|| -----Original Message-----
|| From: Doug Henwood
||
|| Yoshie Furuhashi wrote:
||
|| >Wouldn't oil be far dearer if the USA had not succeeded in
|| >destroying the populist-secularist-pan-Arabist left in the Middle
|| >East?
||
|| Probably not. As long as we live under capitalism, oil is likely to
|| be traded as a commodity. There will be political attempts to
|| manipulate the price, but I don't think they can be successful for
|| very long. There's too much incentive for sellers to cheat, or
|| operate outside the cartel.
||
|| Which is why I thought it didn't make any difference for the oil
|| markets had Iraq's hostile takeover of Kuwait succeeded. It would
|| have made a difference for Kuwaitis, but that's another story.
||
|| Doug
Sorry Doug, but the fact is that from the formation of OPEC in 1960 until 1970, the price of oil remained rock-steady at $1.80 thanks to US client Saudi Arabia. The quadrupling of the price after the 1973 war was obviously political, as was the fall of oil prices in the 80's. The recent price fall is largely due to Russia's cozying up to the US. Just as energy conglomerates use the US government for their ends, US energy policy is pursued through the action of these conglomerates. No longer is there a disconnect as in 1973 when US oil companies refused to supply aviation fuel for the US airlift to Israel. Big oil can choose or not to explore, exploit, or produce, and these decisions are never disconnected from US strategy.
Moreover, it's a mistake to see this just as a question of US-Saudi trade. The weight of US-client oil-producing states in OPEC keeps the oil price denominated in dollars, which creates a large reserve of petrodollars that are recycled as investment in US securities and arms imports. For those who need to be reminded, the bible on this is: David E Spiro, The Hidden Hand of American Hegemony:Petrodollar Recycling and International Markets.
To return to Yoshie's main topic, the article excerpt doesn't prove that feminists are imperialists but merely that they have been trying to side-steer every debate to the issue of sexism, IOW putting their particuar interests before those of blacks, workers, colonised nations, etc. This appears counterproductive in terms of leftie politics but the results achieved show that it's been an effective policy for radicalizing women and creating a new bloc for leftist coalitions. So it's neither surprising nor deplorable that women's rights are so insular, it's just unfortunate that things have to work out that way.
Far more important an issue is that of western feminists exporting their local agendas to societies that are subjected to western hegemony and their failure or unwillingness to understand the specificity of women's struggles in other cultures. E.g. much has been made by western feminists of women being made to wear hijabs, chadors, turbans, etc. in Islamic societies. I find women's Islamic garb annoying as hell on a personal level (except for some flowing head-to-toe /tesettur/ robes, which are as sexy as Vietnamese Ao Dai's), not only because of the repression embodied by the garb but because the wearer more often than not internalises the oppressor's attitude and becomes a zealot herself. However, in Iran and Turkey, women who, before this chador business started, were effectively under house arrest for life, have suddenly gained enormous freedom just by wearing a particular garment. OK, so that garment is a (token) sign of submission, hut with it they can work, educate themselves, make money, enter politics, drive cars, you name it. For women living in tradition-bound communities, all this was impossible before the chador and turban.
I'm a pretty good driver and routinely break the speed limit (more than everybody else, that is). Among the rare drivers who can outdrag me a high proportion are turbaned young women in gaudy sports cars (I drive a puny 1.4 liter Fiat). At the university where I work, of the kids I see smooching in dark corners, one of them is almost certainly turbaned (non-turbaned girls lead normal extracurricular sex-lives). Turbaned women are great political organizers among the urban poor and some of them have become outspoken feminists despite the disapproval of their patriarchal party bosses. One such woman, Islamist feminist writer Gonca Kuris was kidnapped and killed by the local Hezbollah 2 years ago. A section of the left in Turkey has sided with the Islamists in opposing the official turban ban in schools, government offices, etc., but most urban westernized women are for the ban because they see a threat to their own freedom in the turban. They are so terrorized by the ubiquituous turbans that they can't see how the women wearing them represent an irrepressible force for women's freedom.
Hakki