At 07:47 AM 5/10/00 +0100, you wrote:
>In the case of East Timor, progressives in the west, such as Chomsky,
>called for Western intervention.
I don't think this is quite accurate, since Chomsky doesn't trust the
"West" to do the right kind of intervention. After all, the "West" (the US)
was a major force behind the creation of the disaster in East Timor, along
with their Indonesian allies.
>IMO this particular British involvement is progressive and is part of the
>developing process of world governance, so long as it assists the UN and
>the West African peace keeping force to re-organise. ...
I'm all in favor of "world governance," but who controls the process of
that governance?
>I suggest that only left wingers who are in fact anarchists or pacifists
>would *in this particular context* denounce British intervention in Sierra
>Leone as imperialist in nature.
I guess I'd say that having some kind of state (even if organized by
British imperialists) is better than a Hobbesian war of each against all
(anarchy). But as many critics of Hobbes (including John Locke, a patron
saint of neo-Liberalism) have noted, power corrupts and absolute power
corrupts absolutely. (To see proof of this proposition, look at Rupert
Murdoch.) The British will impose a kind of order that serves _their
interests_ (and that of their allies).
I don't know much about Sierra Leone (even my ENCARTA CD-ROM is a box for
moving to a new office), but to what extent is the current anarchy a
_result_ of British actions in the past? After all, they were the ruling
colonial power there and likely applied their standard divide-and-rule
policies. They probably left the country in the hands of British-trained
bureaucrats who had little empathy with or from the people, encouraging a
division between the state and society. Add in the fact that the
geographical boundaries in Africa seldom correspond to ethnic ones...
What we need to look for is sources of order on the ground _in Sierra
Leone_. What are the forces there that can counteract the power of the
external forces so that a very minimum Sierra Leonean voices are heard in
creation of order? Are there any political movements that can replace the
"rag-tag guerilla army" in power? And what is the nature of that army? We
need more of a concrete analysis of concrete conditions....
Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] & http://liberalarts.lmu.edu/~jdevine
