don't look back: 9/11

9/11 has led to a strengthening of the US will to power rather than global democratic advance, argues Anthony Barnett. The Pakistani scholar, Pervez Hoodbhoy, warns against the imperial instinct, while Anatol Lieven and Steven Lukes are alarmed by the scale of US ambition and arrogance. Against the current, Tom Nairn foresees the end of American exceptionalism. For Susie Orbach and Omar Al-Qattan, emotional impoverishment and collectivist thinking disfigure political leadership. But Scilla Elworthy insists that the cycle of violence can be broken with creative, practical thinking.

Wednesday 24th September

Terrorism as regressive globalisation

Mary Kaldor, 24 September 2003

An expert on modern warfare analyses the qualitatively new forms of terrorism we all face today – and the responses to them. How effective will a ‘war on terror’ turn out to be, and what of international law?

Wednesday 9th July

Turning the tide: how fear will make People Flow obsolete

Tony Curzon Price, 9 July 2003

In August 1993, at the bar of the Novotel in Libreville, Gabon, I had an encounter straight out of a Graham Greene novel.

Julien Joo, an official of some rank at the French Ministry of “Cooperation” (in reality, Aid), offered me a drink and congratulated me on the courageous performance I had just given. The performance consisted of arguing in front of fifty officials from the energy ministries of francophone Africa that electricity sector privatization, on the British model, could and should be applied to sub-Saharan Africa. I argued for financial controls, for metering of power, and against the view that electricity is a human right that corrupt governments should supply poorly.

Tuesday 24th September

Surviving 11 September: the future in the past?

Jean-Pierre Lehmann, 24 September 2002

A war on terrorism will not succeed, but a historical awareness by the West of the temptations of dogma and intolerance would help avoid repeating the 20th century ‘age of extremes’ in even more terrible form. In short, making the world safe beyond 9/11 requires a memory that stretches back not just a year, but a millennium.

Tuesday 10th September

Just another country

Tom Nairn, 10 September 2002

It is wrong to think that the tragedy of 9/11 confirmed the myth of American exceptionalism. Rather, it broke the identification of globalisation with ‘Americanism’ and pointed the way to brighter model for our global future.

Staying vulnerable

Susie Orbach, 10 September 2002

In America, self-reflection has been hijacked by belligerence and a return to cold-war thinking, pulling Britain’s government along too. We must resist the emotional blackmail.

An American century

Paul Rogers, 10 September 2002

The fundamental change in America was not 9/11, but the Bush election. The neo-conservatives have a mission to create the new century in the American image.

Were we hijacked on 9/11?

Pervez Hoodbhoy, 10 September 2002

Some of us spoke out for the United States after 9/11. Have we been taken for a ride? Al-Qaida and the Bush regime share a language. Our survival depends on a different, global identity prevailing.

Raise your eyes

Paul Gilroy, 10 September 2002

As we remember the dead, we face a fundamental choice. We can feed our fears of the clash of civilisations. Or we can enter a new global era and build on our shared sense of the fragility, and diversity, of human life. Our grasp of the history of racism may play a crucial role.

The road not taken

Scilla Elworthy, 10 September 2002

What happens if you introduce the idea of cost control into the handling of terror? The beginnings of an audit.

Whose Frankenstein?

Omar al-Qattan, 10 September 2002

In the West, the critical distance between citizens and the state has disappeared. This is nowhere truer than in Israel. We must reclaim it urgently.

No elixirs to hand

Paul Hirst, 10 September 2002

The West does share a common enemy with the US. But Al-Qaida is only the first of the terrorist threats we will have to tackle. Attacking Iraq is no way. We must deal with the failure of modernisation in the developing world.

The new Supermen

Steven Lukes, 10 September 2002

They call themselves realists, but for White House gurus this isn’t a war of equals, it is a battle between the master and the slaves.

Tuesday 3rd September

Too soon to look back

Anthony Barnett, 3 September 2002

A media re-run of the events of 11 September promises too little in the way of enlightenment. What is needed is a fundamental re-think.

Wednesday 28th August

After 11 September: can we have freedom <i>and</i> security?

Konrad Hummler, 28 August 2002

The terrorist attacks against the US are indeed a new kind of threat to the civilised world. But for governments to respond by culling the freedom of citizens would be not just a monumental error, but self-defeating.

Monday 24th September