threadline "Infinite Justice"
>In the first instance, the 1991 coalition was built to defend the
>principle of national independence, albeit of a largely fictitious
>nation, 'Kuwait'. In its consequences, though, the New World Order
>tended to delegitimate independent nations. The way that Iraq's
>independence had been compromised by the imposition of Kurdish 'safe
>havens' and the 'no-fly zone' became a model in international relations.
>Countries from Yugoslavia to Indonesia, Sudan to Zimbabwe found that the
>defence of their national independence - derided as the archaic
>'Westphalian System' - won little favour in international circles.
The nation state as the unit of international affairs has not just been discredited. It has been superseded economically.
The nation state is associated with the efforts of the rising bourgeoisie to capture a home market, and to free production from the fetters of non-capitalist relations.
What is apparently discussed in creative universities, and considered by people like Henry Kissinger, as the "Westphalian System" is in fact a matter of political economy, of the changes in the economic base. The rise of the capitalist mode of production in its early phase, and its overcoming the limits of the nation state in its mature phase.
Western Europe can no longer develop its economic power even within the confines of the European Union. It needs an integrated market with a single currency to compete effectively with the USA in the world.
James Heartfield is correct when he says
> The European powers are determined to use the crisis to lock
>the United States into an international diplomatic process.
The crunch for left-wingers is whether the best way of resisting US hegemonism is to defend the rights of the nation state.
This dividied many progressives. Although Milosevic had little chance of creating a national capitalist state out of Yugoslavia, many thought it more important to oppose the imperialist dismemberment of Yugoslavia even if that was at the price of the self-determination of a muslim people like the Kosovans. My own view was that the nation state was largely past and it was more important to support the democratic rights of all working people, to lay the basis for cooperation again in the future, and that hegemonic powers who were on the scene ought to be challenged on the morality of what they were doing there, if they could not protect such bourgeois democratic rights. Nor did I think that the state in question had any serious chance of preserving a form of socialism, particularly if it violated proletarian internationalism.
Time has accelerated the processes that James Heartfield describes. At least one million Kosovans were able to return home. At least the people of East Timor (another dubious statelet) were able to stay on their land, as a result of interference by the global hegemons.
The attack on the WTC now goads the USA into proving its ability to control the bodies of armed men who set the boundaries of state power. In the course of this the new terrain of struggle becomes apparent: the political and economic justice of the system of global governance, which is to replace the nation state. Even Iran is being drawn by the UK into the "coalition".
No: there is no point in demonstrating to protest that the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Afghanistan is about to be violated, despite the eloquence and courage of a Robert Fisk. There is every point in protesting that the interventions may be crude and militaristic, rather than facilitating a democratic process of peace and reconciliation. Combining a moral argument with an argument of real politik - there is no point either for the USA in precipitating an unplanned radical islamic coup in Saudi Arabia or in Pakistan.
There is also every point in challenging US hegemonism on its leadership of the global economy and of the protection of the environment. Global communications are moving fast beyond the bounds of the nation state. So must our strategic picture of the terrain of struggle.
Chris Burford
London