Résumé :

L'objectif de ce texte est démontrer qu'il est très difficile sinon impossible que les civilisations soient des acteurs de dialogue entre elles. En admettant que par définition les civilisations ne dialoguent pas entre elles, nous n'ignorons pas pour autant la situation de non dialogue ou le bellicisme que nous attribuons à l'équipe qui dirige les Etats-Unis depuis l'an 2000. Nous maintenons que cette équipe est motivée non pas par une quelconque vision de " choc de civilisations", mais par un certain hégélianisme "sanguinaire" qui ne se base pas sur la "raison" pour promouvoir le régime qu'elle veut promouvoir à l'échelle de la planète, mais sur l'usage de la force militaire, qui d'ailleurs ignore les valeurs fondamentales de la démocratie américaine et celle décrites dans la Charte des Nations Unies, dans la Déclaration universelle des droits de l'homme et dans d'autres traités internationaux sur les droits de la personne. Nous suggérons qu'il faut revenir au principe de l'égalité souveraine entre les peuples pour que s'instaure le dialogue

Mots clés : civilisations, sociétés, culture, dialogue, souveraineté, racisme.

Abstract :

The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate that it is difficult if not impossible that civilizations could be actors of dialog between themselves. By arguing that by definition civilisations do not dialog between themselves, we do not ignore the absence of dialog or the warmongering that is now prevalent in the international system, that we attribute to the team that rules the United States since the year 2000. We maintain that this team is not motivated by some perspective on "Clash of Civilisations", but by a certain "bloody" Hegelianism, which is not based on "reason" to promote the regime it wants to promote on a planetary scale, but on the use of military force, that ignores the fundamental values of American democracy and those described in the United Nations Charter, the Universal Declaration on Human Rights and other international treaties. We suggest that to establish the dialog, we need to return back to the principle of equal sovereignty among peoples.

Keywords : civilisations, societies, culture, dialog, sovereignty, racism.

Extended Abstract :

The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate that it is difficult if not impossible that civilizations be actors of dialog between themselves. By arguing that civilisations do not dialog, we do not ignore the absence of dialog or the warmongering that is now prevalent in the international system. We further argue that this situation is attributable to the team that now rules the United States since the year 2000. We maintain that this team is not motivated by some perspective on "Clash of Civilisations", but by a certain sense of superiority, which considers that war is an essential human activity. This is what we call "bloody" Hegelianism, or the use of military force to perform the end of History, while ignoring the fundamental values of American democracy and those describes in the United Nations Charter, the Universal Declaration on Human Rights and other international treaties. We suggest that to establish the dialog, we need to return to the principle of sovereign equality between the nations, which is now being compromised by the West's need to impose liberal democracy on a world scale.

Dialog requires fundamental symmetry among participants in order to develop a mutual horizon of interpretation of each other's needs, concerns and way of life. According to Habermas's Theory of Communicative Action, in order to succeed, attempts to reach an agreement must be conducted in a symmetrical condition where each participant will adopt the perspective of the other. However, in the global context dominated by US unilateralism and where the principle of sovereignty is denied to the weak, this symmetry is impossible. Indeed, one of the major obstacles to the dialog is the increased questioning of the concept of sovereignty and thereby the refusal of the sovereign equality among the people by western political and university elites, from the left as well as from the right. While on the left sovereignty is considered to be antithetical to democracy and global good governance, from the conservative point of view there are certain societies-particularly those in the third world-that do not deserve to enjoy the principle of equal rights among nations.

The imposition of the liberal democracy by means of military force makes one to think of Alexandre Kojève's comments on Hegel's phenomenology. According to Vincent Descombes, for Kojève, Hegel's phenomenology is like a universal history in which it is the bloody struggles--and not reason-that make things advance toward the happy conclusion, or the "End of History". This Hegelianism is of a bloody kind; because it is complacent with regard to the paradoxical moments in history, and above all it is fascinated with excessive, violent and bloody times. As it seems, in the Bush Administration's foreign policy, if these moments do not exist one must create them. In effect, Paul Wolfowitz one of the architects of the military invasion of Iraq maintained in the year 2000 that : "The failure to do more to deter Saddam Hussein from attacking Kuwait in 1990 seemed like a mistake at the time and still treated as such in most discussions of that crisis. But consider: we shall never know what might have happened if Saddam Hussein had been deterred at that point - only to confront the world with a crisis several years later, but now armed with nuclear weapons." In the same line of thought regarding the summer 2005 Iranian elections Ken Pollack, analyst at Brookings Institution states that " US hawks …had a bizarre preference for Mahmoud Ahmadi-Nejad, over Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, the former president who sought to establish his more pragmatic credentials in part by making overtures to the US during his election campaign."

During our analysis of the absence of dialog, the reference to Leo Strauss's social theory and Carl Schmidt friend/foe perspective on international relations were essential to understanding US neoconservatives' warmongering. Their attitude is not due to the terrorist events of September 11, 2001, but rather to Leo Strauss's teaching that all societies are not capable of authentic freedom: while some are made to command others are to obey. We also found that not only American neoconservatives who reject the idea of sovereign equality among the peoples, but also authors from the left such as Antonio Negri, Habermas and neoliberal thinkers like Krasner and Ruggie. The rejection of the principle of sovereignty in the name of social superiority, democracy, or global governance could only lead to war. Given the scandals that litter the US occupation of Iraq, the lamentable state of the Palestinians and the generalized anti-Americanism throughout the planet, and last but not least terrorism, it is time to recognize that the rejection of the principle of sovereign equality among the peoples of this planet could only lead to a disaster. The dialog cannot be established without this principle.