Hanafi, Hasan and Sadiq al-Azm. Ma al-awlamah? Hiwarat li-qarn jadid. (Dar al-Fikr al-Muasir, 1999)
In 1999, Egyptian proponent of the Islamic left, Dr. Hasan Hanafi, and Syrian leftist Dr. Sadeq Al-Azm published a series of essays in the form of a dialogic exchange in their Ma al-awlamah? Hiwarat li-qarn jadid (“What is Globalization? Dialogues for the New Century”), the result of a conference on Arab thought on globalization sponsored by the Beirut Heritage Committee. In it they express their concern over the implications for Arab governments and societies of globalization. Hanafi argues that globalization is a myth; an ideological construct designed to promote an unfettered free market through collapsing borders. Borrowing from Wallerstein’s world systems theory of empire, Hanafi insists that the Bretton Woods institutions and their successors and affiliates (the IMF, the G8- then the G7- the GATT, and the World Bank), bent on self-empowerment and enrichment, constitute the center, and have little to no concern with the fragmentation and suffering of the periphery. Language promoting human rights, civil society, or raising the global standard of living from these organizations is, in Hanafi’s reading, a sham. He is particularly concerned with the dangers inherent in propping up Islam and the Middle East as the new “civilizational” opponent; it is an Orwellian act of legerdemain with real world consequences for the Arab people.
Al-Azm is less pessimistic. He approaches the topic more openly and cautiously and responds that, practically speaking, Arab states should face the fact that they are unable to halt the “creeping” spread of globalization, though they needn’t “be a tail for it”; the important goal should be “to deal with this phenomenon, or the declared theory which is embodied in the modern world economic system, by as much of wisdom, responsibility, realism and objectivity as possible. This must be based on local self-reliance, pan-Arab self- reliance, and on dealing with the largest phenomenon, which is that of globalization.”[1] Unity is the order of the day, and Arabs should attempt to take advantage of the benefits of global capitalism as much as they are able.
[1] 200-201.
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