The Daily Grasshopper

While paying fairly close attention to the papers lately, I've noticed a pattern developing on Sundays in the "liberal" print media here in the northeastern section of the United States. There's apparently some sort of arrangement that allows intellectuals with newly-published books to peddle their ideas in the opinion pages of the New York Times and the Boston Globe (and maybe sell more books?). Last week, it was Paul Berman's turn. Berman's latest book, "Terror and Liberalism," had "just been published" when his article "The twilight of tyrants" appeared, coincidentally, on the front of the Sunday Globe's "Ideas" section (4/13/03, p. E1). There was also Gary Rosen's review of Berman's work, in the Times' "Book Review" section, where the managing editor of "Commentary" magazine opined: "The United States can and should do far more to spark liberalization and democratic reform abroad, for reasons not just of high principle but of self-interest."

It's a familiar sentiment among American intellectuals of the "liberal" persuasion these days. Trying to make sense of what they've just witnessed, and rationalize a world in which war crimes committed in the name of pre-emptive peacekeeping are not only justifiable but desirable, they've taken to offering apologies for the invasion of Iraq, and, by extension, the wars to come. This week, it was Niall Ferguson's turn.

Ferguson is, the Times tells us, "the author of 'Empire: The Rise and Demise of the British World Order and the Lessons for Global Power' (Basic Books), is a professor of history at the Stern School of Business, New York University, and a senior research fellow at Oxford." His opinion piece, "True Cost of Hegemony: Huge Debt" appears, in yet another coincidence, on the front of the Times' "Week in Review" section (analogous to the Globe's "Ideas" section - it's where all the "think pieces" show up). His book, "Empire," is reviewed in the Times' "Book Review" section. (Ferguson is everywhere, in fact - last week, he was wearing his reviewer's hat, giving his thoughts on "The Future of Freedom," Fareed Zakaria's latest book, which he reviewed in the Times).

Ferguson is the kind of commentator whose views find acceptance among the opinion-shapers at the Times and the Globe. In his essay on the "True Cost Of Hegemony," it's the things he takes for granted that establish his bona fides: the U.S. is "aspiring to be a liberal empire," following the example of the "last great English-speaking empire." Ferguson cheerily reminds us of the great gift the British gave to humanity when he writes "critics of colonialism may carp about the wickedness of empire, but the one undeniable benefit of British hegemony was that it encouraged investors to risk their money in poor countries." Ah, yes, the noble bankers and captains of industry, ever willing to "risk their money" for the betterment of the savages. It's a stunning measure of how little the West has "progressed," and how few steps forward "civilization" has taken in 100 years, that we can read this crap in the New York Times in 2003. The whole shoddy thing is here:

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/04/20/weekinreview/20FERG.html

Margaret MacMillan, provost of Trinity College at the University of Toronto, examines Ferguson's book in this week's "Book Review." She, too, has internalized at least as many assumptions about America's benevolent role in the world as her subject has. "Can Washington continue to foster free trade, the democratic institutions it values or the rule of law indirectly?" she wonders naively, engaging head-on Ferguson's suggestion that Americans need to understand the challenges of empire. One has to have to ignored a whole lot of recent history to offer such a rumination with a straight face. MacMillan, befitting her status as a responsible, liberal intellectual, is more than up to the task. You can read the whole review here:

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/04/20/books/review/20MACMILLT.html

Here's the passage from her review that I found most shocking:

"Niall Ferguson goes even farther. A young British historian who has made a name for himself with masterly studies of banking and finance, as well as an iconoclastic account of World War I in which he contended that Britain would have been much better off to have stayed out, he argues here that empires can be a positive force. They can provide the necessary framework in which good things, from globalization to uncorrupt government, happen. He has little patience with liberal guilt about imperialism or the exercise of power. The time has come, he asserts, for the United States to think seriously about swallowing its deeply ingrained distaste for colonies and take up, well, if not the white man's burden, then that of the civilized world.

His model is the British Empire. True, the slave trade was appalling, the hunting down of aborigines in Tasmania genocide. On the other hand, the British Empire spread wealth and technology. It allowed the free movement of capital and labor. Would, say, India have done as well left to its local rulers? (Ferguson does not actually tell us much about Indian society.) The British were right, he says, to abolish the burning of widows. Today we in the West would do the same with 'modern equivalents' like female circumcision."

Of course, there are those who have investigated the dynamics of Indian society, and the question of whether it would "have done as well left to its local rulers." These people tend to be indigenous Indian authors, or others whose interest in the question of empire is as genuine as Ferguson and MacMillan's, if not as uncritical. For a native Indian woman's impressions of the legacies of British rule, read Dr. Vandana Shiva's essay "On Being Indian: Globalization, Bharateeyata And Hindutva":

http://www.vshiva.net/aticles/being_indian.htm

Shiva's work never appears in the "Ideas" or the "Week in Review" section of the "liberal" newspapers of the U.S., nor are her books written up in the "Book Review" section of this country's "paper of record." For a look at some of this intellectual's work (and the sort of thoughts that are considered "unacceptable" to mainstream "liberal" media), see her online archive: http://www.vshiva.net/archive.htm.

The refusal to acknowledge the work of Shiva, and her American contemporaries, should be of concern to anyone who thinks that Americans enjoy anything resembling a robust political discourse. In fact, important voices are actively silenced in this country, even by "liberal" media. In 1995, Boston Globe reporter Anthony Flint wrote a profile of American dissident and internationally-renowned MIT linguist Noam Chomsky, in which he conceded "for all [Chomsky's] diligent analysis, he wasn't the one asked by The New York Review of Books to write about [former Defense Secretary Robert] McNamara's apologia. He's never been invited to join a panel up the street, at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government. As a political commentator, he labors in a special kind of isolation, one where the spectre of irrelevancy looms." Flint's article is archived online here, and is worth reading:

http://monkeyfist.com/ChomskyArchive/about/profile_html

It contains Chomsky's assessment of the state of political debate in this country, a subject he has focused on for over forty years: "So you get The New York Times being described, without irony, as the voice of the liberal left, just because they are occasionally slightly critical." Chomsky, like Shiva, is a prolific author and critic of U.S. foreign and economic policy. Because neither of them can muster the proper deference (or enthusiasm!) for U.S. hegemony, the kind that makes Niall Ferguson a much-sought-after commentator for the Times, the "spectre of irrelevancy looms."

What's interesting is the article that appears on page 3 of the "Week in Review" section, which reminds us that it's not all benevolent sacrifice for imperial powers. The article, "Chaos in Congo Suits Many Parties Just Fine," talks about the legacies of colonialism in Africa, in which the U.S. has played its own not-too-wholesome role:

"Finally, the Balkanization and war suit the amazing variety of corporations - large and small, American, African and European - that profit from the river of mineral wealth without having to worry about high taxes, and that prefer a cash-in-suitcases economy to a highly regulated one."

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/04/20/weekinreview/20HOCH.html

The article reminds readers who have just read MacMillan's supposition that Washington seeks to "foster democratic institutions" that such blithe assessments of the U.S. government's role in world affairs might be a tad generous. The author, Adam Hochschild, writes that "Patrice Lumumba, Congo's first and last democratically chosen leader" was targeted for "overthrow and assassination" by the Eisenhower administration for threatening to nationalize the Congo's immense mineral wealth. Lumumba was killed in a CIA-backed coup shortly thereafter, which Hochschild attributes to the "Congolese and Belgians." (In another noteworthy example of Hochschild's genuflection to proper modes of thought, he refers to "dozens of companies now making money from Congo's conflict," without mentioning a single name - like DeBeers, a regular Times advertiser).

The Congo, where 3.3 million people have died in the past four and a half years due to the effects of civil war, according to the International Rescue Committee, knows about empires. And though they lack the appreciation for empire builders that Ferguson has cultivated, their sentiments might seem familiar to the Iraqi people right about now. As Hochschild writes:

"Despairing Congolese say they would be better off if they were not so rich."

PK
http://www.dailygrasshopper.com