and Global Islam. 34 The continuing war in Iraq is played out as a conflict between
two forms of regressive globalization. On the one side are the supporters of Global
America. On the other side is a mixture of militants from the former Iraqi regime
and from extreme Islamic groups, who are beginning to coalesce around a kind of
new Islamic nationalism.
MOHAMED EL-SAYED SAID argued that
… the spectacular rise of the anti-war movement during 2002–3 was
instrumental in preventing the full triumph of the “clash of civilizations”
and “crusade” theories in Arab minds. Furthermore, global civil society
offered a brilliant opportunity for voicing Arab protests against injustices
seen to be inflicted upon the Arab world by the present international
system. As a result, there was “a shift in position towards global civil
society by a small but growing segment of the Islamic movement.” (EL-
SAYED SAID: 2005, pp. 60-61.)
The West, therefore, was no longer seen as monolithic. The involvement of
Muslims along with Western peace activists offered a political space where it was
possible to oppose both American neoconservatism and fundamentalist Islam.
Resolution of this conflict is approached in an analysis of the mediation of the
construction and expansion of global and cosmopolitan identities.
7.4. Global and Cosmopolitan vs. National and Parochial
An important part of the inquiry reported in Global Civil Society 2004/5 is the
impact of globalization on self-formation. I feel this report is so important to
discussions about the future path of globalization that I want to present and discuss it
briefly here. The report confirms that more people, in more parts of the world are
imagining lives for themselves with a greater range of possibilities than ever before
and increasingly dissociating their identity from territorial communities; but the
findings reveal important regional differences. The information the study provides
on these shifting identities, is indeed, relevant to the discussion of constructing
mechanisms for governing globalization, since identification – be it nationally- or
34
This has also been dealt with by BENJAMIN BARBER: 1996.
103