By : Ali RASTBEEN, President of the International Institute of Strategic Studies
In 1981, taking into account the needs of numerous Iranians far away from their
homeland, we created the Avicenne Cultural Foundation and directed it to the
service of the language, the culture and the cultural heritage of Iran. We were
alone in our charge and we maintained our efforts during twenty years.
Progressively, by the expediency of other cultural activities - teaching,
conferences, cultural festivals, publications - other Iranians became
interested. Today, we are proud to note that what we were attempting to preserve
and to develop has been adopted by others who are getting it to advance. Diverse
associations and formations, separately, deploy efforts that show that Iranians
living abroad have profoundly felt the need to protect their language, their
culture and their cultural heritage.
In fact, the experiences that we accumulated during these years, across cultural
relations, have taught us that the world is far too vast to limit it to the
context of the questions and subjects relative to one society alone. On the
other hand, the era in which we live, is full of close communication. Hence
national survival cannot come about without relating it to international issues,
which develop relentlessly. In order to adapt it is indispensable to equip
oneself with the tools; science and research.
In France, we can take as example the CNRS. Under the authority of the Research
Ministry, with about 26,970 agents of whom 19,870 researchers and engineers and
7,100 administrative technicians, this organism, which disposes of a budget of
12 billion francs, has busied itself in all fields of science across its 1,333
or so laboratories spread out throughout the country.
As well as the CNRS, France has numerous research establishments, many of them
emphasizing notably the Social Sciences:
- French Institute of International Relations (I.F.R.I.)
- Centre for International Studies & Research (C.E.R.I.)
- Institute for International & Strategic Relations (I.R.I.S.)
- Centre of Diplomatic & Strategic Studies (C.E.D.S.)
Let us not forget that France is not the only country in acquistion of diverse
research centres: Germany, England, Italy, Sweden ... in Europe, the United
States and Canada, Japan in Asia, and Australia in Oceania; constitute pillars
of research in the contemporary industrial world.
Where are we situated?
This question alone permits to emphasize the horizon of our new action. In a
world based on science and research, we can only adapt ourselves by harmonising
our movement with the movement of the whole. On the basis of 20 years of
experience, we have decided to offer our contribution with the creation of the
International Institute of Strategic Studies.
This publication is the first result of the efforts of the Institute. Social
recognition shall be the sine qua non condition of its pursuit. We wish that, in
the future, our research shall go beyond the framework of Social Sciences and
that it shall also involve more exact sciences.
* * * * * * * *
With the start of the third millennium, we enter a new era. In order to
distinguish the characteristics of this period, we must turn toward the past and
examine the last century and its contributions. A century, with its foundations
stemming from the 19th Century; initially it appeared to have promising future
perspectives. The acceleration of human civilization made it so that each step
taken became superior to all prior steps in human history. From the middle of
the 19th Century, the exasperated and worried world gazed at an uncertain future
which began during the middle of the 20th Century. The industrial evolution of
the 19th Century - which reduced distances between oceans and continents,
increased the productive capacity of the Western countries, continuously
acquiring new methods and sources of energy - was at the root of the fundamental
upheavals in the West. The culture, the economics, and the politics found new
paths in which they developed themselves. At the eve of the new century, history
with its winding and evolutionary movement, had reached a point at which the
universal conscience was incapable of predicting the future. Whereas the end of
the century became synonymous with torment, the beginning of the new became
synonymous with revolutionary waves in all domains.
The First World War and its consequences.
At the turning point of the century, human civilization had achieved brilliant
victories in the scientific and industrial domains. Similarily, the world saw
the arrival of two powerful economic and military powers; the United States and
Japan. The First World War exploded between European industrial powers, at stake
was the partition of Asia and Africa. Several issues came about; the
disappearance of tsarist Russia, the Soviet Union, a communist state which
preached the dictatorship of the proletariat, the decline of the German Empire
which wanted to seize African colonies. There was also the decline of the
Austrian Empire, the independence of Hungary, the constitution of the kingdom of
Yugoslavia, the disintegration of the Ottoman Empire which gave birth to
numerous small states in the Middle-East region, states which were protected by
the two victorious powers of the war, England and France. However, the most
important consequence of the war was the creation of the "League of
Nations", which, as a world parliament, attempted to control relations
among countries, in order to preserve peace, a peace that lasted only 20 years.
In Asia, Japan attacked China, in Africa, Italy began to spread its colonies
and, after having conquered Libya, attacked the Ethiopian empire. The Spanish
revolution, following the support provided by Germany and Italy to General
Franco, transformed itself into a bloody civil war. The domination of fascism in
Italy and of nazism in Germany, the claim of "Lebensraumn" by Hitler,
where all factors which contributed to putting a definite end to the efforts of
the "League of Nations".
The Second World War and the bi-polar world.
From one point of view, the first half of the 20th Century was the period in
which ideologies of the 19th Century were tested in reality. In practice, the
world transformed itself into a laboratory testing the practical capacities of
the theories and their social, economic, and political effects. Nazism,
conceived by Hitler in 1924 on the basis of the old theory of racial segregation
- justification used before for colonialism and slavery - was organised in 1929
in the form of the "national socialist" (NSDAP) party, and reached
power in 1933 - the Third Reich, conquered Austria in 1938 and Czechoslovakia in
1939. The next attack was on Poland, which meant the start of the Second World
War which counted 50 to 55 million victims, and which ended with the fall of
Berlin in May 1945.
More precisely, the Second World War had unleashed itself in the context of
sharing of raw materials, and the consumption markets, reasons similar to the
start of the First World War. In Asia, Japan took the same road as Germany in
Europe. In the ashes of the war, the national and anti-colonial movements in
Asia, Africa and Latin America were born. Europe was the object of a new
geopolitical modification. The principal winners of the war were the United
States and the Soviet Union - two important powers which immediately faced one
another. The world turned itself into two political poles, and experienced a
period of "Cold War". Across the national and anti-colonial conflicts
in Asia, Africa, and Latin America, the two poles opposed each other as in
Europe. Divided between the East and the West, the Cold War initiated the arms
race between the United States and the Soviet Union. Whereas the arms race meant
economic profit for the United States and the Western world, it was ill-fated
for the Soviet economy.
The main contribution of the Second World War was the appearance of the United
Nations which, in the light of the experiences of the "League of
Nations", contributed to the wealth of "international law" and
became a new experience in itself toward the creation of a "World Federal
State". This state, though not ideal, was at least a good start. The
sensitive role of the organisms of the United Nations commissions in the
resolution of economic, cultural, and research difficulties, and elaboration of
scientific acts and documents from the recommendations by the Organisation's
general assemblies, transformed these organisms into meeting centres of experts
and specialists from different branches. Naturally, just as the League of
Nations, the United Nations found itself under the influence of great powers in
the fields of economic, social, environmental recommendations, in particular
during world or regional crises, which subjugated its capacity for action to the
will of these powers. The Charter of the Rights of Man, which was approved by
the legislative powers of the member countries of the UN, and the disappearance
of racial segregation in South Africa are some of the main successes of the
United Nations.
Another contribution of the Second World War was the evolution of science,
particularly physics. Nuclear fission and atomic energy, which, for the first
time, was used in the form of an atomic bomb launched by the American army on
the two Japanese cities, Hiroshima and Nagasaki, was an historic tragedy that
provoked international anguish. Faced with the reality of nuclear power, the
public opinion involved itself in the debate. Implicated in the arms race, East
and West invested in the field of technical evolution. The conquest of outer
space was one of the objectives of the investments, which initiated two other
sciences: dataprocessing and cybernetics. Due to computers, the world has since
long transformed itself into a small village. At the dawn of the third
millennium, information technology plays the same role as electronics did at the
beginning of the 20th Century. At the start of the 20th Century, intervention
into the nature of beings and things, including human beings in the field of
biology, has placed our world with an uncertain future.
The uni-polar world and the question of power.
Ten years separate us from the collapse of the Soviet Union, the east pole of a
bi-polar world, and the lines traced after the Second World War have been
erased. The disappearance took place not as a result of war, but due to an
atmosphere of comprehension between the two poles, on the one hand, and the
three European powers on the other, accompanied by propaganda relative to the
end of the Cold War and the start of a period of reconciliation and of
co-operation between former foes. The United States announced to the entire
world the establishment of a "New Order", an order which immediately
manifested itself in the "correct war" in Iraq. What took place in
Yugoslavia was scarcely different than what took place in Iraq. Christian
Europe, which itself was moving towards federalism, immediately found an
interest as to support Muslims in Herzegovina and to destroy the federal
government of Yugoslavia which, under the Stalin era, had proclaimed its
independence in the middle of Eastern Europe and had moved closer to the West,
which was a gift to Germany.
The world is once again directed towards insecurity. The population
concentration in Asia, the presence of the two newcomers to the great powers,
China and India, the importance of the United States claiming to be an absolute
and superior power, and the aggravation of poverty in the "Southern"
countries (which has become the Third World concept). Also the conflicting
interests among great powers, the strengthening of Germany and of Japan with
their new claims in Europe and Asia, regional crisis among the allies of the
United States, especially in the Middle East, Central Asia and Africa. All this
increase difficulties in the world, whereas at the same time distances have
decreased and hence the whole planet has been transformed into a "hot
spot".
In Europe and the United States, the crisis shows its different sides; increased
racial segregation and the reinforced religious propaganda in Europe, which
traditionally has been a tool of the conservatives. The presence of neo-Nazis is
no longer an illusion and following Austria's example, one can expect their
appearance in other governments. In the United States, the conflict between the
two parties who represent the regime in power, manifested itself during the
period of electoral fraud, and the American elections showed the regime trying
to blind the world.
Globalisation and its difficulties.
In this image of the world, it would be equally convenient to add "the
United States of Europe", which is in the process of being formed. The
European States have not succeeded in remaining independent, despite the
disintegration of the Eastern bloc. Thus, France, England, Germany and Italy
have decided, following their Second World War experience, to reunite and
embrace all of the European Continent. This "European co-ordination"
is in harmony with the "globalisation of the economy" (meaning also a
new order in market economy and whose World Trade Organisation is but its tool)
and with the disintegration of the Eastern bloc. It is therefore proving that
the economic orientation of the countries is no longer be determined by the
governments but by world financial organisations and establishments. The latter
have succeeded over two centuries, to reduce the role of governments, who
supported intermediaries from the sidelines. Today, Presidents or Prime
Ministers travel around the world in order to sell merchandise and obtain
advantages. The chosen path (their fusion) shall spare them in the future from
the role of these governments. The vast world movement directed against the
"as yet undeclared but now enforced" new order that started in 1998
and that manifests itself during all important reunions aiming to promote the
establishment of the order, obliges one to relive the same protest movements and
the formation of revolutionary parties and groups as at the end of the 19th and
the beginning of the 20th Century in Europe: social-democratic parties,
socialists, communists.
The present struggle, in the incubation period, is not ideological and takes
place in the sense of defence of work security and of man's existential security
in society, and of environmental preservation. However, here too, it is the
intellectuals who hold the flame: they enter the third millennium waving the
flag of the defence of man and respect for his rights. The defence of man in his
individuality which, at the end of the second millennium, stabilised itself in
its juridical aspect, but still has no institutionalised character and its
perspectives, in the context of the "new order", are increasingly
uncertain.
Science and technology: for the benefit of whom?
The untiring and continuous extension of sciences has introduced, in a certain
manner, the story of "Frankenstein" in the history of civilisation.
Today, the curriculum of school establishments teaches the history of sciences
and of philosophy up untill the 20th Century. Adolescents learn of the
contributions of their ancestors which go thousands of years back in time.
Immediately thereafter, they enter into the world of contemporary sciences and
techniques where each science divides itself into several branches, each branch
demanding long-term teaching and training and implicating man in his social
globality and the human being in his social individuality. On one hand, it is a
path towards new perspectives, and on the other hand it provokes in him new
terror. It breaks down frontiers between systems and institutions and grows
seeds of doubt where till yesterday there was absolute certitude.
Will man's scientific exploit be the destruction of humanity? Has man
constructed with science and technology his own Frankenstein? No - one doubts
that the engine of the new order - an order that, if not curtailed shall lead
back to destruction - lies in the science and technology of its planners. It is
them who today struggles for the defence of the environment, to ensure security
for the human being in society and security of the latter in the face of direct
or indirect aggression that threatens it from inside or outside. Are they not
the same specialists and technicians who alarmed the entire world and invited
the world's peoples to remember those who exploit their technology?
The meaning of these movements and of these warnings is that the danger does not
lie in science and technology, but in the alienation of man and his removal - in
its general sense - from the science that advances in large strides and directs
itself towards research about life on other planets. The horizon of human
science is far from our measures of space and time, and it is natural that in
transforming the earth into a small village, it seeks to find a powerful mean to
reach the cities and capitals of this village.
If information technology permits the transfer of production and export of
merchandise from the United States and Europe towards the Extreme East, why then
not use the same technology to transfer science and technology? To contribute to
security of societies, by working towards the stability of individuals who
constitute the foundation?
Our Institute, which encompasses a group of scientists and specialists in
different research disciplines, has chosen this method of spreading and
transfering the fruits of science, in particular in the domain of the Social
Sciences, and in the framework of the conditions of world evolution at the start
of the 21st Century. Our objective is to unite ourselves, to all those who have
decided to enlighten tomorrow's horizon and to participate in the extension of
cultural relations, with a goal to transfer science and to answer the needs of
researchers. We shall use, in the elaboration of this review, scientific,
technological, economic, political, social and research products of specialists
and of theoreticians.
Without doubt, the attention and the collaboration of our dear readers shall be
our principal support for the path that we have chosen to take.