Adbusters #95 May/June 2011 19(3)

I just recently purchased the current issue of Adbusters magazine; it is titled "Post West", and subtitled "the philosophy issue".

I found a fantastically insightful (well, to me, at least) passage by Jacques Waardenberg, from "Reflections on the West" which is a chapter in Islamic Thought in the Twentieth Century:

Today the West stands for a disintegrating society in which egoism and human solitude prevail. It is the land of the loss of mind, where materialism reigns and where people are imprisoned by their desire for goods and money. It is the land of the loss of soul, where a secular way of life dominates, and people drift without deeper norms and higher values. It is the land of the loss of true feelings, where changing appetites are the norm, and people fall victim to desire and lust. It is the land of the loss of human dignity, with a value system based on economics, and where people aggressively exploit each other. Finally, it is the land of metaphysical alienation and loss of God, with man-made idols and people who have no relationship to Being, nature, history and each other. This barbarian West is seen as not only destructive to itself, with violence flaring in bitter economic, social and political conflicts, but also as a real danger for the rest of the world, and especially the Muslim part of it. (emphasis mine)

Another passage, uncredited (and so thus editorial?) is the following:

Instrumental rationality - the calculation of the most efficient options for achieving a given desire - has overwhelmed Western thinking over the past 300 years, generating a cold, empirical, calculating mindset.

The problem lies in the Western process of thinking - how we 'think about thinking'

There are several more excellent passages floating on a sea of disturbing images (e.g. Jessica Simpson peeling off a pair of camouflage shorts to reveal a 'Stars & Stripes' string bikini, with a wad of chewed bubble gum stuck over one eye) which suggest just how insane the Western world has become in the eyes of the rest of the cultures on this planet. I've just barely begun reading the articles, and already I'm both terrified at Western hubris and its inevitable fall, and encouraged by the small acts of resistance to Western hegemony that are reported in the pages of this excellent publication.

I feel vindicated for my (unpopular) interpretation of Western society's celebration of the killing of Osama bin Laden, for my desire for my culture to consider the reaction of other cultures, mostly Muslim peoples, but also other peoples (I'd love to see a sovereignist Indigenous perspective!) before creating YouTube videos such as the one included in my last post.

I love the editorial statement that acknowledges "we are embarking on an era of "contested modernity," one in which Western nations no longer impose their own values on the world at large." I just hope the West wakes up to this fact soon!

on the killing of an Islamist extremist

Why are people so happy about this?!

Or am I the crazy one because I do not believe an eye for an eye is the way to operate in the era of universal human rights? Did we learn nothing from the Holocaust? Are we really content to spread HATE and malice around the world?

I read a fascinating post online through a facebook friend. It was a speech from a fundraising event, spoken by Chris Hedges, who won a Pulitzer Prize for his coverage of al-Quaida for the New York Times. This writer stated he knows al-Quaida intimately, and he is terrified by this organization... even more so now that bin Laden has been killed. Hedges stated bin Laden had absolutely no operational role in al-Quaida, and killing him will not stop this organization.

Yet so many are jubilant. So many feel this is an end to al-Quaida.
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Also on facebook, I have seen the following posted over and over and over:

"I mourn the loss of thousands of precious lives, but I will not rejoice in the death of one, not even an enemy. Returning hate for hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that." - Martin Luther King, Jr.

Thank goodness for compassion!

on the federal election

I am somewhat alarmed for the country with a Stephen Harper conservative majority. Although voting 4 times in 7 years is as frustrating as many journalists have recently suggested, I'd gladly do it every year if it meant avoiding a neo-liberal majority.

I have grave concerns for the environment, especially oil tankers off the BC coast, the AB tar sands, and most importantly, the health of wild BC salmon while farmed salmon remain in our oceans (I have lived very near to these net pens and I have seen the damage they cause first hand).

I am also lead to believe that women's rights and reproductive freedoms may be at risk?! Further, the same sources suggest gay marriage is similarly at risk?! Some sources say Harper won't legislate anything specifically regarding either issue, rather, he will appoint ultra-conservative judges who will attempt to affect these matters. Other concerns include dismantling the CBC, privatized health care or slashing public services to pay for corporate tax cuts.


I also have concerns for the demise of the Liberal and the Bloc Québécois, as suggested by these two articles. Although I am pleased for both the Green party on electing their first MP, and for the NDP on becoming the Official Opposition for the first time, I worry that neither now has any effective power (my sources were the elections coverage last night on CBC, CTV and CHEK).


However, this was the very first time in all my history of voting in both federal and provincial elections that the candidate for whom I voted was first-past-the-post. This will be the first time in my life that I am represented in my riding by a candidate with similar political and social values. So this is a small personal victory, I suppose... I'm just having a hard time celebrating.