Tariq Ramadan, Islamic scholar based in Geneva, says that it is time to stop defining Islam in opposition to the West. In this essay, he argues that the anti-globalist movement is naïve in thinking it can be successful without aligning with the Islamic world.

Over the last few years popular mobilisations have reached an unprecedented scale. The demonstrations which greeted the last G8 meeting in Evian are further proof that the mood of resistance is not letting up. From Porto Alegre to Florence (and next November in Paris-Saint-Denis), from Seattle to Evian, from the support of the Chiapas to the movement against the Iraq war, the places – the events and the causes are multiplying. These protests are providing an outlet for the expression of a radical rejection of liberal neo-capitalism, itself motivated by the belief in another kind of globalisation: fairer, more humane, more dignified. Because we all think that ‘Another world is possible!’

It’s ethics versus money

When we stop and study the literature produced by those involved in this international movement, one cannot but be struck by the internal logic on which this struggle is based. Faced with a soulless capitalism, which turns everything into a commodity (human beings, intelligence, the body, goods and public services, air, nature, etc), consciences are stirring and demanding respect for justice and human dignity, for the environment and for genetic equilibrium, just as they demand the right of people to self-determination and democracy.

In addition to the fact that one comes across the old slogans of various strands of the Left, one is also forced to acknowledge that the critical analyses of the world, as well as the range of solutions proposed, are based on an essentially structural approach to matters. At the heart of a very Western-oriented debate, a humanising and humanistic economic logic responds to the disembodied madness of another logic; a democratic model of society (today dreamed of over here) is used to denounce the excesses of systems that fly in the face of this model every day (usually over there); the rationality of ethics is challenging the rationality of ‘money’. The terms of the confrontation are clear.

The postmodern Hippie is really a colonialist in disguise

What is nevertheless astonishing is the near total absence of serious consideration of cultural and religious diversity, outside the usual conventional talk which reminds us of the so-called “duty of tolerance”. Those seeking an alternative to neo-liberal globalisation, the anti-or ‘alter’-globalisers, all too often think of cultural, as well as religious diversity as a principle of goodwill to be affirmed but rarely see it as a reality with which it is necessary to engage, venture into and to build. To such an extent that it is not unusual to meet men and women championing progressive opinions on social, political and economic issues, while their cultural vocabulary still bears the imprint of an old colonial outlook. From forum to forum, one grows accustomed to meeting this new species of activist - a living contradiction of the contemporary left - economically progressive but culturally so imperialist; ready to fight for social justice but at the same time so confident and sometimes arrogant as to assume the right to dictate a universal set of values for everyone.

At a time where the divide between civilizations and religions appears to be deepening, the movement against neo-liberal globalisation cannot afford to avoid the central issue of diversity of cultures and religions, their role within the resistance and the significant contribution they can make to the cause of a pluralism which is as enriching as it is urgent. To advocate another kind of globalisation armed only with Western rationalism against the uniform commodification of the world is not only contradictory, but profound nonsense.

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