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Thinking the Mediterranean Arena Today
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 February 2024
Abstract
This paper proposes a historical and anthropological re-reading of the Mediterranean arena over and above all the lines of thought and action that have directed its history, in particular since Islam's emergence as a conquering force. The political theologies of Islam and Christianity have operated as ideologies legitimating Islam's conquests between 632 and 1258, then 1453-1830 or thereabouts. Rivalry continues today, with the two great symbolic figures of the struggle between Good and Evil: JIHAD versus McWORLD. Few archeological analyses of religions, then modernity, as legitimating ideologies have been offered. This essay takes its place in this perspective, which has been made indispensable by 9/11 and the vengeful reactions of the Holy Alliance against terrorist barbarity. Its aim is to strengthen intellectually the quest for a horizon of meaning, hope and action in order finally to enter an era of history where there is solidarity with peoples beyond the powerful wealthy states, which show little understanding for societies, whether rich or underdeveloped, that are historically out of phase with modernity.
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References
Notes
1. (1992), Mahomet et Charlemagne, Paris: PUF Quadrige, p. 111 (Brussels, 1937).
2. This paper is a fragment of a considerably more developed text which is part of the introductory chapter to my book, published in 2005 and entitled Humanisme et Islam. Combats et propositions.
3. Joseph Maïla and Mohammed Arkoun (2003), De Manhattan à Bagdad: Au-delà du Bien et du Mal, Bruges: Desclée de Brouwer.
4. Lawrence E. Harrison (2000), Culture Matters: How Values Shape Human Progress, New York: Basic Books.
5. D. Rivet (2002), Le Maghreb à l’épreuve de la colonisation, Paris: Hachette.
6. I write Islam with a capital I to indicate both orthodox Islam taught and lived by believers as the only ‘true religion’ and the Islam ideologized and instrumentalized by militant fundamentalists; islam with a small I refers to the various historical and socio-cultural expressions of islamic belief as they are defended by the many theological/legal schools that have arisen in changing islamic environments.
7. Alain De Libéra (1991), Penser au Moyen-Age, Paris: Seuil.
8. The title of a book by Benjamin R. Barber (1995), New York: Times Books, which I analysed in ‘L’islam actuel devant sa Tradition et la mondialisation’, in M. Kilani (ed.) (1997), Islam et changement social, Lausanne: Payot.
9. Which I have adopted since I wrote my thesis in the 1960s on L’Humanisme arabe au IVe-Xe siècle.
10. See Jean De Munck (1999), L’Institution sociale de l’esprit, Paris: PUF.
11. Title of a book by Michel Meslin.
12. This is the whole import of my Critique de la raison islamique, taken further in my The Unthought in Contemporary Thought.
13. I deal with this aporia at greater length in my Combats pour l’humanisme en contextes islamiques, the chapter on teaching the facts of religion.
14. See the Letter from America signed in February 2002 by around 60 American intellectuals to legitimize the ‘just war’ against terrorism.
15. For further details on the distinction outlined here, I refer readers to my book (1999) in Arabic Al-fikr al-Usûlî wa-stihâlat al-Ta’sîl, Beirut. I intend to publish the French version of this book under the title Critique de la raison juridique dans la pensée islamique.
16. J. Gray (2002), Straw Dogs, London: Granta.
17. (2002), What Went Wrong? Western Impact and Middle Eastern Response, Oxford/New York: Oxford University Press. French translation by Jacqueline Carnaud (2002), Que s’est-il passé?, Paris: Gallimard.
18. See my The Unthought cited above.
19. Israël Finkelstein and Neil Asher Silberman (2002), La Bible dévoilée. Les nouvelles révélations de l’archéologie, Paris: Bayard.
20. Gilles Kepel (2000), Jihad. Expansion et déclin de l’islamisme, Paris: Gallimard.
21. See the alert, incisive and very subtle book by R. Stephen Humphreys (1999), Between Memory and Desire. The Middle East in a Troubled Age, Berkeley: University of California Press. The poetical charge and psycho-historical relevance of the title should be noted.
22. See Jocelyne Dakhliya (1998), Le Divan des princes: Le politique et le religieux dans l’islam, Paris: Aubier.
23. I use this unfamiliar terminology to suggest the accumulation of imaginary representations in the words islam, East, Christianity, Judeo-Christianity, Europe, West, when used separately as catch-all expressions. Each time the quotation marks point to the need to rethink so many legacies, collective memories, interpretations and imaginary representations that continue to feed mutual exclusions, reproaches, emotional rejections ending in recurring bi- or multilateral wars. I am thinking of the conflicts between Algeria/France, India/UK, Morocco/Spain and France, Greece/Turkey, Tajikistan and Chechnya/Russia, etc. There is here an ancient historical dispute whose tensions form a solid basis for the construction of historical consciousness offering redemption and solidarity for the future.