Review of Abdulqader Bajammal commentaryIn the beginning was the word: So where’s the dialogue? [Archives:2003/687/Front Page]

archive
November 20 2003

Mohammed bin Sallam
In the article “From dialogue of cultures to a culture of dialogue” published in the London-based newspaper Al-Haya on Nov. 12, Abdulqader Bajammal has touched on the state of the world today and some of the intellectual, political, economic and security woes the world is suffering.
He said “the core of the crisis in today's world is basically crystallized in the loss of elements of understanding among world population who have remained in intellectual, political and economic isolation.''
He added that some had thought the cold war was terminated by the end of the Soviet Union and others had perceived that the emergence of an inhuman or unethical perception establishes an idea that humanity would adapt capitalist percepts and see an immediate change towards the free world system as seen by America and Europe.
Bajammal has that peoples of the world are facing crises because those who had been victims of the cold war are now harmed in post-cold war because what is required of them is to be subservient to the hegemony in both military and economic fields.
Unfortunately these ideas of nihilism, consolidating the concepts of power, have found their embodiment by pursuits of the superpowers, politically and militarily. They have made the political decision in the hands of a state like the United States, depending on it in the behavior towards the peoples all over the world. This included the abolishment of historical characteristics and syllabus of those peoples in terms of ideology, nationality and region.
Hence began the disaster that the United States of America and some of its supporters have got involved in, especially represented by engaging in the process of civilization conflicts.
Bajammal also talked about the American hegemony and the negative impact of that on the world. He says if the historical bloc had in the past realized all those facts and managed to establish East/West relations, the sole superpower today, i.e. the United States, that is dominating our economic, political and security world has to realize that history, geography and ideologies had been a major cause of collapse of the Soviet Union, citing words of the Dagestan poet, ” He who shoots his gun at the past will be shelled by big guns of the future,'' adding it is a call for a deep reading of the past and the present and close examination of the future.
It is a task possessing national, regional and international dimensions. Bjammal maintains that the current situation, within the present historical epoch, appears clearly that the United States has taken its decision to undertake matters of war and peace in our contemporary world and to shoulder the responsibility for security and stability and to carry out the task of an international guardian of the situations resulted from the termination of the so-called the cold war.
So the United States has authorized itself to create necessary changes the world over. Bajammal concludes his article saying these visions adopted by the United States as a sole superpower is dependent on a system lacking dialogue mechanisms and characterized by superiority, dogmatism and haughtiness.
All this needs human dialogue that has become necessary and urgent in all events. The call submitted under the title of ” dialogue of cultures'' remains in need of another essential heading to proceed this comprehensive concept of the historical intellectual issue in question. This is the agreement in the first place on establishment and consolidation of the culture of dialogue springing from principles of freedom, democracy and human rights, which means recognition of the bases of equality among the dialogists and stepping forward from the basis that all of us are neighbours in one world.
In consequence, dialogists have the right to realize freedom and a dignified life, and to entertain the values of justice and human cooperation via civilization's advancement, independent from guardianship, hegemony and external superiority.
In the beginning there was the word, and via it the dialogue.
At the end of his article, Bajammal says let's first establish the culture of dialogue as a common human concept, discarding violence and terror and embodying values of tolerance and peace among people of this planet.
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