The International Political Thought of Carl Schmitt: Terror, Liberal ...
The International Political Thought of Carl Schmitt: Terror, Liberal ...
The International Political Thought of Carl Schmitt: Terror, Liberal ...
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162 D. Zolo<br />
or may be, shared by all humankind. <strong>The</strong> United States advocates a monotheistic<br />
world view – biblical and fervently Christian in the case <strong>of</strong> President George W.<br />
Bush – in the face <strong>of</strong> the value pluralism and social complexity <strong>of</strong> the world.<br />
While fighting the inhumane and bloody ideology <strong>of</strong> global terrorism, the United<br />
States claims it is waging a ‘humanitarian war’ – hence a ‘just war’ in the classical,<br />
theological and imperial meaning <strong>of</strong> the phrase – against the enemies <strong>of</strong><br />
humankind who deny the universality <strong>of</strong> such values as liberty, democracy,<br />
human rights and the market economy. It is therefore a ‘discriminating’ war in<br />
<strong>Schmitt</strong>’s meaning: a war that makes enemies criminals in order to dehumanise<br />
their image and legitimise perhaps extremely inhumane behaviour against them,<br />
as enemies <strong>of</strong> humankind. Think <strong>of</strong> Guantánamo and the special tribunal which<br />
sentenced Saddam Hussein, Iraq’s former dictator, to death in November 2006.<br />
Conclusion<br />
In my view, if we acknowledge that the United Nations is paralysed and there<br />
are currently no prospects for an effectively binding ‘supranational’ international<br />
law, then we should revalue <strong>Schmitt</strong>’s ‘macro-spatial’ perspective. Of<br />
course, before this kind <strong>of</strong> order can be achieved complex economic, technological,<br />
cultural and religious conditions must be met that make a dialogue<br />
between the world’s major civilisations possible. A united Europe comes to<br />
mind first: a Europe that rediscovers its political autonomy and cultural identity<br />
– its Mediterranean roots, first <strong>of</strong> all – and can start a dialogue across the<br />
Mediterranean and with Arab-Islamic cultures in general. And we cannot but<br />
think <strong>of</strong> China, whose ambition to hold the balance <strong>of</strong> world power over coming<br />
decades is ever more apparent and plausible. Nor should we overlook the strategies<br />
that such countries as Argentina and Brazil are endeavouring to devise in<br />
order to resist the US pan-Americanist attack (in the form <strong>of</strong> the Free Trade<br />
Area <strong>of</strong> the Americas) on the economic and political autonomy <strong>of</strong> the Mercosur<br />
area and the whole <strong>of</strong> Latin America. We should also pay attention to the<br />
processes <strong>of</strong> polarisation <strong>of</strong> African economies and politics around such gravity<br />
centres as Nigeria and South Africa. In this picture the proposal by the current<br />
Brazilian government <strong>of</strong> a strategic alliance between countries such as China,<br />
India, South Africa and Brazil against the economic unilateralism that currently<br />
dominates globalisation processes might be a valuable project. In sum, we<br />
should acknowledge that today there are no alternatives to ‘macro-spatial’ interaction,<br />
other than the current clash between the US hegemony and the terrorist<br />
response, between the nihilism <strong>of</strong> imperial wars and the anarchical nihilism <strong>of</strong> a<br />
terrorism that is becoming widespread in all continents.<br />
<strong>Carl</strong> <strong>Schmitt</strong> wrote, once again with surprising far-sightedness: ‘contrasted<br />
with the nihilism <strong>of</strong> a centralised order, achieved through the modern means <strong>of</strong><br />
mass destruction, anarchy may appear to desperate mankind not only as the<br />
lesser evil but indeed as the only effective remedy’ (<strong>Schmitt</strong> 1950: 18).