Hosted by Justin Podur
Between Hillier’s recent spate of commentary and Major-General Andrew Leslie’s recent poison on Candian airwaves, it is clear that there is some kind of media operation underway. The target is the Canadian population. The objective is to try to develop a level of racist bloodlust. The means is pretty basic American propaganda.
Continue reading “A syllogism for Major General Andrew Leslie”
The head of Canada’s armed forces is trying to start a race war. This general Hillier, who weeks ago explained the intensification of Canada’s military campaigns in Afghanistan with comments like: “These are detestable murderers and scumbags, I’ll tell you that right up front. They detest our freedoms, they detest our society, they detest our liberties… We are the Canadian Forces, and our job is to be able to kill people.”
That was Hillier’s contribution to poisoning the airwaves with hate.
The Darfur conflict, much-hyped in the media, really began to take off *after* the Sudanese regime had signed a peace agreement with the strongest rebel group, the SPLA, in the south. The peace agreement with the SPLA, in which the long-time rebel leader, John Garang, became part of the government (Vice-President) brought the longest and most brutal part of the Sudanese civil war to a halt. The side effect was that it freed up the regime’s hands to intensify the counterinsurgency in Darfur, leading to the Darfur crisis.
The term “sub-imperialism” is often used to describe the relation South Africa has with other African states. In other words, the term is used to describe the economic and military power South Africa has over other African states.
But does the term “sub-imperialism” capture that power relation? My philosophical education compels me to always want to understand issues conceptually. Meaning it is not important to know the names of a bird in different languages, nor does knowing how to spell the word bird help us understand what the bird does or what a bird is.
So, does the term “sub-imperialism” help us understand the role of the South Africa state in global affairs? I mean does the term “sub-imperialism” explain the influences of the global economy in relation to South Africa?
Sure, South African economic policies are meant to exert control on the politics and economy of other African states. I am talking here about policies that are clearly articulated in NEPAD. However, one must also take into consideration that the direction the South African economy takes is heavily influenced by outside forces. I’m referring here to institutions like the IMF and the World Bank. It is often said that NEPAD was not even the brainchild of African governments, let alone South Africa.
Given this scenario, does the word “sub-imperialism” sufficiently explain the economic dynamics at work here? If the South African economy and the policies that South Africa pursues inside and outside of South Africa are meant to please international financial institutions, what then is “sub-imperialistic” about South Africa? The power dynamics in this scenario compels me to want to give this situation a “neo-colonialism” label instead of “sub-imperialism”.
Speaking of post-colonialism; does the term “sub-imperialism” take into account post-colonialism theory? Does “sub-imperialism” communicate the post-colonial dilemmas faced by a young democratic state like South Africa? How does “sub-imperialism” deal with deeply complex issues of a society that has undergone colonialism? Does the term “sub-imperialism” take into consideration the dilemmas of developing a national identity and the predicament of addressing race issues and a racial past while alienating the economic base of a post-colonial state?
Does even the term “sub-imperialism” take into consideration that the economic base of a post-colonial state tends to be largely white? If it does then how are those socio-economic relations presented or even explored? Does the term “sub-imperialism” capture these nuances in power dynamics?
If South Africa is “sub-imperialistic”, does that then mean the South African government is planning to establish “sub-colonies” in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Burundi? Both these countries speak French because of their colonial history, so does it mean then that if South Africa “sub-imperialises” them, they will have to speak English – given the fact that South Africa speaks English because of its colonial history? How does the term “sub-imperialism” address that colonial history?
It seems to me that the term “sub-imperialism” distorts reality. The term mystifies more than it explains. Perhaps the term is used in a post-modern (PoMo) context. Well, if that’s the case, then that will explain my confusion, because I’m not well versed in PoMo.
My most important concern is that how does the term “sub-imperialism” help activists understand the South African state that they are up against. Does this term help social movements understand what’s at stake, and therefore help them devise political tactics to engage with the state?
Does the term “sub-imperialism” help Africans outside of South Africa understand the agenda of the South African government? How does it do that without taking into consideration the dilemmas of a post-colonial state?
Is the term “sub-imperialism” a useful conceptual tool? Under serious scrutiny it does not appear so.
http://www.zcommunications.org/removing-the-accidental-protection-by-justin-podur
What is behind the Gaza ‘disengagement plan’? It has been spelled out clearly enough by Ariel Sharon’s own advisor, Dov Weisglass, in an often-quoted Ha’aretz interview about ‘freezing’ the peace process in ‘formaldehyde’. Palestinian activist and commentator Azmi Bishara stated it like this:
Uri Avnery is 81 or 82 years old, an Israeli activist with a group called Gush Shalom. He was in the Israeli Parliament (the Knesset). Before that, he was in the Israeli militias, some of the elite units that did ethnic cleansing of historic Palestine in 1948 to prepare for the state of Israel. He’s a very complex person with a very long political and writing career. His cause is peace and a two-state solution. He was a friend and supporter of Arafat until his death and had a very moving interview in Ha’aretz after his death.
A Jewish Israeli, an avowed Zionist, a supporter of a two-state solution to the Israel/Palestine conflict, does not make parallels between Israel and WWI Germany easily. For some, such comparisons do come easily. But for someone like Avnery, I don’t think they do. So Avnery’s piece, ‘The March of the Orange Shirts’, which explicitly compares the settler movement in Israel to the Nazis, is even more alarming. He writes:
In the past I have often hesitated to use this analogy. We have a taboo concerning Nazi Germany. Since nothing in the world can compare with the Holocaust, no comparisons should be made with Germany of that time.
Only rarely has this taboo been broken. David Ben-Gurion once called Menachem Begin “a disciple of Hitler”. Begin for his part called Yasser Arafat “the Arab Hitler”, and before that, Gamal Abd-el-Nasser was referred to in Israel as “Hitler on the Nile”. Professor Yeshayahu Leibowitz, in his usual provocative way, spoke about “Judeo-Nazis” and compared the special units of the Israeli army to the SS. But these were exceptions. Generally, the taboo was observed.
Not any more. In their fight against the “rotten” Israeli democracy, the settlers have adopted the Holocaust symbols. They are ostentatiously wearing the Yellow Star that was imposed by the Nazis on the Jews before their extermination, only substituting orange for yellow. They inscribe their forearm with their identity number, like the numbers the Nazis tattooed on the Auschwitz prisoners. They call the government the “Judenrat”, after the Jewish councils appointed by the Nazis in the ghettoes, and liken the evacuation of the settlers from Gush Katif to the deportation of the Jews to the death camps. All this live on television.
Avnery is concerned about the threat this settler movement, which he calls ‘a large fascist camp’ that is attempting ‘to overturn by force the democratic system itself’, poses to Israel’s polity. He notes that ‘this is a revolutionary movement with a revolutionary ideology using revolutionary means’.
His definition of fascism is a useful one:
There is no agreed scientific definition of “fascism”. I define it as having the following attributes: the belief in a superior people (master Volk, chosen people, superior race), a complete absence of moral obligations toward others, a totalitarian ideology, the negation of the individual except as a part of the nation, contempt for democracy and a cult of violence. According to this definition, a large proportion of the settlers are fascists.
Avnery believes that if Israeli citizens do not stand up for it, Israel’s democratic system will be overthrown. I think he is right. I also think things are worse than he writes. If, as he says, there is a fascist movement in the process of overthrowing Israel’s democracy, there is also a genocide underway in Gaza.
Let’s turn to another moderate voice. Even though she wouldn’t be accepted as such by mainstream US culture, Phyllis Bennis is really a reasonable, hard-working left-liberal, and I think it’s fair to say she’s thought of that way by most leftists. In her recent piece on the Gaza ‘Disengagement’ plan to move the few thousand Jewish settlers out of the fenced-in open-air prison for 1.3 million Palestinians that is the Gaza Strip, Bennis actually calls for pro-Palestine advocates to work on sanctions and divestment campaigns against Israel:
Since governments, especially the U.S. government, have so far been unwilling to take seriously their obligations to hold Israel accountable for its violations of international law, it is up to our global civil society to do it. Both Palestinian civil society organizations and the UN-based International Coordinating Network on Palestine have called for non-violent campaigns of “BDS” – boycotts, divestment and sanctions – against Israel’s occupation and the institutions and corporations that benefit from it.
Until very recently, sanctions and divestment were viewed, even by most of the left, as ultra-leftist deviation. For Phyllis Bennis to be advocating it strikes me as a sign that things are desperate. And in fact, I think they’re more desperate than sanctions. Phyllis is very clear on what ‘disengagement’ means:
Sharon’s planned “disengagement” from Gaza is not a step towards ending occupation; it is designed to change the character of Gaza’s occupation from direct troops-in-the-streets and settlers-on-the-land occupation to a kind of occupation-by-siege, in which Gaza will be completely encircled by an Israeli fence, as well as Israeli troops and military force. All entry and exit to and from Gaza will be controlled by Israel. The Israeli military will control all crossing points, Israel will control Gaza’s skies and seas, the building and operation of any future port or airport will be under Israeli permission (or denied permission), and the people of Gaza will have no ability to move in and out of their land, to ship agricultural products out or bring crucial medicines in, except under intrusive Israeli control.
On this question of ‘agricultural products’ (otherwise known as ‘food’) and medicine, it’s worth repeating yet again that the UN Special Rapporteur for Food found TWO YEARS AGO that 22% of Gaza’s children were malnourished because of the siege of Gaza (USAID reports said the same thing), a siege that has not been lifted at all since – so we can be sure that the situation has deteriorated steadily for two more years. No employment, no economy, only such food aid as Israel allows.
When I was in Gaza City in 2002, I was told by my Palestinian host that problems with mosquitoes were not as bad as they could be because the Israelis had to protect themselves from diseases, too. That won’t be the case once the settlers are gone. The settlers, who are just a few thousand, occupy something like 40% of the land. Because of the settlement strategy, their presence, despite their small numbers, is ubiquitous. But once they are gone and all of their buildings and infrastructure thoroughly destroyed, there won’t be any protection for the Palestinians of Gaza, not even the accidental protection of colonists protecting themselves.
That is what made people like Uri Davis, Ilan Pappe, and Tamar Yaron – also very reasonable people – panic. These Israeli activists are very worried about the consequences of the ‘disengagement’:
We believe that one primary, unstated motive for the determination of the government of the State of Israel to get the Jewish settlers of the Qatif (Katif) settlement block out of the Gaza Strip may be to keep them out of harm’s way when the Israeli government and military possibly trigger an intensified mass attack on the approximately one and a half million Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, of whom about half are 1948 Palestine refugees.
Still another very good Israeli activist, Michael Warschawski, disagrees with the above. He replied to it suggesting that instead “the reason for the evacuation of a few thousands settlers from the Gaza Strip is to help in creating a “Gazastan,” part of the old Sharon plan of “cantonization of the occupied territories.”
Warschawski, like Bennis, thinks that the point of the Gaza evacuation is to create a ‘trauma’ that will help Sharon argue that no more settlements can be dismantled. This can be true and Davis/Pappe/Yaron can also be completely right that a mass slaughter is being planned (and in fact Warschawski admits as much in his piece).
But, because the stakes are so very high, it is important to be absolutely clear.
Israel’s policy towards Gaza is already genocidal. There is already a siege that has already starved tens of thousands of children and is killing and permanently damaging many more. There is already a vicious military with total control featuring snipers murdering little girls as they sit in their classrooms. The place is already fenced in from all sides. Indiscriminate missile attacks already kill dozens of people at the whim of some occupation officer and with no one, in Israel or outside, noticing or caring. There is really no question about whether they can get away with it because they are already getting away with it. There is also no question as to whether they care about Gaza because they have always been very clear about it. Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin himself expressed his wish in 1992 that Gaza ‘would just sink into the sea’ (I collected this and some other telling quotes here).
Warschawski is right that Gaza and its 1.3 million people are utterly irrelevant to Sharon, Israel and the US (other than the settler movement, which cares about Gaza, though not its inhabitants). That does not mean those people in Gaza are not facing genocide. They will be fenced in, besieged, left to starve and to drink dirty water and die, like the Iraqi children of the sanctions, because the settlers’ water infrastructure will most certainly be destroyed and defiled and probably poisoned before the settlers finally leave. And when some of them think of revenge, trying hopelessly to launch a metal tube over the electric at their occupiers, Israel will be able to launch the heavy weaponry with an unheard of lack of discrimination, for there won’t be an Israeli life at risk in the killing.
And yes, the West Bank settlement project will be consolidated in the meantime, and yes, the settler movement will be overthrowing Israel’s democracy in the meantime, and who knows what new horrors will be happening in the ‘War on Terror’ elsewhere at the same time.
For now I disagree with Warschawski. I would rather see the settlers stay until there is a just solution than see the genocide advance to a new level of impunity.
We will all pay a horrible price if we allow this to happen.
Check out Ben Terrall’s blogging from Haiti.
The UN Special Envoy, Anna Tibaijuka, is quoted in the Sunday Times as saying: “Although a case for a crime against humanity… might be difficult to sustain, the government of Zimbabwe clearly caused large sections of its population serious suffering.”
In 2002, reporting on the plight of the San people in Botswana, the UN Human Rights Commission reported that remaining in the Kalahari is essential to the San’s “survival as a distinct people”. The San people are not only distinct, but are indigenous people of Southern Africa; something that the Botswana government refuses to recognize. The government claims that every Motswana (people of Botswana) is indigenous – a self-serving argument that does not stand in the face of historical and archeological evidence.
And, just like in Zimbabwe, the San people have been subjected to forced removal from The Central Kalahari Game Reserve (CKGR) where they have been residing since 1961. The government started the forced removals in 1997, saying that it was removing the San people from the CKGR because the game reserve is not for humans, and so, hence it had to relocate them to a better site 60 km away from the reserve.
If Tibaijuka, the UN Special Envoy, takes issues of crimes against humanity seriously, she would look into the case of the San people. The Botswana government refuses to recognize the San people as indigenous people, but are instead called “Basarwa” by ordinary Botswana people. Basarwa is a demeaning word suggesting servitude. The San people are the poorest in the Botswana, totally marginalized and landless. In addition, there is the forced removal that they have been subjected to since 1997.
One wonders when is the UN going to employ the same harsh terms used to describe the situation in Zimbabwe when it describes the plight of the San people. When is the UN going to talk about the impoverishment and the destruction of the social network of the San people as a “man-made” disaster like it does when it talks about Zimbabwe?
I guess when there is a big diamond company and the IMF in the picture, the language gets softened a bit, and justice is not pursued with the same intensity as it would normally be the case.
The reason behind the forced removal of the San people is to create a tourism industry in Botswana, the goal being to diversify the country’s economy. The IMF made it clear to the Botswana government that it must diversify its economy, and move away from depending on diamond revenues (Business Day 25/11/99). Botswana is the world’s top producer of diamonds by value, and the gems represent some 60 percent of government revenues (Sunday Times 24/07/05). This is generated by Debswana – a company jointly owned by the government and De Beers.
Survival International believes that the main reason behind the removal is that the game reserve (CKGR) which the government once considered barren, houses one of the world’s richest diamond fields. According to the UN news agency, test drilling has already taken place at Gope – a location within the reserve. Survival International points out that the International Finance Corporation, part of the World Bank, has given credibility to the exploration by providing Kalahari Diamonds (part owned by Billiton – an Anglo-Australian multinational) with $ 2 million.
I want to say in conclusion, I am not in any way trying to devalue the struggle of the Zimbabweans; but what I am attempting to reveal is the hypocrisy that drives the international institutions.
“Who was there to demand a change in vocabulary?’ – bell hooks
A while back, Trevor Ngwane (from the Anti-Privatisation Forum), wrote a piece entitled “10 Reasons – Why The WSF 2007 Should Not Come To South Africa”. In that article Ngwane argues that the WSF should rather be held in Kenya in 2007 instead of South Africa.
This article aims to assess the reasons given by Ngwane. However, I go further to argue that it does not matter where the WSF is held in Africa – as long as it is in Africa.
Ngwane writes that “The main reason the WSF is coming to Africa in 2007 is because we must give solidarity where there is the greatest need. Africa, taken as a whole, is …one continent where the greatest suffering of humanity is to be found….” After having stated all of this Ngwane quickly makes an about-turn and writes that the WSF must not be held in South Africa (SA) because “that is not where the greatest need is in Africa”.
The South African society is one of the unequally societies in the world as Ngwane also points out. The majority of black people are unemployed or under-employed (because of casualisation), and live in poverty-ridden townships. Actually, the socio-economic conditions that black people in this country have to navigate daily as a matter of survival is not that different to that faced by black people in Kenya. So why advocate that the WSF be held in Kenya based on this reason?
The second reason that Ngwane gives is that “During the recent WTO ministerial negotiations the SA government has mostly come out on the side of the imperialist countries against the position of its fellow African and southern countries. The SA government has at times exerted pressure on SADC states trying to coerce them into adopting neo-liberal policies.”
If Ngwane’s reasoning is valid, then it should not be a problem if we want to generalize his assessment to other similar situations. The Brazilian government sent its soldiers to oversee the “transitional government of Haiti” and “maintain order”. In reality the Brazilian soldiers were sent to Haiti to serve the interests of the US and France; and by so doing siding with the imperialist countries against the position of its neighbours. So, if we use Ngwane’s reasoning, the WSF should not be held in Brazil again.
The third reason that Ngwane gives is that “Too many conferences and international events are coming to SA, namely WSSD, WCAR, international HIV/AIDS, rugby world cup, soccer world cup 2010, etc. This is unfair on other African countries; they too must be given an opportunity to host important international events and showcase their countries….”
Firstly, the WSF is not a mainstream event like the WSSD and WCAR, nor is the UN involved in the organization of the WSF like it was involved in the organization of WSSD and WCAR. So, to compare the WSF with these events is red-herring. Furthermore, even if we were to decide to give other African countries a chance to showcase their own countries, it still does not explain why Kenya?
The fourth reason given by Ngwane is that: “SA has failed to repay the debt it owes to African states and peoples who sacrificed to help us attain our freedom…. Indeed, Mbeki’s opposition to apartheid-financing reparations and default on odious apartheid debt remains one of the biggest stumbling blocks to international financial reforms. Instead, SA has chosen to play the role of a sub-imperialist power, encouraging its big capitalists and bankers to re-colonise Africa….”
Here, Ngwane is talking about the South African government which does not represent the interests of the South Africans majority to start with. And if the WSF were to come to South Africa, it wouldn’t be coming to establish relations with the government; but to reflect on how the ordinary people in South African can help stop what their government is doing in other African states.
A fifth reason given by Ngwane is that “South Africa does not convincingly reflect the cultural, political and economic conditions in Africa if that is what the WSF seeks to find out….”
I guess the key word in that sentence is “convincingly”. Does Ngwane mean, perhaps, for him the conditions in South Africa do not convincingly reflect socio-economic conditions that the WSF seeks to find out? Then why present this view as an established fact? Sure, South Africa might be more developed than other African countries, but whom does this development serve? The poor majority or the privileged few?
The sixth reason that Ngwane gives is that “The South African political and economic elite, in particular, President Mbeki and the (black and white) bourgeoisie and its political corps, will take full advantage of the WSF and use it to promote their hegemonic ambitions in Africa.”
What makes Ngwane thinks this won’t happen in Kenya or in any other African country that the WSF goes to? I agree that perhaps other countries won’t use it to pursue hegemonic projects; but they will try to use it for their own political ends. So, no matter where the WSF goes, the risk of it being hijacked by those in governments will persist.
Ngwane’s seventh reason is not different than the one above. Actually it reads more like a continuation of his sixth reason. He says: “If the WSF in 2007 finds [Mandela] alive and politically active this will be a source of great confusion to many activists and NGOers coming to SA. He will be the neo-liberals’ trump card.”
Although Lula’s project is becoming clear to everyone, this case could be made about him too. And besides, what makes Ngwane think that the Kenyan government won’t invite Mandela to come to Kenya to use him for their own political ends, if the WSF were to go to Kenya.
His eighth reason is that “The WSF’s coming to SA will not challenge South African social movements, trade unions, progressive NGOs and research institutes to broaden their social base by working harder and closer to the ground.”
Is this statement made based on the Brazilian and Indian experiences? We do not know, Ngwane does not say. On what assumptions is this assessment based on? We do not know, Ngwane does not say. If the WSF goes to Kenya, will it have the opposite effect? That is what Ngwane suggests. But based on what? Ngwane does not say.
His ninth reason is that “The WSF will prove to be divisive and damaging to the re-invigorated struggle in SA and Africa. A complicated repeat of the tensions and division that visited us during the World Summit on Sustainable Development is bound to happen.”
Will this not happen in Kenya? What are these “complicated repeat of the tensions and division” that Ngwane is talking about? What were the reasons behind these tensions and division? And why can’t we learn from that experience?
These are basically the political reasons Ngwane gives to support the call to hold the WSF in Kenya. As I have attempted to show, these reasons do not convincingly show why we should go to Kenya, nor do they sufficiently explain why the WSF should not come to South Africa.
Be that as it may, Ngwane expects the South African left to support him in this project. It is going to take a lot of explaining than this if he wants my support.
Justin here. Lucky for me Mandisi’s been around – I have been sick. I’m better today. The world marches on though.
Before I get into the title topic I want to note that the Zapatistas have lifted their red alert and announced some plans for their national campaign.