Visiting Yemen a few years ago, I was approached by a complete stranger with an odd request: did I, by any chance, have the address of Greenpeace? He had noticed the authorities were dumping waste and wanted someone to test it for poisonous chemicals.
I was intrigued, and mildly surprised - partly because there isn't much history of environmental activism in the Arab countries, but also because it had not occurred to me before then that people in the mountains of Yemen - the original home of the bin Laden family - would have known about Greenpeace and its activities.
I was reminded of this conversation by Jason Burke's article about al-Qaida and globalisation on Cif last week. Jason argued that although some might regard al-Qaida as a case of obscurantist religion battling against globalisation, al-Qaida itself is a product of globalisation:
The militants' ideology and language mixes a huge range of historical, nationalist, ethnic, political and religious references to create something entirely [new]. In any clutch of speeches by Bin Laden or Ayman al-Zawahiri you will find an extraordinary selection of old anti-colonial political slogans, Third Worldism, new anti-Americanism and anti-capitalism, Arab chauvinism, quotes from medieval and contemporary Islamic scholars, new political Islamist thinkers, the Koran, barely disguised influences from hardline leftist thought, etc. As a result, al-Qaida-ism is as much an alien import as any other "globalised" idea parachuted in from elsewhere.
We might also add that without some of the most obvious features of globalisation - air travel, statellite TV and the internet - al-Qaida could never have caused as much trouble as it has.
The point here is that ideas - regardless of whether they happen to be those of al-Qaida or Greenpeace - are no longer tied by national or cultural boundaries; their geographical origins matter less and less. A thought expressed in one part of the world can no longer be confined to a local audience; it may have unexpected consequences thousands of miles away if others adopt it or take offence at it.
The Satanic Verses affair at the end of the 1980s was one early example but, as the flow of information and ideas across borders increases, the frequency and scale of such incidents is likely to grow. The "Prophet cartoons" are another example. As recently as 10 years ago they would not have caused an international furore - simply because word of their existence would probably not have spread beyond Denmark.
During the past week we have seen the imprisonment of Gillian Gibbons in Sudan over the school teddy bear named Muhammad. This, too, is something that would probably not have made headlines few decades ago. It would have been a small local difficulty to be smoothed over, as quietly as possible, by the diplomatic service - but with the ease of communications, that doesn't happen now.
The teddy affair also demonstrates something else about the way the world is changing. The Sudanese government insists on its sovereignty - it makes its own rules and expects foreigners to comply with them. But in an age of global communications that sort of argument is beginning to break down. National sovereignty no longer exists in isolation and Sudan's treatment of Mrs Gibbons affects people far beyond its borders - including British Muslims who are worried about the damage this ludicrous case may do to their own reputation.
Such changes, obviously, give rise to a sense of insecurity as aspects of local culture which have previously gone unquestioned start to be challenged. A reader's comment attached to Jason Burke's article noted that while globalisation is seen in Pakistan as "yet more western imperialism", in the UK "it's seen as the submerging of old England under mass immigration, including from Pakistan". The reader went on - perhaps facetiously - to visualise a sign outside the BNP headquarters: "British National Party, Twinned with al-Qaida". That may be an unlikely example, but strange alliances are happening: Turkish Islamists adopting the arguments of American creationists, Mormons and Catholics joining forces with some of the most reactionary Muslim governments to promote "family values" at the UN.
The interesting part of this is not the actual ideas - in a sense, it doesn't matter whether they are fundamentalist, liberal or conservative ideas - but the process: the ease with which they can now leap from place to place, to be adopted or adapted, and the unpredictable connections that can be made.
It is not, by any means, a one-way process - which probably means it's time to re-examine ideas about cultural imperialism. Edward Said may have had a point 30 years ago, but the picture today is far more complicated. Those who view the world in terms of a clash of civilisations are also likely to be disappointed, because ideas and cultural values can no longer be contained, homogenously, within geographical boundaries. Instead, we have a clash - or ferment - of ideas in one giant melting pot.
Naturally, many people find that very scary - and in the short term they may be right. With time, though, we'll probably get used to it and in the end we may well find that it has become much more difficult for anyone to monopolise power, or to govern a country according to a single ideology.
