The whole issue of the war on terror and the growing rift between so-called Christian and Muslim worlds is a source of great distress. Or to phrase it in the language of BBC reporter John Simpson, after describing Zarkawi’s involvement in the beheading of a hostage: “fairly distasteful”. When one is confronted with so many blatant lies it becomes all the more disheartening to realise that not only are the majority duped by the fabrication of so-called evidence of the imminent threat to our values by the dark forces of the Arab world, but that somehow they know they are being lied to and don’t care.

To me this appears to be the hall mark of strong-arm tactics in that there is a deliberate lack of pretence in fabricating ridiculous theories about the need for spending huge amounts on defence, because it is precisely the ability to get away with flagrant lies that is supposed to appeal to the masses; what they relate to is the unchallenged authority of power as a source of strength and security. Hence when Moazzim Beg comments on the absurdity of claiming that suicides by the detainees in Guantanamo are an act of assymetrical warfare, he is accused of having a “credibility issue”.

Now I don’t want to create an equally elaborate theory about how this attitude to others is also the underlying rationale for a concept of ownership in capitalist society. But the parallel seems obvious. The point is that we are not allowed to question the authority of a system that says that morality is contiguous with the ability to enforce it. So we have a situation in the world today where if we wish to disagree with the idea that we are supposedly threatened in our bid for world economic domination by a more religious, but equally authoritarian culture, then we are branded as conspirators in a terrorist plot to overthrow the regime. If only !

Effectively therefore our property rights, and along with that our ability to create a living which is independent and self-determined, are denied because we refuse to conform to the conditioned opinions of the masses. Think about it – how is it possible to make a living without access to land and its resources in a way that does not involve being an employee of a capitalist organisation. Not that I am against all definitions of capitalism – but that the one we have at the moment has a particular definition of capital which cannot be used for anything other than the enrichment of globalising interests at the expense of the submissive worker. Power to the people! With the now global trend of labour exploitation and the control of the money market to exclude the poor from ownership of land we, the poor, are in a jam.

But there is potentially a way out of this which is not only an alternative to the destructive mentality of subservience, but also explains the imploding effect of globalisation on cultural participation. Effectively capitalism signals its own demise precisely because it fails to understand the necessity of relationship as a measure of fulfilment. The dogmatic pursuit of wealth and individual gain fosters a spirit of competition and paranoia which leads ultimately to a severance with any form of truth which has a beneficial effect on the human organism.

So to the alternative – which must be located not only in a sense of rootedness in the land and eco-system as a source of natural well-being, but on a more practical level we have to organise amongst ourselves to achieve a level of participation which can stand up to the destabilising effect of capital. This is no mean task – it requires that we reclaim the means to a livelihood as part of a functioning ecological whole within defined bio-regional boundaries; and stick to those definitions even though we may feel that our money is not being put to the best effect. Actually what happens, or what could happen, is that once people start to invest in their own communities because they sense the real value of such a move, the monetary value of their investment starts to increase. Like a kind of localising force similar to, but on a different scale, to the forces of mass-production. We invest values in our production system which emphasise our particular needs; then because those needs are in demand they command a higher price – and so on until we achieve a measure of independence from the mainstream. Maybe even because it is UN-popular with them. You dig?