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Masks of Empire
The 10 authors of these essays examine a large number of issues to say that the latest phase of capitalism is visible in the pursuit of globalisation by the Americans. This is about as circular an argument as you can get. That kind of insight is neither here nor there since in a world which is characterised by the hegemony of capital, where even communism of the Soviet variety was essentially state capitalism, it seems a bit trite to say that capitalism engenders globalisation. How else would have globalisation happened if not due to capitalism? The contributors to this volume are well-known America-baiters who discuss the recent history of the world to tell us how the present global economy, the efforts of the UN towards intervention in the affairs of other nations, the origins and perpetuation of terrorism, the spread of the idea of democracy under American aegis and much more is a consequence of American imperialism. It feels reassuring to read about the use of half-truths and blatant lies by the Bush administration to convince the American public about the legitimacy of the various wars in West Asia in order to destroy the so-called WMDs (Zia Mian). It seems the American public is as gullible where its security is concerned, as the Indian public has been about its own. Vanaik highlights the total immorality of the American foreign policy in its efforts to protect their interests. The US government has little hesitation in sacrificing its own people at the altar of American interests, he points out in great detail. David Sogge puts together the creation of failed states by the US and their subsequent use to pursue their interests. Phyllis Bennis recollects the manner in which the war with Iraq was essentially a war to further American profiteering at the cost of the rest of the world. The other essays are in a similar vein. Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan obviously occupy a large amount of space in the analyses presented by Walden Bello, Susan George, Mike Marqusee, Mariano Aguirre, David Bewley-Taylor and Martin Jelsma. As examples of scholarly analysis, these essays are a disaster. The worst mistake they make is in their collective presumption about the gullibility of the rest of the world towards the American hegemony. To begin with, it is still too early to say that the Americans have been accepted as the fuehrer of the world, its undisputed leader. We should also notice that when over 70 countries of the world joined hands with the US to support its war in West Asia, they were not necessarily acting to further American interests but in their own self-interest, too. If the UN was unanimous in its condemnation of terrorism it was not just because the UN had sold its soul off to the American devil or that the member countries had been frog-marched into providing support. If there were a considerable number of countries hesitant about Muslims in general and not just Islamic terrorism in the post-9/11 world, it was not because they were all anti-Islamic and racist. But such wonderment is not for the authors of this volume. Certainty of ideas is their forte—or should it be called, weakness? They still seem to live in a simpler world where everything was clearly identifiable as good or bad. Where anyone who was anti-colonial was good and anyone associated with capital or religion was bad. The authors call themselves “scholar-activists”; I wonder whether they have been able to do justice to either of their self-assumed appellations.
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If you already know that the US foreign policy serves only American interests and in the process the US government has little hesitation in sacrificing the interests of other nations of the world, then you need not read this collection of nine essays.
