I have no doubt that the policies and orientations of US President-elect Donald Trump will be changed to some extent, according to each political dossier. Electoral slogans will not necessarily translate into policies and plans of the White House during the reign of Trump, and history tells us so well.
What worries me is not the policies of the new comer to the White House, but what these slogans did in the culture of global coexistence, and their consequences on what has been achieved in the elections in the United States, as many media reports speak about the expectations of a fresh impetus to the rise of the extreme right in Europe, which found in the victory of President Trump strong support for its efforts to come to power in several European countries.
In France, Jean-Marie Le Pen, founder of the French National Front party and the father of the current party leader Marine Le Pen, rushed to say in a tweet, “Today the United States and tomorrow France”, while his daughter, the leader of the right-wing party affiliated with the extreme political current in the country, took the initiative to say that the choice of Donald Trump as president of the United States of America boosts her chances of being elected as president of France in the presidential elections scheduled next year. She said in comments to the BBC “Mr. Trump has made possible what many thought was impossible.” In a report, the BBC said that “opinion polls in France suggest that Le Pen, with her extreme and hostile opinions to Arabs and Muslims and immigrants in general, may attain the second stage of the presidential elections scheduled for next may if she ran in the elections as she always announces. Also, her anti-European Union party won 27 percent of the vote in the last local elections in December.
Orientation towards the extreme right and isolationist policies began with the vote of British voters for the exit of Britain from the European Union in June. The second wave of these trends was represented by the victory of President Trump against all odds and against all the expectations of experts and specialists, in the elections of November.
In the face of this sweeping radical right current, the world seems to face two major problems. First, there is a high likelihood of the outbreak of a wave of global upheaval that may disintegrate the principles and rules of the current global system. The results of such a global upheaval are difficult to predict at the moment, especially in the case of insularity and international fragmentation and the regression of international cooperation in vital areas such as trade, economy and international relations. The second problem is linked to the first and relates to the clash of civilizations and cultures that was introduced by Samuel Huntington since the nineties of the twentieth century, in which he focused on the West’s conflict with Islam, whose features are being crystallized now in several Western states if its disastrous dangers are not addressed.
The danger in what is going on around us globally is that pluralism and coexistence were the product of bitter experiences and struggle that lasted for centuries between civilizations and cultures, and ended into the coexistence formula and into building multi-cultural communities. But it seems that the voices of extremism and radicalism in each party have succeeded in shaking this atmosphere and in questioning its viability and effectiveness for communities, which resulted in the fact that the refusal of the other, in form and substance, is gaining the support of some sectors and means of traditional media, and many of the new media, which belong mostly to generations that rebel against reality and tend to break rules, not recognizing the importance of authentic human values such as coexistence, pluralism and so on.
Political French right-wing Le Pen says that communities have to choose between a multicultural society and a community of citizens willing to control their entire capacities. Personally I do not see any antagonism between the two options, and I do not know the relationship between pluralism and the possessing by communities of their capacities. I am convinced that there are underlying levels to this thought that believes “free nations” as Le Pen herself says, are nations that do not abide by coexistence, so she sees in the EU’s rules a kind of “repression” and considers the EU to be a “repressive model”. She suggests replacing it by a European Union of “free nations” she believes Europeans aspire to. The truth is that there is no Muslim State in the European Union in its current form, therefore, the issue is not limited to Islam but also involves other countries, which means Europe itself will return to the raging medieval wars and conflicts on religious, ethnic, political, and other backgrounds!
Before some people accuse me of exaggerating these concerns, I would like to point at the fact that the same talk is said in Germany by Markus Bertsl, member of the alternative political party for Germany, and in Belgium on the lips of Flemish interest party leaders calling for breaking away from Europe, and for opposing Islam and Muslims, and in the Netherlands, of course by far-right leader Geert Wilders, who said after Trump’s victory “the Americans have regained their land!”.
These trends have been present in Europe years ago, but President Trump’s victory gave them an immense momentum, and provided them with adequate hopes to clone the American experience, although President Trump will not adopt these hardline policies for many reasons, most importantly because they are not in the interest of the United States of America.
What concerns me in this context is that there are difficult years ahead of us as Arabs and Muslims, and that we should deal with the current global situation very carefully, and move with full speed to not provide an opportunity to extremism and terrorism organizations to take advantage of these Western tendencies to provide our young people with terrorist ideas hostile to the world. The battle is still in its infancy and silence or neutrality constitutes a crime in such situations. Conflicts bring only destruction, and what happens is only a test to the faith and seriousness of the world in instilling a culture of coexistence and acceptance of others.
