ROMESH DIWAN


    In the past few weeks one has seen haunting images. At the G -8 meeting in Genoa, Italy, leaders of the rich nations met in fort like environment secured by iron railings and 20,000 Italian police, military and para military forces against 200,000 citizens gathered together to protest their hidden agendas. Police brutality against some of these unarmed citizens is still being discussed in European news media. The government heads were trying to formulate globalization via trade and commerce. The large number of citizens, on the other hand, were defining globalization in terms of democratic rule, multicultural, multiethnic, multireligious diversity, and an open society.

    Few days later images shifted to gruesome attack by Pakistan trained Mujahudeens of 15 innocent Hindu pilgrims in their journey to holy Amarnath. Another 15 Hindus were massacred in Doda District of Jammu and Kashmir by another section of Mujahudeens. The Eurocentric Western media did not find non-white Hindu massacres newsworthy. But the images of murders, whether white or non-white, European or non-European, evoke the same feelings. More recently a Mujahudeens human bomb exploded in a crowded restaurant in Jerusalem killing innocent Jews. In Macedonian Muslim separatists are fighting the government in gun battles. These facts and images also raise serious questions about globalization. How does globalization relate to minorities, safety and territorial disputes? The case of Israel is both
illustrative and instructive.

    The Jewish Israel state came into being fifty plus years ago after the second world war and a major Jewish holocaust. By every  criteria - political democracy, per capita income, quality of its health and education facilities, diversity of its population - it is a modern state. Inspite of such achievements and fifty years after its installation, it finds itself unable to protect the life of its children and citizens. Israel also has a large Muslim Palestine minority population who feel that they are a second class citizen and are willing to fight to gain a separate state.

    The problem of a minority's feeling of second class status is not limited to Israel alone. African - Americans have similar feelings in the US. In fact many countries face similar minority situation. Only in a few countries have this minority status generated a violent conflict: namely, Bosnia, Croatia, Chechyna, Kosovo, and currently uprisings in China, Macedonia, and  Philippines. All of these are Islamic minorities in a non Muslim state. The method followed is an indiscriminate use of humans bombs against the "non Muslims."

    It is instructive to look at the states where minorities exist but have not created such conflicts. There are minorities in US, India, most major European countries; namely, England, France, Germany, Italy and Spain.
Barring Spain where Basques have been asking for a separate state, these minorities feel a certain sense of belonging to these countries. On the other hand, there are a number of Muslim ruled countries following Islamic laws that deny any rights to minorities.  In Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, non Muslims have little rights and no citizenship. In Pakistan and Bangladesh, the minorities have been continuously reduced by forced conversions and mini
genocides. Thus in 1950, after its establishment, Pakistan had 17 percent Hindu population; fifty years later, it is reduced to 3 - 5  percent. Same holds for Bangladesh. Even in Indian Kashmir, thousands of  Hindu Pundits have been forced out of their homes and have been living in refugee camps for the last decade; this in what is called, Hindu India. India, however, is a very soft state which can not safeguard the life of its own majority
population.

    Israel desires to maintain an open society while its minorities wish a separate state. India and Serbia were divided. Israel is too small to be divided; it's very existence is threatened. Division of a country is not a solution. On the contrary it invites the highest level of violence; as recently witnessed in Serbia. Israel, alone, can't solve this problem.

    The issue is not of minority and majority. It is part of globalization. There is a fundamental value conflict. The jihadi and Mujahudeen's value system is well defined. In it, killing the non-Muslim -, child, innocent, old ,unarmed, woman - is a heroic act that wins one the coveted honor of a martyr with a promise of heaven and hurs. Rarely have these murder of innocent people by Mujahudeens been criticized, much less condemned, by Muslim spokespersons: heads of the Muslim government, Muslim religious leaders, articulate and distinguished Muslim scholars, etc. On the contrary, jihadis and Mujahudeens are now being produced wholesale in madarassas in Talibanic Afghanistan and its supporters in Pakistan. The production system is institutionalized and spreading to other countries. This value system is highly conflictual with the values of an open society which can not, and
does not, permit the killing of non-A by A. Instead, it places strong restraints on such violent behavior. People who so act are denounced as murders, imprisoned, even executed. They are not treated as heroes. In Samuel Huntington's language, this is the civilizational clash. In this clash India, Israel and Macedonia are on the front lines; India is bleeding
slowly, Israel has its back to the wall, and Macedonia is experiencing what other Balkan states have gone through. For the time, US and Europe are basking in their openness on the backs of these front-line states.

Ultimately, however, the real threat is to Europe and US which are the greatest beneficiaries of globalization
 
    G-8 leaders can talk all about economics and trade. The greatest challenge to globalization of any kind is this civilizational clash. It is a serious threat to any open society necessary for globalization. The nature of globalization and its eventual success or failure will depend not on trade regimes but, fundamentally, how this civilizational clash is resolved.

Romesh Diwan, Professor of Economics 
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, NY 12180   
diwanr@rpi.edu