Nonetheless, we continue to be obsessed with finding or inventing a European nation which, as in the nation state, guarantees homogeneity and thus an appropriate form of democracy and centralized government.

In the final analysis, terror is also another proof of the fact that the superpower is not really a superpower. It was vulnerable.

Initially, the horrific images of September 11th triggered an enormous wave of solidarity.

Electronic communication makes possible what has previously been excluded: namely, active, simultaneous and reciprocal contact between individuals across all frontiers constituted by countries, religions and continents.

Western countries in particular can today no longer be separated from Muslim societies, because they have them within themselves. They are themselves internally globalized.

In the first instance, therefore, global terrorism created a kind of global community sharing a common fate, something we had previously considered impossible.

Accordingly, globalization is not only something that will concern and threaten us in the future, but something that is taking place in the present and to which we must first open our eyes.