The arguments and modes of reasoning of many anti-war activists all over the world may or may not be
acceptable in parts or in whole, but they have certainly made two very positive contributions to our rediscovery of the complexity of this earthly world after 9/11.

First, the anti-war protestors and demonstrators, especially those in the United States, Britain, Australia, Canada, New Zealand and European countries have, either wittingly or unwittingly, showed what real democracy and human rights are in mature democracies.

Their mere participation in the debates have ironically debunked some of the critiques consistently made by some (not all) Western leftists, like Prof Noam Chomsky, that the mainstream media in the US and other Western countries are always subservient to the power-elite, financial oligarchies or the military-industrial complexes.

In Malaysia, even indoor gatherings of citizens within the confine of private properties to discuss educational issues and the future of their children are sometime disrupted or dispersed by the Federal Reserve Units (FRU), armed with tear-gas canisters, batons or even M-16 machine guns, in the name of 'national security'.

Of course, no o­ne has forgotten how the police of this 'moderate Islamic State' managed the many peaceful demonstrations for reformasi in Kuala Lumpur, and how the 'peace-loving' mainstream media reported and commented o­n them.

Joining the chorus

Second, the anti-war protestors and demonstrators, most of whom in the West are 'whites', 'secularists', 'Christians', 'Anglo-Saxons' and possibly descendants of 'Crusaders' and 'British prisoners', have also showed that they are as passionately supportive of a cause they believe to be universal, non-racial and non-religious, as some (as we shall see, not all) Muslims.

In Malaysia, while o­ne may or may not support the anti-war activities and campaigns, the fact remains that some 'Chinese chauvinists', 'communists' and 'Chinese Al Ma'unahs' and 'Indian trouble-makers' have joined in the chorus of calling for 'peace' in Iraq.

They have also debunked the propagandistic lies of both Osama bin Laden or to a certain degree, Dr Mahathir Mohamad that Muslims are being 'under siege' by the above categories of non-Muslim human beings in Malaysia or the world at large.

At the same time, we surely cannot fail to notice that most of the military bases - and their logistical and intelligence systems - likely to be used to launch and support a US-led invasion against the Saddam Hussein regime in Iraq, are hosted by Muslim-predominated countries like Turkey, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Oman, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirate. Ironically, except Turkey, all these American and British military allies in the Gulf are also members of the Non-aligned Movement (NAM).

I stayed in Oman for eight days in November 2000 as a guest of the government of His Majesty Sultan Qaboo o­n the occasion of the 30th Renaissance Day (Oman's national day). I was then still a writer for the Chinese-language Sin Chew Daily (formerly Sin Chew Jit Poh).

I visited many places in and around Muscat. I talked to some hotel waitresses, taxi drivers, fellow journalists from Oman itself as well as other Middle Eastern countries, policemen, singers and musicians in discotheques, Muslim clerics, personnel of various armed services and shopkeepers.

Human and regional security

Much to my surprise at that time, most of them did not really see the tensions and conflicts between Iraq o­n o­ne hand and the United States o­n the other as a religious or racial issue. They saw it from the perspectives of human and regional security.

To most of them, the Saddam Hussein regime in Iraq had been a big bully or ruthless hegemon in the region before it was defeated by its own strategic miscalculation in invading and occupying the smaller and weaker Kuwait, as well as the overwhelming firepower of the US-led multinational forces.

They differed, however, o­n whether appeasement, containment or confrontation is the effective method of dealing with it and protecting their country.

Given the strategic context there in the Gulf, can anyone, Muslims or non-Muslims blame, for example, Oman for hosting American or British military personnel and facilities as a form of deterrence against Saddam's unpredictable, aggressive and ruthless adventurism?

Psychologically assured

It is the same in the case of Taiwan that always fears the reoccurrence of the 1996 Taiwan Straits Crisis when China "tested" missiles there in a silly attempt to psychologically pressure the voters not to support a certain presidential candidate who was alleged to be "anti-China", "pro-American" and "pro-Japanese".

The Taiwan people (predominantly Chinese) was of course psychologically assured after the Pacific Command of the United States sent a warship there to demonstrate its resolve to defend Taiwan from becoming the target of possible aggression.

To be sure and as expected, many Chinese in China and some citizens of Chinese origin in other countries who always see the world exclusively in a paradigm of 'racial blood-ties' opined that Chinese in Taiwan are 'running dogs' of the Americans and Japanese.

Of course, there were also Chinese who retorted that if China 'loved' blood-tied Chinese so much as claimed, why did it "tested" the missiles so close to the Chinese in Taiwan in the first place?

The essence of this argument also applies to the Saddam's regime in Iraq: if it is really the champion of Muslims as it unilaterally claims, why did it unilaterally attacked Iran in 1980-1988 and deliberately poisoned fellow Muslim soldiers o­n the Iranian side with mustard gas and other chemical agents?

Why unilaterally attacked and occupied a smaller and weaker fellow Muslim state, namely Kuwait in 1990? Why persecute Shiite Muslims en masse as a state policy?

Not clash of civilisations

Given the records and patterns of regime behavior of Saddam's Iraq, can anyone blame the Iraqi Shiites and Iraqi Kurds (some of whom was poisoned en masse after Saddam's defeat in 1991) for actively allying themselves with the American and British forces in the south and north respectively to facilitate the possible invasion?

For some professors of political science or Saddam's propagandists and apologists in faraway democracies, they may conceptually and theoretically be classified as "traitors" and "Western agents" but for those who lost families and dear o­nes in the hands of Saddam's police, army and secret agents and who fear of being spread poison gasses again, there is simple no time to care about politically correct concepts, theories or definitions.

Seen in this wider and deeper framework, it is clear that the global debate o­n peace and war in Iraq, however heated and boiling it may become, has nothing to do with any clash of civilisations.

There is therefore no need for anyone to first show (or show off) his or her racial, religious or cultural credential(s) before embarking upon public discourses o­n issues relating to human, national, regional or international security.

JAMES WONG is Chief Analyst of Stategic Analysis Malaysia which produces the subscriber-based Analysis Malaysia. Wong is a former member of parliament (1990-1995) and a former columnist for Sin Chew Jit Poh (now Sin Chew Daily). He read political science and economics at the Monash University in Melbourne, Australia.