WHILE the Western media retains its primary focus on the Mideast, particularly unsurprising new violence among Israelis and Palestinians, manifestly mounting discontent in Iraq over the continuing American occupation, and increasing US pressure on Iran with respect to nuclear weapons development (ironically, as the US fends off accusations of fabricating Iraqi WMD claims), deadly conflicts continue to appear like brush fires across the African continent. While the ethnopolitical fallout of the Wars of American Aggression ravages the northern portion of Africa, Sub-Saharan states are beset once again with intertribal and interethnic warfare. These conflicts, unlike Cold War-era "wars of national liberation" manipulated by the two superpowers in such hotspots as Angola, are primarily motivated by ancient blood feuds complicated by security concerns of individual states and lust for the acquisition of such lucrative natural resources as diamonds and coltan, a chief component in mobile telephones.
Much of the bloodshed could be halted easily with swift Western intervention. Without the sponsorship of the superpowers, rebel and ethnic factionary militias incipiating many of the continent's unpleasant disharmonies are lightly armed and poorly trained. Prior to British intervention in Sierra Leone, warring groups used proxy children's militias. In the eastern Congo, conflict is perpetrated by armed bands of mere hundreds of members routinely wielding no more than small arms or machetes. While regional peacekeeping forces have had some difficulty intimidating and disarming these groups, Western forces have had considerably more success. French military forces in the Ivory Coast, for example, are widely regarded as unassailable purely due to their technological and tactical superiority. Nevertheless, the insertion of Western military force into such conflicts is not a panacea. In Sierra Leone and the Ivory Coast, where such interventions have been undertaken, there is no guarantee violence will not erupt again if British or French forces, respectively, are ever withdrawn. In the Congo, gradual arrival of French peacekeeping forces actually portended more fighting, as Hema and Lendu factions struggled to achieve maximum control prior to the terroritorial stasis which would ensue once the UN mission had reached critical mass. The most difficult conundrum of all, however, is societal reconstruction of the type which would ensure such chaos will not return to the regions to which peacekeeping has brought relative stability.
Such nation-building is difficult for the United Nations and other nongovernmental organisations notwithstanding the inexorable derision of American conservatives who find any lack of total success on the part of such groups as underscoring their utter uselessness, but the lack of tangible positive result in the one territory effectively governed by the UN- Kosovo- and other regions in which it plays a substantial role is compromised by both a lack of US commitment to and its constant undermining of the organisation by engaging in military conflicts in regions subsequently requiring UN restitution. The alternatives to UN reconstruction- reengagement in imperialism (demonstably failing in Iraq, an action which was taken under false pretenses to begin with) or abandonment to inertia (which many libertarians applaud for its "realism" in recognising what they perceive as the dual failures of internationalist nation-building and imperialism alike) hardly seem capable of achieving societal stability. What imperialism wrought in Africa must ultimately be corrected by anti-imperialism, namely the international cooperation necessary to achieve continental stabilisation and security. When the superpowers terminated their ideological chess match in Africa, violence seemed to ebb but returned with a severe and violent shock to the world- the 1994 genocide in Rwanda. Like the domestic variation of libertarianism, which (perhaps inadvertently) promotes monopolistic and piratical capitalism, the Buchannanesque idea that any and all intervention is to be categorised immediately as a failure condemns Africa to the fate of the marginalised and beleaguered slave to the increasing wealth of the global north. Superficial pronouncements banishing the sale of conflict diamonds will not prevent torment and slaughter being wrought to control the mines producing them. A pity sum devoted to AIDS prevention forces American critics of neoconservative foreign policy to acquiesce, but fails to achieve any significant progress in treating or preventing the disease, especially when coupled with provisions explicitly precluding the funds' use in the promotion of birth control. That trivial stipend is utterly dwarfed by the amount lavished on the American military to produce weaponry which will more effectively reduce to ruins Arab cities. Nevermind that a healthy, stable Africa as an attractive market for investment will do more to stimulate the American economy than the narrowly focused defence deficit spending binge will ever achieve, while contemporaneously accomplishing far more for global security.
In order to be successful, the UN's capabilities must be substantially bolstered. Western governments can contribute to this effort by increasing their funding for the organisation while directing its finite resources to address only the situations with the most pressing humanitarian concerns. Ergo, while Iraq was clearly not a paradise with regard to the fulfillment of the UN Human Rights Charter, its stable environment meant that the armed assault upon it achieved far less in humanitarian terms than the application of the same resources allocated to the invasion of Iraq would have if devoted to the Congo. Nongovernmental organisations must not be spread to thin in order to produce maximum effect in ensuring future stable societies. Had Kosovo been afforded four years without substantial need for the UN and NGOs to focus their efforts elsewhere, the province's rehabilitation may have been far more successful. Currently, stabilisation forces and the local population feels as if abandoned by the international community. Sierra Leone may prove a similar success story if allotted the opportunity. From there, UN reconstruction agents would be able to tackle more challenging conflict-riddled African regions. The narrow, patient focus on relatively few reconstruction situations would also allow for international monitoring of the rejeuvanation project, which may express its concern for a lack of involvement of local officials or NGO officials' unnecessarily large paychecks (a consistent complaint in post-conflict regions).
Viewed in this context I will evaluate some contemporary security concerns in Africa and offer assessments of various courses of action the international community has or may take in addressing them:
Mauritania
Geographically West African, Mauritania's ruling elite primarily associates with North Africa and the Mideast culturally, and conflict between the government and radical Islamist factions have been at a flashpoint, apart from rising tensions between the country's rulers and black Africans, who complain of discrimination and in some cases are still subjected to slavery. Recently, Mauritania has been in the headlines due to the failure of a coup attempt on President Maaouya Ould Sid'Ahmed Taya, who himself came to power via a military ousting of the government in 1984. The black Africans are probably not behind any coup attempt, especially as they lack any support from the military. The main source of discord is between the main contingent of ruling Arab elites and the government, primarily over policy toward the West. Taya had close relations with Saddam Hussein's Iraq until having a fallout with the Iraqi leader and deciding to pursue an occidental orientation, becoming one of only three Arab states to recognise Israel and engaging in a vigourous crackdown on Islamic sentiment. This fomented outrage among the still pro-Ba'athist population, which fused with a disgruntled fired army chief to provide impetus for Taya's attempted unseating. For the West Mauritania is a considerable conundrum, closely cooperating with regard to American policy toward Iraq and terrorism, though the elite population fails to share such sentiments and will prove a source of constant tension. At the same time, pursuing close ties with Nouakchott would inevitably tie Washington to its dicriminatory policies and slave-ownership permission. Maintaining the status quo for the short term is probably the best course of action in Mauritania, as hostility to Western policies, even more notable since military action in Afghanistan and Iraq, is the chief obstacle to be tackled before pressure can be mounted for the emancipation of slaves and the achievement of black Africans' civil rights. In brief, the larger issue of the United States' relations with the Arab and Islamic worlds must be resolved before any considerable progress can be made with regards to Mauritania.
Liberia
An unusual preponderance of global media attention has been focused on besieged and beleaguered Monrovia, held by forces loyal to President Charles Taylor. Twin rebel factions, Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy (LURD) and the more recently-formed Movement for Democracy in Liberia (MODEL) are entrenched outside the capital, fighting sporadically government forces trapped inside. The streets of the city are swelled with refugees who have fled the fighting in the surrounding countryside. The issues facing Liberia are more long-rooted and complicated than mere frustration with Taylor's policies. The current Liberian president was himself a warlord during the Liberian civil wars of the 1990s, and following his election to the presidency in 1997 he contributed to the destabilisation of neighbouring Sierra Leone in order to produce a power vacuum conducive to the acquisition of its diamond deposits. Conflict diamonds were promptly rescinded as a source of Liberian revenue with the British-led intervention in the Sierra Leone conflict. Since then, Taylor's funding channels have further evaporated as MODEL gained control of southeastern timber reserves. The indictment of Taylor in a UN war crimes tribunal operating in Sierra Leone was widely blamed for his departure from a peace summit he was attending with rebel leaders hosted by Ghana. Ghanian officials had balked at arresting a visiting dignitary and some construed Taylor's flight from Ghana a sign of the failure of the internaitonal justice system, when it merely represented the inconsistency between the timing of the tribunal and the carefully tendered negotiations between Taylor and the rebels. Nevertheless, though Taylor's voluntary abdictation of the presidency, advocated by world governments in an initiative led by the United States, may cause a temporary halt to hostilities, that this conflict is underscored by ethnicity as well as disenchantment with the president may, as BBC analysts predict, means that the siege of Monrovia may be "just be another step in a long civil war." The LURD faction is dominated by members of the Mandingo ethnic group, linked to the Ulimo-K faction which wrought havoc during the civil wars of the 1990s, bitter rivals of Charles Taylor's. One of LURD's leaders, Chayee Doe, has a visceral hatred for Taylor's former faction, the National Patriotic Front of Liberia (NPFL) which tortured him in 1990. MODEL is composed primarily of the Krahn ethnic group, linked to the 1990s' Ulimo-J faction. Both rebel groups maintain their independence of each other, and despite noble mission statements, the potential for seriously lethal clashes exists if such forces are to feud over control of the capital, with ex-NPFL government forces caught in the middle.
Some Liberians have called upon the United States to intervene to prevent a humanitarian catastrophe in Monrovia should rebel forces breach its perimeter. Founded by freed American slaves in the 19th century, Liberia is as much an American creation as Sierra Leone and the Ivory Coast are British and French, respectively. Nevertheless, American forces are engaged elsewhere and Africa has traditionally proven a problem most dextrously handled by Europe anyway. French special forces, after all, whisked Westerners from the American embassy compound in Monrovia to a waiting French naval vessel, a deft demonstration of French military preponderance in West Africa. Nevertheless, a regional solution may be at hand. ECOWAS, the regional economic community of West African states, has put considerable pressure on Taylor's government via sanctions, and the Ghanaian foreign minister is indicating he may travel to Monrovia in order to appeal to Taylor to step down. Sierra Leone and the Ivory Coast both have an immediate interest in Liberia's stabilisation, as it is crucial for guaranteeing their own security in the wake of ruinous civil conflicts.
It is clear Charles Taylor's hold on Liberia is entirely unsustainable and that his departure from power will inevitably break the siege of the capital. Whether it will bring peace to the country is another question altogether, considering the close links between ethnic groups and rebel factions. Nevertheless, Taylor's faction effectively bereft of support makes a stable post-conflict Liberia a higher probability.
Democratic Republic of the Congo
In Diplomatica's previous report (including essential historical background) on the humanitarian crisis in the eastern Congo, I explained that the UN would not authorise the deployment of any French-led intervention force on the basis of its implied support for Congolese President Joseph Kabila, who has himself involved in promoting interethnic rivalries in order to regain influence over the eastern half of his country. Nevertheless, no other state seized the initiative, or had the force projection capabilities in the region, as did France, and it recently began to despatch its substantial contribution to the newly enhanced MONUC mandate set to reinforce a small, ineffectual Uruguayan force. French troops are at the head of a larger spectrum of European and African forces set to arrive in Bunia, capital of Ituri province, where the fighting has been most fierce. Though far smaller than the French contingent, groups sent from the UK, Belgium, Sweden and Ireland, as well as South Africa and Senegal, are to take part in the police action. Analysts have clashed over potential French motivations for heavy contribution to the effort. While some suggest that France is supporting its sponsored leaders in order to advance its business interests, others have suggested it intends to plunder the region's natural resources, and former Clintonians have cited the short mandate for action by European forces (to be replaced in several months by a less heavily armed Bangladeshi contingent) as an indication the mission does not adequately intersect with any national interests. It is more than likely the primary rationale for French action is maintaining its sphere of influence in Africa, which it has been cultivating with extreme interest since several African states were driven into the spotlight by the UN debate on Iraq. France has recognised that through the support of large swathes of the third world it has greater potency vis-a-vis the United States. Furthermore, it seeks to again contrast the internationally mandated humanitarian mission to Congo with far more reckless American actions abroad, what I have dubbed the "Petit Irak" strategy of methodological juxtaposition after a Le Monde article suggesting the divergence in means between American action in Iraq and French activity in the Ivory Coast.
UN officials have wisely decided to tackle the problem of the wider Congo conflict by engaging the former players in the massive civil conflict which involved up to nine African states at one point during the late 1990s in open warfare in the eastern Congo. A delegation led by French UN ambassador Jean-Marc de La Sabliere has begun a regional tour in Angola, a participant in the conflict once known as "Africa's first world war." In my initial conclusions regarding the Congo I asserted that no long term solution was possible without a reconciliation of Uganda and Rwanda, which played a substantial role in shaping the area's current ethnic brutality, as well as between those states and the players in the civil war of the late 1990s, including Chad, Namibia, and Angola, which could play a new role in the stabilisation of the Congo's remote east. Securing the countryside and preventing further clashes there has become the new concern of UN monitors since the arrival of French forces in Bunia, and will likely remain so until the discovery of any adequate long-term solutions.
Zimbabwe
Having possessed a system of discrimination making South African apartheid seem timid in comparison, Rhodesia was naturally beset with a rebellion led by indigenous African forces against the unrecognised government of Ian Smith, who severed colonial relations with the UK and plunged the country into civil war. Eventually Rhodesia was forced back into direct administration from London before Margaret Thatcher's government handed over power to the rebel faction piloted by Robert Mugabe, who has remained in power since 1980. Recently, Mugabe has stepped up efforts at land reform in what was christened Zimbabwe, driving white farmers from their land and failing to discourage violent reprisals against them. Unfortunately, this reckless attempt at establishing equitable land distribution produced a near famine as highly productive farms were abandoned. Since then, chief opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai had fought an election campaign against Mugabe, the result of which was regarded with suspicion by the international community. Tsvangirai has since led massive protests against Mugabe under the auspices of his Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), which ultimately resulted in his arrest. Mugabe's repression of MDC protests has resulted in general demobilisation of the opposition. "We have not yet reached the stage where the people's anger with the regime is equal to their fear of it," one organisation member lamented. Nevertheless, MDC boycotts have produced significant economic pressure on the government. The most influential of regional governments, South Africa, continues to hope that negotiations between the ruling Zanu PF party and MDC will produce a satisfactory result, yet both factions are becoming increasingly divergent.
Speculation has reigned in the wake of the assault on Iraq that Tony Blair would authorise an invasion of Zimbabwe, marking the third time in a century Britain would have taken direct control of the territory. Nevertheless, as popular support for Mugabe erodes, the wisest course for the West is to continue to apply outside pressure, while encouraging regional governments like South Africa's to consider abandoning what some have chosen to construe as tacit support for the Mugabe government.
POLAND is Europe's new love-child. The state that just weeks ago the German press derided as America's "Trojan donkey" in Europe and which Jacques Chirac had patronised as "not well raised" for its support of American action in Iraq has been hailed in capitals across the European Union for its enthusiastic endorsement of membership within the continental bloc. The referendum on Poland's accession, despite all fears, produced a resoundingly pro-integrationist verdict. Nearly four in five Poles said tak to the Union, with a surprisingly high turnout of 59% allaying fears of invalidation and the resulting political scramble necessary to ratify the accession treaty in the Sejm, or Polish parliament. Despite some reservations, chiefly concerning protection for small scale Polish farmers and increased competition from Western European firms (not to mention the controversial second-class status Poland will occupy within the Common Agricultural Policy), Poles predominately viewed the vote as an investment in their national future. EU membership will primarily benefit urban areas and industries, and enthusiasm in the cities was notable. Current members may balk at the delight expressed by Poles who believed they now had the easy opportunity to work and study in France and Germany, whose economies are currently ailing and unemployment rates steadily rising, but nevertheless the former Eastern bloc's largest and most Eurosceptical state has now officially cast its lot with the Union, with primarily positive implications for West European economies, which will benefit from investment opportunities and newly opened markets. Despite fears of waves of German takeovers, the Polish economy is sufficiently strong enough to weather the European common market and to derive substantial gains from the Union's open borders.
Poland's political importance will no doubt improve as a result of the referendum as well. The result has cemented within Europe the conception that the country is committed to the Union and that its undying devotion to the United States is not the sole defining motivation of Polish foreign policy. Indeed, Polish leaders have striven arduously to build relationships on both sides of the Atlantic, assisting the US on Iraq and conspicuously cooperating with the Franco-German axis as part of the "Weimar Triangle" of states. Entering the Union, Poland's population of 40 million will qualify it for a voting position equal to Spain, one of Europe's traditional "great powers." The minority Social Democratic government under the leadership of Leszek Miller has been bolstered into a good position to call for a vote of confidence within the Sejm, and the fusion of his leadership with the forthcoming economic gains following formal accession in June of 2004 should allow Poland to rapidly develop an advanced welfare state similar to its new Continental partners. It will be in good standing for membership in the eurozone, projected for 2007.
While Poland's close relationship with the United States exposed most poignantly by the Iraq conflict had initially produced a sharp reaction from the rest of the Continent, the government has engaged in a strategy of appealing to both Washington and Brussels by affirming its commitment to both power centres. Poland has realised its strategic position can be enhanced considerably by partnering with the United States to expand its global influence and participate in the asset plunder of humiliated Iraq, while simultaneously and dramatically improving its importance to Europe by becoming, increasingly, a world power and acting as an independent force in the absence of a common European foreign policy. Commentators have likened its actions to Spain's, which has also managed to retrieve its status as a global actor by dually appeasing the US and engaging vigourously within the European community. Such tactics have found immense appeal across Donald Rumsfeld's "New Europe," as Balkan states are now supporting American positions on such issues as the establishment of an International Criminal Court in return for sponsorship within European institutions like NATO and the EU. Attempting to maintain these inexorably divergent partnerships is an unsustainable practise, as Turkey encountered when its population essentially revolted against capitualation to American demands or allure by American bribery. In both Spain and Poland, popular sentiment will eventually outpace the ability of governments to maneouvre between Europe and America and, should the current radical departure in American foreign policy continue, most likely force the "New Europe" into an acceptance of a European common foreign and security policy with the aim of containing the United States. Of course, popular rebellion against pro-American policies is not the only limiting factor- the emerging structure of the European constitution will require adhesion by member states to a common foreign policy, though retaining individual national vetoes, yet this stipulation may yet advance the formation of such a policy. Furthermore, as the "New European" states gain power, they will eventually attempt to seek independent action, and learn they have no formal imput on the decisions of American officials. Left with no choice other than opposition should their strategic interests be imperiled by American action, as was the case with France or Russia, or believing as German leaders did that American activity was beyond comprehensible logic, such states will realise that symbiosis with the US has become both useless and damaging, and will gravitate toward Brussels, which grants states formal influence and which consolidates states with similar strategic, economic, and ideological interests.
In the intervening period, however, the "New European" states retain the goodwill of the Franco-German axis by appealing wholeheartedly to the European system and to working within its framework. Britain, however, seized by rather irrational fears concerning the preservation of its sovereignty, deluded by illusions of its residual world power, and bemusingly unaware of its status as a front for American interests, refuses to employ the heretofore successful strategy of the "New European" countries. Of course, Britain is in a wholly dissimilar situation compared with Spain, Poland, and the Balkan states. It has little ambition to significantly increase its global influence, which, though severely debilitated since the empire's slow denouement, maintains a position of worldwide influence considerably greater than that of Spain via its participation in and heavy investment within the Commonwealth. It therefore makes little sense for Britain to exploit its association with the United States on the basis of expanding its international prestige. Instead, the British government believes it has the ability to moderate the United States' imperial ambitions by acting as a mentor of sorts and imparting the lessons of its own imperial experience. This is a demonstrably unsuccessful tactic, however, resulting in only cursory and superficial American patience for British influence and an actual diminution of British autarky, rendering ironic the yelps of paranoid Tories in Westminster decrying the loss of the UK's foreign affairs autonomy to Brussels.
The British strategy, by contrast to that of the "New European" states, diminishes British global influence by making it a slave to the European economy and to American policy. Having no ability to contribute to decisions regarding either, its self-perceived "independence" actually limits its ability to engage in a sovereign course of action. Accession to the United States has yet to produce a single tangible result to the benefit of the United Kingdom to the effect it has with regard to the "New European" states, and the contempt shown for Brussels has alienated and isolated it within its own economic bloc. Britain's economy is sustained by exports to Europe, and London has positioned itself as Europe's financial capital, though awkwardly outside the eurozone. A substiantial reorientation of the British economy toward that of the United States would provide no greater degree of influence on the part of British financiers, would devastate northern England's reliance on industrial production and shipment to the Continent, and would force it to endure an inflexible economic straightjacket with positively Argentinean results. By contrast, British fears that joining the "one-size-fits-all" eurozone can be addressed by its ability to contribute board members to the European Central Bank, its weighty position relative to other European national economies, and its already substantial integration into the Continent's trade network. Despite this integration however, it has missed significant growth potential, as trade within the eurozone has accelerated to three times the growth level between the eurozone and the three EU members (Britain, Denmark, and Sweden) remaining outside Frankfurt's economic influence. Increasingly, Britain will find itself adrift in notably unsplendid isolation with each day it fails to adopt the single currency.
The United Kingdom suffers from a mania of sorts, believing its influence greater than that of a medium-sized European power, and an increasingly ostracised one within Brussels at that. It espouses enthusiastic plans for the European Union along its own terms, yet fails, by its frustrating insular exceptionism from the Continental land mass and Continental mindset, to ever embrace the Union to begin with. When acceptance of the framework for Europe itself not forthcoming from London, how can it begin to shape the Union to its whims? Much vaunted desired partnerships with relatively eurosceptical states Spain and Poland have failed to properly materialise because of Britain's lack of commitment to immersion within the Union, strategies Madrid and Warsaw have employed. In order to maximise its position within the coming decade, Britain must come to terms with its lack of formal influence over Washington, and, slightly tweaking the American phrase, insist that it will provide no cooperation without representation before promptly terminating the "special relationship" established upon the inequitable terms so seemingly lusted after by Tony Blair's government. Having applied Toryite "sovereignty" rhetoric to its alliance with the United States, therefore, it would be advised to involve itself in the shaping of the European constitution and to adopting the single currency with great urgency. The revelation of Britain's necessary emancipation from the United States' fallacious foreign policies and immediate involvement in Europe will embrace the successes of both the Hispano-Polish "New European" and Franco-German "Old European" blocs by recognising Britain's remaining global power while promoting its position as a European partner. Only such a course as this will ensure the UK is not increasingly marginalised and subordinated in the near future.
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-NEWSWEEK believes war crimes tribunals are doing more harm than good. Cited is the indictment of Liberian leader Charles Taylor, which is blamed for the current perilous situation developing as a result of the rebel siege of Monrovia. The timing of the decision was not very tactful, but it fails to prove the system is somehow inherently flawed, as it could have been easily modified not to coincide with peace talks between Taylor and rebels in Ghana if the tribunal and diplomats had worked in concert. Furthermore, Slobodan Milosevic's "mockery" of the court at the Hague is highlighted, as if this in any way diminishes the purpose or usefulness of the tribunal system. The alternative- the very American solution of, perhaps, summary execution, seems a tad hypocritical when addressing abuses of human rights.
-IT APPEARS this site is becoming almost as well-read by American expats as the International Herald-Tribune (photocopy of the New York Times as that has become). Welcome self-exiled globetrotters! You are living proof that even minuscule exposure of Americans to the outside world is an amazing ingredient of international and intercultural understanding. Perhaps someday I will join your ranks, sitting in a Ringstrasse cafe with a copy of IHT and some warm Viennese streudel.
Inside the Empire American Nationalism Investigated
THE PECULIARITIES of American nationalism have long been distinguished from the rather recognisable traits inherent in Eurasian ethnocultural identities. How such differences have come to shape the exigencies of American activities on the world stage has been explained in a Foreign Policy article by Minxin Pei of the Carnegie Foundation for International Peace, "The Paradoxes of American Nationalism," which has made waves within international affairs circles in the United States. Pei explains that American nationalism is "defined not by notions of ethnic superiority, but rather "by a belief in the supremacy of U.S. democratic ideals." This manifests itself, he asserts, in rejections of the "nationalist" appellation by Americans associating the term with ethnically motivated classical nationalism as evidenced in European history, and an inability of Americans to comprehend the strength of patriarchical nationalisms abroad as opposed to transnational ideological ideals.
The implications are evident: the United States, believing in the absolutism of its ideals, seeks to transfer them abroad. "Americans not only take enormous pride in their values but also regard them as universally applicable," notes Pei. "According to the Pew Global Attitudes survey, 79 percent of the Americans polled agreed that 'It’s good that American ideas and customs are spreading around the world.'" Furthermore, "American political institutions and ideals, coupled with the practical achievements attributed to them, have firmly convinced Americans that their values ought to be universal." This is the genesis of American zeal for exporting secular republican democracy to the Middle East, or free markets worldwide, disregarding local idiosyncracies. Perhaps more disturbingly, when such blind policies backfire on Americans, their intrinsically short collective memory and conception of the United States as what Freud would call an "ideational construct" rather than merely a nation causes Americans to "see attacks on them as primarily attacks on their values." This would explain the reaction, therefore, to the 11 September attacks by many Americans, especially of the nationalist right wing persuasion. "Most [Americans] readily embraced the notion that the attacks embodied an assault on US democratic freedoms and institutions," Pei expounds. This was, of course, seized upon by officials within the American government, who chose, perhaps out of their own nationalist myopia, to emphasize various aspects of Islam, particularly of the fundamentalist strain, which made it appear inherently designed to globally assault liberal secularism. Philosophies of Islamic extremism were extrapolated to represent, for some of the more virulent commentators, flaws in the Islamic religion itself. Israel, too, had employed this tactic, arguing that "surrender" to Hamas and other Palestinian groups would be tantamount to the end of the Jewish state, as this was what a handful of radicals at the period of the first intifada's inception had argued. Given the close affinity between Israel and the United States and the unique attributes of American nationalism as evidenced by Pei, it was thus natural to come to the conclusion that a brooding, backwards ideology was sweeping the Arab world with anti-pluralist sentiment. In an exercise of retransferability, the Straussian conception that Israel represented a bulwark of Western civilisation in the Mideast merged with the American nationalist sentimentality that Palestinian suicide attacks amounted to an assault on a successful democratic model which such militants would be better off emulating than attacking, ignoring the tense history of collective ethnic strife underscoring the conflict. Indeed, Pei asserts, whereas Palestinian nationalism is "aggrieved," the American variety is "triumphalist," and therefore a lack of common perspective exists among the two nationalities.
Among the more interesting observations Pei makes is that of the innate hypocrisy contained within the United States' distinct nationalism:
Given the nationalism that animates U.S. policies, American behavior abroad inevitably appears hypocritical to others. This hypocrisy is especially glaring when the United States undermines global institutions in the name of defending American sovereignty (such as in the cases of the Kyoto Protocol, the International Criminal Court, and the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty). The rejection of such multilateral agreements may score points at home, but non-Americans have difficulty reconciling the universalistic rhetoric and ideals Americans espouse with the parochial national interests the U.S. government appears determined to pursue abroad. Over time, such behavior can erode the United States’ international credibility and legitimacy.
What Pei fails to grasp is the logic of the American conservatives who espouse such universalism while simultaneously rejecting international protocol. For these conservatives, international law is a constraint upon the United States' abilities to act as the missionary agent of American ideals- intervening in various locales to impose its brand of order. They argue that American military immunity is necessary as the United States acts as the legitimate guardian of "goodness" and therefore whatever means used to achieve its macro-geopolitical moral objectives are therefore justified, the "destroy the village in order to save it," mentality invoked during the Vietnam War. Indeed, the United States' relative isolation from the rest of the world culturally and geographically has made it prey to a rather rapacious and runamok subconscious conception that the expansion of American ideals and the pursuit of vital national interests are coterminous. Ergo, many Americans failed to see the implied hypocrisy in the overthrow of Chile's Salvador Allende and the installation of the dictatorial Pinochet junta in 1973, as it was merely one of many Cold War activities in the name of the "greater good"- extinguishing the influence of the Soviet Union and ideological communism (though Allende, of course, had little to do with the Soviet Union). Furthermore, Americans failed to see (though perhaps more out of gross ignorance) the hypocrisy evident in American alliances with Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan in the "war on terrorism." Perhaps reduced to its most illogical but intangible, the provincialism of Americans disallows them the distinction between something which merely benefits the United States as a national entity and something which benefits the rest of the world, as the United States, representing ideational concepts, is less a geographical entity than an abstract like "freedom" or "liberty." That assumption, which can be expressed as "that which is good for America, is good for the world," is potentially the most alarming of realisations one might garner from Pei's analysation of the American character.
Among Pei's opponents are Francis Fukuyama, of "End of History" fame. Fukuyama sees such hypocrisy as necessary for the pursuit of national interests, and that the United States was not a unique example of countries which paper over less noble goals with moralistic justification. He argued that American moral pontification was the result of a need to convince other states to accede to its interests. Nevertheless, Fukuyama seems to ignore the American public's perception behind such activities, or perhaps the ideological fundamentalism motivating policymakers as well. American government officials, of course, are not all cynical, conspiratorial imperialists, but rather tend to stumble accidentally into courses which breed those perceptions due to their own acceptance of the coterminality between American interests and moral goals. The downfall of Fukuyama's argument is a result, in fact, of his own captivation with this belief. He noted that American idealism was responsible for positive progress toward several international institutions, but when confronted by post-Cold War American exceptionalism to such institutions, quickly reverted to justifying American self-righteousness by alleging the United Nations was not a representative democracy and that American global leadership was necessary, mirroring the sentiments of his fellow conservatives.
Pei's observation that American nationalism is the product of personal, rather than national action is interesting inasmuch as it relates to the very libertarian Anglosphere theory, which asserts unique organisational "civic societies" have been a product of English-speaking countries whose laws and traditions have originated from such philosophies as John Locke's. That American nationalism is individually motivated is the "secret of [its] vitality and durability" according to Pei, as it "has made nationalist sentiments more genuine, attractive, and legitimate to the general public." Unlike in other societies, American manifestations of nationalism are not state-motivated. Apart from the US, states,
...especially those ruled by authoritarian regimes, the deploy [their] resources, from government-controlled media to the police, to propagate "patriotic values." The celebration of national days in such countries features huge government-orchestrated parades that showcase crack troops and the latest weaponry...Yet despite its awesome high-tech arsenal, such orgiastic displays of state-sponsored nationalism are notably absent on Independence Day in the United States. Of course, Americans hold parades and watch fireworks on the Fourth of July, but those events are largely organized by civic associations and partly paid for by local business groups.
The distinction is explained by the article's essential thesis, that the fundamental individuality of American nationalism is due to its association with abstract concepts rather than ethnic-statist allegiances. This, however, makes American nationalism no less tribalist, parochialist, or dangerous, as explained above in the "coterminality corollary." Nevertheless, it makes American nationalism less detectable to its practitioners and inflates its propensity for manifesting itself as jingoism. Because American nationalism is ideational and personal, Americans tend to suppress or regard as heinous insults any problems afflicting the American state. Ergo, Ronald Reagan's triumph in the 1980 election was predicated upon boosting American self-esteem. The worship of such iconography as hawkeyed eagles or flag banners is explained by the affirmation of such as symbols of one's beliefs and one's personality. Fundamental human attributes of independence and individuality therefore are derived from the belief in concepts believed to be expressed by flag-waving. The pledge of allegiance becomes not surrender to a draconian state entity but a rather faith-based expression of nationalist religiosity based upon one's need for an ideological identity.
The attractiveness, therefore, of nationalism to Americans and its driving inclination to pilot hypocritical manifestations of foreign policy has resulted in some rather inevitable spurts of imperialism and the expected backlash therein. Manifest Destiny is seen as virtuous, "patriotism" supplanted euphemistically, and considerably in wartime, for jingoism or nationalism. To be derided as "unpatriotic" is regarded a most offensive insult. That the world is ruled by this galvanised spirit of blind national-ideational allegiance portends ominously lest its power be checked by states whose populations, naturally suspicious of state-sponsored nationalism, are more likely to pursue a rational course. The Anglosphere theory, an application of American nationalism's universality, has already been rendered null by such a process, as two of its theoretical main practitioners, Britain and Australia, are both torn by historical, geographical, and social ties to Europe and Asia, respectively, and naturally inclined to fear the dominance of the hypocritical hegemon.
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-NIALL FERGUSON, a British author who has called for a restoration of the British Empire under American auspices, has now turned to promoting another anachronism: the Protestant work ethic, which he claims accounts for the disparity between American and European levels of productivity and, therefore, the strength of the American economy. He is especially worried about the Central and Eastern European states slated to join the European Union in June of 2004. "Unfortunately," he bemoans, "European Union labor legislation will reverse [long Czech workweeks], to prevent what the West Europeans disingenuously call "social dumping"- the competition from low-wage economies. Czechs will be obliged to work less by a combination of legal entitlements to a shorter working week, longer holidays, higher minimum wages and generous unemployment benefits." Sounds horrible, doesn't it, all those benefits? Not only does Ferguson fail to explain why the mere correlation between Protestant religious fervour in the United States and its higher "work ethic" amounts to causation, but he misses the point entirely- European policies are not designed to create an economic powerhouse (though the European economy will effortlessly outpace the US following its eastern expansion) but to provide for a higher quality of life for Europe's citizens. Ferguson resorts to adopting what sounds like 19th century dogma: "Enlargement of the European Union may simply confirm the eastward spread of the leisure preference in an increasingly work-shy and Godless European continent." God -whoops- forbid!
