[Debate] Trita Parsi on Libya, Syria, and Iran

[Peter Waterman]

Russell

I would like to think that, since Fanon, at the dawn of African 
independence struggles, we are aware both of the role of imperial and 
local hegemons and their ideologies in Africa.

What I note, however, in the case of Latin America, is that in most 
cases (Venezuela might be here an exception) that the focus of 
radical-democratic social movements - from human rights, through 
indigenous, urban, regional, women's and sexual rights movements - has 
been less on imperialism, more on the local hegemons (including, of 
course, their self-subordination to imperial strategic, financial and 
extractive interests). Even further than this, perhaps, has been their 
awareness of the weaknesses and therefore the necessity to strengthen 
civil society and the social movements within such. Added to this I note 
a dramatic rise in meaningful internationalisms, i.e. subject-specific 
(as with indigenous) ones at both regional and global levels.

Rhetorical anti-imperialism may be, as we have surely learnt, a means by 
which a local elite or counter-elite can avoid recognition of the 
multiple facets of domination/subordination. (So, of course, can be 
rhetorical anti-capitalism and rhetorical insurrectionism).

I recall, when I was teaching on social movements in The Hague, a 
Ugandan student being somewhat puzzled about the concept itself, saying, 
'we don't have social movements in Uganda: the government doesn't permit 
them'.

My feeling - North, South, East, West - is that the power of the 
hegemons is proportionate to the weakness of radical-democratic social 
movements and civil society (the latter understood as that arena - those 
arenas - autonomous from capital, state, patriarchy, militarism, racism, 
environmental destruction). In which case, we need, obviously, maximum 
knowledge about the structures and processes of hegemony, but primary 
attention to increasing the powers of radical-democratic social 
movements at all social levels from the local to the global.



On 30-8-2011 9:46, grinker at mweb.co.za wrote:
>
> Ran wrote: "...(it is primarily local and regional elites, their greed 
> and quest for power, that have fuelled the DRC conflict), the 
> introduction of notions such as 'western surrogates' and 'western 
> pawns' provides no help at all".
>
> This is pure assertion on your part. Are you for example unaware of 
> the direct invovlement of the US and France in the disaster in Rwanda? 
> I have no wish to play down local responsibility for Africa's problems 
> but there's little doubt that western interference has been widespread 
> and fundamental to much of the mess. And after your recent admission 
> that the Nato intervention in Libya hasn't exactly been positive 
> either, where does that leave you? Do you have any bigger, structural 
> explanation for the mess that Africa is in apart from the venal and 
> corrupt character of local elites? "Follow the money" hardly suffices 
> to tell how Africa got to where it is today.
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> *From: *rangreen at sn.apc.org
> *Sent:*2011-08-30 08:45:22
> *To: *debate-list at fahamu.org
> *Cc: *
> *Subject:* Re: [Debate] Trita Parsi on Libya, Syria, and Iran
> Beyond being wrong (it is primarily local and regional elites, their
> greed and quest for power, that have fuelled the DRC conflict), the
> introduction of notions such as 'western surrogates' and 'western
> pawns' provides no help at all. It is a rhetorical device that allows
> you to transform every local mess into an example of western
> intervention, and thereby escape the need for local and contextual
> analysis, and it also allows people to avoid responsibility for their
> own actions. It brings to mind Schumpeter's classic quip on Marxist
> analysis: 'everything, short of the physical extermination of the
> bourgeoisie, can be said to be in its direct or indirect, short-term
> or long-term, intended or unintended, interests' (not precise quote).
>
> On Tue, Aug 30, 2011 at 8:29 AM, wrote:
> > Actually the DRC is riven by factional wars of pillage and 
> dispossession
> > driven mostly by Western surrogates. As the recent expose of the 
> western
> > shooting down of Dag Hammarskjold's plane indicates, the country has 
> almost
> > never been free of foreign interference. Lumumba too was almost 
> certainly
> > murdered by western mercenaries. As for Rwanda, the current dictator is
> > little more than a western pawn (who has also been utilsied in the 
> pillage
> > of DRC).
> >
> > I think the concrete analyses of individual contexts that you demand 
> would
> > tend to show overwhelmingly that western meddling has in fact
> > been all-pervasive and usually disastrous. Western countries of 
> course these
> > days seldom present themselves in the guise of old style colonial 
> occupiers
> > when they meddle.
> >
>
> -- 
> Ran Greenstein
> Johannesburg, South Africa
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