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ESSAY
September 11 and the battle of
the 'isms'
By Sreeram Chaulia
An event as epochal as September 11 is bound to
provoke theorists of international relations. Over the
past year or so, there has been a race in academia to
claim the first prize for the best theory to explain the
events before and after September 11. The consensus is
that the dominant discourse of realism has won, because
it conceives of conflict and destruction as natural in
an anarchical world (from Thomas Hobbes' "anarchical
state of nature"). It also justifies America's
threatening military actions after the terror strikes as
a natural form of behavior of strong states, which
always bully the weak into compliance to serve the
former's selfish interests.
The more interesting
contest is among the alternative theories to realism. It
is a race for second prize, and the main competitors are
feminism, globalism/neo-Marxism and pluralism.
Feminism
The fundamental premise of
feminism is that international politics is a "man's
world" and a "gendered activity". Gender is a social
construction based on ideas of "autonomy",
"objectivity", "sovereignty" and "virtu" (Niccolo
Machiavelli), of which only men and masculine states are
allegedly capable. Writing after September 11, feminist
novelist Arundhati Roy encapsulated this critique,
saying, "Women of the world stand between two extremes,
both represented by androcentrism, Rambo culture and
patriarchy - Osama bin Laden and George Bush." Bin Laden
reportedly has 42 wives and is a defender and instigator
of Taliban-style hardline Islamic "structural violence"
against women. Bush heads the most conservative American
administration since Ronald Reagan, pursuing vested
interests of the military-industrial complex and giant
oil multinationals that extort women in the Third World
(a line favored by Marxist feminism).
Realist
dogmas and metaphors of "war of every man against every
man" and "stag hunt" (Jean Jacques Rousseau) have been
pursued vigorously by the US government since September
11, accompanied by a culture of "manliness" and
glorification of soldiers and ultra-patriotic themes in
the media. "Imperial brotherhoods" (Robert Dean) among
mujahideen and the Bush cabinet are waging destructive
wars to quench their fanaticism and male egotism. Some
feminists see the World Trade Center itself as a symbol
of male capitalist egotism which ran into another kind
of Arabic male chauvinism on September 11.
Feminists also like to point out that the
majority of women in the world, including Palestinians,
mourned the deaths of innocents in the terror attacks,
and called for a foreign policy of reconciliation
instead of revenge. But state-centric "military
security" orthodoxy dominates the discourse and active
voicing of peace by women has been relegated to
peripheral activity and condescendingly dismissed as
"human interest stuff" (Ann Tickner). The outcome is
that human security and "common security", an
all-encompassing concept including domestic
non-violence, is sorely lacking as the US prepares for
more wars. Feminist scholars have particularly lamented
how the US has compromised with chauvinist male warlords
in Afghanistan, who are only a shade better than the
Taliban, and which is still claiming for propaganda
value that American military action "emancipated" Afghan
women.
Feminist interventions since September 11
have labelled the event and its aftermath as an instance
of patriarchal "technology of destruction and
domination". They urge a dire need to transform the
realist paradigm and to include one half of the world's
population in deciding on foreign policy so that a more
harmonious world and a "just peace" can be arrived at.
However, feminism has no unified tenor. Despite using
phrases like "sexual terrorism" (Dorothy Roberts) as a
much bigger threat to human security than Islamic
terrorism, feminists are a highly divided lot, with
competing visions of "radical feminism", "white Western
feminism", "ecological feminism", "post-modern
feminism", et al. Feminist international relations
deconstruct realist policies with gusto, but offer no
alternative model for transforming practice of world
affairs. Can a superpower be realistically expected to
simply "forgive" and "heal" terrorists who killed nearly
3,000 people in one single day? Feminists seem to be
putting forth a chimerical ideal.
Globalism/Neo-Marxism
Globalism/Neo-Marxism
is a structural theory that rates economics, not
security, as the driving force of international
relations. Under-development of Third World states leads
to "dependency" on rich industrialized states, which
exploit the peripheral states through an integrated
capitalist system. Saudi Arabia, which produced the
majority of the hijackers on September 11, is a classic
case of exploitation by gas-guzzling and oil-hungry
America. Globalists believe that domestic bourgeois
forces reinforce foreign domination. In the Saudi
example, collusion between transnational American
corporations and the Saudi royal family oppresses common
people and forcibly imposes foreign values on Arabic
society.
The ill-effects of US-led globalization
deepens crises in the Muslim world and creates angry
young suicide bombers and hijackers willing to lay down
their lives to hit the Mecca of capitalism - the World
Trade Center. Peaceful reordering and change of economic
inequities between have and have-not nations is not
feasible. Hence, poverty and frustration in the Third
World feeds into terrorism. Another insight globalists
give is that since foreign policy depends on economic
and geo-economic resource strategies, the US government
is using its war on terrorism as a pretext to open Iraq
for oil exploration.
Division between the
European Union and the US on war against Iraq can also
be seen as a symptom of intra-capitalist struggle and
"differential growth rates" of the northern states
(Lenin). Europe and America are headed for a titanic
"struggle among imperialists" to colonize the world, and
this cleft is widening day by day, as was proved when
the last German presidential poll was fought primarily
on whether or not Berlin should support Washington in
war. Alignment of "part-capitalist" states like Russia,
China and India with the US in the post-September 11
phase is an indication of core and "semi-periphery"
(Immanuel Wallerstein) joining hands not just against
the common enemy of Islamic fundamentalism but to
jointly "transfer surplus value" from least developed
and weak states, and to prise open their markets to
exports.
Globalists provide a very valuable
recommendation that war on terrorism must include a war
against poverty, not a war against the poor in Iraq and
elsewhere. If the gap between North and South is not
bridged soon, terrorism will flourish and gain deeper
socioeconomic roots. However, in the post-September 11
world, it is inconceivable that the "transformation of
global capitalist hegemony" will ever come about. It is
also doubtful if proletariat and subordinated classes
everywhere sympathize or approve of Osama bin Laden, who
is himself a capitalist millionaire. Al-Qaeda and
Islamic holy warriors bother least about capital
accumulation and most about religion. If at all there is
a global struggle in their minds, it is not one between
have and have-not states but a "clash of civilizations"
(Samuel Huntington) between Islamic and Judaeo-Christian
worlds. Globalist medicines to counter the capitalist
world system are also impractical. Self-reliance and
autarchy are discarded options in today's world, be it
for tackling terrorism or underdevelopment.
Pluralism
Pluralism is another
structural theory of international relations which
agrees with globalists that world politics is often
governed by economics, not security. But pluralists
perceive no exploitative super-structure. They believe
free trade and barrier-free investment will eradicate
all differences between have and have-not states. They
support the neo-liberal macroeconomic consensus of the
World Bank and the International Monetary Fund as the
answer to the ills of poor countries, including
terrorism. It is an optimistic pro-globalization stand a
la Francis Fukuyama's position that secularism, liberal
democracy and free markets will reduce all tensions in
the world.
In game theoretical language,
international relations are a positive sum-game, not a
negative or zero sum-game. By extension, what the Osama
bin Ladens of the world hate most are America's "free
way of life" and its efforts to "modernize" the world.
Pluralists consider non-state actors very important
entities, having transnational impact. Al-Qaeda is a
great example of the "cobweb image" of pluralist
international relations, where multiple players
crisscross national boundaries and act in concert to
influence foreign policies. Global jihad knows no
territorial border. Another aspect of non-state actor
prominence after September 11 is pluralist faith in
efficacy of international organizations to promote
worldwide cooperation and regulate conflicts. There is a
heightened need today for a comprehensive global
convention against terrorism under the aegis of the
United Nations. Robert Keohane's "hegemonic mover", the
US, has to take the new initiative for a new "regime"
against terrorism at the UN.
Pluralists also
approach foreign policy decision-making through models
like "groupthink" and bureaucratic politics. American
governmental decisions after September 11 are redolent
with institutional turf battles between the CIA and FBI,
the US State Department and the Defense Department, for
example. Instead of using a paint-brush and faulting
president George W Bush as a "Rambo" or a "capitalist
exploiter", some pluralists go down the ladder by
choosing smaller units of analysis at the
intra-governmental stage and give a more thorough and
detailed description of the parts that make a whole and
give rise to the final foreign policy "outcome".
Pluralism offers a perfect theoretical
explanation of terrorist groups as "super-empowered
non-state actors" who challenge state sovereignties and
foreign policies. Nevertheless, the theory fails to
explain why the US waged war on Afghanistan and is
planning another in Iraq. "Internationalism" and John
Ruggie's "multilateralism" are nowhere to be seen at
present, as the US is showing increasing signs of "going
it alone" in its war against terrorism. International
organizations have been reduced to meaninglessness, as
the US seems least interested in sharing even
declaratory documents from Iraq meant actually for the
UN. Talk of "integration" and world consensus based on
free market ideas appears Utopian as America is igniting
more and more conflict in newer theaters to safeguard
its own national security.
The Fukuyama brand of
pluralism is far too naive in a world on the verge of
war and in deep economic recession. Another problem with
pluralists is that they are almost exclusively all
Americans and reflect an ethnocentric view of the global
system and motivating factors in international affairs.
The concept of a benevolent hegemon enforcing rules and
regimes for the benefit of all appears incredulous in
the case of a US that is not signatory to some of the
most important international treaties and conventions.
Pluralists do not have the tools to explain why the US
is not continuing in the camp of Immanuel Kant's "peace
union" of liberal states. Is "democratic peace" really
not a cover behind which advanced neo-imperialist
countries intervene in and exploit poorer states?
The winner
From our discussion of
alternatives to realism, globalism/neo-Marxism comes
nearest to a thorough explanation of the events
preceding and succeeding September 11. Imbalances in
economic development between North and South directly
fuel the fires of anti-Americanism and terrorism. They
create a reservoir of young people without jobs who are
willing to vent their spleen on targets selected by
religious fanatics. Pluralist triumphalism about
exporting Western liberal polity and economy to end all
inequalities does not stand ground on serious scrutiny.
Globalization has discontents, and is not an unmitigated
success story. Addressing the problems of those
discontents will assuage most of the rage that
translates into terrorist attacks. Feminism has its own
distinct contribution on September 11 by voicing the
cause of voiceless women in the periphery, but it cannot
offer a rational step-by-step explanation of the terror
attacks and the US response by merely deconstructing and
criticizing the existing system of international
relations.
Globalism is thus the runner-up in
the battle of the "isms".
(©2002 Asia Times
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