From: steve.devos-AT-tiscali.co.uk
Subject: re: 9/11/01
Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2001 16:14:11 GMT


Matthew

	Tempting to respond to your statements. Eric's statement is quite mild 
compared to some of the anti-religous/anti-spiritual comments I've made in 
the past. But as you raise the issue... The amount of murderous violence 
currently being committed in the name of some god or other, usually through 
the false identification of race, culture and religion is high enough to 
make me view your suggestions with some suspicion... More seriously however 
the notion of globalisation that you are producing below does not take into 
account the post-modern economic structures from the international 
organisations, the G8 and G14/G20 groups of countries and the growing 
changes in development and the techno-scientific structures. The end of the 
pax-americana which you refer to as 'we purposely put Japan and Europe in a 
position to compete with us financially...' was not deliberate but resulted 
from the end of one economic period and the transition into the post-modern 
economy.
	The return to traditional Muslim values is related to this, not through 
'mystification' but through what constitutes one possible Islamic postmodern 
project as  proposed by Akhbar Ahmed. Islamic fundamentalism is
postmodern insofar as it rejects the tradition of Islamic moderism which was 
simply  the assimilation of European/American hegemonic values, postmodern 
values in the Islamic world mean a reversion to traditional muslim alues.... 
Nonetheless this is only really postmodern when considered in global terms - 
for as part of the Islamic fundamentalist position is the refusal of the new 
global economic world order, it is a rejection of the world market... The 
sheer scale of the internal Islamic conflict has to be considered as well, 
not just the current rulers of the Islamic world versus the fundamentalists 
but also the extent to which it is possible to deny the success of 
consumption based capitalism. 

	The fundamantalist strategy is not new for it is the strategy that Facism, 
in its German and Italian varieties engaged in during the 1920s and 1930s as 
they rejected the modernist doctrines of American Capital and Soviet 
Communism. 

	Remember also that it is the losers in the processes of post-modern 
globalisation, those who have been subordinated and excluded who are the 
ones who are the most fertile field for the fundamentalist ideologies... 

	The desire for death is extraordinary... 

	regards
	sdv