Philosphers have interpreted the world in various ways.
In their minds, subjectivist democrats are entirely free to tell the world's oppressors to screw themselves.
The point however is to change it.
>From: "Joe Kaplinsky" <jkaplinsky at hotmail.com>
>Chris,
>
>You make a very simple question very complicated.
>
>The west says to Rwanda and Yugoslavia:
>
>"You are savages who are clearly incapable of living together without
>murdering each other. If we leave you to your own business then you will
>carry on in this way for generations to come. In order to help you avoid
>this fate we will occupy your countries and take over your justice systems.
>With our impartial standards of civilised justice you can all live happily
>ever after."
>
>I paraphrase, obviously.
>
>My response to the west:
>
>"Go screw yourselves."
But a more developed argument on
>Date: Fri, 16 Jul 1999 18:46:02 BST
>Now I know how deeply Clauswitz is out of fashion. Nowadays wars are put
>down to "culture". But I disagree. The war in Rwanda was over politcs, which
>as Lenin added, is concentrated economics. I object to the idea that there
>is a "killer culture" or a "culture of impunity" in Rwanda.
I agree heartily with this, but I would press Joe Kaplinsky that his application of Leninism is reductionist and does not unite with the correct points that Maureen is making.
The economics behind the war were ones of bourgeois nationalism, which often includes a lot of fragmentary petty bourgeois features. As marxism would predict, the level of development of the productive forces was important. The role of the radio in linking the country together I suggest is reminiscent of how powerfully the radio was used in Germany in the 30's. (There was not the sophisticated multi-cultural media available in developed monopoly capitalist state.)
The essential bourgeois nationalist appeal (with many populist democratic features) was to consolidate a Hutu state with its own national identity and national bourgeoisie with control over their own national market. Populist appeals to resist domination by a Tutsi elite would be par for the course. A real or manufactured fear of a Tutsi coup would be the justification for ethnic cleansing.
That is the economics of the politics of the war.
It is reductionist to blame it all on external imperialism. There is a complex interaction of class and technological factors, of conscious and semi-conscious motives, of internal and external contradictions.
There is some truth that the Hutu nationalists before their atrocities were backed by francophone imperialism, that the Tutsis are backed by anglophone, British and US imperialism. How does that make it easier to decide which side you are on?
Joe Kaplinsky:
>The discussion here started off with a discussion of war crime trials. The
>Tribunal for Rwanda is putting on trial ordainary soldiers or the mayors of
>small villages. These people, not the politicians, generals or bankers in
>the west or their stooges who ran the Rwandan government or the RPF are
>getting the blame.
This I submit, is also reductionist. However arbitrary justice is in retrospect, the truth is there is a continuity in the quality of individual decisions in a violently conflictual situation between individuals in the smallest unit of social interaction and in the government office.
The old woman on the street corner who allows or does *not* allow a young man running from attackers to hide in a cupboard for half an hour. A minister who issues an instruction to economise on rations for prisoners without any feedback on whether the guards are actually torturing captives who protest by giving them a good beating, or shutting them in a baking tin shed for a day. Much evil and much good consists of small banal acts which in retrospect are idealised as absolute evil versus absolute good.
My understanding is that senior members of the government have been tried, but not sentenced to death.
After such a conflict there is an argument for a truth and reconciliation process to permit the society to continue even if justice is not done. I would be interested if Joe thinks the way this was handled in South Africa was better. Both countries remain under the control of capitalism and imperialism.
The situation in Rwanda was shocking but the answer is not anti-imperialist reductionism.
It would appear that Joe Kaplinsky's Leninism does not allow for Lenin's remark in Caricature of Marxism and 'Imperialist Economism' Oct 1916, Part 5 Monism and Dualism:
"imperialism is progressive compared with pre-monopoly capitalism"...
"it is *not* our duty to support *every* struggle against imperialism".
The issue is not as Joe implies whether it would have been progessive for the "West" to intervene in Rwanda. The criticism should be made of *both* francophone and anglophone imperialism that they failed and probably blocked the setting up of internationally accountable methods for intervening in such situations of violent conflict.
The concrete question is for example whether the US place 24 Apache's at the disposal of the West African Peace making force in Sierra Leone. Or help set up a reconstruction fund paid for out of oil revenues. Of course they won't and that is why imperialism has to be fought on such specific issues.
We have to fight for a global governance that is progressive compared to imperialism and to pre-monopoly capitalism. There are not simplistic rules for getting there. What is needed is clarity about the overall politics of the project.
That is not about relying on the US airforce for massive bombing. Certainly Kosovo has taught that cannot stop ethnic cleansing by ground troops. The much vaunted Apache helicopters were useless controlled by officers and politicians who did not have a democratic mandate to use them. Much of the role of a regional intervention force should be to concentrate on non-military measures to stabilise a conflictual and turbulent situation. Military action should be limited and would involve ground troops working with air power to neutralise military forces engaged in civilian atrocities.
Economic interventions should be planned on non-capitalist lines to ensure the life processes of the population, so pressure to migrate is minimised.
Clearly even starting to discuss a framework for international peace and governance, far from being imperialist in character, profoundly challenges the whole notion that the world should be controlled by finance capital rather than people.
Now Maureen may not go along with all of this, or she may. I do not know. But I suggest Joe's reasoned response is fundamentally reductionist in its anti-imperialist yardstick and is anarchistic in refusing to address the positive and urgent need for a framework of world governance.
We only want the earth! That is the moderate demand. I suggest it is as a result of a partial and dogmatic interpretation of marxism that Joe does not address it.
Chris Burford
London