The Crisis of Islamic Civilization by Dr. Ali A. Allawi

Author:Dr. Ali A. Allawi
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2009-03-31T01:16:00+00:00

Global Power and Global Concerns

The division of the world into major power centres which are challenged, but not threatened, by an array of single-issue or `dissident' movements such as environmentalism or anti-globalization is likely to persist into the future. This is another challenge for an emergent Muslim global power. So far it is unclear whether the pathway to global power and influence for mediumsized states, which is what most Muslim countries are, can be based on the championing of these global issues. There have been attempts, for example, to establish a development bank for the `South, to bypass the Bretton Woods institutions such as the World Bank or International Monetary Fund (IMF).18 The latter, together with the World Trade Organization, are hopelessly subservient to the interests of western powers. These projects may not actually succeed, however, if their funding continues to be dependent on capricious leaders or on the global capital markets and the investment institutions which underpin them. The latter are integrated into a world financial system which has, at its apex, the finance ministries and central banks of the major western powers. The room to manoeuvre is small indeed. Similarly, the idea of Islamic banking, regarded as a self-contained system for the financing of enterprises and individuals along Islamic lines, in spite of its promising beginning, has degraded into a subdivision of conventional financing. It is dependent on its survival on the goodwill of the international banks and global markets, and it cannot claim to form the basis for an alternative financing system.

No Muslim state has followed the recent lead of Venezuela or Bolivia in a reprise of third-world radicalism. The anti-globalization movement does not make much sense to large Muslim countries such as Indonesia, Egypt or Pakistan, which are trying to jump on to the globalization bandwagon as a doorway to a better economic lot for their citizens. Nor are mediumsized Muslim states likely to take the lead in the global environmental movement. Few of them are over-concerned about climate change and global warming, given that their electricity generation is dependent on dirty fuels such as coal and residual heavy oil.

The effort to redefine the world in order to accommodate Islam is also problematic. At the political level, the world is divided according to hierarchies of power and influence, at the top of which sit the US, the EU and - now - China and Russia. It is also divided according to civilizational categories which more or less group the world into `core states' which represent specific civilizations, with the exception of Islam. These two categories often overlap, but also generate paradoxes. For example, the EU is a separate node of power to the US, but both are `champions' of western civilization. The institutions attached to both categories of power do not recognize Islam as an autonomous category. For example, the UN system is based on strict adherence to the principle of national sovereignty, but it falls under the control of great state powers in matters of significance.

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