On the fifth anniversary of the 9/11 attack in New York, President Bush used
new terminology to define the military and political posture of the U.S.
toward the Islamic world, and indeed the entire world. He defined the international situation as a “War for Civilization,” led, of course, by the United States.

This was a most aggressive, most frightening phrase, though it may indeed
sum up the attitudes and actions of the U.S. government under this administration. “War for Civilization” has an historical antecedent in Chancellor Otto von Bismarck’s” description of his attack on the Catholic Church in the 19th Century German Empire. Bismarck’s phrase for this policy of repression and imprisonment of priests was “Battle for Civilization,” or “ Kulturkampf.” It was a
crude and undemocratic exercise of “macht” (power) by the German Prime Minister, as opposed to the usual parliamentary and political procedures expected in western European countries in the l870’s; one in which in which he hoped to get so-called liberal and Protestant support for his policies. It was supported by a spirit of intolerant nationalism sweeping the empire. He was largely successful, but dropped the Kulturkampf in 1878 in order to unite the middle and upper classes against a threat that he considered much greater than the Catholics: the increasingly large and vocal Socialist Party, and the trade unions.

Bush’s War for Civilization promises to be applied in a much more frightening and damaging way than Bismarck’s Kulturkampf. Bismarck’s perceived international enemy was the Catholic Church, but Bush’s is militant Islam, or perhaps all of Islam, or perhaps anyone who resists the expansion of U.S. ideology, the interference of the U.S. in the affairs of other countries, the spread of the English language, and U.S. economic and cultural domination of the world.

The phrase was chosen by Bush’s speechwriters because it exactly fits the macho image he constantly puffs himself up with. It also represents a world-view that other nations and peoples have long suspected is behind many actions of the U.S. government and its agents: nothing less than an Americanization of the globe, with the rest of the world being at best vassals of the U.S., and all their resources at our disposal, even as we smash their culture and despise their religions. The phrase, in short, sums up the megalomania and the hostility of Bush, the neo-cons, and the Christian fundamentalist right wing.

While the world is threatened with environmental catastrophe, while the threat of nuclear war, plague, poverty and famine grow, this man talks glibly of a “war for civilization.” It even reminds us of the final war, the War of Armageddon, that the most extreme right-wing Christians (the “rapture” people) talk of, the war that will end the world, and after which only those most virtuous warriors of the Christian God will be taken into Paradise… or is it Valhalla? Was the phrase designed specifically to keep the rapture people on board and psych them up to campaign in the mid-term elections?


It would be nice if Bush would spell out what the civilization is that he wants us to fight for. Is it Christianity, against the infidel Muslims (I guess that’s a contradiction: infidel means unfaithful, and Muslim means follower of God)? Is it corporate capitalism? Is it a materialistic, consumer society, with all its forms of philistinism? A prison society, where thousands of school dropouts end up producing profits for corporations that build or even own prisons? Is it MacDonald’s? Hollywod? country clubs and Hummers? White suburbs and Black ghettos? Let’s define this civilization we are supposed to fight for, and the non-civilization we are supposed to fight against.

War doesn’t produce civilization. It doesn’t save it. It is antithetical to civilization, and may one day destroy all civilization, if our other egregious errors don’t do it first. Any “War for Civilization” is in reality a war against civilization.

So let’s think twice before giving Bush a “sieg heil” and a stiff-armed salute for his new catchy phrase. Maybe the results of the coming Congressional elections will send the speech writers back to the drawing board, and a lot of Bush supporters in Congress back to the caves and underground warrens they came from.