A dramatic decline in international terrorism is possible only if the US joins other cultures on an equal footing
While limited and operation-specific cooperation between the US and Russian security agencies is possible and in fact inevitable, a real alliance in the “war on terrorism” seems highly unrealistic because the two countries have different and sometimes opposing geopolitical agendas. As the saying goes, “one’s country’s terrorist is another country’s freedom fighter.”
Source : https://www.marocafrik.com/english/A-dramatic-decl...
Russia (like the other BRICS countries) is a status-quo power. It has limited and geographically defined objectives – the maintenance of its territorial integrity, sovereignty, peace and economic development. Putin’s approach toward terrorism has been two-pronged: the crushing of militant separatism and cultivating moderate Islam by integrating it into the overall process of modernization.
After the successful completion of the first stage of the republic’s pacification, some eight years ago, the State Duma poured billions of dollars into the reconstruction and development of Chechnya. Grozny has been completely rebuilt: today it is a stunning modern city – complete with downtown skyscrapers, hospitals, schools, the biggest mosque in Europe and a newly built university for 40,000 students. This in a republic of a mere 1.3 million people! Whether this policy is going to work in the long run remains to be seen. But at least for now, Chechnya has the lowest rate of terrorist activities in the region.
The prospering republic of Tatarstan has been the model for and harbinger of this approach. And Moscow seems determined to pursue a similar policy in other North Caucasus republics. This is surely a gargantuan task. However, as a multicultural state, Russia has no alternative but to pursue a policy of reconciliation and the balancing of the conflicting interests of all cultural and religious groups living within its borders.
As multicultural countries too, the other BRICS are similarly haunted by the specter of civil war, terrorism and chaos. Not only peace and development, but their very existence is predicated on their elites’ ability to accommodate the multiple racial, religious, and ethnic factions. All of them have lived through chaos and dictatorships and their elites have come to realize that order, peace and development can be achieved only through equality, compromise and cooperation.
Unlike the status quo-seeking BRICS, the US is a crusading state whose global ambition is to “civilize and modernize” the world according to its own image. Acting on the unspoken assumption of superiority of the Anglo-Saxon culture over all others, the US feels “divinely ordained” to lead mankind to human development and progress. Cultures outside the Anglosphere, however, interpret the American crusade as a quest for world domination, the determination to build a world order based on racial, religious and civilizational hierarchy. Naturally, the “inferior” cultures and races feel humiliated, offended and crave for revenge1.
“The global war on terror” is thus a low-intensity war of cultures; and “terrorism” is nothing but a euphemism for an asymmetric guerrilla war against the world Hegemon. Other cultures – Confucian, Buddhist, Hindu, Islamic and even many Europeans – reject the American model with its social Darwinism and cut-throat competition in which only the strongest survive. America’s willingness to impose its model of development by violence is considered repulsive, highly destabilizing and dangerous. It generates subtle, open and fierce resistance.
Particularly recalcitrant is the Islamic world community of some 1.4 billion people. Only four percent in Saudi Arabia have a favorable opinion of the United States, six percent in Morocco and Jordan, 13 percent in Egypt, Indonesia and Pakistan (according to the Pew Research Center, 2005). No wonder the fiercest resistance to Americanization comes from these quarters.
As a result, the US is waging numerous cultural conflicts and not only externally, but internally too. It conducts preemptive wars and tries to forestall the emergence of potential powerful rivals and hostile alliances. In addition to external enemies there are thousands of domestic extremists who are determined to fight “American government tyranny”2. Amazingly, these radical white supremacy groups (such as the one to which Timothy McVeigh belonged) consist of individuals of mostly Anglo-Saxon or Scotch-Irish descent (82 percent). Eleven percent are of German origin and only 7 percent are of Southern or Eastern European extraction3. In other words, the Anglo-Saxon supremacists are the enemies of the government that wages “the global war on terror” in their name.
Of course, terrorism has many sources, but only the American crusade to remake the world makes terrorism global. By maintaining about 780 military bases in 130 countries and relentlessly building new ones, the US only antagonizes the people of "inferior races and cultures.” “The global war on terror” is doomed to fail because it creates more enemies than can be “neutralized”. It’s time for the US to abandon its “manifest destiny” and join other cultures on an equal footing. Only then are we likely to see a dramatic decline in international terrorism.
After the successful completion of the first stage of the republic’s pacification, some eight years ago, the State Duma poured billions of dollars into the reconstruction and development of Chechnya. Grozny has been completely rebuilt: today it is a stunning modern city – complete with downtown skyscrapers, hospitals, schools, the biggest mosque in Europe and a newly built university for 40,000 students. This in a republic of a mere 1.3 million people! Whether this policy is going to work in the long run remains to be seen. But at least for now, Chechnya has the lowest rate of terrorist activities in the region.
The prospering republic of Tatarstan has been the model for and harbinger of this approach. And Moscow seems determined to pursue a similar policy in other North Caucasus republics. This is surely a gargantuan task. However, as a multicultural state, Russia has no alternative but to pursue a policy of reconciliation and the balancing of the conflicting interests of all cultural and religious groups living within its borders.
As multicultural countries too, the other BRICS are similarly haunted by the specter of civil war, terrorism and chaos. Not only peace and development, but their very existence is predicated on their elites’ ability to accommodate the multiple racial, religious, and ethnic factions. All of them have lived through chaos and dictatorships and their elites have come to realize that order, peace and development can be achieved only through equality, compromise and cooperation.
Unlike the status quo-seeking BRICS, the US is a crusading state whose global ambition is to “civilize and modernize” the world according to its own image. Acting on the unspoken assumption of superiority of the Anglo-Saxon culture over all others, the US feels “divinely ordained” to lead mankind to human development and progress. Cultures outside the Anglosphere, however, interpret the American crusade as a quest for world domination, the determination to build a world order based on racial, religious and civilizational hierarchy. Naturally, the “inferior” cultures and races feel humiliated, offended and crave for revenge1.
“The global war on terror” is thus a low-intensity war of cultures; and “terrorism” is nothing but a euphemism for an asymmetric guerrilla war against the world Hegemon. Other cultures – Confucian, Buddhist, Hindu, Islamic and even many Europeans – reject the American model with its social Darwinism and cut-throat competition in which only the strongest survive. America’s willingness to impose its model of development by violence is considered repulsive, highly destabilizing and dangerous. It generates subtle, open and fierce resistance.
Particularly recalcitrant is the Islamic world community of some 1.4 billion people. Only four percent in Saudi Arabia have a favorable opinion of the United States, six percent in Morocco and Jordan, 13 percent in Egypt, Indonesia and Pakistan (according to the Pew Research Center, 2005). No wonder the fiercest resistance to Americanization comes from these quarters.
As a result, the US is waging numerous cultural conflicts and not only externally, but internally too. It conducts preemptive wars and tries to forestall the emergence of potential powerful rivals and hostile alliances. In addition to external enemies there are thousands of domestic extremists who are determined to fight “American government tyranny”2. Amazingly, these radical white supremacy groups (such as the one to which Timothy McVeigh belonged) consist of individuals of mostly Anglo-Saxon or Scotch-Irish descent (82 percent). Eleven percent are of German origin and only 7 percent are of Southern or Eastern European extraction3. In other words, the Anglo-Saxon supremacists are the enemies of the government that wages “the global war on terror” in their name.
Of course, terrorism has many sources, but only the American crusade to remake the world makes terrorism global. By maintaining about 780 military bases in 130 countries and relentlessly building new ones, the US only antagonizes the people of "inferior races and cultures.” “The global war on terror” is doomed to fail because it creates more enemies than can be “neutralized”. It’s time for the US to abandon its “manifest destiny” and join other cultures on an equal footing. Only then are we likely to see a dramatic decline in international terrorism.
Source : https://www.marocafrik.com/english/A-dramatic-decl...