
thoughts of American linguist Noam Chomsky, who saw the World Trade
Center as the first counteroffensive in the war against colonialism,
are quoted widely in places like Saudi Arabia and India as well as
in Le Monde Diplomatique while considered trivial in his own home
country, the U.S.
In
similar method, Fallaci's anti-Islamic attack played an important
part in the discussion in both Poland and Spain, both countries in
which Catholicism has been historically linked with national
identity and where many intellectuals openly accuse Islam of
advocating violence.
The
publication also examined the rise of the right wing in Denmark and
its strength after the attacks. In India, September 11 is perceived
through the lens of Kashmir, the site- depending on who you speak
to- of a Muslim independence movement or terrorist activity.
The
publication noted how many writers emphasized the idea of the return
of war and fait in world politics in many publications across the
Western world.
According
to Correspondence, the September 11 attacks have also underscored
the importance of the issue of immigration, particularly in Europe,
which is faced with the prospect of declining population, the rising
need for immigrant labor and growing anti-immigrant feeling.
According
to the Council, Correspondence: An International Review of Culture
and Society has become a vital source of un- and under-reported
cultural news, information, and analysis from a global perspective,
for which the publication's contributors scour periodicals, academic
literature, and belles-lettres from around the world. 
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