with ideas with which it is often, in practice, confused. Thus, in the
Middle East, nationalism, pan-Arabism and Islam are often identified- yet Syrian or Egyptian nationalism may conflict with a sense of
Arab identity; whilst many Muslims are Iranian (Persian), African,
Indian or Indonesian rather than Arab. The contemporary Western
tendency to identify Islamic fundamentalism with terrorism owes
much to the use of force by Palestinian nationalists and their
sympathisers. The adoption of titles like ‘the International Front for
Holy War Against Jews and Crusaders’ may disguise, in many cases,
much more concern with opposing the policies of the (‘imperialist’)
USA and of the state of Israel than with theology. In opposition to
Western influences such distinctions may not matter very much –
but in constructing alternative political institutions or alliances they
do.
Ecology as political radicalism
As early as the beginning of the nineteenth century, Wordsworth
opposed the coming of the steam train to the Lake District as fatal to
its character and Blake denounced the ‘dark Satanic mills’ of the
industrial revolution. The conservation of the natural environment
did not, however, become a major element in practical politics until
relatively recently. Conservationism did figure quite largely in the
late nineteenth-century US Progressive movement. But only in
recent years have Ecology or Green parties been represented in
European legislatures and presented a comprehensive political pro-
gramme. Before this, pressure groups pioneered environmental
causes such as rural planning, national parks, and smoke and noise
abatement which have now become mainstream public policies.
Governments have been involved with environmental issues
from almost the earliest times. In England royal forests like the
New Forest were protected for a variety of reasons including
recreation (hunting), as an economic and strategic resource (timber
for the navy) and are now increasingly seen as rare habitats to be
protected for the sake of the rare species within them as well. In the
United States the ‘unsettled’ lands of the west were viewed as federal
property to be allocated in the public interest.
The green movement is unusual, however, in deriving an overall
coherent philosophy from a scientific discipline. Ecology is the science84 IDEOLOGIES