>Conflict resolution measures seem to be compatible with a marxist approach:
>they define interest groups which have material needs. They avoid
>idealising peace, and argue that it is an alternative to war, and another
>way of managing conflict. The main weakness of conflict resolution
>discourse at the moment is its lack of specific reference to classes. But
>progressive influence could help shape that.
I doubt it. I believe the "conflict resolution approach is in fact part of
the new shape being taken by the humanitarian interventionist approach of
the big powers. South Africa has in particular been a testing ground for
this via the Truth & Reconciliation Commission etc and very little has been
gained through this for the formerly oppressed despite the apparent
"progressive influence" of any number of old lefties who got involved in the
process. Conflict resolution just might be a way of lessening the impact of
potential defeat in a situation where the balance of forces is not
favourable, but I don't believe that this is what the current phenomenon is
about. Apart form the TRC it is regularly used in South African labour
disputes to delay and defuse organised collective action.
>
>I agree Africa has become something of an urgent test ground for this.
>Conflict resolution measures are widely seen as having helped the end of
>Apartheid in South Africa. That was not a free gain - tens of thousands
>lost their lives in the so-called black on black violence during the
>negotiations.
And what about the lousy deal people have had to put up with since? That's the real issue for me. Open confrontation has literally been made illegal and replaced with all sorts of institutionalised resolution measures. It was, for example, easier to hold a street demonstration in the last days of the de Klerk era than it is now when permission must first be granted by some faceless official. There's a theoretical channel for everything and a plethora of commissions for restitution and against all forms of discrimination. The ability of the ordinary person to exercise his/her paper rights however remains pretty much nil. In any case I was talking about Africa as a testing ground in a wholly negative sense. I was pointing out that the West comes in here, experiments in a particular situation, and if a disaster results as it did in Somalia, just pulls out and leaves the people to sort out the mess as if they were a lot of laboratory rats. The marginal relation of most of Africa to the World economy means that this kind of Western action has minimal consequences back home.
I agree there are invidious issues like the involvement of
>Nigeria at the front of the ECOMOG intervention in Sierra Leone, but at
>least it was not US troops.
>
But don't you see that the new "humanitarian" West will always try to use a
more friendly-looking local surrogate to do the job? That doesn't reduce
the effective influence of the big powers or as you yourself indicate (by
the Nigerian example), the dangers inherent in these interventions. Just
look at the implications of South Africa's recent Lesotho debacle.
>The line of demarcation with imperialism on intervention is not
>intervention as such but is on the economic programme of reconstruction
>that usually follows intervention. In many ways the referendum in East
>Timor is part of the fragmentation of the Indonesian state into different
>areas often defined by religion. This process has been accelerated by the
>crises of international finance capital. Finance capital cannot provide the
>answers about how different communal groups can live and productively work
>together. A more radical democratic economic programme should accompany
>these interventions, calling for preservation of the security of livelihood
>of the poorest people of the territory.
I'm opposed to all intervention. However, accepting your aguments for the
sake of debate, how on earth could it ever be enforced given the balance of
forces. Who will put forward your "radical democratic economic programme"?
Just look at the neo-colonial style setup in the bits of the former
Yugoslavia under western rule for the real results of what you propose. Or
are you saying that some of the big powers involved might play this
"progressive" role?
>
>It therefore suggests that managing contradictions by non-violent conflict
>management is broadly progressive.
Less bloody, maybe, progressive - I don't think.
Armed intervention forces, (preferably
>not those of the imperialist powers) may be beneficial at times so long as
>they do not try to deny the reality of the power structures on the ground.
But is that ever likely to be the case? Your appraoch postulates some sort
of disinterested overarching humanitarian force which just doesn't exist.
The humainitarian approach is in reality the current form of imperialist
intervention at a time when the West's need for old-style despots in the
third world no longer exists. They would much rather decorate their
interference in the affairs of small countries with humanitarian and
civilising trappings.
>
>There are five lines of demarcation with simplistic ultra leftists on these
>questions:
>
>1) Demonising imperialism is not analysing imperialism
We can agree on this - it certainly is possible to analyse its current
forms.
>
>2) It is possible to call for reforms of the international policy of
>imperialist states even short of the socialist victory in each component
>country of the world.
>
I don't think so. The role of the "left" in this is at best (already is in
many cases) more likely to be one of participation in think tanks to develop
new forms of sanitised humanitarian domination or in NGO task teams putting
up the food and hospital tents.
>3) that a process of understanding is developing which is the frame work of
>world governance.
What world governance? Is your understanding that particular national
interests have been superceded?
>
>4) that the marxist theory of the state, on the international level as well
>as the national, (and by that I mean the emerging forces of a global
>superstate) is not purely about a body of armed men capable of suppressing
>one group in favour of another. It is also about shaping and having an
>ideological framework of social justice, which to some extent has a life of
>its own, to which appeals can be made.
>
You seem to be talking about some mythical international state form which
can exist prior to the removal of what exists today.
>5) that to weaken imperialism and transnationals, world structures should
>be strengthened and redesigned to set a stadnard of accountability. One of
>the most important powers for a new world government is to be able to raise
>taxes directly to pay for its own independent intervention force.
Again what are you talking about? Where are the signs of such a phenomenon?
Russell