Harry Targ
Part
Two
“To
be brutality frank, I mean Christianity is dying in Europe, and Islam is on the
rise….we’re in a war…” Steve Bannon quoted in Steve Reilly and
Brad Heath, “Bannon Takes a Dark View of Islam,” USA Today, February 2, 2017).
The
Ideology of “the Clash of Civilizations”
The history of the United States cannot be understood without
grasping the central role of the capitalist mode of production. The Western
Hemisphere became vital to the emerging world system of capitalism in the fifteenth
century. Also, the globalization of capitalism was inextricably connected to
the rise of modern racism, an ideology that justified mass murder, kidnapping,
and enslavement of millions of people, primarily people of color. Rising
capitalism and racism grew in tandem. Each was the product of the other. In one
of Marx’s most powerful renditions of the emergence of the two phenomena he
wrote in Capital:
The discovery of gold and silver in
America, the extirpation, enslavement and entombment in mines of the aboriginal
population, the beginning of the conquest and looting of the East Indies, the
turning of Africa into a warren for the commercial hunting of black-skins,
signalised the rosy dawn of the era of capitalist production. These idyllic
proceedings are the chief momenta of primitive accumulation. On their heels
treads the commercial war of the European nations, with the globe for a
theatre. It begins with the revolt of the Netherlands from Spain, assumes giant
dimensions in England’s Anti-Jacobin War, and is still going on in the opium
wars against China, &c.
Beginning with the introduction of capitalism and
slavery in the Western Hemisphere in the fifteenth century, different
iterations of white supremacist ideologies were articulated using metaphors
that denied humanity to the indigenous people who lived in the Hemisphere
before the arrival of European colonial powers and the slaves kidnapped from
Africa. For some, people of color were not human beings. For the “liberals”
they were like children. And as the United States expanded across the North
American continent, the taking of land, the slaughter of indigenous people, and
the establishment of slavery were all justified by virtue of the superiority of
the white man.
As the new great power emerged from the war with
Spain, soon to be President Theodore Roosevelt referred to the special
contribution of the white race to civilization. Indiana Senator Albert
Beveridge declared that it was the Christian duty of the United States to
expand on a worldwide basis ( See Harry Targ, “The Ideology of U.S. Hegemony in
the Hemisphere, The Rag Blog, June 6,
2012). In our own day, President Reagan reiterated the old Puritan metaphor:
the United States is the “city on the hill.” Secretaries of State Albright and
Clinton, as well as former President Obama referred to the United States as
“the indispensable nation.” In sum United States history is replete with
references to the intellectual and moral superiority of the United States and,
directly or indirectly, of the “white
race.”
As neoliberal ideology is a contemporary version of
classic theories of free market capitalism, the thesis of the “clash of
civilizations” is a modern derivative of classic ideologies of white supremacy.
Distinguished political scientist Samuel Huntington published books and
articles in recent years that posited a fundamental global contradiction
between civilizations. For him, wars are not about disputes between nations but
between civilizations. A civilization is a large swath of land, millions of
people with a shared culture, values, and beliefs, and overarching political
and military institutions.
In world history Huntington suggested, it was because
of incompatible civilizations that wars occurred. In his 1996 book ( The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking
of World Order, Simon and Shuster), he suggested that the fundamental clash
that would be occurring in the years ahead was between the Christian West and
Islam. (Huntington’s writings have had an enduring and negative impact on
public policy. He recommended for South Vietnam, the Strategic Hamlet Program, which
was designed to move rural Vietnamese people away from their communities where
the enemy was strong. He also warned in the 1970s of the excesses of democracy.
Too many people are participating in political processes, he argued).
White supremacy gave inspiration to support for wars
in the twenty-first century. Muslim people were increasingly conceptualized as
monsters, killers, and terrorists. They constituted a civilizational threat to
the West. And it was this conception of the clash of civilizations that was
used to build support among a war-weary US population to fight in Afghanistan,
the Persian Gulf, and the Middle East. During the 2016 election, the theory of
the clash of civilizations hovered just below the surface of discourse. United
States security was threatened first and foremost by Muslims, but also by
Latinos, Africans, and Asians.
While not all supporters of candidate and now
President Trump are white supremacists, he and his key aides constantly imply
that the United States is currently in a World War, a war of a new kind, a
civilizational war. For the Trump narrative, the maintenance of the racial
superiority of the United States requires economic policies that limit the
outflow of United States investment dollars and the inflow of migrant labor and
goods produced overseas. In other words, in the contemporary ideological
climate the ideology of the clash of civilizations is connected to policies
promoting economic nationalism, a perspective at variance from the neoliberal
ideologues. And, at least rhetorically this ideological wing of the foreign
policy elite favors less involvement in global diplomacy and institutions while
we prepare for global conflicts.
If one had to oversimplify political discourse on the
United States role in the world in 2017, the ideological struggle is between
one faction of the political class that prioritizes the globalization of the
United States economy, pursuing policies to open doors to American capitalism,
particularly finance capitalism, and another which pursues white supremacy at
home and seeks to impose the dominance of the United States, while limiting
economic, political, and cultural ties across the world.
Another
World is Possible
The two ideologies, neoliberal globalization versus
the clash of civilizations, vary in theoretical underpinnings. On occasion
followers of one or the other ideology advocate differences in policy. But both
are committed to establishing or reestablishing ( in the twenty-first century) United
States dominance of the globe economically, militarily, and politically. The
neoliberal ideology begins with an economic motivation for militarism; the clash
of civilizations begins with a racial motivation for militarism. One proclaims
that our economic and political institutions represent a beacon of hope for the
world; the other frankly believes that the United States, because of its racial
identity, is a superior civilization. Neither approach to the world provides
any semblance of hope for economic and social justice.
Therefore, one task of the peace movement in 2017
entails offering a population skeptical about United States wars and military
spending a new way of thinking about how the nation should participate in the
world and why this new way is vital to the survival of humankind. The task
includes articulating a theory of how the world can work.
First, a new world order that maximizes human
potential everywhere and minimizes violence can only be built on a shared,
equitable distribution of societal resources. The promotion of any economic
system that institutionalizes exploitation must be opposed. Peace can come only
in a global society that is based upon economic fairness.
Second, a just world order economically requires the
development of a political culture, values, beliefs, and practices, that
celebrates human oneness—solidarity—and diversity. Political cultures based on
notions of superiority and inferiority are diametrically opposed to ideas of
solidarity and diversity.
Third, combatting the institutionalized violence bred
of economic disparity and racial supremacy requires mass movements that oppose
war-making, killing, and the amassing of the weapons of war. A twenty-first
century peace movement must oppose the war system.
The two-year presidential campaign is over and a new
administration is serving in its first one hundred days. The campaign and
election have shown that large numbers of Americans, and people from around the
world who watched the US elections carefully, reject the ideology of neoliberal
globalization. Growing resistance to the new Trump administration suggests also
that people are rejecting the white supremacist/economic nationalist
alternative that this new administration represents. The peace movement task
in the months and years ahead includes
developing a coherent theory or ideology of peace and engaging in processes of
education, agitation, and organization to achieve its goals.
