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Academic’s warning on trying to defeat terrorism

November 15, 2004

Fighting terrorism with terrorism has never worked, history suggests, and it is failing in Iraq, where the “coalition of the willing” confront insurgency on a massive scale.
That’s the finding of Professor Howard Brasted, who will deliver his inaugural lecture, Reflections on History Today and the Appearance of a New World Disorder on Monday, November 22 at Armidale Town Hall.
Professor Brasted, Director of the Asia Centre at the University of New England, helped introduce Islamic Studies to UNE in 1991. In his lecture, Professor Brasted will initially reflect on the state of the discipline of history and how it has changed.

“Historians are keen to broaden the scope of historical study and non-historians – mainly scientists and postmodernists have begun to question its fundamental basis,” Professor Brasted said on the eve of his lecture.
Over the past 30 years, “Old” history -- or the history largely of the elites – has been overtaken by the “New” history, the “history from below” which focuses on all those groups who had previously been left out. These include women, the working classes and Muslims.
In the second part of his lecture, Professor Brasted will discuss contemporary Islam and Muslim Asia, a field he has been researching since 1991. He will talk about the failure of the New World Order, as proclaimed by George Bush Snr in 1991, to materialise and its likely replacement by a “New World Disorder” in the wake of 9/11.
“Rather than the dawn of international peace and harmony, we are confronted by the current ‘war against terrorism’, which looks unlikely to effect a new peace,” Professor Brasted said.
He will end his lecture by suggesting many of the underlying reasons for this turn of events are to be found in the past and are best explained historically.
The lecture starts at 7.30pm and is free to the public. Refreshments will be served afterwards.
For more information phone Professor Brasted on 6773 2067 or
Lydia Roberts on 6773 2779.

Posted by Lydia Roberts at November 15, 2004 03:45 PM