The basic assumption of the secular society is that modernity overcomes religion.
In the first instance, therefore, global terrorism created a kind of global community sharing a common fate, something we had previously considered impossible.
In the final analysis, terror is also another proof of the fact that the superpower is not really a superpower. It was vulnerable.
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.
The world has become so complex that the idea of a power in which everything comes together and can be controlled in a centralized way is now erroneous.
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.
You cannot make peace with terrorists. The normal dividing lines between war and peace do not apply.
You need education. You need subsistence protection. We need jobs and social security. These are preconditions under which it will perhaps be possible to deal with these complex circumstances.
And therefore we must seek dialogue in this networked world. We must ask which voice was actually attempting to make itself heard and saw no other possibility of gaining a hearing. To that extent, for a while this also represented a forced opening of a cosmopolitan view.
And the terror itself is an example of the world’s uncontrollability.
I held a conference in Harvard where Americans said they didn’t believe in risk. They thought it was just European hysteria. Then the terrorist attacks happened and there was a complete conversion. Suddenly terrorism was the central risk.
But it then very soon became clear that the response of a war against terrorism, initially conceived of in a metaphorical sense, began to be taken increasingly seriously and came to entail waging a real war.
Europe itself is an embodiment of this diversity.
Initially, the horrific images of September 11th triggered an enormous wave of solidarity.
Relinquishing apparent national sovereignty does not have to entail a loss of national sovereignty, but can actually be a benefit.
And it also became clear that these conditions of inequality and historical injustice have given rise to a feeling of hate in the world – a deeply felt hate that cannot easily be overcome with a few good words.
Western countries in particular can today no longer be separated from Muslim societies, because they have them within themselves. They are themselves internally globalized.
But where danger lurks, the saving powers also grow.
The theory of metamorphosis goes beyond theory of world risk society: it is not about the negative side effects of goods but about the positive side effects of bads.
Climate risk teaches us that the nation is not the centre of the world.