For immediate release
Sept. 17, 2001
Second Front in the War on Terrorism:
Curb the Injustices of Globalization
COLLEGE PARK, Md. -- After forceful and unsparing military strikes, the United States must open a second front in the war on terrorism -- attacking the social conditions that allow terrorists to flourish, says Benjamin R. Barber, a University of Maryland political scientist and author of "Jihad Vs. McWorld: How Globalism and Tribalism are Reshaping the World." The weapons used on this second front will be political and civic.
"Terrorism sprouts in the dark, rich soil of globalization," Barber says. "When the injustices and depredations that are the side effects of the global market economy go unchecked, it creates a climate that nourishes terrorists. Unless we address these social concerns, new terrorists will sprout where the old ones have been uprooted."
The answer is to create a more just form of globalization. "If global markets run amuck, we need to democratize and contain them by developing alternative global institutions," he says.
Barber recently joined the Maryland faculty as the Kekst Professor of Civil Society and the University System of Maryland Elkins Professor. He actively participates in the University's expanding Democray Collaborative, an international consortium of more than 20 of the world's leading academic centers and citizen engagement organizations. The collaborative will conduct research and train organizations to build the foundations of democracy in their communities.
"The Democracy Collaborative's ongoing work may also be considered a serious response to terrorism," Barber says. "We want to help weave the strands of global civil society into a more effective force. Like a patchwork quilt, it can help smother the flames of terrorism." An upcoming Barber lecture will elaborate on this idea. "The Second Front in the War on Terrorism: Democratizing Globalism" will be held at 4 p.m. Monday, Sept. 24, at Memorial Chapel, University of Maryland, College Park. The lecture is part of a series presented as a component of the university's Civil Society Initiative.
Barber has written 14 books, including the 1995 international best-seller "Jihad Vs. McWorld," in which he argues that the globalization of economics and culture has weakened democratic institutions, created injustices, and triggered worldwide fundamentalist reactions inside and outside of Islam. His latest, "The Truth of Power: Intellectual Affairs in the Clinton White House," details his six years as an informal adviser to the president. He argues that while intellectuals had a place at the policy-making table in the Clinton administration, they had only limited influence. For example, in one chapter that he calls "Clinton Vs. Jihad Vs. McWorld," Barber says the president understood the need to offset the excesses of globalization, though this concern did not translate into policy action.
Barber has consulted widely with European leaders, including German President Roman Herzog. He recently was named by the French government a Chevalier dans l'Ordre des Palmes Academiques, a Knight in the Order of Academic Laurels. His other honors include Guggenheim and Fulbright Fellowships and the Berlin Prize of the American Academy of Berlin.
