RECOVERING THE TREND TOWARDS THE ABOLITION OF

NUCLEAR WEAPONS – FROM RETALIATION TO DIALOGUE

International Conference Organized by the ASAHI SHIMBUN

Hiroshima, 4 August 2002

CULTURAL DIVERSITY AND CULTURAL COMMUNICATION :

ESSENTIAL PREREQUISITES TO ANY FORM OF DIALOGUE

Mahdi ELMANDJRA

University Mohamed V, Rabat (Morocco)

“Oh my sons, enter not all by one gate : enter ye by different gates”

(Coran, Yusuf, Sura 12, Verse 67)

“I want the cultures of all lands to blow about my house, as freely

as possible, but I refuse to be blown off my feet by anyone of them”

(The Mahatma Gandhi)

CULTURAL DIVERSITY AND CULTURAL COMMUNICATION :

ESSENTIAL PREREQUISITES TO ANY FORM OF DIALOGUE

Mahdi ELMANDJRA

Ladies and Gentlemen,

It is an honor to participate as a panelist in this gathering dedicated to the building of peace and the annihilation of instruments of war and destruction such as those which have savagely decimated this martyr city on the 8^th August 1945. It was the first case of state terrorism with a recourse to arms of massive destruction. I am grateful to our hosts – the Asahi Shimbun , Hiroshima City, the Hiroshima Peace Culture Foundation and the Hiroshima Television for their invitation.

I had the privilege of being a Keynote Speaker at the opening session of the 18th General Conference of the International Peace Research Association (IPRA) which took place in Tampere, Finland (5-9 August 2000) and was able to hear the very moving message sent by the Mayor of Hiroshima on the occasion of the 55th anniversary of the Hiroshima. In two days it will be the 57^th anniversary of one of the blackest pages of history. On this occasion I would like to pay my respect to the survivors and the parents of the victims of that tragedy in which 150000 people lost their lives. [1]

In this context we ought also not to forget that the total explosives in the bombs which fell over Iraq during, just during the first two months of the Gulf War (January-February 1991), were equivalent to more than 15 times those of the Hiroshima Bomb. The number of victims of that war is estimated at 1.6 million lives including at least 600000 children.[2] The Afghanistan war can no doubt also claim very high figures on these scores if these are ever made known.

The theme of the conference is “Recovering the Trend Towards the Abolition of Nuclear Weapons – from Retaliation to Dialogue” – a very optimistic outlook at a time when there seems to be a categorical refusal, on the part of those who unilaterally rule the world, to learn from the deadly experiences of the past. They are as steadfast as ever in their reliance on nuclear weapons for the preservation of their might and domination. This is one of the dominating issues of our debate – can we dream of ever seeing a denuclearized Planet ? A dream which appears is now turning into a nightmare in view of the recent nuclear policy reorientations in the defense strategy of the United States.[3]

The denunciation of the Start II Treaty has given a new life to the programs in favor of nuclear armament in the United States and it has given the green light to Russia to develop muliple nuclear head “Topol” missiles. The originally foreseen reduction of the number of nuclear war heads of these two nuclear Super Powers, from 6000 each to 2200 or less, has now become obsolete for Russia as well as the United States. Not only are the trends ominous but the most elementary prerequisites for “dialogue” are absent from the present strategies of those who rule through “nuclearcracy” instead of democracy.

The indispensable conditions are the respect of “diversity” (biological and social) and an honest commitment to a real “cultural communication” - without these there can be no dialogue of any sort but only unilateral monologues. This is the conclusion I have reached over twenty years ago when I decided to leave UNESCO where I have occupied the function of Assistant Director General for Culture and the Social Sciences.

This responsibility enabled me to observe that there could not be any cultural communication without the acceptance of the “other”. I also realized the determing role of “values” in all of the realms of life whether it be socio-economic development, international relations, cultural creativity, innovation, or the quality of life in general. Japan understood this fact many decades ago and followed an endogenous “modernization” process which was not synonymous to “westernization”. It has proven that there were other paths to modernity other than the illusion of cloning foreign values. A conclusion I reached almost 20 years ago.[4]

The major part of my academic work and my activities in the non-governmental world have been devoted to the weight and role of values so as to elucidate their implications in the defense of “diversity” and the promotion of “cultural communication”.[5] A search on the internet gives an indication as to what that endeavor has represented.[6] This has led me to establish, in 1991, a North-South Cultural Communication Prize to which I devote the totality of the royalties of my writings.

I am glad that two of the laureates of this Prize are distinguished Japanese scholars who have militated in favour of international understanding. They are Professor Yuzo Itagaki got the Prize in 1995 and Professor Kiichi Fujiwara in the year 2000 who have made a big contribution to the advancement of communication and the building of peace.[7]

I consider that we can not sufficiently repeat some of the basic appalling facts which endanger the survival of the globe and its inhabitants. The “nuclear overkill” is a harsh and abject reality. It is the expression of value systems which put materialism and devastating power on top of their lists. How else can we comprehend that the amount of dynamite in an average U.S. strategic nuclear warhead (250 kilotons) is equivalent to that of 20 Hiroshima bombs. How paranoiac can the international relations of the nuclear Powers be? We are told that,

“Russia has a nuclear weapon destructive force of 2.900 megatons, which is an ability to destroy humanity 29 times … The United States has a total nuclear weapons destructive force of 1,800 megatons, which is an ability to destroy humanity 18 times.” [8]

Hence Russia and the United States have a combined “overkill” capacity of around 50 which means the destruction of 300 billion people if such a population inhabited the globe. If we add the nuclear warheads stockpiles of China (400), France (350), U.K. (200), India (150), Israel (100-200)[9], Pakistan (50) then we may not be far from an overkill factor of 60 – the equivalent of 360 billion people. How more paranoiac can international relations of the nuclear powers be ?

Much has been written about the nuclear issues. If we make a search on the internet, we discover that there are 6.650.000 documents for the keyword “nuclear”. The results of that search concerning the terms “nuclear”, “nuclear weapons”, “nuclear policy” and “nuclear stockpiles” is to be found on the following page - these awesome statistics speak for themselves. They demonstrate that the priority of all priorities is the survival of humankind , with freedom and dignity, in a nuclear free environment.

.

Number of in Internet documents related to KEYWORDS *
_____________________________________________________________________________
		Nuclear	Nuclear	Nuclear
COUNTRY	Nuclear	Weapons	Policy	Stockpile
USA	944000	228000	1430000	50400
Russia	778000	373000	408000	21500
Japan	768000	259000	374000	12200
China	749000	329000	432000	16700
France	693000	225000	344000	11500
India	671000	267000	202000	12700
Israel	508000	225000	267000	13600
Pakistan	466000	234000	258000	11000
UK	353000	108000	202000	10800
Iraq	338000	238000	203000	10200
Iran	323000	196000	203000	10200
North Korea	302000	172000	196000	9810
_____________________________________________________________________________
Date search of KEYWORDS		07 jul 2002
NOTE : One finds 829000 documents concerning "Hiroshima" and 94000 dealing with
the keyword "Hiroshima nuclear". One also discovers that there are 2300 documents
relating to "nuclear policy - Asahi Shimbun". The keyword "nuclear" by itself generates
a total of 6650000 documents. We also find 436000 references for "nuclear terrorism".

I am of a generation which has lived the Second War period as a child, which militated, as an adolescent, with the independence movements of the third world and lived the thrilling period of the liberation of the former colonies. A generation which had tremendous hopes for the nation-building of these new States with the cooperation of international governmental and non-governmental institutions. I devoted more than twenty years of my life working, as an international civil servant, to that end.

These expectations were shattered due to an elite that shown a high propensity for opportunism, corruption, continued allegiance to the previous colonizers and an extensive cultural alienation which cut them off their populations. All of this in a very harmonious complicity with the previous masters within an international system which was not ready to change its rules so as reflect the radical changes which had taken place in the world.

Issues raised by the Organizers of the Conference

The above preliminary remarks may facilitate and explain the context of my analyses of of the two issues specifically addressed to me by organizers of the Conference. They have made two requests to me. The first question concerns the “nuclear diplomacy that Japan is taking being under the Nuclear Umbrella of the United States” with an additional question asking “how is the world is going to be after the mass terrorism in last September with respect to nuclear arms reduction?”

I shall attempt to respond briefly to the matter of Japan’s nuclear policy leaving the additional question to a later part of this paper which will deal with “terrorism”. The Nuclear policy problematique has greatly changed after the end of the “cold war” and so has the strategic significance of the “nuclear umbrella” of the United States. The interests of both countries have changed. This comes out very clearly from the reading of the Executive Summary of the “First U.S.- Japan Track II Meeting on Arms Control, Nonproliferation and Verification” [10] held in Tokyo on 20-21 October 2001. The areas of divergence are noteworthy as can be seen from the following extract of this report,

“Japanese participants are still uncertain about the full extent of the U.S. missile defense program and wonder about the implications of missile defense for Japan,s national security…Japanese participants have expressed their hope that U.S. ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT). There are clear differences between the United States and Japan on this issue.”

The new relations the U.S. and China has changed many things and Japan’s security is no longer a vital interest for the United States. [11] President Clinton, on the CBS televison program “60 minutes” on 30 December 1999 said that he did not think that the U.S. will not be able to maintain its economic domination beyond the next ten years. He than added, “China and a little later India will have economies much bigger than ours because their population is much larger than ours …”

Japan is a “virtual nuclear weapon state”, it has the materials, the technology, the level of scientific research and the financial means to become operationally nuclear within less than a year according to some sources.[12] The major issue in the mid-term and long-term concerns Japan’s international relations options. Will it consider itself a full-fledged Asian country and concentrate on its contribution to the political and economic integration of the continent, or will it continue to follow an undecided policy on this matter as a consequence of its very strong ties with the U.S. ?

If the matter were really left to the free choice of the population then it very probable that the present nuclear stratgegy of Japan is not in full conformity with the views and aspirations of the Japanese people. I realize that is a personal assumption based on the insight of someone who has visited Japan 15 times including two prolonged stays as a visiting Professor and who believes that the future of Japan in the world is subservient to its future in Asia. In its interest, in the interest of Asia and in the interest of world peace.

The second question was formulated as follows :

“We are concerned how you see the present situation, as someone who has has formally mentioned the world danger caused by the Gulf War. Is this the beginning of the “Second Civlizational War”[13] ? We would like you to present your opinion regarding what the new world order should be.”

My firm assessment has been since 1991 that the Gulf war was a “civilizational war”[14] and that it was the beginning of a long series. The Afghan war is within that chain of events. From its very start I considered it as the “Second Civilizational War”. I also have categorized it as the 9^th Crusade which was initiated by President Bush who used personally the word “crusade” and launched “war against evil” with the barbarian massive bombings of civil populations in Afghanistan. This was the theme of the lectures and interviews I gave during my last visit to Japan in October 2001. These have been reproduced in a book which came out in Tokyo last December.14

Let us stop one moment and observe what is happening in the Muslim world where millions of victims have paid with their lives simply because of their belonging to Islam.

The list of these distressful events is quite long : Afghanistan, Algeria, Bosnia, Burma, Chechnya, China, Egypt, Ethiopia, India, Iraq, Iran, Palestine, Philippines, Somalia, Sudan … The total number of victims in these countries during the period of 1990-2000 is over 10.000.000 lives.

If we compare the preceding figure with the number of casualties of all the 8 Crusades of the Middle Ages which are estimated at around 100.000 fatalities, we find a ratio of 1 to 100. Quite a progress in the art of killing due to the advances of modern technology combined with atrocious refinements of state terror which only highly sophisticated military systems can master.

These attacks on Islam have, I think, at least seven objectives :

(i) To combat Islam as a non-Judeo-Christian systems of value;

(ii) To ensure a firm control of the areas which possess very large oil reserves ;

(iii) To prevent the countries concerned from establishing democratic regimes;

(iv) To obstruct advanced scientific and technological research;

(v) To exploit fear as a new form of governance, nationally and internationally, disregarding “rule of law” in the name of an new tyrant - “State security”;

(vi) To establish, in the minds of people, a direct association of three elements – “Islam”, “violence”, “terror”. A trilogy systematically entertained and regulary fed by the western media; and

(vii) To detract attention from the serious economic problems and corruption scandals

which confront several Western countries;

The contemporary war against Islam has been stimulated by during the late seventies when some Muslim countries started opting for endogenous solutions and steering away from western value systems and institutions. Furthermore, after the disintegration of the Soviet Union, Islam was no longer needed to battle communism. The dread of Islam is today a real fixation in the West and it has become major obsession of the United States for a variety of psychological, political, economic, demographic[15] , and socio-cultural reasons. The great fear is that of scientific and technological progress achieved by countries such as Pakistan and its “Islamic bomb”, Iran , Indonesia, Malaysia … may give them dissuasive means to protect themselves. This is one of the main reasons why Iraq was attacked in 1991. All the nuclear bombs are tolerated except the Muslim ones. Strategists in the West will soon be talking about an “Islamic nuclear umbrella”

The continued existence of the pro-western non-representative political regimes which prevail in the majority of these countries is endangered because of the failure of the development policies pursued, the rise of poverty and misery, the corruption of the political leaders and of the huge explosive growing gap between the rulers and the ruled. The fear of non-survival is not limited to those who govern. A relatively significant proportion of the “intelligentsia” share these fears because they do not identify themselves with the interests and aspirations of their people. They are the victims of a postcolonial cultural alienation.

How many of these “moderate” regimes which guarantee “stability” could last for more than a few months without the external military, political, financial and intelligence support which back them ? I would say no more than a handful. As noted by T. Christian Miller, in an article published in the Japan Times 9 October 2001,

“The United States has never pushed especially hard for democracy in the area. In large part, this is because of the fear that fundamentalist extremists could take over after democratic elections, leading to the creation of an Islamic state eager to attack Israel and unleash terror throughout the world.” (The Japan Times, 09-10-01)

Thus the real “fear” is basically due to the risk that some state may “attack Israel and unleash terror throughout the world”. We thereby see the disproportionate role and weight which the West, in general, and the U.S. in particular, attribute to Israel on the international scene. It is also rather incredible to contest democracy and the right of people to choose their political institutions and leaders on the ground that it may represent a danger for other people !

The most honest parliamentary elections in the Islamic world, as recognized by almost all observers, were of Algeria (1991) and Iran (2000). In Algeria, the army with the help of foreign complicity has fought against the results and went against the will of the population. A very heavy price has been paid – a blood bath where thousands of civilian victims have perished. In Iran, there are relentless foreign pressures to subvert the legitimate institutions of the country and now it figures on the evil” list of the United States.

The launching of the Gulf War in 1991 amplified the campaigns in the western press against Islam. High officials did not hesitate to join the anti-islam bandwagon. People such as the Secretary-general of NATO said that,

“The danger which Muslim integrists is one of the most important challenges which the West must face after the breakdown of the Soviet Union and the socialist block and the end of the cold war.” , “The Independent”, London, February 1995.

Karen Armstrong, British scholar, author of “Holy Wars”, wrote , “The cold war is about to be replaced psychologically by a cold war against Islam" TIME Magazine, 29-05-96.

One could cite literally hundreds of statements which have nurtured this war against Islam. The two above are just a sample. This crusade has taken such a magnitude that a few days ago Senators Kennedy and Lugar sent a clear warning in an article entitled “Cultural Bridges to the Islamic World”, in which they state that,the Washington Post on 3 July 2002, in an article entitled “Cultural Bridges to the Islamic World”,

“Americans now know that many Muslims believe our country and the West are at was with Islam, not terrorism. With nearly 1.5 billion people living in the Islamic world today, we ignore these and other pervasive anti-American sentiments at our peril”, Washington Post, 3 July 2002.

“Terrorism” : A Semantic Swindle

We have spoken above about the harassment of the media which seek to establish a very close association of the three terms of the trilogy “Islam – violence – terror”. We find a confirmation of this trend in a a rapid consultation over the Internet. The search for the association of two keywords – a religion and “terrorism” gives us the following number of documents available on the Internet (Google search – 10 July 11, 2002) :

Islam terrorism	315000
Catholic terrorism	148000
Judaism terrorism	36300
Protestant terrorism	28000
Confucianism terrorism	1710
Budhism terrorism	153

A French philosopher said not long ago that the “next wars will be semantic in nature”. Whoever can impose the meaning of the usage of a word will have a great advantage over the other. We are facing today a most unethical form of terrorism – a “semantic terrorism” which stimulates, promotes and entertains fear by the use and abuse of the term terrorism. An idiom which remain very blurred and most imprecise in spite of the gesticulations in the United Nations, under the direction of the U.S. delegation to have a text approved about an imprecise phenomenon.

Not to mention the tens of international conferences which put the item of “terrorism” on their agenda nor the tens of billions o