In This Interconnected World (belated book review.)

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The Geopolitics of Emotion, (Dominique Moïsi, 2008, Doubleday.)

In this long essay that ends with a chapter on futurology, the author makes an attempt to replace the old paradigm of simple political nationalism with one that is psychologically – based upon political confidence, identity and emotions (primarily fear, hope and humiliation among those.)  In this increasingly interconnected world, the three emotions providing a sketch of the collective conscious and unconscious outside the ordinary mapping of economic and other resources.  This level of analysis of current events and trends in its subjective orientation might help the reader to recognize different patterns of change in the world outside the everyday models we all read, watch and hear about.  The primary examination in the text is that of the weight of Occidental Europe and American on other states, primarily in the areas of politics, economics, administration and business; and the concerns of other states over other places including Latin America, Russia, Turkey and Ukraine.  This theme of overall anxiety about what is going to happen with these territories and others in view of a rise in political and economic power on the Asian continent, of which principally Singapore the P.R.C., and the antithetical political / economic climate in the Southern Hemisphere now mostly in abject poverty, comprise a good part of the author’s writing that makes up the book.  Some discussion is made of Germany and its new role in world affairs after reunification, though the author pays more than lip service to Central Europe that has become again a territory with an increasing global stature, and with the agreement of many nations.  That the author is a child of a Holocaust survivor and devotes some attention to this and similar happenings is a talking point as well.  These overall themes are cause for political discussion everywhere and they set up the rest of the issues examined in the book around a background of international concern and anxiety over what are now some apparently average – educated, yet growing and more and more influential ideological radicals.  

The book faithfully describes the great improvements and increasing might and hopeful circumstances of Asian countries after a long reorganization and many fits and starts:  There are apparently several commercial centers on the Asian continent outside Shang hai, that are comprised of, again, Singapore, Mumbai, Dubai, and others.  The realization of their fortunes in the kind of real estate projects in these places give hope to those in poverty in these places that are similarly and unfortunately also targets for terrorism.  All this development, even in Japan where the country itself is quite Europeanized (though at this point ‘downhearted,’) has resulted in less antagonism toward Europe and America; and as a result of all this and despite world terrorist groups, the world is a less dangerous place in many respects at present.  China and India, as a consequence of their reorganization and modernization policies have many demographic issues and difficulties to deal with now and into the future. 

There are observably within the authors’ scope in this text conditions for despair in places like Arabia and Africa where terrorism, cited often as Al Q’aeda terrorism, attempts to deal with ideological conflicts with the European continent and America, and threats of a decline of Islam and Arabic influences everywhere.  Quite observable again in this mesh of issues is that of Israel, as from fitful to increasingly vulnerable in view of increasing frustrations in the Arab world about the existence and continuance of that country despite the promises of its neighbors.  Additional frustration and anger over Israel is caused among the Arabic people on the subject of the long – past fate of the Ottomans, and even the toppling of Mossadegh (1953) in Iran that provoke even more detailed discussion and contention, that are relied upon and that might at this time be better relegated to various histories and chronicles.  It is clear to some the Islamists in Arabia would prefer an Islamic and not a Christianized Europe (cited here is “Globalized Islam,” a recent report by Olivier Roy.)  This is frightening to some given for instance the Muslim attitude towards women and women’s rights and autonomy.  The dogma of Islamist terrorism as espoused by Al Q’aeda, despite its proponents being so well – educated and as appealing to the intelligentsia in many places, finds a home more likely with the extremely poor and dispossessed in places who are searching for ways to humiliate the West and its countrymen.  The links between terrorism and Islam, violence and Al Q’aeda, must be separated from each other at the source and in the eyes of the public in order to do away with the Arab emotions that aid and abet terrorism, notably the anger, fear, boredom, apathy, depression and aggression that pervade Islam.  Breaking this / these link(s) would provide a way to change the “Arab – Islamic culture of humiliation,” as the author says, away from the dogmatic and rhetorical diatribes against Occidental interests and their people, and against the kind of volitional and gratuitous violence in the news everyday as originating in Arab capitols.  Again, the book ends with an essay about the future and geopolitics that is as well worth reading as the rest of the text.