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The 'War on Terror': Braudelian Dust or Secular Sandstorm?
Ist Teil von
International Sociological Association, 2002
Erscheinungsjahr
2002
Link zum Volltext
Quelle
Sociological Abstracts
Beschreibungen/Notizen
Following the events of 11 Sept 2001, George W. Bush declares the attacks an 'act of war' and makes clear the official interpretation: 'we are a country awakened to danger and called to defend freedom'; he places the blame on 'a collection of loosely affiliated terrorist organizations known as al Qaeda--[whose] goal is remaking the world' and its leader, Usama bin Laden. In 1996, bin Laden had stated the motivations and the intentions of the 'blessed awakening which is sweeping the world in general and the Islamic world in particular': 'the people of Islam had suffered from aggression, iniquity, and injustice imposed on them by the Zionist-Crusaders alliance and their collaborators; [... in] a clear conspiracy...the dispossessed people were even prevented from obtaining arms to defend themselves.' Here are two competing visions of the world. They do, however, seem to agree that the struggle will be protracted. For many, the most obvious analogy to the events of 9/11 appeared to be the attack on Pearl Harbor 7 Dec 1941. However, within what time frames do we measure victory and defeat? Are the events of 9/11 a speck of Fernand Braudel's inconsequential 'poussiee' or part of a secular sandstorm of fundamental, and unpredictable, change analogous to the transition from feudalism to capitalism? This paper suggests some answers to such questions.