A new paradigm?

Are the imperialist chickens finally coming home to roost?

For half a millennium, the West has had its wicked way with the rest of the world. It has murdered millions, enslaved millions, stolen entire continents, and robbed others of their resources. And it has done all this with impunity. Not in the lands raped and pillaged, where sometimes the victims resisted, but in the homelands. As Western nations carried out their dirty work abroad, they could rest assured their own people were secure from the anger of those they tormented.

It appears this is no longer true. The West has made an enemy of some nasty people, militant Islamists, an enemy who doesn't go by the old rules. It sends a new and clear message: come to our world and kill our people and we'll go to your world and kill your people. This comes as a nasty shock to the West. This isn't the way it's supposed to work.

The attacks of 9/11 are an example of the new paradigm. The United States has inflicted itself upon the Middle East for a long time and in major ways: collaborating with the British to overthrow the democratically elected Mossadegh government in Iran, supporting Israel at the expense of Palestinian Arabs, befriending sordid dictators like the Sauds in Arabia, and so on, and so on. Indeed, apparently the last straw for Osama bin Laden was the stationing of American troops in Saudi Arabia, the most sacred ground in Islam. In any case, a litany of offensive behaviour fuelled the anger that brought reprisals against the American homeland.

We Canadians had generally avoided the imperialist schemes, opting for a more neutral foreign policy. When we put troops in Third World countries, it was to keep the peace. But that has changed. In Afghanistan we have taken sides, and have soldiers actively seeking out and killing militant Muslims. They have taken note. Mullah Dadallah, a Taliban commander, has said about us, "If they return to where they came from ... we will not view them like the Americans," and if not, "We will wreak vengeance upon them one by one."

His words should not be taken lightly. Militant Islamists have been wreaking a fair bit of vengeance lately. And to assist them they now have a fifth column of eager young recruits in the homelands of their enemies. The presence of these recruits is in itself largely a product of imperialism.

This is not to confuse explanation with justification. The atrocities visited upon New York, London and Australians in Bali were no more justified than the horrors inflicted for centuries upon the Third World by the First, but let us not pretend those attacks are without explanation, that they are irrational. They are perfectly rational. They are just outside the cosy old paradigm of Western domination.