The current world stage – especially as regards countries with a Muslim tradition – is for the West a great challenge.

Never before has it been as necessary to soundly discern what is happening in the "global village." The "bread revolt," for example, which is spreading throughout the Arab world, is truly symptomatic of the unease of the impoverished masses in face of certain oligarchies which have been in power for decades. A phenomenon with great social weight and which could, sooner or later, manifest itself in many other parts of the southern hemisphere, considered by Western diplomacy – naively, we must say – to not be dangerous. The fear arises from the dangerous piling up, on a global scale, of the exorbitantly high cost of agricultural products with devastating effects on those with the least financial resources. This is a general and persistent economic crisis which deprives millions of people, particularly the youth, of their right to a job.

To this is added the fact that even minute changes in prices and tariffs, from the cost of fuel to mobile telephone services inevitably affects income of the poor, which indeed is already reduced to bare bones. In the meantime, many governments are compelled to "scrape the barrel" in order to meet public expenditures, hard pressed as they are by the global financial crisis and by the uncertainty of a system which is like a boat taking in water from all sides.

Before this scenario called by one commentator "apocalyptic," the reading of Light of the World, the book-length interview of Benedict XVI by the famous German journalist Seewald is truly providential. An extremely interesting document which evidences the pontiff’s thought about great current topics, among which stands out that of the encounter with Islam (see the introduction of the book on pages 86-89 below).

If on the one hand the Pope affirms the need to defend religious values, the faith, first of all, on the other he stresses the urgency of situating this issue in terms of modernity, avoiding all forms of fundamentalism. In essence, it is impossible to avoid the encounter between Islam and Christianity, two great religious realities which must dialog together in order to find answers which are existential and at the same time rational for the people of our time.

In his analysis of relations with the Muslim world, unlike many contemporary politicians and intellectuals, Benedict XVI does not yield to the temptation of [positing] the clash of civilizations, and avoids talk of a possible Islamic invasion of Europe. In fact, although it is true that we are witnessing a massive influx of refugees from North Africa into Italy, we do well to remember that in general we are dealing with common people, especially students, workers and those in search of work, victims par excellence of a globalization without rules. People who know how to read and write, who are able to surf the internet and who are thus able to cope with modernity. To be sure, among them could be hiding persons tied to movements with Salaphite origins, wagers of Jihad ("holy war"), those who have dominated the international scene since the tragic 11^th of September 2001, moreover taking up almost all the media coverage.

But careful we don’t make a sheaf from each blade of grass. There in fact also exists another Islam which intends to make its own modern values, with the intention of integrating them into its own culture. And then, as an old saying has it, "Not all evils come to do harm." Paradox for paradox, globalization has put a hole in the curtain raised by the most rigorous fundamentalism, detonating deep changes which the Western intelligentsia has not yet known how to adequately interpret. The true defeat for Islamic extremism comes precisely from the insurgence, the so-called "bread revolt" undertaken by the citizenry of Egypt, Libya, Tunisia, Yemen . . . What George W. Bush was not able to do with the "smart bombs" has occurred from the Crescent Moon affirming the right to freedom against every form of abuse. Let it be clear, no one has a crystal ball to foresee what will happen tomorrow, but the great Western democracies, in the face of what is occurring in this first semester of 2011, seem to be decidedly unprepared. It is enough to think of the emotional reactions of vast sectors of Italian public opinion, precisely as regards the immigration emergency. And what should we say about the unilateral initiatives of the European foreign ministries, always competing with each other, in regards to the African bank of the river?

France and Germany’s closed minds, just to mention two glaring examples, is disconcerting, to say the least. In effect, we are witnessing a worrisome upsurge of European nationalisms and a tendency of having partisan interests prevail over the "common good" of peoples. With the result that European foreign policy is ever more disappointing with respect to what should be communitarian prerogatives. Furthermore, with Brussels lacking a unified political leadership, able to positively confront the new planetary course, globalization is still understood by Europe in a univocal sense, looking only at what benefits the member countries, as in the case of Libyan oil or cocoa from the Ivory Coast.

When on the other hand courage is required in order to place limits on oneself proportionate to the effects of the process of exploitation in foreign lands, with the resulting movement of human beings caused by war, starvation and pandemics, behold, now everyone more or less turns a deaf ear. Granted that in North-South relations in the world it is not possible to go from one emergency to another –reaffirming exactly the logic of the culture of dependency- one is struck by the absence of a long-range vision and of a program of investment in a sustainable future, on the part of the 27 member countries of the European Union, in regards to the southern bank of the Mediterranean and more generally in regards to the African continent.

These are attitudes which are symptomatic of weak contemporary thought, where the individualism of each of the European nations prevails. Rather, investment is needed in the developing countries for economic growth and reduction of social tension, the formation of the new generations, work opportunities and what have you. We are speaking about choices which would immediately become activated for the welfare of all –Europeans and Africans- coupling them with commercial policies consistent with development. They have a cost, true, but every form of delay comes at a much greater price. The problem as usual is that between the "formal reading" of high-sounding speeches and the "material" one of the pocketbook, those anemias of the human soul needful of redemption become manifest.

It would truly be a pity if, in the face of the upheavals in constant progression in the peripheral areas of the world, our fears would be what decides the future of humanity. And while the Charter of Fundamental Rights and the founding values of Europe remain in the drawer, the migrants are the sacrificial victims. I agree, of course, that respect for rules regarding immigration must always be guaranteed in states ruled by law, but let us not forget that the peoples of Africa have needs not so different from those of the Eastern European countries after the fall of the Berlin Wall. Poor in everything, but certainly not in human dignity and in the desire to quickly free themselves of dictatorships. Would anyone, even ourselves here in Italy, wish that the economy as a whole be always and everywhere a loose dog, and with what results? Let it be clear, we cannot free ourselves of the global problems we have up to now been expounding by being contradictory every time one tries to state what they are. Those who think in such reactionary ways have already decided to throw in the towel, to give themselves over as prisoners of a view of the "globalization" phenomenon which cannot do without categories different from those imposed by certain priests of the "god Money." As believers, we must know how to read and interpret the social phenomena caused by globalization intelligently and with love for the truth –just as we read about it in the Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church- "without worries dictated by the interests of groups or of individuals," for the proper functioning of economic policies (see CSD §320).

It is precisely because a planetary government is not, at least for now, part of realistic expectations, and in any case it cannot be conceived as the projection on a global scale of this or that nation’s sovereignty, it would be desirable that the nations would agree to grant themselves instruments capable of making globalization more human. Let us try to imagine what the World Trade Organization would be like if it had a tripartite structure with representatives of governments, business people and workers, so as to be able to jointly decide the organization’s policies and programs.

Precisely because we are playing a difficult match it is essential that we guarantee the existence of a multiplicity of individuals invested with rights, by means of shared rules that can redistribute power in the global village between those who exercise it and those who can control it. If profit is the only point of orientation, we are truly at great risk. This is why globalization for us Christians is truly "mission territory!"