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Political Science
Written by Sohail Inayatullah   

Awakening to a world state

By Sohail Inayatullah

Corporate World, Caliphate, or Gaia Peace? The choice definitely is ours. And, it is only what we pick in the present is what will determine our future. So, let’s widen our horizons and develop a deep understanding for different world views. It is only then can we unite humanity to build a better world.

THE BEGINNING OF THE 21ST CENTURY

In an essay published in late 2002, Philip Bobbit claimed that just as the 20th century began with World War I--the shooting of Prince Ferdinand in Sarajevo, the 21st century has begun with the cruel events of September 11.

The nation-states today face several challenges like the evolution of human rights, the emergence of mega trans-national corporations, environmental problems that can only be solved on a global level to mention a few. But, it is the rise of militant virtual nation that represents perhaps the biggest challenge.

Bobbit’s solution is the development of a stronger state, within the bounds of today’s nation-states because only strong states can challenge the virtual outlaws. I ,however, doubt Bobbit’s solution will go far enough. And, I rather suggest the evolution of a world state or at least a strong global governance to meet the challenges of globalisation as nation-states alone would not be able to tackle them.

Now, what is crucial is what this world state should or will look like? Will we be beholden to it, ready to sacrifice our lives for it, or are there other ways to organise our identity?

WESTERN ARCHETYPES

In the Western mythos, two archetypes are always at play. One is the land of Cockgayne, which promises fruit and leisure for all. It is a pastoral vision, pre-modern, where listening and sharing are central and humans live with nature. The other is the Land of Arcadia, more complex, living off nature, ever improving. In the first, communication and relationship solve our problems. In the latter, it is technology. These two images wrestle with each other. The USA has been the exemplar of the latter.

But, the former does not disappear, it is the alter ego, ever in the wings, inspiring the flower children of the 60s, inspiring green activists, and now expressing itself through Oprah and the cultural creatives. Which one, however, will dominate is another of this century’s big questions.

Besides, there are two other myths as central as Cockgayne and Arcadia. The third myth is that of the apocalypse, the end of the world.  According to this myth, humankind has sinned, fallen away from the true path, and so, must now suffer. Earlier, comments on New Orleans and Hurricane Katrina by Christian extremists in the USA illustrate this.

The fourth myth is that of modernity, or realism; indeed, it is the non-myth, the truth before our eyes, the reality by which all other histories and futures are judged. It is real power – economic and political – that defines the present and future. Interestingly, it is in the language of realism that the utopian seeds of global government are forming. To stop the outlaws, extra-territoriality is required. To deal with the real problems, more than a list of policies is needed. Other worldviews must be engaged.

GLOBAL GOVERNANCE – HISTORY AND PROSPECTS

Moving to a world governance system means that world hegemony must accede some of its sovereign powers to a global governance regime. Much can be gained from the experiments of the early American colonists.  First, the federal system of checks and balances and layered governance is insurance against the return of the monarch.  Second, the innovative energies of the Americans and third, the resulting alter ego of the West – the feminist movement, silicon valley, the cultural creatives, to mention a few can now become global resources.

But, does this justify the belief that America alone is right, and that others do not matter or are somehow lesser?

Every historical hegemony becomes blinded to its own arrogance. It insists that since it has succeeded, others must be less, forgetting that success can also be the final rung on the ladder of failure. Moreover, the roads used for expansion are also the same avenues that others use to enter the imperium.  England dominated the world through English and now the natives return to the Mother, transforming England. It is worth noting that in the UK, Indian restaurants employ more people than coal mining, ship building and steel manufacturing together.

And, remembering Rome, the question becomes, “Who are the barbarians?”  Will they succeed?  Can reducing civil rights and increasing budgets for security and arms be the answer? Of course not.

The answer is to become even more global but authentically global, allowing real communication, a conversation of civilisations (Cockgayne), and remaining focused on the variables that have allowed technological innovation (Arcadia).

For this to become a reality for all of us, we all must learn to listen. This is something that many adults refuse to do. But when they don’t, the children scream even louder and louder, using tools that are more pathological. The approach of listening to one another is critical. It means listening to others to clearly understand their concerns. It does not mean losing sight of one’s foundational values – gender equality, human rights, and others– but expanding them. Cultural relativism is a positive step, but it is not an excuse for abusing either human rights or nature.

At a workshop in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, about 150 Muslim leaders elucidated gender partnership, economic alternatives to capitalism, self-reliant electronically-linked communities, ecological sustainability, and a global governance system as their key concerns. This indicates how the entire world today has the same issues on mind.

And, while the world has changed in the past decade, there is a lot to build on. While we have been able to watch the transformation of England to the point where the former foreign minister Robin Cook is willing to declare chicken tikka as the national dish, the transformation of a peaceful world view in the United States of America is still far from complete.

The first steps have already been taken. For example, minority “majority states” are emerging in the form of multi-cultural cities, such as Sacramento.  But, further evolution has not occurred for two reasons.

One reason is that other cultures insist on their authentic rights that solidify culture, instead of globally universalising it. This is the immigrant culture using religion and ethnicity as intellectual weapons, as defensive text. Instead of engaging with other cultures (the host and other minority cultures), imagined pasts that were more rigid are evoked. The majority culture reacts similarly, imagining an earlier purity. The way forward, however, is not the imagined past but a move towards a spiral future, always remembering history but creating a set of alternative futures.

One such step in this direction is the neo-humanist sentiment. This movement expands our circle of compassion to include more and more of “others”.

Neo-humanism helps us open up to our full humanity, not resting in religion, nation or race. But, caution is advised. It is not neo-humanism that is emerging as the new paradigm. Rather, it is uni-culturalism that is on the rise.  Multiculturalism is forgotten, some say even killed.

Is neo-humanism, a trans-culturalism, possible?

Interlude

Writing this piece causes fear. As I open my notebook, I see the passenger next to me look in alarm as she sees me write the words above. What am I doing, writing about Al-Qaeda? I see her fear and save the document. I read the current issue of Time and hear of Muslims in America having this eerie feeling of being watched. At Singapore airport, I say goodbye to my family. The airline staff asks me with a bit of nervousness why are they not going with me – “Is he a ___?” – they think.  I stay calm telling them that my wife and children are going to London and I, to Taiwan. They breathe easier.

WHAT CAN TRANSFORM?

The question continues to haunt. What will transform the USA? Terror did nothing but wake up the sleeping giant. Hurricane Katrina has been reduced to a managerial disaster preparation issue.  America’s globalisation is being quickly nationalised, just as with the Yugoslavs who, in the face of trauma, quickly became Serbs.

In the past few years, some Americans have seemingly forgotten their alter ego. Fear brought out first the animal jungle self and then the super-ego, the right to fight till the death. The issue of world imbalance and the injustices the USA and others are responsible for have quickly disappeared.   In Asia also, the evil was too easy to find in Bin Laden and others. In their own despotic states, the need to universalise tradition, to spiritualise, to globalise are lost in a blaze of conspiracy theory. There is collateral damage everywhere.

Why then be hopeful of a world government, of expanding identities? Why be hopeful of the emergence of Gaia Tech – technology for the earth and technology developed in the partnership model (outside of corporatist science)?  Why be hopeful of a future world without the globalisation of technology that magnifies differences?

I am hopeful because the other scenarios are too terrible to think about.

“Cowboy Jihad” as the likely future with endless hot and cold wars, fought with new types of technology, from passenger airplanes to biological to nuclear weapons, perhaps later extending even to gene wars, with each one threatening not just the planet but also what it means to be human will stain our evolution. Besides, with a boom in youth population predicted in Saudi Arabia in the next 10-20 years and with the end of oil in sight, the image of young, angry, unemployed Muslim men with no direction, only a desire for self-sacrifice, feels like a nightmare. There will be no “business as usual”.

Nevertheless, “Back to Normal” is the hoped for scenario in the West and by nation-states everywhere. Back to the middle class doing OK, the rich doing very well, and the poor often marginalised. Nothing needs to change and terrorists can just be regarded as “loonies”. Even this theory does not promise a bright future.


WHO LISTENS?

Millions of unemployed youth in the third world listen. They have no jobs. Their governments are corrupt. The doors to the first world are closed.  Furthermore, the number of these youths will grow and grow, as one can readily infer from youth bulges in various parts of Asia and Africa (for example, see the online reference Mapping the Global Future. Ninety eight per cent of everyone who will be born in the foreseeable future will not be Caucasian but Asian and African. From accounting for 50% of the world’s population in 1850 or so, Caucasians will, if current trends continue, account for less than 5% by 2150. They will age but the third world will stay young.

Thrown away by the best, cheated by their own governments, it is only the voices of the fascists that make sense – “It is all America’s or Israel’s fault,” they say – or they blame whoever.  Thus the real issue is not religion per se but the failure of the world economy.   

With polluted cities, pillaging landlords, water shortages, where is hope? Which leader can imagine a new system - one that is inclusive, innovative and concerned for economic distribution?

Clearly, no one in the West has. Those at the seats of power cannot see through the eyes of the Other – those who are ravaged by starvation and conflict.  But, as long as the double standard continues, as long as the West cannot or will not find its moral voice or see beyond stereotypes, the waves of unrest will continue.  

In this era of interdependence and interconnectedness, we all change, or we all go down.

EVOLUTIONARY PATHWAYS

Gaia tech is our way out. Even if we carry different passports, or multiple passports, there is really no other place to go.

There are choices of course, evolutionary ones. We can stay on the path of Western corporate hegemony – neo-liberalism. This is the divided world – eventually leading to the Big Dog, High Gate scenario, not with real dogs but sensory telemetry and radio frequency identification (RFID) technology, which is a ‘Google’ for the real world that provides instant knowledge of where anyone and anything is.

Or, we can go the caliphate route, that is, create a religious empire, an Islamic global empire.  The rights of women would decrease dramatically, as might technological innovation since it is the past that is evoked – notwithstanding the Golden Age of Islam in which astronomy, mathematics, and medicine flourished.  Of course, it need not be Islamic. Among some Christian fundamentalists and their leaders, and within India’s Bharatiya Janata Party (who ruled India from 1998-2004), one finds similar visions – a time of purity, in the past, when patriarchs ran the world, and children were obedient. Or, we could destroy ourselves.

None of these alternatives is attractive. Gaia tech is my preferred future, and I believe the preferred of many on this tiny, fragile planet.  But, there is a lot to do if we want to move towards this expanding image.  I see three areas of necessary transformation.

First, engagement in the evolutionary struggle to become neo-humanist. To do so, we have to let go of identities we have earned over hundreds of years. These are the identities that give us community, however, pathological.  ‘Sports Illustrated’ writer Michael Silver finds the beauty of America through the patriotism of football. The agony of 9/11 is erased partly through the redemption gained from warrior struggle.  Yet, while in the short run, patriotism eases the pain, as each nation follows its own patriotism, collectively it can lead to ruin. Instead of facing individual aloneness by challenging  addiction to ethnicity, religion and national territory, we feast on the symbols of ‘isms’.

It is these ‘isms’ that prevent us collectively from jumping to the next level of human evolution. Individually, we may transform, but just as one cannot have social equity in a sea of contemporary capitalism, one cannot have neo-humanistic individuals in an ocean of national and religious zealots. Thus, even as individuals become more neo-humanist, loosening the binds of geographical sentiment, the structures and incentives that exist continue to reinforce nationalism.  More is needed.

Ibn Khaldun, the 14th century philosopher, wrote that to retain power, asabiya, or the sinews that bind, unity is required. The cheapest unity is gained through the creation of enemies, real or imagined. The deepest unity is what the planet calls on us today for - a unity that deals with our very real strategic problems. Of the grand challenges facing us – there are water, energy, climate, safety, and dignity, to mention a few.

Thus, we need a unity based on our common humanity.

And, this is the second factor. This does not mean forgetting injustices, or that some are more equal than others; it instead means focusing on fairness.  This means equal access, equal opportunity within a framework of rights for humans, plants and animals. Of course, over time this means moving more and more to a non-violent culture, including our views towards animals. This means seeing life from a paradoxical view, holding multiple positions at once, seeing contradictions, indeed, moving from the flat land of the obvious to depth. 

DEPTH

A ‘deep’ view means holding multiple positions, multiple factors, and not being overly swayed by any of them. Similarly, having ‘depth’ comes from understanding the many levels of reality. Those without depth have a ‘flat land’ view, which is misleading.

Using the methodology of Causal Layered Analysis (see Sohail Inayatullah, The Causal Layered Analysis Reader), one can see reality at four levels. First is the empirical, litany world. This is the official future, the way things are. This is the data of reality presented over and over to see with little connection of events. It is often unchallenged. The second level is the systemic, focused on understanding historical causes, connecting the dots, particularly at understanding correlation and causation. Level 3 is the worldview level. Here, we try and understand reality from the perspectives of the person’s or the civilization’s paradigm – the often unconscious way we see time, gender, the other, truth. These worldviews are similar to paradigms. Level 4 is the myth and metaphor level of reality. These are the unconscious stories each person or civilisation tells itself to make meaning of the world. It is only through the encounter with the ‘Other’ that the myths we are living can become apparent to use.

The mind of the fundamentalist exists at the deeper worldview level – focused on the grand scale, the Big Picture, but one that is paradigm-based –and is mislead into ‘conspiracy’ land, since he or she cannot see the depth of social science causes. He or she takes the stories of their own worldview literally, indeed, they generally are unable to see that they have a worldview, believing instead that they have the sole truth.

Then there is the empiricist-materialist.  Some Western leaders live in flat land, wanting immediate solutions, outcomes – and rarely see history, culture, the weight of the past, and the misery of history.  It is only the bottom line of profit, of the immediate, of the material world that counts. Everything else is secondary. When they do move to other levels of reality, they slip into good versus evil talk, or rational versus irrational.

The academic can see the social, economic and technological factors that explain events like terrorism, but she or he often cannot understand the pain that everyday people feel, and live in. She or he understands the system but does not live it, and thus cannot understand the deeper archetypes at play here.

The visionary can see the play of factors, of humanity dying to break out of its straitjacket, searching for a new metaphor or a new story, but she or he too rarely has the capacity to change the litany, our day-to-day turmoil.  Judgements and conclusions about ‘Others’ can be dangerously biased. For example, the flat land view is that the Palestinian suicide bomber is evil or deranged. As we move to the systemic we understand it is the day-to-day experiences of the Palestinians (their right to movement curtailed, for example) that creates real or perceived injustice, or the lack of sovereignty, the lack of jobs, and the loss of hope.  At a deeper level – the third level – it is the vision of paradise, of a particular jihadist reading of Islam that creates the terrorist. On the Israeli side, it is the fear of annihilation, the lack of security, and the sense of being a chosen people. At the deepest level is the issue of trauma, the Jewish trauma from the Holocaust and the Palestinian trauma resulting from not having a homeland and loss of ancestral lands. Suicide bombing is a multifaceted issue – psychological (at the individual level), systemic (e.g., on the issue of Palestinian statehood), worldview (e.g., on matters of dogma and its interpretation by “fundamentalists”, and archetypical myth (that is, the understanding of what it means to be Israeli or Palestinian). 

Along with transformed identity and a fairer society is a vision of the future. It is this vision that can give us hope and move us from the present. To create this vision is of course, a new type of leadership. P. R. Sarkar wrote about a new type of leadership--- a new type of person the sadvipra who believes in serving others, is courageous, innovative and intellectually sharp.

“These sadvipras will work for the good of all countries, for the all-around emancipation of all humanity. The downtrodden humanity is looking up to the eastern horizon, awaiting the sadvipras’ advent with earnest zeal and eagerness. Let the human being of the new day of the new sunrise wake up in the world." 

Even while living the poverty of Calcutta and jailed by the government of Indira Gandhi, Sarkar was confident that we would successfully create a world governance system based on Gaia tech – gender partnership, balanced between spirituality and material advancement, based on a concern for our long term ecological sustainability.

IF WE DON'T

And if we don’t, what are the alternatives? Another few hundreds years of the nation-state, jungle capitalism, racial/religious/national identity?  A savage empire (of the Islamic caliphate or of corporate American values)?  Or is it business as usual - with developments in nano-tech, artificial intelligence, genetics, aging, globalisation[16] (including humanity reflective of its evolution), and the mind-body-spirit meditation revolution, a world where nothing changes and that is harder and harder to imagine and maintain?

An alternative world can be envisioned and can be created, step by step.

ACKNOWLEDGMENT

I would like to thank Pat Kelly and Jordi Serra for comments on earlier drafts as well as their editing skills.

Professor Sohail Inayatullah is a political scientist/futurist associated with Tamkang University, Taiwan (Graduate Institute for Futures Studies), University of the Sunshine Coast (Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences), and Prout College (proutcollege.org). He has authored/edited twenty books and CD ROMs, including Youth Futures; Macrohistory and Macrohistorians; Questioning the Future; The Causal Layered Analysis Reader; and The University in Transformation. Inayatullah has authored over 300 refereed journal articles, book chapters and magazine editorials. In addition, he is theme editor (Globalization and World Systems) of the UNESCO Encyclopedia of Life Support Systems and has contributed articles to the Macmillan Encyclopedia of Futures Studies and the Routledge Encyclopedia of Indian Philosophy.

Internationally, among other groups, Professor Inayatullah has presented to the European Commission, UNESCO, the Organization of Islamic Conference, APEC, the Thai Capital Markets Academy, the Ministry of Trade and Investment of the Singapore government, the Ministry of Education of the Malaysian government, the European Academic Cooperation Association, University Sains Malaysia, and Ministries of numerous governments. In Australia, along with presentations to local, state and federal departments of government he has conducted futures workshops for dozens of educational organizations and corporations. E-mail: s.inayatullah@qut.edu.au