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<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Doug, taking issue with Michael P over whether
Rwandan and other massacres in the 3rd world are on a par with the record of
Western Imperialism:</FONT></DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>"Which of course had nothing to do with the heritage of imperialism?</DIV>
<DIV>Add up the body count for the colonization of the Americas, Africa, <BR>and
South Asia, plus two world wars, plus Indochina, plus Iraq <BR>sanctions - an
incomplete list - and you've got 500 years of <BR>bloodbaths."</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>I think part of the difficulty dealing with this
history is that there are two related but distinct theoretical approaches
confused. Both come from Lenin. The first is his theory of economic imperialism,
the second, arising from but not identical with the first is his geo-political
theory of oppressed and oppressor nations, and the division and redivision of
the world between the oppressor nations.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Lenin did not divide the world into imperialist and
non-imperialist nations, seeing imperialism as an historical epoch and a world
system. What he did say was that there was a tendency for the developed nations
to divide the rest of the world between them to secure raw materials and fields
of investment. But there was no mechanical relationship between developed
nations and the subjugation of the less developed. So Switzerland, most
definitely a centre of finance capitalism, is wholly un-belligerent, and never
held a single colony.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>The geo-political theory of oppressed and oppressor
nations assumes the distinction between developed and backward countries, but it
also assumes much more: namely the generalised struggle for democratic rights,
principally the right of nations to self-determination, which Lenin identified
as the crucial issue of his times. It was the political logic of the oppressor
nations' subjugation of the oppressed which led him to brand them the force
behind militarism and imperialism.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Since Lenin's day, one feature that he identified
as important (though not, on my reading, essential) to the theory of imperialism
went into reverse, namely the export of capital, or investment from the
developed world into the developing. After the cycle of world wars capital
contracted back into its metropolitan centres to participate in the
reconstruction of Europe and Japan. The regions that capital was repatriated
from were Eastern Europe, China, the Middle East, Africa - all the regions that
were characterised by nationalist revolts against imperialism. (Since the mid
eighties, more regions have been drawn into the capitalist orbit, but not on the
basis of a lack of investment opportunities at home, as far as I can
see.)</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>In retrospect, and without wishing to diminish the
subjective factor in those movements, they were largely nationalist or socialist
movements that were built upon impoverishment and underdevelopment. Mao's China,
the Stalinist states of Eastern Europe, and the de-colonised African states were
left trying to build the new society on the basis of investment starvation. And
no doubt there was a dynamic towards brutality in those conditions.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>I agree with Doug that imperialism - as a world
system - was responsible (if that's the right word) for the impoverished
conditions these states were created in. Of course, people make their own
history, too, and the way that the Khmer Rouge or Mao or Ceaucescu or Mobutu
played the hand that was dealt them is down to them. And the brutality imposed
upon them from outside was easily a match for the internal
atrocities.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>What is left of the theory of oppressed and
oppressor nations today? One factor means that it is difficult to apply that
logic. Oppression is not simply an objective condition. You cannot deny people
rights that they are not asking for. In so far as the nationalist tide in the
developing nations is exhausted there is not the same systematic denial of
national rights that we saw in the colonial system. The developed nations do
arbitrarily interfere with the less developed, as in Iraq, but this is much more
episodic than before. None of which is any consolation to the people of
Iraq, of course, some 25 000 of whom are reckoned to have died in this crackpot
venture.</FONT></DIV></BODY></HTML>