It is perhaps the complexity of this question of identity that has coloured Rabbi Blue’s liberal approach to religion and politics ever since. ‘Ghettoised’ as a Jew and then as a homosexual, Lionel flirted with a seemingly alphabetical array of ideologies, from Anarchism to Zionism before settling down to a long-term relationship with Reform Judaism. Politically, he now appears to hold the deepest respect for a sensible pragmatism and, above all, the virtues of what he calls ‘an open society’.

‘I would never go back to the closed society of my childhood,’ he tells me. ‘There’s a lot of love in it, but it’s much too restricting.’ Born into a London ghetto of the 1930’s, Lionel has seen first-hand how nationalisms can galvanize a people for nefarious ends. He recalls marching against the black shirts of Oswald Mosley as a youngster with fondness, and maintains a healthy disrespect for ‘flags and passports.’ ‘There is a great difference between being patriotic and being [a] nationalist,’ he explains.

Yet Lionel also notes in his autobiography that it was the Blitz that ‘blew together’ London’s Jewish and Irish communities. Is war more unifying than peace, I ask. The Rabbi stalls for a few moments and then defers. ‘I can’t answer that question,’ he says. ‘I can only tell you about the wars I’ve known… [The Blitz] was the first time in my memory that the ghettos we all lived in had really been broken. After that I could never go back to a straightforward ghetto again… It was a very defining experience for me.’

If Lionel has spent a lifetime trying to avoid the narrowness of the ghetto, it has not always been within the context of a welcoming society outside. Just this year, the European Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia published a report they had commissioned entitled, ‘Manifestations of anti-Semitism in the European Union’. Its findings were disturbing, showing an increase in anti-Semitic activities in EU member states since the escalation of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in 2000.
Does Lionel agree that the current wave of anti-Semitism has been gaining oxygen from accusations made against the State of Israel? ‘Yes it has, though I’m no lover of the Israeli government and its policies,’ he says, citing the problem of Palestinian refugees by way of example. For Rabbi Blue there is also an economic dimension to anti-Semitism. ‘People are usually generous when the cake gets bigger,’ he explains, ‘So in times of prosperity, they’re not anti-Semitic.’ This makes him especially worried about the situation in Eastern Europe, where, he says, ‘although nearly all of the Jews have been killed, the anti-Jewish feeling still remains. You don’t need Jews to have anti-Semitism. In fact, the presence of Jews is inconvenient, because myths flourish better when there is no living contradiction to them.’

It occurs to me that if Jews are now being targeted because they are seen as somehow connected to the actions of the Israeli government, their victimisation is mirrored by the Islamaphobic practice of attacking ordinary Muslims following outrages committed in the name of Islam. I ask how Lionel feels about the politicisation of religion. ‘When you mix politics with religion it’s a lethal cocktail,’ he says, ‘Religion hasn’t yet learnt how to deal with power. It becomes corrupted with power.’

Is it important to him that the Prime Minister has faith? ‘Yes,’ he replies, ‘But whether it will do him any good, I don’t know, because it depends on how he deals with the business of politics. On the whole, I prefer pragmatic Prime Ministers, with their own faith, who keep their politics one step away from religion.’

So, perhaps this comes down to a question of priorities. ‘Grandpa taught me not to be exclusive about Judaism,’ writes the Rabbi in his autobiography, ‘More fundamental than being a Jew was being a human being’. At a time when religious, ethnic and national conflicts are dominating the headlines, it is a worthy lesson from which all of us could learn.

Lionel Blue’s autobiography, Hitchhiking to Heaven is published by Hodder & Stoughton and will be released in hardback on 21 October. The paperback will follow in May 2005.

In an effort to increase dialogue and understanding between Jews and Muslims worldwide, interns – who aged between 15 and 21 – were asked to contribute a minimum of fifty photographs related to the religious and communal lives of the Muslim and Jewish communities around them. Some 1800 photographs later, the website www.children-of-abraham.org now boasts photographic essays featuring work produced in thirty-nine different countries across six continents.

As Ari explains, the job of the coordinators was to collate the best photographs into thematic groups that emphasised the commonalities of the two faiths through presentations of parallel imagery. The intention was to ‘capture visually the similarities between these two faiths that are often seen as mutually suspicious, maybe even hateful, and certainly ignorant of one another.’

An experienced dialogue leader, Ari holds a Masters degree in Comparative Ethnic Conflict from the University of Belfast and recently received an MPhil in Modern Middle Eastern Studies from Oxford University, yet he sees the visual component of this project to be one of its greatest strengths. ‘The beauty of doing a photo essay online is its simplicity and power,’ he says, ‘The average person in the world is a lot more affected by an image than they are by a chapter in a book or by an article.’
Maria, who is currently completing an MA in Development Project Management at Manchester University, concurs. She suggests that the advantage of using photography lies in its ability to generate images that ‘your identity resonates with,’ and hopes that the photo essays will prompt viewers to take note of the ‘atavistic commonalities’ between Islam and Judaism.

Surfing the website’s photographs, the visual parallels between the two faiths are immediately recognisable. The section on prayer, for example, juxtaposes images of Muslims in prostration with those of Jews adopting similar positions of supplication. ‘We’re trying to give viewers the sense that there are core similarities between Islam and Judaism,’ says Ari, ‘And those core similarities unite us far more than they divide us.’

In addition to contributing photographs to the project, the interns were asked to take part in discussions by posting messages on the public forums of the website. Over the course of the two months, participants posted almost 3000 messages, discussing their views on a wide variety of topics that ranged from the role of women in Islam and Judaism to the wonders of Qawaali music, to the controversies of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. There was even an extended debate over the existence of God.

Although Ari and Maria supervised the discussions taking place, they describe their role as simply discussion ‘facilitators’. For Maria, who has a background in campaigning for student-centred approaches to education in the Middle East, the relative autonomy provided to the participants was an important feature of the project. ‘Much of Children of Abraham has been about creating a space for our interns to perform without actively trying to teach them,’ she says. ‘Much of it has been about empowering them to discover; to teach and to learn from each other, rather than leading them on a predetermined course.’

Were there not times when the controversial subject matter the interns discussed became too heated? ‘When the interns started discussing controversial topics, we expected it to become explosive and difficult,’ admits Maria, ‘But the generosity and tolerance that these young people demonstrated unfailingly has blown us away.’

It is a tolerance Maria is well placed to appreciate. Although currently resident in London, Maria was brought up partly in Abu Dhabi where practical and social limitations prevented her from holding discussions with Jewish peers. ‘I grew up in an environment where you did not have Jewish friends,’ she says, ‘You had zero contact with Jews. To a lot of people you would be considered the ultimate traitor to even think about talking to anyone Jewish.’

It is such narrow-minded prejudice that Children of Abraham seeks to redress by providing a safe forum for discussion and by stressing the commonalities between Islam and Judaism. As Ari explains, ‘In this day and age – both in terms of the supposed clash between Islam and the West and in terms of the way in which the Arab-Israeli conflict tends to polarise Muslims and Jews as supporters of one side or the other, this sort of project is a very powerful reminder that when it comes to the faiths themselves, the ritual practices, sights and sounds of these religions are very similar.’

The high state of tension that exists globally in Muslim and Jewish communities was evidenced by the experiences of those taking part in the project itself. One (Muslim) intern in the USA returned to her car after taking photographs at a local mosque to find her vehicle daubed in threatening graffiti that accused her of being a ‘Muslim hater’. Other (non-Jewish) interns, especially those based in Europe and South America, reportedly found it difficult to gain access to synagogues and other Jewish buildings because of tight security restrictions.

Yet the profound success of the project’s summer internship programme is ably demonstrated by the high praise the interns expressed for their experience. Many say that they have not only learnt a great deal about another religion but that the experience has taught them a lot about their own faith as well. Although the internship has now drawn to a close, many interns have opted to continue discussions with one another, exchanging email addresses and vowing to continue visiting the message boards. At least one participant now intends to start a Muslim-Jewish dialogue group at her high school in Georgia, USA. Others have called for a Children of Abraham Foundation to be established to ensure that participants remain in touch and continue to engage in dialogue with one another, and others.

Children of Abraham has recently secured funding to spend the months from September to November exploring the possible ways in which the project can now grow and build on its success. Possibilities include the establishment of a roaming art exhibition of the participants’ photographs, several sets of which could be touring simultaneously. As Ari explains, nothing has been ruled out. ‘We’re very open to any number of things that might happen that will change Children of Abraham from a two month summer project into something that’s a much larger organisation… What we’re assuming we have is the kernel of something that might catch a lot of interest.’

For Maria, the key to the project’s success lies in the dynamism of the youth involved. ‘The minute you get young people involved who haven’t been taught to be cynical and haven’t been taught to be angry with the world, and haven’t been taught to shut doors yet, it’s crazy. You can’t predict before they turn up just how fast things are going to pick up; just how many ideas are going to be plugged into the project from directions you hadn’t expected.’

Ari and Maria will now be focussing their attention on exploring these new directions. From its humble beginning as a summer project run out of a rented apartment in Brooklyn, Children of Abraham could yet snowball into a worldwide mass-movement for dialogue and understanding.

To view the project’s photo essays and discussion forums, visit: www.children-of-abraham.org

Multiculturalism, as I argued in my book The A to Z of Postmodern Life, is essentially about two things. First, it is an issue of power in all its aspects. The fear of many right wing critics is totally justified: multiculturalism is all about subverting the power of western civilisation. This was obvious from the moment multiculturalism became a movement in America. That crucial moment occurred in 1987 at Stanford University when Reverend Jesse Jackson led a march by about 500 students chanting ‘Hey hey, ho ho, Western Culture’s got to go’. The students were referring to a specific course and seeking its replacement with one that stressed the cultural accomplishments of women and ethnic minorities. I wouldn’t say that Western culture per se has to go but its power to define what it is to be human, different, rational or ethnic, what is valuable, worthwhile, successful and proper, certainly has to go.

Second, multiculturalism is all about transformation. Here we are not just talking about transforming the poor inner city blacks and Asians by providing them with economic and educational opportunities. But also of transforming Western society itself so we move from the irrational premise that ‘they’ – all the ethnic others – see the errors of their ways and become more like ‘us’ to the humane idea that Western culture is as deeply flawed as all other human cultures. Multiculturalism does not require more commitment to liberal values in Western societies. Rather, it requires a transformation of liberal values to more inclusive forms. It demands that ‘we’ change as much as ‘they’.

2) In Why Do People Hate America? you argue that, ‘For America, the multicultural debate seems like a fight for survival, and that’s the essence of the problem.’ Do you believe the UK views multiculturalism any differently?

America sees multiculturalism in terms of survival because its very purpose is to undermine Western civilisation in general and the power of the ruling white male elite in particular. Like America, we in Britain are too obsessed with celebrating difference – festivals, ethnic art and different varieties of food: that kind of thing. What we really need to do is to create space for difference to exist as difference. Which brings us back to the issues of power and transformation.

3) As a post-colonial studies professor, are you concerned that the field may be rendered obsolete by American expansionism?

No. It makes the field even more important. Postcolonial discourse has to expand from analysing how the historical fact of European colonialism continues to shape the relationship between West and non-West to incorporate how American expansionism now shapes a new neo-colonial relationship between America and the rest of the world. The process of resisting both Western hegemony and American expansionism must now be described and evaluated even more vigorously. And the experience of suppression, resistance, difference, displacement in relation to both the master narratives of the West and the new hyper-imperialism of America has to be explored with keener determination. We need to discover new and innovative ways of preventing the world from being totally rendered into the image of America. And postcolonial studies, with all their shortcomings, are one way amongst many of resisting American expansionism.

4) The US and Britain claim to be liberating Iraq. Do you think there is a possibility that the end of this conflict could herald a new era of stability, democracy and freedom in the Middle East?

I don’t think democracy can be imposed. It has to have indigenous roots and different peoples in different countries must find their own way to establish democracy. US and Britain have rid Iraq of Saddam; they have not established stability and democracy. Worse, the Americans are now planning to introduce a new kind of imperialism in Iraq by handing all the reconstruction contracts to US multinationals. So one day the Iraqis will wake up to find that they are buying their electricity, gas, communication services, even their water from American corporations. I doubt they will see this as freedom. Imposing a pro-American regime in Baghdad does not amount to giving the Iraqis freedom either.

This is exactly the kind of imposition that the world hates. The world hates the uses and abuses of American power. Not least American insistence on imposing its vision of freedom as a non negotiable, one size fits all, irrespective of condition and circumstance. America is entitled to its freedoms. People everywhere tend to seek ‘life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness’ as the American Declaration of Independence terms its central values. The problem is the rest of the world reserves the right to define and determine the content and form of these values according to its own history and culture and most serious of all often finds American power and influence a practical obstacle to attain them in their own terms in their own countries.
A new era of stability, democracy and freedom may come to Middle East if the US leaves without delay and lets the Iraqi people form the kind of government they actually want. The Iraqis are amongst the most educated and sophisticated people in the Middle East. An accountable and representative government in Iraq would have a strong influence in the region. And can usher in much needed changes in the Middle East.

5) Much of your argument about why people hate America balances on the unpopular foreign policies of the country. Given the prominent support the UK has provided for US military action in Iraq, do you think it is only a matter of time before somebody writes a ‘Why Do People Hate Britain?’

I am afraid it is already happening. As we saw with the recent demonstrations in Athens, during the EU Summit, anti-Britain slogans are becoming as common as anti-American slogans. Britain needs to distance itself from the US; particularly the current administration dominated by neo-conservative imperialists. Otherwise, people around the world will find it increasingly difficult to distinguish between US and British foreign policies.

6) You have suggested that, ‘[T]here are many Americas,’ and wonder, ‘Can one America see the other America?’ Which America do you think is strongest in the perception of Americans today?

There are indeed many Americas. The vision of George Bush contrasts sharply with, say, the vision of Noam Chomsky. Seattle, to give another example, is a radical city that totally rejects the neo-conservative notion of America that is so deeply endorsed by a city like Houston.
There are equally significant differences between the Republicans and the Democrats. But US media does not reflect this diversity of America. Judging from what one sees on US television, or hears on mainstream radio stations, or reads in the newspapers, the dominant perception of Americans today is that we are right, virtuous and innocent people and with the help of God and History and our Military Might we will impose our will on the rest of the world. But there are also deep currents of a different America: and the humane and critical voices of this America are seldom heard within the US. I think this is a growing tendency – and it consists of all those people who did not vote (around 50% of the American population) or did not vote for Bush (around 26%). I am waiting for this America to stand up and transform America from the inside.

7) Were you not concerned, in writing Why Do People Hate America? that you were projecting upon the United States precisely the sort of outsider’s analysis that Orientalists have been so heavily criticised for in their assessments of foreign cultures?

Demonisation is wrong – whether of Islam or of America. Orientalism treats Islam as a monolith; and does not distinguish between different varieties of Islam and different kinds of Muslims. We consciously and constantly distinguish between Americans and America, and different kinds of Americas. Moreover, we make it clear that the world-wide hatred of America is directed towards the coalition of American corporate, political and military interests; and a kind of globalisation that makes American culture the norm for the rest of the world.

It is worth noting that it is not anti-American to disagree with America. Criticism, anti Americanism or even hatred of American power, its use and abuse, are not one monolith. The range of reaction to America arises from different circumstances, the detail of different American interactions in different parts of the world. However, there are underlying connections between these reactions to America, they share common traits because there are common threads in American policy, in American attitudes and outlook in its various interactions with the rest of the world.

Moreover, anti-Americanism is not an emotional reaction. It grows from substantive issues, acts of commission and omission, things America has done that cause harm, devastation and difficulty around the world. Its foreign policy has operated overtly and covertly to bring to power authoritarian regimes that abuse human rights. It is ironic that Chile was one of the swing votes on the Security Council. In 1973 America conspired to overthrow a democratically elected government in Chile and bring to power the Pinochet military junta notorious for murder, torture and abuse of human rights. It supported Suharto’s regime in Indonesia for 30 years, trained his army which was the central institution of the state oppressing and suppressing Indonesian democratic movements. The list is long, including selling chemical weapons to Saddam Hussein and supporting him as the lesser of two evils during the Iran-Iraq war. American foreign policy is framed to follow and support American economic interests which are global. America earns its wealth and affluence from its engagement with the rest of the world and acts to protect both its profits and its ideological economic predilections everywhere. American influence at the IMF has urged narrow, one size fits all policies of privatisation, liberalisation of financial and trade flows that have impoverished many Third World countries, devastated their social welfare gains and resulted in large sections of their economies being bought up by multinational and American corporations. By these policies American elites get rich from the poverty of the poorest. Anti-American feeling rises as poverty and lack of economic autonomy increases.

Why Do People Hate America? explains why people actually do hate America; it does not argue that they should. Indeed, we wrote the book because we believe hate is the worst basis for human relationships and it must be overcome by debate and dialogue. We wrote the book to argue with America’s monolithic simplistic view of the rest of the world. Therefore, we quote American critics of American policy throughout our book, because it is important not to reduce America to a simplistic monolith.

8) Do you still maintain that the West is ‘culturally, morally and intellectually bankrupt?’

I do. A worldview that assumes it is the yardstick for measuring all other cultures, and insists that all other cultures, to be judged as ‘civilised’, must conform to its dictates is, by definition, bankrupt. Such a perspective on humanity cannot conceive that there can be other, different, ways of being human. I believe that there are numerous ways of being human; and the Western way of being human is only one amongst many. Because the Western civilisation is the dominant civilisation we automatically assume that this dominant way is the only way and the right way to be human. By suppressing other ways of being human we do not allow other, different ideas, notions, concepts, to come to the fore. I think that radically new ideas will come from Other cultures – once we have created enough space for them to exist as Other cultures and flower.

9) Does not your own ability to partake in cultural, moral and intellectual debates and discussion – indeed to have such an influence on their course – counter that argument?

Where does that leave me? Somewhere between Western and Islamic cultures struggling to create new ideas from a synthesis of the two worldviews and trying to transcend the limitations of both. My own position is not a counter argument but an illustration that new ideas, as well as new forms of criticism, emerge from different perspectives on humanity. Those who have read Islam, Postmodernism and Other Futures: A Ziauddin Sardar Reader would have realised that my work aims at persuading the West to move forward from its current impasse and bankruptcy to recognise, appreciate and explore other ways of knowing, being and doing and different ways of being human.

10) Finally, as a futurist, are you optimistic about our abilities to avoid Samuel P. Huntingdon’s ‘Clash of Civilisations’ and instigate a ‘Dialogue of Civilisations’ in its stead?

The first thing to note is that the Clash of Civilisations thesis is essentially a theory of hate. It focuses on the antagonistic history of Islam and the West and projects it into the future. There is, of course, also a great history of collaboration, exchange, enrichment and mutual cooperation between Islam and the West. Islamic Spain would be a good example of this. Why do we insist on sweeping that history aside as though it was totally irrelevant to contemporary times?

But a clash requires at least two civilisations. Given the current state of the Muslim world, Islam can hardly be described as a civilisation. Contemporary Islam consists of nothing more than a string of fragmented and disenfranchised states, mired in despotism and dependency. Civilisations are shaped by coherent worldviews, consistent social and political organisations, and a reasonably articulated set of norms and values – elements that are conspicuous by their absence in Muslim societies. Moreover, the clashing civilisations have to be quite distinct. In the contemporary globalised world, nothing is distinct. Western civilisation, if it still has some kind of unique identity, is integrated and enmeshed with the rest of the world. There are as many Muslims in the West as there are in many Muslim countries. A genuine clash of civilisations is thus rather impossible. The only clash that is actually possible is between American hyper-imperialism and the rest of the world.

As a futurist, I have always argued for, and worked towards, multi-civilisational, and multi-cultural futures. I am not an optimist; I do not think that things will simply get better; that we would end up – somewhat magically – towards a pluralist world of diversity and different ways of being human. But I am hopeful. Hope is the belief that we can all work together, and through dialogue and real effort, we can shape the kind of futures we desire. Optimism is passive; and does not require effort or courage. Hope is active: it insists on cooperation, dialogue, work and compromise; and is therefore ultimately a courageous stance. Yes, I am hopeful that we can work together to instigate a dialogue of civilisations and cultures that leads to a fair and just world for all.

Why Do People Hate America? is published by Icon Books.
Islam, Postmodernism and Other Futures: A Ziauddin Sardar Reader is published by Pluto Press.

It is now four years since Denis resigned in protest of the sanctions – leaving both his post as Humanitarian Coordinator in Iraq, and the UN itself – an organisation he had served for some 34 years. At the time of his resignation, Denis was at pains to speak out against the 4000 – 5000 ‘unnecessary’ deaths of children he said occurred on a monthly basis as a result of the sanctions. In our discussion today, Denis has lost none of his outrage at what he views to be the injustice of UN policies. Indeed, his scorn for the United Nations Special Commission – the department originally in charge of over-seeing Iraq’s disarmament – is also evident:

‘There’s a great success story there in terms of destruction by UNSCOM,’ he tells me. ‘Every conceivable manufacturing capacity in Iraq that could be remotely linked to chemical or biological weapon preparations – and that means milk plants, baby food, food storage & refrigeration plants, manufacturing devices for pharmaceuticals, insecticides, pesticides, all of these fertiliser plants…they were all destroyed – irreparably destroyed.’

The destruction of pharmaceutical facilities and the stringent restrictions on medical imports have certainly taken their toll on Iraqi society, with many Iraqis forced to rely on handouts from donors and the black market. ‘I myself smuggled in drugs for a child who needs leukaemia treatment only last week,’ Denis voluntarily admits.

It is, I suspect, precisely this sort of brazen honesty and unflinching commitment to humanitarian concerns that brought Denis’s work to the attention of the Ghandi Foundation. The night before our interview, he had arrived in London to accept their International Peace Prize. It sits – a bronze, miniature Mahatma – on a nearby coffee table.

I ask Denis if he feels optimistic about the prospects for peace in the coming weeks and months.

With the calm, measured cadence of a veteran diplomat, he rails against George Bush and Tony Blair – suggesting that both leaders take a ‘messianic, simplistic’ approach to world affairs that is ‘as frightening as Mr Bin Laden’s.’
‘I think the secret – if there is one left – is public opinion. And I think public opinion in the US is changing… They’ve seen the difference between Bush’s approach to North Korea, where there are nuclear weapons and they were ready for talks and dialogue, and [their approach to] Iraq where we’ve got this obsession with going to war. I think Americans are asking themselves: “Why should my son or daughter be killed in a war against Iraq without justification? If it’s all about cheap oil at the pump, that’s not a justification.”’

I put it to Denis Halliday that Iraq’s co-operation with weapons inspectors has been criticised in recent reports from Mohamed El Baradei and Hans Blix, but he remains unfazed. ‘[El Baradei] has given Iraq just about a clean bill of health on the nuclear front – which frankly, for most of us, is the only serious weapon of mass destruction. Chemical and biological weapons – unless they’re weaponised, and they’re already loaded, and the Iraqis have capacity for delivery – are not weapons per se. And people like Scott Ritter will tell you there’s no capacity for delivery in Iraq.’

Like Scott Ritter, Denis Halliday’s experience, credibility and outspoken criticism have combined to make him one of the celebrated voices of dissent – and a thorn in the side of Washington’s hawks. Having just returned from touring the Middle East, Denis says he never came across anyone who felt threatened by Iraq, dismissing the suggestion as ‘propaganda from Washington.’ White House assertions that Baghdad has connections to Al-Qaeda he considers risible: ‘Those of us who know Iraq and the Middle East, know perfectly well that secular Iraq and secular Saddam Hussein is totally anathema to Al-Qaeda; totally incompatible with Bin Laden and the Al-Qaeda movement. Some of us remember that Bin Laden went to the Saudi monarchy in 1990, and asked them to pay him enough money to put together an army of 100,000 to drive Iraq out of Kuwait himself. So I don’t think there is any collaboration there at all.’

Is there not a danger that in arguing against an invasion, in over-stressing the sovereignty of Iraq, we are frustrating the human rights of the very Iraqis whose welfare we claim to have at heart?

‘There are many issues in that question. You talk about human rights. We in the West, and the “Human Rights industry”, as I call it, are focused almost entirely on civil and political rights. There’s no question that the Iraqis have lost many of their civil and political rights. In fact they never had them; they’ve never been in an environment that really encouraged that. But the fundamental human rights – articles 23 through 27, and that’s healthcare, education, housing, employment, privacy of the family, the rights of the child – life itself; we, the United Nations – nobody else – have destroyed those rights of the Iraqi people.

‘The fact is that there are many Iraqis who have reservations about the Ba’ath Party and Saddam Hussein. Thanks to Mr Bush, and thanks to sanctions, and Mr Clinton, and Thatcher and Blair, we have made Saddam Hussein stronger. We’ve given him extra power through the Oil for Food [programme] which ensures every Iraqi is now dependent on the Government. And by threatening him with assassination and removal, by threatening his country with an invasion, the Americans and the British together have made Saddam Hussein a very popular figure in his own country. The people have rallied around him, as people rallied around Bush after 9-11. And they’ve made him into a hero throughout the entire Middle East. He’s the only Arab leader who has shown this courage to thumb his nose at the United States, which is seen in the Middle East as an aggressive, empire-building, neo-colonial regime, [that is] there to re-map the Middle East, having purchased most of the Arab leaders already.’
Is that a fair assessment, in his opinion?

‘Absolutely fair….This is seen as a new Crusade. We know the first Crusades were not about Christianity, they were about greed and booty and wealth and land. The new one is about the same thing – booty and riches – except this time it’s oil.’

Denis appears acutely aware of the way Western foreign policies in Iraq are affecting the younger people in the country. The youth, he says, are ‘angry, isolated, hopeless and depressed.’ I ask him whether a post-Saddam Iraq might help to combat that.

‘A post-Saddam Iraq would help, providing Iraq is an independent country, with its dignity and honour intact, its revenue intact, its economy restored, and a new outlook on the world as [being] surrounded by friends, not enemies, confident that they could deal with the West and the United States. That would certainly change things. But if the new Iraq is going to be again isolated, and sanctions are going to be sustained, and aggression against Iraqis is going to be felt, we’ll turn these young men and women into the same angry people we now have running the country. They’re not going to give up their national sovereignty and their dignity and their patriotism.’
To Denis, the problems over Iraq are part of a wider issue he takes with the design of the UN Security Council. Unimpressed by a council that reflects the geo-politics of 1945, Denis believes that since the end of the Cold War, the Security Council has been manipulated by the one remaining ‘hyperpower’. ‘As Clinton and Albright will tell you, and have said many, many times, the UN is there to serve the vested interests of American foreign policy.’ Does he have a vision for a remodelled Security Council?

‘What I have talked about is that we should perhaps keep permanent seats, but allocate them differently. Latin America should have a permanent seat, as should Sub-Sahara Africa, North Africa & the Middle East, South Asia, South East Asia – you can visualise a new framework whereby the South would have real influence in the decision making of the Security Council. Currently, the permanent seats are all North – and that includes China. Beyond that, I would like to try to phase out veto power, which is clearly undemocratic and improper.’ For Denis, this is not merely academic idealism, but a change he believes is essential to preserve the credibility of the UN itself: ‘I think nowadays, worldwide, most people judge the UN by the work of the Security Council, which is unfortunate because good work is going on every day all over the world.’

Mindful of the current divisions emerging in the Security Council over Iraq, I have to ask if he believes students have a role to play in opposing an attack. Denis seizes upon the question immediately, relating his admiration for the Indonesian students who led the struggle against the dictatorship of President Suharto. ‘You should never underestimate student power,’ he says, ‘It’s a reality.’