The generation preceding ours experienced the horrors of two world wars and the destruction they left behind. They learned that injustice, greed and hatred triggered bloody conflicts.
They tried to wipe out hatred, violence and ignorance and promote peace, love, education and knowledge. They wanted their children to live in a safe world where humanity would be revered and human rights respected. They believed that a sense of invincibility and intoxication with power would never again drive a country to invade another. They doubted that any leader would want to repeat the mistakes of Hitler, Stalin or Mussolini.
Their dream of peace and their search for world stability and global prosperity gave birth to the United Nations. The organization’s constitution, adopted in London in November 1945, states “that since wars begin in the minds of men, it is in the minds of men that the defenses of peace must be constructed.” The UN and its specialized agencies were established with a mandate to resolve conflicts peacefully, to build bridges among nations and to promote human rights and international cooperation
Have the noble objectives of our predecessors been achieved? Is our world any safer than theirs? The UN is 57 years old; yet peace remains an elusive dream and the international community remains bitterly divided over a number of crucial issues. We continue to live in a world of torture and injustice, aggressions and invasions, wars and territorial annexation, subjugation and capitulation, spite and hatred, cultural arrogance and intercultural ignorance.
With all our accumulated wealth of knowledge and all our talk of international cooperation, we have failed to alleviate poverty or mitigate the misery that it inflicts on its victims. While in a number of poor countries families live on $1 a day and children die of starvation, in the few wealthy, technologically advanced societies the superrich spend millions of dollars on a birthday party, or on a fifth and even a tenth wedding ceremony.
We have failed to eradicate illiteracy and make education for all a reality, although literacy is central to the development of the individuals and the communities. The estimate in 2000 was that there were 860 million illiterate adults and about 100 million children who never saw the inside of a school.
One has only look at Africa and the Middle East to realize that we have failed to resolve conflicts peacefully. The developed world produces conventional and non-conventional weapons, sophisticated missiles, and “smart” and “dumb” bombs. They are tested in and sold to Third World countries where food, medicine and drinking water are scarce. The technologically advanced countries are competing to modernize their arsenal and update their war machinery so they may kill, blind, wound, maim and break the hearts of as many faceless victims as possible.
We even have failed to promote international understanding and international cooperation.
Prior to the Sept. 11 attacks on New York and Washington, much of the world was in love with America and all that it stood for. America was the symbol of justice, democracy, freedom of movement and freedom of expression. America was the land of opportunity, where human dignity was respected, cultural identities protected and where every suspect was innocent until proven guilty. Thus the attack on America was an attack on a cherished international value system. America is a country of immigrants. The American nation is multicultural and multireligious by nature. Therefore America was a land where all cultures met and all religions were respected.
The twin towers were not merely the heart of buzzing global business activity; they were a cultural shrine and a tourist attraction. The victims of the attacks had roots and families everywhere. The whole world was in a state of mourning and the whole world condemned the attack.
The majority of Arabs and Muslims were shocked by the notion that the suspects were born in our countries and brought up in our culture.
Because the crime was in sharp contrast with all Islamic teachings, we could not help raise questions which might have infuriated our American friends. For example, why would a group of successful young men kill themselves along with thousands of other innocent victims? Obviously, their knowledge of Islam was either limited or completely non-existent. Was their ignorance exploited by some devil?
Were they brainwashed into thinking that God would bless the act and its perpetuators? Did a vicious enemy don the mantle of Islam and convince them that such an awful crime could promote peace and justice in a region plagued by wars and bloodshed? Why would they commit a hideous crime which could only harm the interests of Muslims and Arabs?
The overwhelming support, goodwill and sympathy that America and Americans received from the world had the potential to unite us forever. Just as the UN was born out of the ashes and rubble of World War II, a strong bond of humanity could have emerged from the Sept. 11 disaster. Instead, cracks and divisions appeared in the fabric of the international community. The UN received lashes and backlashes from which it may never recover.
To many, America was no longer the land of dreams and the custodian of peace, freedom and human rights. A powerful wave of hatred and suspicion destroyed much of what had been achieved since the end of World War II.
Attempts to promote hostility between Muslims and non-Muslims and between Arabs and non-Arabs multiplied and intensified; extremism, radicalism and irrational nationalism flourished; a climate of hatred and vengeance provided a safe haven for terrorism and terrorists; biased media portrayed Islam as the enemy of Western civilization and all Arabs and Muslims as potential terrorists.
Although the Western media likes to present women in the Arab and Muslim societies as victims of a backward religion and obsolete, uncivilized traditions, a number of Arab and Muslim women living and working in the West received their first bitter pill of discrimination and harassment after Sept. 11 from their non-Arab, non-Muslim bosses and colleagues.
Conferences, debates, workshops and meetings have been organized to promote interfaith dialogue and intercultural understanding, but they have made little impact so far. Tolerance is at its lowest ebb and prejudice and mistrust are on the rise.
The Aug. 4 issue of TIME Magazine said that in America, where faiths and cultures supposedly live side by side in harmony, a group of evangelists are traveling to remote countries and placing themselves in dangerous situations in order to convert Muslims to Christianity. They sometimes take “day jobs” — often in areas where the host country lacks expertise and preach unofficially.
We live in a dangerous world, yet we should not conclude that peace, stability and prosperity are as elusive as Bin Laden, Saddam Hussein and the WMD. If we adopt this unhealthy attitude, we will continue to bury victims of mines, smart bombs and sophisticated weapons, and our doctors and nurses will devote their efforts, energy and time to treating the physical and psychological wounds of the traumatized victims of our folly.
Recently Colin Powell, the US secretary of state, said, “ Saddam Hussein is trash to be collected.” May we add that injustice, poverty, ignorance, prejudice, racism, discrimination, lack of respect for world religions, assaults on human dignity and attacks on cultural identities are garbage to be burned.
— Dr. Ibtissam Al-Bassam is academic adviser to the assistant director-general for education, UNESCO (Paris). The views expressed are her own.
