Beirut – The Arabic version of “Nous ne sommes pas seuls dans l’Univers” for Bertrand Badie, a professor in International Relations in the Political Science Institute in Paris, has been recently released in the version translated by Dr. Jean Majed Jabbour.
The original book was published by the “Maison La Decouverte” French publishing house while the Arabic translation was published by “Dar el-Fikr el-Arabi” with a special introduction written by Badie and dedicated to the Arabic version of the book in which he says: “In this big Arab world, Palestine is the only land which I haven’t visited; its people have been the first victims of all what I have described in my book; victims of the concept which I wanted to highlight, which despite the occupation, oppression, hegemony, arrogance, and the instinct of superiority, reminds me that we are not alone in this world anymore. Therefore, this Arabic version has been dedicated to the Arab world’s struggles and patience”.
The book has reconsidered the world order seeking to correct views particularly “the European or Western Centralization”; this book is one of many other foreign books warning from the unilateral hegemony in the world after it has lead to violence, chaos and ambiguous repercussions.
The book starts its discussions from the modernism era particularly from (the WestValian regime based on the series of treaties adopted from 1644 to 1648 to finish religious wars in Europe; known as the thirty-year wars); this regime led to the creation of state borders and sovereignty, and has framed international relations since then.
However, this WestValian stage that sets the ground for the international western regime, has -according to Badie- led to the emergence of a remarkable contradiction reflected in dedicating the concept of sovereignty, which led the international law to shrink and at the same time exaggerated the militarization of the world order, which drew the frame of the global game based on influence and war.
This regime controlled the global arena until the cold war and led to solve the global problems pragmatically between the two poles: Russia and the United States; however, it has left many issues unsolved like the Arab-Israeli conflict, which was contained instead of being managed by the two super powers to secure their interests.
Bertrand Badie has stressed the importance of changing the view toward international relations based on two perspectives: first, the importance of treating international relations in an independent frame because it is increasingly depending on social facts.Secondly, the bonding of international relations is no longer subject of states’ initiatives, which are increasingly controlled by the response to their communities’ dynamism; this dynamism has been composed of deep changes like telecommunications growth, development, civilized advancement, demographic pressure, reality of immigration, social movements, and social violence in addition to the pressure of humiliation, depression, failure, and anger.
Badie shows that Western powers will never control this new disturbed world because they have became helpless powers, which failed in finishing a real conflict like in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Somalia, Libya, Central Africa, and Mali.