Commentary on Mazlish: “The hi-jacking of global society”

Abstract

My difficulty with the argument of Bruce Mazlish is not so much definitional as methodological. Is he articulating different visions of the global future? If so, how comprehensive are these visions supposed to be? Or is he trying to describe an emerging global reality? And what does he mean by global? Does he mean a vision for the whole world or a vision of a world beyond national sovereignty? Global civil society can be both a messy reality and a vision. As a messy reality, it includes the various associations, groups, NGOs, movements that are engaged in negotiations at a global level. As such it includes the American evangelical churches, the American Enterprise Institute, the Muslim Brotherhood, as well as the ‘nice’ ‘progressive’ civic groups like Amnesty International or the World Social Forum. As a vision, it refers to global constitutional order, where different visions of the future—including Global America and Global Islam—are debated, argued and shaped. Global America and Global Islam, on the other hand, are primarily visions, even though the proponents of Global America have probably influenced many aspects of global organisation. But they are not alternative visions. On the contrary, Mazlish’s argument suggests that they depend on each other; Global Islam, he suggests, is largely a construction of Global America, and Global America needs Global Islam to legitimise its role in shaping the world. Most religions nowadays have global reach: witness the reach of the Hindu Diaspora, for example. If these three forms of global society are meant to be visions, is not the choice, in itself, a vision for the future, and a peculiarly American vision as well? Does it not implicitly endorse Huntington’s idea of the ‘clash of civilisations’? During the Cold War, political blocswere divided into the ‘freeworld’, the socialist camp and the non-aligned. Huntington, like the neo-cons, is searching for a new bloc framework, based on cultures instead of Journal of Civil Society Vol. 1, No. 1, 23–24, May 2005