Glocal Resistance and De-colonisation: : Civil Society in Khatami’s Islam, Dialogue and Civil Society (2013) and its Relevance to our Reading of Popular Protest and Political Participation

This piece concerns civil society as conceptualised in Khatami’s book Islam, Dialogue and Civil Society, and in a wider sense the Dialogue among Civilisations and Cultures paradigm and the UN year of Dialogue among Civilisations (2001). In this particular text, Khatami discusses civil society in relation to de-colonising spaces, with particular references to West Asia, the Islamic world and the ‘West.’ However, his discussion bears relevance to other spaces with experience of colonial imperial domination and occupation, historically and contemporarily. While first published a decade before the Arab Spring, it bears relevance also to the clamours for political participation and social development, which so pervaded the risings in West Asia and North Africa, including the oft forgotten Sudan. In this particular discussion of civil society, the focus is on showing the global relevance of Khatami’s conceptualisation of civil society as it emanates from the Dialogue among Cultures and Civilisations initiative, in a world where strategic disorder seems to be an increasing answer to resistance practices following local demands for political participation as well as independence from Western political economic structures of dominance—i.e. in spaces attempting to decolonise.Dialogue among Civilisations and Cultures: The politics of security networking and global ethic