Vol 10, No.4 April 2010 STATEMENT IRAQ: NATIONAL UNITY GOVERNMENT OR RETURN TO SECTARIANISM? ARTICLES THE WORLD IN 2020 (PART 2) CONDEMN BOMB BLASTS IN RUSSIA! ...........The International Movement for a Just World condemns the series of bomb blasts in Russia in the last three days which have killed more than 50 people................................................................p.2 By Catherine Rottenberg & Neve Gordon ......... page 4 WAR CRIME TRIBUNAL IN BANGLADESH: A MISCARRIAGE OF JUSTICE continued next page By Juan Cole By Michael T. Klare ....................................... page 7 THE BASIC MORAL VALUES OF THE KORAN By ODT.org ................................................. page11 IS ETHICAL CAPITALISM POSSIBLE? By Kamran Mofid ...........................................page 5 P atrick Martin of the Toronto Globe and Mail gets the diction right when he says that Iyad Allawi’s list won a thin plurality. The official results of the March 7 Iraqi parliamentary elections have been announced by the Independent High Electoral Commission. Of 325 seats, 91 went to the National Iraqi List (“Iraqiya”) of former interim prime minister Iyad Allawi. The State of Law grouping of incumbent Nuri al-Maliki came in at 89. The Shiite fundamentalist coalition, the Iraqi National Alliance, which includes the followers of clerics Ammar al-Hakim and Muqtada al-Sadr, garnered 70 seats. The Kurdistan Alliance won only 43 seats. That leaves 33 seats in the hands of smaller parties, many of them wild cards. Shortly before the results were announced, two large bomb blasts in Khalis, in Diyala Province northeast of Baghdad, killed 53 persons. Diyala is still the site of violent struggle between Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds. Most Sunni Arabs in Iraq have moved on from the violence and fundamentalism of groups such as the ‘Islamic State of Iraq,’ and most voted for the Allawi list as a way of reentering national politics. Despite some breathless headlines, the outcome of the elections is not very different from previous elections. Allawi put together a coalition of Sunni Arabs and secular Shiites. In the December, 2005, parliamentary elections, those two groups received about 80 seats, only 11 less than Allawi’s just list won. If the two major Shiite religious lists (State of Law and Iraqi National Alliance) had run on the same ticket, they would have nearly a majority, about what they won in December, 2005. The Kurdistan Alliance only has 43 seats, down from 54 in the last parliamentary election, but the overall number of Kurdish Members of Parliament is not so different from that in the last polls. In spring-summer of 2006, Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki put together a government of national unity, with the help of the US ambassador. It included Sadrists and Allawi’s Iraqiya. But it gradually fell apart. This election is an opportunity for al- Maliki to attempt to repeat that feat. Indeed, a national unity government may be the first preference of the Iraqi National Alliance, which has, according to al-Sharq al-Awsat, swung into action to convince the other major lists that such a path is the only right one for Iraq at this juncture. Although Allawi’s list won the most seats, he is very unlikely to be the next prime minister. Al-Maliki’s State of Law list is anti-Baathist and hasn’t gotten on well with Sunni Arabs, while ex-Baathists and Sunnis are the backbone of Allawi’s constituency. Likewise, the Shiite religious party, made up of Sadrists and members of the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq (ISCI), among others, are unlikely to ally with secularist ex-Baathists. Allawi says that he is dialoguing with the parties led by Hakim and Sadr, as well as with the Kurds. But Allawi rejects a role in politics for Shiite clerics, which would make for an uneasy alliance with lists headed by clerics. Without the two big Shiite blocs, Allawi could only become prime minister by attracting the Kurdistan Alliance and all of the smaller parties and independents. Keeping such a disparate coalition together would be difficult in the extreme. Allawi is supported by Sunni Arabs who have sharp differences with the Kurds over the future of the mixed province of Kirkuk, which the Kurds covet. Allawi may therefore have a EDUCATING CHILDREN IN CONFLICT ZONES ARTICLES By Dr S.Serajul Islam and Dr M.Saidul Islam ... page 3 EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE MEMBERS OF THE INTERNATIONAL MOVEMENT ................ page 10 STATE OF THE VILLAGE REPORT By Yoginder Sikand ....................................... page 9
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Transcript
Vol 10, No.4 April 2010
STATEMENT
IRAQ: NATIONAL UNITY GOVERNMENTOR RETURN TO SECTARIANISM?
ARTICLES
THE WORLD IN 2020 (PART 2)
CONDEMN BOMB BLASTS IN RUSSIA!...........The International Movement for a Just World
condemns the series of bomb blasts in Russia in the
EDUCATING CHILDREN IN CONFLICT ZONESBy Catherine Rottenberg & Neve Gordon
I N T E R N A T I O N A L M O V E M E N T F O R A J U S T W O R L D
5
A R T I C L E Scontinued from page 4
continued next page
identity of each child and each tradition.
Thus, by the time the children are old
enough to learn that there are two
conflicting national narratives, both of
which will be taught, they already have
the necessary emotional and intellectual
tools to deal with conflict through
dialogue.
Hagar is an educational island that is
expanding against all odds. Indeed, the
school’s achievements within the current
political context—especially following
the assault on Gaza and the sporadic
missile attacks on Beer-Sheba—are
astonishing. But ongoing local support
and international financial assistance are
necessary to guarantee the future
success of this educational space—a
We live in a time of transition, a time when
all is changing and being challenged –
weather systems, ecosystems, our
interaction with nature, our
understanding of other beings. We now
understand that we are all interconnected
and interdependent. Somewhere along
the line, our actions as human beings
have created enormous instability to the
planet and the millions of species who
reside here.
Much of which is familiar to us and
deemed the ‘norm’ is no longer working
and is being challenged. Sometimes
change brings with it destruction.
Sometimes destruction is beneficial. It
can alert us to practices that do not work.
With destruction also comes new birth,
and new avenues open wide to be
explored. There are many choices as to
which route to take; the issue is which
route is the one that will provide life for
all. The golden opportunity presented by
the current ongoing crises is to make the
right choices that will affect the long term
future for us, our descendants and our
planet.
There is no denying the fact that we are
in a serious state of crises, a crises of our
own making, all of us and not the bankers
alone. They responded to what we
wanted: cheap, available, unregulated
money and loads of it.
They in turn were responding to the neo-
liberal agenda of the so-called
Washington Consensus: Privatisation,
deregulation, market forces,
liberalisation, low taxation, free trade, and
one glove fits all policies and more. No
regards, no respect for different cultures,
civilisations, religions and history. What
is good for America and the West, then,
must also be good for everybody else,
regardless of all other factors, we were
told again and again.
The tragedy is that we have now
discovered that what we were pushing
on others, which we thought was good
for us - the so-called market-forces driven
Anglo-Saxon model of capitalism - was
nothing but a huge cancerous cell which
at the end brought the house of cards
down. The emperor has no clothes, so to
say.
What to Do Now?
The current global economic crisis is
deeply complex and perplexing. Many
world politicians, business people,
academics, activists, and civil society
representatives, as well as religious and
spiritual leaders, have called for a new
kind of “ethical capitalism” - a moral,
spiritual and virtuous economy. People
everywhere are calling for an international
framework of standards for an equitable
and sustainable global economy to
replace the current economic system of
unbridled growth and increasing
ecological degradation. While some look
for quick short-term solutions that would
perpetuate the current economic model,
others see the need for more fundamental
changes of the model itself. Our challenge
is great. In a time of continuing crisis and
polarizing viewpoints, can the world
agree on an ethical approach to the global
economy?
I propose a comprehensive examination
of the major attempts to integrate
economics with ethics and spirituality,
along with an exploration of the
theoretical underpinnings of these
activities. In considering the need for bold
economic initiatives, we must keep in
mind the deeper questions that rarely find
their way into political debate or public
discourse.
We should explore the emerging
economic issues as well matters that are
deeply ethical and spiritual:
* What is the source of true happiness
and well-being? What is the good life?
* What is the purpose of economic life?
What does it mean to be a human being
living on a spaceship with finite
resources?
* How can the global financial system
become more responsive and just?
* How can the world make the global
trade system more equitable and
sustainable?
* What paths can be recommended to
shift the current destructive global
political-economic order from one of
unrestrained economic growth, profit
maximisation and cost minimisation, to
one that embraces material wealth
creation, yet also preserves and
enhances social and ecological well-
being and increases human happiness
and contentment?
* How can society overcome poverty and
scarcity with limited natural resources?
* How should we deal with individual
and institutionalized greed?
* What are the requirements of a virtuous
economy?
* What religious or spiritual variables
should be considered in economic/
business ethics and economic
behaviour?
* How are these components to be
integrated with economic theories and
decisions?
IS ETHICAL CAPITALISM POSSIBLE?By Kamran Mofid
space that is actively translating a
pedagogy of mutual respect into practice
within a conflict zone.
16 October, 2009
Catherine Rottenberg is a founding member
of Hagar School and sits on its pedagogic
committee. Neve Gordon is the author of
Israel’s Occupation.
Source: Common Groung News Service
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* What role should universities play in
building an integrity-based model of
business education?
* What should be the role of the youth?
* How might the training of young
executives be directed with the intention
of supplying insights into the nature of
globalisation from its economic,
technological and spiritual perspectives,
to build supporting relationships among
the participants that will lead toward
action for the common good within their
chosen careers?
* Indeed, is ethical, profitable, efficient
and sustainable capitalism possible?
These questions and more need to be
reflected upon, debated, and ultimately,
answered and put into policy formation,
guiding us to a more humane
globalisation.
A concrete framework for understanding
what has gone wrong and possible
remedies, including both broad
perspectives on policies and specific
recommendations, must include not only
an economic perspective, but also a
spiritual, moral and ethical understanding.
Steps can be taken towards a sustainable
economy, to turn the current crisis of
casino capitalism into an opportunity for
a successful, sustainable and everlasting
change, where all people, wherever they
may be, can live fulfilling, healthy, and
yet more ecologically compatible lives.
Here are the steps I suggest:
1. Begin a Journey to Wisdom
Economics and business are all about
human well-being in society and cannot
be separated from moral, ethical and
spiritual considerations. The idea of an
economics which is value-free is totally
false. Nothing in life is morally neutral.
In the end, economics cannot be
separated from a vision of what it is to
be a human being in society.
In order to arrive at such understanding,
my first recommendation must surely be
for us to begin a journey to wisdom, by
embodying the core values of the Golden
Rule (Ethic of Reciprocity): “Do unto
others as you would have them to do to
you”. This in turn will prompt us on a
journey of discovery, giving life to what
many consider to be the most consistent
moral teaching throughout history.
It should be noted that the Golden Rule
can be found in many religions, ethical
systems, spiritual traditions, indigenous
cultures and secular philosophies.
Applying this universal principle can
provide an enabling mechanism for the
dialogue and development essential to
resolving the challenges we face
globally, nationally, and locally.
2. Now is the Time for a Revolution in
Economic Thought
“An economist who is only an economist
cannot be a good economist”. Therefore,
the focus of economics should be on the
benefit and bounty that the economy
produces, how to let this bounty
increase, and how to share the benefits
justly among the people for the common
good.
Moreover, economic investigation
should be accompanied by research into
subjects such as anthropology,
philosophy, politics and most
importantly, theology, to give insight into
our own human mystery, as no economic
theory or no economist can say who we
are, where have we come from or where
we are going to. Humankind must be
respected as the centre of creation and
not relegated to short-term economic
interests, as has been the case for the
past few centuries.
3. Don’t Repair the Economy, Change It
The current financial meltdown is the
result of under-regulated markets built
on an ideology of free market capitalism
and unlimited economic growth. The
fundamental problem is that the
underlying assumptions of this ideology
are not consistent with what we now
know about the real state of the world.
The financial world is, in essence, a set
of markers for goods, services, and risks
in the real world and when those markers
are allowed to deviate too far from reality,
“adjustments” must ultimately follow
and crisis and panic can ensue.
To solve this and future financial crises
requires that we reconnect the markers
with reality. What are our real assets and
how valuable are they? To undertake this
readjustment requires both a new vision
of what the economy is and what it is for,
proper and comprehensive accounting of
real assets, and new institutions that use
the market in its proper role as servant
rather than master. We have to first
remember that the goal of the economy
is to sustainably improve human well-
being and quality of life, not the
promotion of materialism, consumerism
and “shop till you drop” values -
especially when they are done with
borrowed money!
Ultimately we have to create a new model
of the economy and development that
acknowledges this holistic context and
vision. This new model of development
would be based clearly on the goal of
sustainable human well-being. It would
use measures of progress that clearly
acknowledge this goal. It would
acknowledge the importance of
ecological sustainability, social fairness
and real economic efficiency.
Ecological sustainability implies
recognising that natural and social capital
are not infinitely substitutable for built
and human capital, and that real
biophysical limits exist to the expansion
of the market economy.
Social fairness implies recognising that
the distribution of wealth is an important
determinant of social capital and quality
of life. The conventional model has
bought into the assumption that the best
way to improve welfare is through
growth in marketed consumption as
measured by GDP. This focus on growth
has not improved overall societal welfare,
which is why explicit attention to
distribution issues is sorely needed.
4. Recognise That the Economy Is Part
of the Biosphere
A comprehensive economic plan must be
based on the scientific fact that the global
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economy is a subsidiary of the natural
order. Economic policies should be
attuned to the limited capacity of Earth’s
biosphere to provide for humans and
other life and to assimilate their waste.
Photosynthesis and sunlight are as
essential to the framework for economic
budgets and expenditures as the laws of
supply and demand.
5. Acknowledge That We Need New
Institutions
An economic renewal tailored to the 21st
century would establish institutions
committed to fitting the human economy
to Earth’s limited life-support capacity.
We need something like the central
reserve banks which will look after shares
of the Earth’s ecological capacity, not just
interest rates and the money supply.
Money should be recognised as a social
licence for using part of Earth’s life-
support capacity. Some functions of
governance will have to operate at a
global level through a federation modelled
perhaps on the European Union, with
enforceable laws designed to assure that
individual nations don’t overrun Earth’s
limits. The rules for the developed
countries that are responsible for the
current ecological crisis should be
different from those of developing ones.
6. Fairness Matters
A “right” human-Earth relationship
would recognise humans as part of an
interdependent web of life on a finite
planet. The economy must recognise the
rights of the human poor and of millions
of other species to their place in the sun.
In a world awash in money, addressing
poverty only with growth reflects a tragic
lack of moral imagination. Indeed, in
pushing for more “free” trade as it is
currently understood, we would entrench
an ongoing addiction to consumption,
pursued in a manner that often ravages
the bio-productivity of developing
countries.
7. Expand the Discussion
The new knowledge that will forever
mark this period in human history is the
overwhelming scientific evidence that
we are over-consuming the planet and
accelerating toward ecological
catastrophe. The short-term approaches
of most ministers of finance and
professional economists don’t account
for how the planet works, or even that
the economy exists on a finite planet.
Scientists morally committed to
protecting the global commons and
researching ecological limits to the
global economy need more funding and
influence in policy-making.
8. Look beyond Neoliberal Education and
Short-Term Fixes
We must begin a serious debate on the
role of education and what education is
all about. We must greatly increase
investment in educational and civic
institutions that teach that we are not
“consumers,” but citizens of the Earth
and guardians of life’s prospects on a
small, beautiful and finite planet. In
today’s largely decadent, money-driven
world, the teaching of virtue and building
of character is no longer part of the
curriculum at many of our universities
around the world. The pursuit of virtue
has been replaced by moral neutrality -
the idea that anything goes. For centuries
it had been considered that universities
were responsible for the moral and social
development of students and for bringing
together diverse groups for the common
good.
Given the above, it is clear that we need a
new economic model, enabling us to deal
with new challenges, rather that rescuing
and bailing out a discredited and
bankrupt model, philosophy and theory.
The long-term solution to the financial
crisis is therefore to move beyond the
“growth at all costs” economic model to
a model that recognises the real costs and
benefits of growth. We can break our
addiction to fossil fuels, over-
consumption, and the current economic
model and create a more sustainable and
desirable future that focuses on quality
of life rather than merely quantity of
consumption.
It will not be easy; it will require a new
vision, new measures, and new
institutions. It will require a redesign of
our entire society. But it is not a sacrifice
of quality of life to break this addiction.
Quite the contrary, it is a sacrifice not to.
15 March 2010
This article is an abridged version of a
presentation delivered at the Biltmore Hotel,
Santa Clara/Silicon Valley, California, on 1st
December 2009.
Kamran Mofid is the Founder of the
Globalisation for the Common Good Initiative
(Oxford, 2002), Co- founder/Editor of Journal
of Globalisation for the Common Good and a
member of the International Coordinating
Committee of the World Public Forum,
Dialogue of Civilisations
Source: Share The World’s Resources
.
continued next page
The Rising South
The second decade of the century will
also witness the growing importance of
the global South: the formerly-colonized,
still-developing areas of Africa, Asia, and
Latin America. Once playing a relatively
marginal role in world affairs, they were
considered open territory, there to be
invaded, plundered, and dominated by
the major powers of Europe, North
America, and (for a time) Japan. To some
degree, the global South, a.k.a. the
“Third World,” still plays a marginal role,
but that is changing.
Once a member in good standing of the
global South, China is now an economic
superpower and India is well on its way
to earning this status. Second-tier states
of the South, including Brazil, Indonesia,
South Africa, and Turkey, are on the rise
economically, and even the smallest and
least well-off nations of the South have
begun to attract international attention
as providers of crucial raw materials or as
sites of intractable problems including
endemic terrorism and crime syndicates.
To some degree, this is a product of
numbers — growing populations and
growing wealth. In 2000, the population
of the global South stood at an estimated
THE WORLD IN 2020
Part 2
By Michael T. Klare
I N T E R N A T I O N A L M O V E M E N T F O R A J U S T W O R L D
8
A R T I C L E S
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4.9 billion people; by 2020, that number
is expected to hit 6.4 billion. Many of
these new inhabitants of planet Earth will
be poor and disenfranchised, but most
will be workers (in either the formal or
informal economy), many will participate
in the political process in some way, and
some will be entrepreneurs, labor leaders,
teachers, criminals, or militants.
Whatever the case, they will make their
presence felt.
The nations of the South will also play a
growing economic role as sources of raw
materials in an era of increasing scarcity
and founts of entrepreneurial vitality. By
one estimate, the combined GDP of the
global South (excluding China) will jump
from $7.8 trillion in 2005 to $15.8 trillion in
2020, an increase of more than 100%. In
particular, many of the prime deposits of
oil, natural gas, and the key minerals
needed in the global North to keep the
industrial system going are facing
wholesale depletion after decades of
hyper-intensive extraction, leaving only
the deposits in the South to be exploited.
Take oil: In 1990, 43% of world daily oil
output was supplied by members of the
Organization of Petroleum Exporting
Countries (the major Persian Gulf
producers plus Algeria, Angola, Ecuador,
Libya, Nigeria, and Venezuela), other
African and Latin American producers,
and the Caspian Sea countries; by 2020,
their share will rise to 58%. A similar shift
in the center of gravity of world mineral
production will take place, with
unexpected countries like Afghanistan,
Kazakhstan, Mongolia, Niger (a major
uranium supplier), and the Democratic
Republic of Congo taking on potentially
crucial roles.
Inevitably, the global South will also play
a conspicuous role in a series of
potentially devastating developments.
Combine persistent deep poverty,
economic desperation, population
growth, and intensifying climate
degradation and you have a recipe for
political unrest, insurgency, religious
extremism, increased criminality, mass
migrations, and the spread of disease.
The global North will seek to immunize
itself from these disorders by building
fences of every sort, but through sheer
numbers alone, the inhabitants of the
South will make their presence felt, one
way or another.
The Planet Strikes Back
All of this might represent nothing more
than the normal changing of the imperial
guard on planet Earth, if that planet itself
weren’t undergoing far more profound
changes than any individual power or set
of powers, no matter how strong. The
ever more intrusive realities of global
warming, resource scarcity, and food
insufficiency will, by the end of this
century’s second decade, be undeniable
and, if not by 2020, then in the decades
to come, have the capacity to put normal
military and economic power, no matter
how impressive, in the shade.
“There is little doubt about the main
trends,” Professor Ole Danbolt Mjøs,
Chairman of the Norwegian Nobel
Committee, said in awarding the Peace
Prize to the Intergovernmental Panel on
Climate Change (IPCC) and Al Gore in
December 2007: “More and more
scientists have reached ever closer
agreement concerning the increasingly
dramatic consequences that will follow
from global warming.” Likewise, a
growing body of energy experts has
concluded that the global production of
conventional oil will soon reach a peak
(if it hasn’t already) and decline,
producing a worldwide energy shortage.
Meanwhile, fears of future food
emergencies, prompted in part by global
warming and high energy prices, are
becoming more widespread.
All of this was apparent when world
leaders met in Copenhagen and failed to
establish an effective international regime
for reducing the emission of climate-
altering greenhouse gases (GHGs). Even
though they did agree to keep talking and
comply with a non-binding, aspirational
scheme to cut back on GHGs, observers
believe that such efforts are unlikely to
lead to meaningful progress in controlling
global warming in the near future. What
few doubt is that the pace of climate
change will accelerate destructively in
the second decade of this century, that
conventional (liquid) petroleum and other
key resources will become scarcer and
more difficult to extract, and that food
supplies will diminish in many poor,
environmentally vulnerable areas.
Scientists do not agree on the precise
nature, timing, and geographical impact
of climate-change effects, but they do
generally agree that, as we move deeper
into the century, we will be seeing an
exponential increase in the density of the
heat-trapping greenhouse-gas layer in
the atmosphere as the consumption of
fossil fuels grows and past smokestack
emissions migrate to the outer
atmosphere. DoE data indicates, for
example, that between 1990 and 2005,
world carbon dioxide emissions grew by
32%, from 21.5 to 31.0 billion metric tons.
It can take as much as 50 years for GHGs
to reach the greenhouse layer, which
means that their effect will increase even
if — as appears unlikely — the nations
of the world soon begin to reduce their
future emissions.
In other words, the early manifestations
of global warming in the first decade of
this century — intensifying hurricanes
and typhoons, torrential rains followed
by severe flooding in some areas and
prolonged, even record-breaking
droughts in others, melting ice-caps and
glaciers, and rising sea levels — will all
become more pronounced in the second.
As suggested by the IPCC in its 2007
report, uninhabitable dust bowls are likely
to emerge in large areas of Central and
Northeast Asia, Mexico and the American
Southwest, and the Mediterranean basin.
Significant parts of Africa are likely to be
devastated by rising temperatures and
diminished rainfall. More cities are likely
to undergo the sort of flooding and
destruction experienced by New Orleans
after Hurricane Katrina in 2005. And
blistering summers, as well as infrequent
or negligible rainfall, will limit crop
production in key food-producing
regions.
Progress will be evident in the
development of renewable energy
systems, such as wind, solar, and
biofuels. Despite the vast sums now
being devoted to their development,
however, they will still provide only a
relatively small share of world energy in
continued from page 7
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continued next page
continued from page 8
2020. According to DoE projections,
renewables will take care of only 10.5%
of world energy needs in 2020, while oil
and other petroleum liquids will still make
up 32.6% of global supplies; coal, 27.1%;
and natural gas, 23.8%. In other words,
greenhouse gas production will rage on
— and, ironically, should it not, thanks
to expected shortfalls in the supply of
oil, that in itself will likely prove another
kind of disaster, pushing up the prices of
all energy sources and endangering
economic stability. Most industry experts,
including those at the International
Energy Agency (IEA) in Paris, believe
that it will be nearly impossible to
continue increasing the output of
conventional and unconventional
petroleum (including tough to harvest
Arctic oil, Canadian tar sands, and shale
oil) without increasingly implausible
fresh investments of trillions of dollars,
much of which would have to go into
war-torn, unstable areas like Iraq or
corrupt, unreliable states like Russia.
In the latest hit movie Avatar, the lush,
mineral-rich moon Pandora is under
assault by human intruders seeking to
extract a fabulously valuable mineral
called “unobtainium.” Opposing them
are not only a humanoid race called the
Na’vi, loosely modeled on Native
Americans and Amazonian jungle
dwellers, but also the semi-sentient flora
and fauna of Pandora itself. While our
own planet may not possess such
extraordinary capabilities, it is clear that
the environmental damage caused by
humans since the onset of the Industrial
Revolution is producing a natural
blowback effect which will become
increasingly visible in the coming decade.
These, then, are the four trends most likely
to dominate the second decade of this
century. Perhaps others will eventually
prove more significant, or some set of
catastrophic events will further alter the
global landscape, but for now expect the
dragon ascendant, the eagle descending,
the South rising, and the planet possibly
trumping all of these.
6 Janauary 2010
Michael T. Klare is a professor of peace and
world security studies at Hampshire College
A documentary film version of his book, Blood
and Oil, is available from the Media Education
Foundation at Bloodandoilmovie.com.
Source: http://www.countercurrents.org/
klare060110.htm
Chandra Muzaffar is one of Malaysia’s
best-known human rights activists and
public intellectuals. While being critical
of western global hegemony, he says
Muslims have to fundamentally re-
evaluate their understanding of Islam and
its traditions.
Author of numerous books, Muzaffar is
a prolific writer, having published widely
in Malaysia and abroad. One of his
principal concerns, in his writings and
activist involvement, is to promote an
Islamic ethic of inter-religious dialogue.
Such dialogue, he believes, is an Islamic
imperative, besides being indispensable
in today’s multi-ethnic and multi-religious
Malaysia.
But it is also crucial at the global level, he
stresses, particularly since many
conflicts across the globe, while rooted
in economic and political factors, are
sought to be projected and legitimised
as religious conflicts between Islam and
other faiths and ideologies.
Muslim, Dialogue and Terror is
Muzaffar’s principal work on Islam and
inter-faith dialogue, in which he seeks to
articulate an inter-faith ethic rooted in an
expansive understanding of Islam.
Like many other contemporary socially-
engaged Muslim scholars, Muzaffar
seeks to directly approach the Koran in
order to understand and interpret his
faith, largely by-passing the corpus of
traditional fiqh (Islamic jurisprudence),
and making only passing reference to
the corpus of Hadith. This is hardly
surprising since the latter two sources
contain numerous prescriptions that are
plainly inimical, to put it mildly, to
harmonious relations between Muslims
and others.
Stressing ethical values
Muzaffar describes the Koran as “in
essence, a Book whose fundamental aim
is to raise the spiritual and moral
consciousness of the human being.”
This understanding of the Koran leads
him to stress what he sees as the
underlying spirit or ethical values of the
text over its letter. Some of the
fundamental values that he discerns in
the Koran are freedom, accountability,
justice, kindness, mercy, love, equality,
honesty, compassion, fairness, and
devotion to the cause of the poor and
the oppressed. These values he regards
as universal, not limited in their
applicability to fellow Muslims alone.
In this way, Muzaffar is able to articulate
an Islamic ethic of inter-faith dialogue
that is Koranic, that prioritizes the spirit
over the letter of the text, that is based
on what he regards as the fundamental
and universal values of the text, and one
that is also contextually-relevant.
Muzaffar describes this way of relating
to the Koran as a “values-based
approach”. He contrasts this with the
traditional “fiqh-based approach”, which
prioritises the letter of the Koran over its
spirit, draws heavily on the cumulative fiqh
tradition, and stresses, to the point of
obsession, forms, externalities, symbols,
rituals, laws, regulations and narrowly-
construed understandings of Muslim
identity.
The former is universal, flexible, open, and
inclusive, while the latter is particularistic,
rigid, closed and exclusive. The former
stresses justice, freedom, love,
compassion and equality, the latter
authoritarianism, control, harshness and
hierarchy. The former is open to non-
Muslims, actively embraces them as fellow
human beings and appreciates the
common values that their religions share
with Islam. The latter is stridently hostile
to people of other faiths, or only
grudgingly tolerates them at best.
Historical necessity
Appealing for this fundamental
transformation in Islamic thought based
on the “values-based” approach to the
Koran, Muzaffar argues:
“It is only too apparent that a non-
dogmatic approach to Islam, which
recognises the primacy of eternal,
THE BASIC MORAL VALUES OF THE KORANBy Yoginder Sikand
I N T E R N A T I O N A L M O V E M E N T F O R A J U S T W O R L D A R T I C L E S
10
continued from page 9
universal spiritual and moral values while
acknowledging the importance of rituals,
symbols and practices, is the most sane
and sensible way of living the religion in
today’s world. The values approach to
Islam – the antithesis of the rituals and
symbols approach – is not only legitimate
from the perspective of the religion but
also necessary at this juncture in history.”
Making a broad survey of relations
between Muslims and others in various
countries, and at the global level as a
whole, Muzaffar argues that a host of
factors have contributed to increased
polarization between them in recent years,
particular after 9/11. Much of the
responsibility for this rests on the
Muslims themselves, he says, but he also
regards what he calls “the politics of
global hegemony emanating from
Washington’s imperial ambitions” as a
major factor.
This latter point leads him to argue, as he
does in many of his other books, that inter-
religious and inter-communal solidarity
for peace and justice must necessarily
also require a forceful challenging of the
structures of power at the global level,
most importantly Western, and, in
particular, American, political, economic
and cultural hegemony, because this is
one of the major causes for conflict
between Muslims and others.
Human beings as brothers and sisters
This task, Muzaffar insists, must go hand-
in-hand with a willingness on the part of
Muslims themselves to introspect, and
to cease blaming others for all their ills.
In turn, this requires a fundamental re-
evaluation of the way Muslims
understand their religion, identity and
tradition. In particular, it requires,
Muzaffar says, “breaking through the
hardened crust of exclusive, dogmatic
thinking”, and embracing “an inclusive,
universal approach”.
Seeking to pre-empt critics who would
regard this as compromising on Islamic
teachings, he insists that it is perfectly in
consonance with Islam, which “regards
all human beings as brothers and sisters,
imperilled by the same human condition.”
The pathetic state of most contemporary
Muslim societies and states, including
the increasingly strained relations
between Muslims and others, have much
to do, he says, with a dogmatic
understanding of Islam that negates the
fundamental Koranic values that he
distils from the text.
The basis of shared beliefs and values
For this new approach to Islam and
Islamic morality to emerge as a dominant
paradigm would require Muslims to “re-
orientate their thinking on Islam”,
focusing particularly on what Muzaffar
regards as the basic moral values of the
Koran. From this would emerge
understandings of Islamic theology and
jurisprudence that are rooted in these
values – values that are universal, not
limited just to Islam alone.
Aware of the growing influence of
conservative as well as radical groups
that are vehemently opposed to inter-faith
dialogue and interpret Islam accordingly
in a narrow, exclusivist fashion, Muzaffar
insists that Islam calls upon Muslims to
dialogue with others. He points out, for
instance, that the Koran exhorts Muslims,
Jews and Christians to come together on
the basis of certain shared beliefs and
values.
He also regards the Pact of Medina,
between the Muslims, led by the Prophet,
and the Jews and pagans of the town,
and the Pact of Najran between the
Prophet and Christians, as the Prophet’s
practical expression of the Koranic call
for inter-faith dialogue and solidarity and
the imperative of “coming to terms with
‘the other’.”
10 December 2009
Yoginder Sikand is a writer-academic and
the author of several books on Islam-
related issues in India. He is the editor
and primary writer of Qalandar, a monthly
electronic publication covering relations
between Muslims and followers of other
religions.
Source: http://www.qantara.de/webcom/
show_article.php/_c-478/_nr-978/i.html
TREASURER,
Mr K Haridas
PRESIDENT, VICE PRESIDENT,
Dr Chandra Muzaffar Dr Abdullah Al-Ahsan
SECRETARY-GENERAL, ASSISTANT SECRETARY-GENERAL,
Mr Anas Zubedy Tengku Ahmad Hazri
At the International Movement for a Just World Triennial General Meeting held on
20 March 2010, the following were elected to the Executive Committee:-
EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE MEMBERS OF THE INTERNATIONAL MOVEMENT FOR A JUST WORLD 2010-2013
1. Dr Arujunan Narayanan
2. Dr Asma Abdullah
3. Dr Chin Yoong Kheong
4. Mr Gan Teik Chee
5. Mr Jahaberdeen Mohamed Yunoos
6. Ms Evelyn Khoo Lyn Yin
7. Tengku Iskandar
COMMITTEE MEMBERS
8. Dr Michael Allan
9. Dr Muddathir Abdel-Rahim
10. Dr Nooraini Mohd Ismail
I N T E R N A T I O N A L M O V E M E N T F O R A J U S T W O R L D A R T I C L E S
11
ODT's version of the "State of the Village Report" has been updated and revised to 2005 statistics and is the most current version
available. Research for the first twenty facts for the updated version was done by Donella H. Meadows' think tank: the Sustainability
Institute. The rest came from a variety of sources including David Smith's children's book: If the World Were a Village. The author of
some things "to ponder..." is unknown. This conclusion to the piece was also adapted and revised by ODT, with support from Bette
Abrams-Esche. ODT distributes their updated version with every copy of their Population Map. In the same spirit of Donella Meadows'
initial work, ODT has made the material available copyright-free, as long as the source is acknowledged in any reproductions. More info
at www.odt.org/pop.htm. It can be viewed as a Flash film at luccaco.com/miniatureearth. Donella Meadows' original "State of the
Village Report" may be found at: vn338villageed
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