Aljazeera Studies Center organized its last monthly forum in Rabat bureau on 29 October 2007 on the following issue: The Question of Values and the Challenges of Globalization. The Moroccan philosopher Taha Abdurrahman and the academician on the field of geography and sociology Dr Mohamed Belfkir were the main participants in this forum, with the presence of the head of the Center Dr Mustafa Almurabit and Dr Khalid Hajji, his assistant. Each of the participants approached the raised issue from a different point of view, but all seem to agree on the idea that values and ethics are threatened by the many ‘marketised’ values which hardly take the life of human beings into a better human and humane way of life where respect, dialogue, ethics, and moralities are the most widespread and the most esteemed.

What I will be doing here is not summarizing what every speaker said but I will give my own reading of the issue in the light of my conversations with Khalid Hajji, and my acquaintance with some of Taha Abdurrahman and Mehdi Elmandjra’s writings.
I have known Dr Khalid Hajji for over a period of four years now. He taught me for three consecutive years at the university; with his modesty and adorable way of teaching he found that his students have developed an indescribable respect for him, for the main reason which is his skillful way of introducing and approaching culture and civilization courses, as well as poetry. It was with him that I, and many friends of mine, came to know about professor Taha Abdurrahman, and so many others, whose ideas never stop from mesmerizing and inspiring me. If there is any recent Arab and Moslem that deserves being read it is Taha Abdurrahman. How did I come to believe in this? Here is my point.
Any Arab and Moslem researcher who is thinking of researching in the field of philosophy, logic, linguistics along with religious matters, can find in Abdurrahman’s school of thought what to quench his thirst with. We are at the age of globalization that knows no ethics nor moralities and respect for the local traditions and ways of life. History reads to us that any society that feels most developed and powerful likes to widespread it doctrines to the less powerful and weak societies, for the sake of preserving its supremacy and prestige. It stems from the verb ‘globalize’, i.e. universalizing. This machine can never cease as humanity exists. This does not mean that it is always a curse or an unhealthy phenomenon; it can also be a bless as long as it works for the welfare of man. However, there has always been voices trying to confront it, since they see more harm in it than beefits. Now, wherever you go and in whatever speech you listen to there is this misused word ‘globalization’ that props us, as if it were a new phenomenon; it is but the equivalent of ‘dominance, ’imperialism’, ‘colonialism’, ‘’neo-colonialism’, ‘Americanization’, and ‘Westernization.’
As I hinted at before, though it seemingly brings blesses in its track, most of what it brings is in fact but the material stuff that facilitates man’s living. The core is not there; the human side is not there; ethics and moralities are not there. It is like a giant machine going on, threatening everybody, but is leading nowhere. And there where there is nowhere to stop is void and thus should be stopped and re-thought. Such a mode of life where benefits are pursued is encouraged in many ways, like writings, but the picture, the image has become more and more an efficient means of disseminating unethical discourses. Here comes the point of Dr Khalid Hajji who believes that the media in general does not take into account morality and values; what counts is how much beneficial it would be to the company, and nothing more; that is the conclusion I got in my last meeting with him recently.
It is marketing, and markets know neither religion nor morality as the French philosopher Roger Garaudy would re-write if still alive.
In the same vein goes Taha Abdurrahman who believes that it is modernism as a school of thought which has caused the destruction of man, the same man who transgresses the limits of reason to the extent of giving himself supremacy over nature and even over God. The failures of modernism can be mainly condenced in this point: its denigration of religion. With science man has given himself the place of God, and anything that serves man is approved, without taking into account the ethical, the moral, and the spiritual into consideration. As an answer to this comes Taha Abdurrahman to religiously and philosophically as well as linguistically prove that there is no life without religion, no reason without religion, no religion without reason (reason=mind, عقل in Arabic), no man without ethics, and no ethics without religion. And this religion cannot be but Islam. In other words, Taha Abdurrahman takes Islam as the solution, the answer to the needs man is after in this age called globalization.
I should not pass over another Moroccan recognized scholar who has talked a lot about the value of values in his latest book The Value of Values (2007). I mean the first university teacher in Morocco (since 1958) professor Mehdi Elmandjra who never ceases from reiterating the importance of respect of values which are the source of a decent and ‘sound’ life, and without which materialism and corruption take place. Elmandjra is not away from Abdurrahman’s idea that Islam is the answer, for it is based on logic, reason, peace, love, respect, and all the good values and ethics that man can think of.
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I wonder if the Arab and Muslim youth in particular are aware of these original schools of thoughts that are trying their utmost best to present them in the most convenient way. Fortunately, we the youth have models before us to follow, but unfortunately rare are those who care!
All we should do is to go on with the work these and other scholars have started; and all starts with reading and more reading, with openness of the mind, with listening to the other, with respect, and with love for what we are doing.

Mohammed HASHAS- AlJazeeraTalk - Morocco