The Level Information Project was conceived to provide a defiantly pro-multicultural platform for students across the country and beyond, to engage in an ongoing debate on what it means to live in an increasingly ‘globalised’ world. As always, the cutting edge of student writing is presented alongside contributions from more established writers and cultural critics. The result is an inspirational cacophony of voices and perspectives – often contradictory, always contentious.

You will find our pages filled with comment and criticism from the world of art, and the world of politics. It is our firm contention that cultures are both formed and informed by a web of artistic and political influences, and that any serious attempt at their extrication is dishonest at worst, futile at best.

If support for multiculturalism is to mean more than travelling abroad or listening to rap records, it is vital we do not flinch from addressing the difficult questions that arise in our contemporary context. The overwhelming number of submissions we received ahead of this, our launch issue, suggests we are supported by a great reservoir of like-minded others.

If multiculturalism is, as Hanif Kureishi suggests, ‘the idea that one might be changed by other ideas’ then the application of this project is infinite. We are only just beginning.

It is true though, I suggest, that there is a certain Gallic ‘allure’ to both Intimacy and The Body, his concept novella of a 65 year-old writer transplanted into the body of a 25 year-old man. Hanif says he doesn’t know why, that he doesn’t even speak the language. He ventures that it might be his enduring interest in philosophy that makes him appear a little continental (although he quickly qualifies this with a very Anglo-Saxon ‘but I’m not a philosopher’). There may be a certain truth in this observation, although I am personally inclined to think it is more his willingness to mix philosophy with sex that makes him appear so exotic to English readers, who are accustomed to their characters thinking and copulating, just not in the same novel.

Hanif has mentioned his interest in philosophers and theorists such as Sartre, Camus and Lacan, and how the work of the latter, the elusive post-structuralist psychoanalyst, has influenced his belief that identity and the self are totally fluid concepts – that they are determined by our relationships with others. If acquiring a new body might change the way others perceive and interact with you, in other words, it will change your self in some ‘essential’ way.

I ask him if he doesn’t believe in the concept of a stable self, and he replies ‘I don’t know anyone who does believe in that these days’. For a ‘multiculturalist’ writer – and we would return to what such a title might mean later in the conversation – this assertion strikes me as insouciantly Western. By ‘Western’, I do not mean the prevailing opinion of the ordinary men and women who live in that hemisphere, but of what Terry Eagleton defines as the ‘historically peculiar situation of a specific wing of the Western left intelligentsia’.

I put it to him that many people believe profoundly in the concept of a stable self, not least of whom are those with religious faith: in the Christian tradition, for example, not only is there such a thing as the ‘soul’, but man’s ‘dignity’ itself derives from the knowledge that he is created in the image of God. I mention that Francis Fukuyama raises this point in his book Our Posthuman Future. Hanif expresses interest in this discussion at the same time as terminating it, when he argues that the The Body is not as postmodern as I am implying (although its subject seems remarkably prescient, in the context of Clonaid’s recently professed ambition to transplant the ‘mind’ of a newly deceased corpse into a cloned, younger model of the same body).

As much as anything, he argues that The Body was influenced by the ‘British fantastic tradition’ of novels such as Frankenstein, as well as Oscar Wilde’s A Portrait of Dorian Gray, which also examines the relationship between sexuality and the ageing body in a secular context. Intriguingly, he adds that many of the ideas behind The Body came to him as a result of working on a script of Dorian Gray which never came to fruition.

Perhaps a glutton for punishment, I drag the conversation back to the continental theory that strikes me as being such a heavy influence on The Body.

The author offers guarded agreement that The Body fits into a Lacanian conception of human beings being driven by urges that can never be fully satiated: the hedonism of the old man once again in a youthful body offers him, as he puts it, no ‘ultimate satisfaction’.

Praise be to God, the Just and the Avenger, and may He bless His messenger Muhammad, and his family and companions, and give them peace.

As the dust of the Twin Towers of New Damascus settles, sons of the city struggle to aid their brothers and to comprehend the extent of the monstrous atrocities which have been inflicted on them. And as we pause Bedouin-poet-like on the ruins of these once-great buildings and decide how to wage our jihad for justice, we cannot but ask ourselves what sick medieval “Crusader” ideology could motivate such a heinous attack not just on New Damascus, but on civilisation as a whole. One thing is for certain and cannot be doubted: that life will never be the same again. And although reprisals against ethnic minorities within the House of Islam are keenly to be discouraged, Christians who live in our society must search their consciences. Either they are with the Muslim Community, or they are against it; the time has come for them to choose.

I do not mean to suggest in what will follow that I am against Christianity in itself. Our religion as well as our Civilisation command respect of this religion, its roots in the teachings of Jesus son of Mary (peace be upon him) and its great past achievements. Nor would I like to say that one culture is superior to another – surely we are past that kind of quibble? But the scourge of our modern day and the plague of our contemporary age and the affliction of our present time is extremism and excess of whatever sort it may be. Faced with Christians dancing in the streets in Hibernia, and angry demonstrations in Byzantium, we must ask ourselves if excess is not endemic to Christendom. Some of the more “sympathetic” Occidentalists have outlined the cultural achievements of Byzantium and Rome, and the purity of visionaries such as St Teresa of al-Andalus. But the way backward thinking appears to recur throughout the House of Christendom would seem to disconfirm that analysis. Far be it from us to gloat, rather we are concerned and anxious, and it is with heavy heart and afflicted liver that we must ask ourselves these questions. Let us start with the foundation of culture in Christendom, the Bible.
From the start, Muslim rulers have been inclined to accommodate different religions inside one polity. God Almighty said, “There is no compulsion in religion,” and “You have your religion, and I have my religion.” Thus despite the many inadequacies of that otherwise so benighted dynasty, the Umayyads never attempted to put Christians, Jews and Zoroastrians to the sword. Christians had important charges in the civil service and played a major part in developing our civilisation. Greek science was encouraged. But Christendom’s attitude to Islam was invariably one of rejection. It was unable to preserve the learning of the Greeks and Byzantines. It burned Jews and “heretics” at the stake. Books which did not conform to the rigorous dogmatism of the priests’ orthodoxy would be cast into the flames, often together with their authors.

The messenger of God (peace be upon him) said: “Live in your earthly life as if you would live forever, and live for your afterlife as if you would die tomorrow.” This reflects a system which was capable of accommodating both elements in an all-inclusive whole. In Christendom, on the other hand, separation of powers never made its appearance. Christian polemicists nowadays, keen to justify their faith before a predominantly Muslim audience, like to insist ad nauseam on how the Jesus of the Gospels “gave to Caesar what belonged to Caesar and to God what belonged to God.” But Early Christians were exclusively preoccupied with their own austere, puritanical and messianic religion, at the expense of any other dimension. It is therefore no wonder that once they obtained power, they were unable to balance it with faith. Christianity did not cover the possibility that a Christian might one day hold office. The Gospel says it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of Heaven. Islam was in its very essence more conducive to trade. The Qur’an tells us to “weigh fairly”; the Jesus of the Gospels overturned the tables in the temple. But this was not an attitude on which a successful state could be founded.

Power in the Islamic community was separated between the Caliphs and Vizirs on the one hand and the community of scholars on the other. In Christendom, it was concentrated in the hands of a Pope who used religion to justify his own petty campaigns, not to mention the viciously backward concept of “Crusade,” or Holy War. I need not say more about the sadly notorious depredations which were to follow. It is not merely an Occidentalist truism to state that “Christendom is not only a faith but also a political programme.” This is certainly true of the extremists who presumably masterminded last Tuesday’s attacks. But Christendom has always oscillated between neglect of the physical world and excessive dilution into it. When the latter has been the case, this fact “has given Christianity extraordinary powers of survival, but at the same time it has always interfered with the capacity of Christians to organise themselves,” as two noted Occidentalists have concluded.

The root cause of all this is in the Bible. The Bible has its moments of spirituality and indeed poetry, but it is by no means free of bloodshed and barbarism. With its numerous translations and corruptions, it was of little use in developing a viable culture. It is perhaps no coincidence that the term “vulgate,” which was used by scholars of Christendom to designate the Latin translation of the Bible, derives from the common European word “vulgar” which means rough or unrefined. The occidental mind has also shown itself to be prone to getting lost within itself in bickering about theology. The same is true of literature. Islam gave us the lively arguments of Jahiz, the witty tales of Hamadani, the verbal acrobatics of Mutanabbi, the lucidity of Ghazali, the poetic profundity of Ibn al-Farid and Rumi. Christendom gave us stale courtly love poems, Dante’s morbid dirge about Hell, and a less than edifying set of tales about Canterbury. Fiction is antithetic to the Occidental mind.

It is no coincidence, then, that the House of Islam was able to start its second flood of expansion. The Mongols and Turks were incorporated into the Community, conquering Eastern Europe and the Mediterranean bit by bit. In Spain, their rivals the Almohads repelled the so-called “re-conquest.” From here Hammal Issa al-Hamama discovered the New World, with all its fabulous riches and untold wealth. As Christendom retired further and further into retrograde papism and pathetic “reformation,” the Orient brought about its Industrial Revolution.

Christian activists may bemoan the situation in certain colonies, but this is surely where the roots of the rage lie. Christendom was never able to reconcile itself to the way the world changed. Disorientated in an age of progress in which it had no part to play, it responded with blind anger. Christendom is “enraged with modernity.” These are the disillusioned serfs that follow a demagogue like the terrorist leader Duke Leo. And it is these people that the vizir Shajara Ibn Shajara must target first in his freshly announced bombing jihad to eliminate terrorism. And may God help us against every harm and protect us against every evil, and may the peace and mercy of God and His blessings be with you.

However, some things have happened to our world over the past thousand years. First, the democratic system has been clogged by the powerful and the ignorant, who are often the same people. The economic system, however amoral, has allowed some people to buy louder opinions. Second, we have created an education system that manages to yield citizens who have no discernable opinions of their own, nor the tools of imagination, inquiry and logic that will allow them to form some.

Now, then, the ‘tyranny of the majority’ has become manifest. Instead of a constant stream of dialogue between people and between groups, we have a partially-elective oligarchy that itself exists only to influence the opinion of a single mind. If that mind is already made up, all dialogue is pointless.

Other opinions are voiced, but even if they are heard the very nature of the system ensures they cannot be heeded. Democracy has switched sides, and instead of being the shield of diversity, it has become the tool of homogenisation. We have a rubbish excuse for democracy, and it is not something to be valued, or fought for.

The politics surrounding the war in Iraq, and the protests against it, illustrate these points—if we have to resort to massive direct action, why have democracy? Our opinions count for nothing, because those who didn’t have an opinion at election time are happy to let the oligarchy think for them now.

What has been forgotten at every level of the debate is that democracy should be more than just voting for a president. ‘Democracy’ in Zimbabwe means just that, and it has created grotesque results. In Iraq we send our brothers and sisters to kill and to die in their thousands, in the name of that same confused ideal. We do not know what we are fighting for, and so our humanity is eroded in the deserts of Arabia.

What is to be done, then? Democracy should be reclaimed. Once again, it should be about engaging in rational, critical and political discourse at every level, not just in Westminster and Washington. Debate should not be run by the national media but by every group of people in the country. The group of souls who label themselves students are not doing this, despite being seeped in the diverse and many subjects they study. This is shameful. Only when democracy has be reclaimed, and real plurality of thought is really considered, can true diversity flourish.

We cannot ask for a simple paradigm shift. Such a change in the way we conduct our lives, our interactions, will take generations. But the seeds must be planted now, for our grandchildren will reap what we sow. This is our project, and with this modest offering it begins.

by Robert Sharp

We can talk about the economic implications of the asylum problem all we like. Critics of the government, and indeed those actually making the decisions, consider only the ‘pull’ factors, the reason people come to this country. They suggest we are a soft touch, that we house them, give them benefits, and this is damaging the economy of this green and pleasant land.

No-one ever stops to consider the ‘push’ factors, the reasons people bother to emigrate in suffocating containers or freezing cargo trains. Why on earth would anyone endure thousands of miles of hunger and abuse to live in an alien place where language, customs and culture are hostile? The reasons are obvious, and many. Widespread poverty, soaring violent crime, economic mismanagement on the part of their own government, stellar inflation, institutional corruption, natural disasters, sub-standard water, zero health-care, zero social security, zero secondary education, low life expectancy, poor civil rights for women, sexual assault, AIDS. And these are in ‘stable’ countries without a civil war.

Why do the selfish anti-immigration campaigners not perceive the wider world? We humans must accept our embarrassing truth, that most countries are shit-holes for most people. Until we, fellow homo sapiens of the West who have won the birth lottery, make serious efforts to help the developing world industrialise, economic migrants will try and get into our country by any method they can. And who can blame them? Who can deny them that essential human trait—of desperately trying to make your life bearable. Would you not do the same?

In the meantime, we have to accept that dealing with immigrants will cream a percentage of our taxes off the top of the Treasury pot. And gee shucks, the trains might well be late, again. That is the price we must pay for living as privileged, Platinum-Plus humans.

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.’

In Israel, you might say, we can’t afford this European luxury. I agree that there is a significant difference between an Ariel Sharon government and one headed by somebody else, anybody else. But then it was clear that Ariel would win by a landslide. Over the past two years the Israeli public has gone through a massive shift to the right. The cycle of violence and counter-violence in the area – without entering into the playground logic of ‘who started’ – is pushing people into a position of fear and confusion, in which any politician who can maintain the illusion that he is doing something will receive public trust. (And by God – who does not exist – Ariel is really good at that. As is Yasser Arafat).

So any fancy about turning the tide right now is exactly that. And what would the alternative be, anyway? The Labour party? Remember, we’re talking about the same bunch that just left a unity government with Ariel, where they were providing a fig-leaf for the atrocities against the occupied Palestinian people. The same Labour who now shows a dovish face with Amram Mitzna (the mayor of Haifa, my home city, who sold our beach to his contractor friends), but would almost certainly revert to its old ways if given power.

OK, so what about building a strong opposition in Parliament? Or putting some people in there who would push social justice legislation? Let’s look at the menu again. Meretz, the left-of-centre party with a good legislative record, but hanging-on to the sham of a ‘Jewish and Democratic State’, peace with Zionism. They could hardly get my vote.

Azmi Bishara’s Balad, at least a non-Zionist party but from a nationalist standpoint, and with no social agenda, scores hardly better. Which left me with Hadash, the only genuine Arab-Jewish party, who’s MK Tamar Gozhansky (removed from their list before the elections) was the champion of social legislation. But this is a party torn between the reconstructed (and not so reconstructed) communists on the one hand – complete with Bolshevik organising, ‘party discipline’ and calling each other ‘comrade’ – and a quasi-nationalist wing resembling Balad on the other. Whichever way you look at it, I would be casting my vote with the right hand, and using the fingers of my left to hold my nose closed. In the end I did vote Hadash, but only as a personal favour to their number-four, my friend Dov Henin.

He didn’t make it. The soldiers’ votes made all the difference.

So were the elections a total waste of my time? Well… er… Yes. But there’s a broader lesson here. Israel or not, we can’t depend on our rulers to provide us with peace, social justice or equality. Their jobs depend on perpetuating the root causes for everything opposite. What we want only becomes reality when we organise for it at the grassroots. When people, not governments, enter into dialogue to solve their conflicts. Like old Mikhail Bakunin once said, ‘If voting could change anything, it would have been outlawed long ago’.

McCarthy isn’t rounding up reds, but the Immigration and Naturalization Services (INS) just arrested and detained hundreds of foreign born men from a list of over twenty countries (mostly from North Africa and the Middle East) on the United States’ ‘axis of evil’ list; many only for minor infractions such as overstays on visitor and student visas.

Starting with the election of President Bush, but catapulted by 9/11 and subsequent legislation (most importantly the PATRIOT ACT), the American government has begun to rewrite the rule books, cracking down on our civil liberties and in turn opening the door for a surge in neo-conservatism across the country.

Here on college campuses we have already felt the effects of this shift to the neo-right. Last September conservative Philadelphia based think tank named the Middle East Forum launched a new website called Campus Watch, with what they termed their intent to ‘monitor’ and ‘critique’ US Middle East university programs ‘with an aim to improving them.’

The site posted dossiers on eight university professors who they claimed had expressed anti-American and anti-Israeli sentiments, setting off a backlash in the academic community. Those listed, along with over 100 professors and graduate students who sent their names into the site in solidarity, immediately labelled the site as a McCarthy-type witch-hunt, and a repression of free speech.

The site’s director is Daniel Pipes, who was dubbed an ‘anti-Arab propagandist’ by The Nation magazine writer Kristine McNeil in her article ‘The War on Academic Freedom.’ Daniel has consistently contributed to racist and xenophobic publications, such as GAMLA’s website (an organization created by Jewish settlers and former Israeli military personnel), which according to Kristine advocates for ‘the ethnic cleansing of every Palestinian as the “only possible solution” to the Arab-Israeli conflict.’ University of California at Santa Cruz Professor of Sociology Paul Lubeck, one of the professors who sent his name in to the list, calls Daniel an ‘Islamophobe.’

While the Middle Eastern Forum website focuses on the broader topic of the Middle East, it is apparent that the site is primarily interested in issues surrounding Israel.

Capitalising on the upsurge in post 9/11 patriotism, Daniel tries to insert Israel into his jingoistic defence of America and its foreign policy in the Middle East. He claims that support for Israel as a democratic ally is important to counteract a new wave of both anti-Semitism and anti-Americanism. As a consequence of these efforts to link American and Israeli interests, Daniel has also succeeded in linking anti-Semitism with anti-Americanism, making it un-American to criticize anything that could be labelled ‘anti-Semitic’ – which to Daniel Pipes sometimes means something as indirect as defence of Palestinian statehood.

As an indication of how post-Dubya/post September 11 policies have affected America, Campus Watch should also raise fear about where we are headed. If George Bush gets his way, and we attack Iraq, America can expect to see even more cutbacks on our civil liberties, more INS roundups, and a continuation of our move to the right. As that happens, people like Daniel Pipes will have more room to manoeuvre.

Concerning Campus Watch, we can be assured that with Ariel’s re-election in Israel there will be no end to the current conflict, and no end to strong Israeli-American ties. Daniel might get his way and the consequences of a project that targets academics might be more extreme, and reach beyond posting professors’ names on a website.

Jacob Schiller is editor of City on a Hill Press at the University of California, Santa Cruz

A recent Japan Times article reports a certain attitude of negativity and despair arising from the retirement of Takanohana, a famous yokozuna (a specially conferred title of ‘grand champion’): it bodes an era when the two supremes of the sport will be a Hawaiian-born and a Mongolian – there is not a Japanese wrestler within a belly’s width to match. And, though the number of foreign-born athletes is a mere 52 out of a current total of 674 active wrestlers (8 %) all of whom are well dispersed amongst the sumo stables, and a major drawing card at tournaments, elements of hurt amongst Japanese, resentment even, are detectable.

So, where is the practice of multiculturalism in this case? Is this attitude a kind of racism, a locked narrow-mindedness that fails to see the value of extending the sport’s veins abroad to gather new followers and grass-root participants? Frequently, the foreign-born athletes live in Japan, speak Japanese, and follow local customs. Ethnically, however, Japan is one of the most exclusive races and societies in the world: people whose parents and grandparents were born in Japan, whose only language is Japanese, still carry a Korean passport which accords them with the nationality of now distant descendants. Surely, if we are to establish a liberal, free-thinking, accepting world, this is a grip to unfasten? Three cheers for cultural diversity?

Perhaps not. In my experience, most Japanese are friendly and welcoming to foreigners. In fact, in juxtaposition to the strains in the sumo-world, the affection some younger Japanese foster can often amount to an obsessive admiration: the metropolitan multitude of Japan dye their hair to look Western, dress to American or European fashions; even in Manga cartoons, the good characters are depicted as wide-eyed, blond-ish youths. Hence, the baddies invariably harbour narrow eyes and dark, austere features. Is that more like multiculturalism? Can that serve as an example of a racial group respecting and tolerating the beliefs of others, even assimilating some into their own culture?

You may think Japan an awkward example. It is a country full of dichotomies, where each generalization sounds foolish and unjust. What I present here, however, is a set of notes and observations, not something to judge immediately either way. To understand the conditions of Japanese culture, or any other for that matter, takes more than reason and logic, and not necessarily a kind of ‘faith’. To be a student-liberal amidst masses of others who are not so acutely touched by job competition, inter-racial friendships and marriages, and cultural conflicts, is only the beginning; to carry the same stances into the ‘normal’ world involves sacrifices and a reappraisal of what it means to belong to a culture, to be a patriot or simply to be an –ish or –ese. Discussing cultural differences and ‘accepting’ other ethnic groups begs for compassion and a more flexible attachment to your own initial values: a kind of transcendence of beliefs themselves; perhaps, even an apathy; certainly more of an abstention, than a strong vote either way.

Each nation has particularities in its customs. Each race has prejudices. Japan seems to be proud of sumo, proud especially of the spiritual element of the contest, the ceremonies, the criterion of hinkaku (composure, dignity, strength of character), and to allow such honour to be invested ‘outside’ is problematic, as the sport’s history has shown. In a modern world, merging financially, racially and intellectually, multiculturalism aspires to show and practice an acceptance of others. What it is often fighting against, however, is tradition – that which has defined people for centuries, allotted them an idea of who they are and who they belong to, with allegiances, customs, and positions in the wider world. Those backing sumo may seem staunch, yet permit some sympathy here – in a Japanese metropolis which is fast losing a Japanese face, it hopes to maintain the heart.

The global media often presents us with the graphic images of mass human rights violations in developing or transition countries – such as ethnic cleansing, war, and torture. These images have led some to argue that the universality of human rights in a global context is nothing more than wishful, Western liberalist thinking. It has even been argued that some cultures are just innately more aggressive than others and we have a duty as Western citizens to show by example that a culturally diverse and dynamic society can equally respect the rights of all its citizens.

There is deep hypocrisy in the arguments. Firstly, the concept of universal human rights is not necessarily a Western ideal. Despite the immense cultural diversity in the world, who can deny that there is an equal worth and dignity of all human beings based on our common humanity? An increasingly influential strand of development theory recognises that respect for human rights is the central pillar of the stable development of any society. Starting with the UN Declaration of Human rights in 1948, a common understanding of human rights and freedoms has been given legal force in international conventions, enshrining principles of the right to human survival, physical security, liberty and development in dignity. Hundreds of states sign up to these principles, even if they are only partially implemented. Development agencies such as UNDP and the World Bank have shifted their approach away from solely economic growth to focus on the individual as a rights holder. This should be given more credit.

Second, as supporters of multiculturalism we should look a little deeper at the impact our own capitalist and democratic system on the rest of the world. Perhaps we should not forget that the legacy of our own development, particularly our colonialist heritage, which has defined the state borders over which some societies with distinct cultural identities dispute so viciously today. Perhaps we should also be more conscious of how global capitalism, which we tacitly accept, can undermine the sustainable development of entire countries. If we are pro-multicultural and believe in the equal rights of other cultures and societies then we might also think about our duties as global citizens. This does not mean we have to join anti-capitalist demonstrations if we do not wish. But it does mean that as global citizens we could do much more to understand and support the international institutions that protect the rights of individuals everywhere and challenge our own international economic and foreign policy when it is in blatant violation of those rights.