Editorial

Citation

(2003), "Editorial", European Business Review, Vol. 15 No. 6. https://doi.org/10.1108/ebr.2003.05415fab.001

Editorial

Aidan Rankin Editor

The war in Iraq has inevitably had profound repercussions on Europe, which are likely to last far into the future. The complexity of the situation is self-evident and is clearly illustrated in this issue, especially in the articles that refer specifically to Iraq by Hani Alsaigh and John Bunzl.

Hani Alsaigh’s father was proprietor of a newspaper in Baghdad when Saddam Hussein came to power and was killed by the regime. Alsaigh’s account of the history of Iraq in the twentieth century is based largely on what his father told him before he himself left Iraq to be an exile in England. New European knows little about the underlying history and so cannot vouch for the veracity of Al Saigh’s version of events. However, we are sure that it is highly significant and contains many surprising assertions which readers who know more than we do might care to challenge or confirm. Whatever readers make of Alsaigh’s conclusions, his article will hopefully encourage them to see the situation in Iraq from a new angle and reflect on its complexity.

John Bunzl’s article takes the Iraq crisis as its starting pint and then wisely leads us to consider the behaviour of all states, democratic or otherwise, powerful or relatively weak. He believes that critics of US “hegemony” are missing the point. Any nation with the current economic and political advantages of the USA would assert its power in the current climate of competition between nations and other human groups. Bunzl seeks a political and economic model that transcends the narrow competitive instinct, which he identifies as the source of conflicts such as Iraq, and the lifeblood of dictators such as Saddam Hussein. In pointing the way forward for international relations, Bunzl draws inspiration from the new school of holistic scientists, such as California-based Elisabet Sahtouris, whose work he cites. These holistic scientists are showing us that co-operation has played at least as important a role as competition in the evolutionary process, and has been crucial to the survival of all species.

For Iraqis, and their conquerors, reconstruction and reconciliation promise to be formidable tasks. Aside from restoring the shattered economic structures, the most difficult challenge is to create a political balance between the various ethnic and religious groups that make up Iraq, without recourse to authoritarian centralism. This means enabling the evolution of a political culture in which power is dispersed, difference is celebrated, but common values of citizenship are respected as well. We have by no means fully achieved this type of civil society in the West, and so in our advice to the Iraqi people we should show some humility and restraint.

The present predicament of Iraq takes us back to the questions that were (too often unsuccessfully) addressed in the era of decolonisation. It is here that Narindar Saroop takes up the story, recalling a tragic missed opportunity in the politics of British India. In the 1920s, a movement gained ground to grant to India Dominion status, akin to Canada or Australia, and create a federal structure based on devolved power and protection for minorities. Vestiges of that ideal remain in the modern Indian republic. However, in the inter-war years British parliamentarians and officials lacked the courage and vision to see this plan through. The Government of India Act was finally on the statute book by 1935, years too late, according to Saroop, because by that time the movement for full and immediate independence had grown strong and uncompromising. Had Dominion status been granted in the 1920s, Saroop argues, political institutions and civil society could have evolved gradually and organically. Partition, and the bloodletting that went with it, might well have been avoided.

There are, of course, many might-have-beens in history. This one, as Narindar Saroop points out, has great relevance to us as we consider the future of Europe. Instead of rushing into centralised change, he believes, we should seek a decentralised, federative model for Europe, like the Dominion envisioned for India, or perhaps present-day Switzerland. The US federal model might also give us guidance, for it still gives much power to individual states. Saroop does not mention Iraq, but his lesson from India is highly relevant there as well. For the construction of a new Iraq will take time and require great patience from all those involved. It cannot be based on either quick fixes or utopian radicalism, and it has to be a federal system of checks and balances, with as many decisions taken at the local, human-scale level as possible.

John Coleman’s short review of Vaughn P. Shannon’s book, Balancing Act, turns the spotlight on one of the great contradictions in American policy. The USA needs good relations with the Arabs because of oil. At the same time, every administration, Republican or Democrat, must be seen to be support Israel for important electoral reasons. The result is an endless attempt to square a circle, which too often adds to the grievances felt by both sides. Alsaigh’s article shows that in a previous epoch Britain found the Middle East just as much of a conundrum. Competition is, once again, the root of the problem. For a century or so, the world’s great powers have competed with each other for access to oil. Their failure to co-operate with each other makes peace far harder to achieve and smoothes the path for dictators.