The Politics Book
Page 29
See also: Pierre-Joseph Proudhon • Peter Kropotkin • Antonio Gramsci • José Carlos Mariátegui
IN CONTEXT
IDEOLOGY
Non-interventionism
FOCUS
War profiteering
BEFORE
1898–1934 The “Banana Wars” in Central America and the Caribbean aim to protect US business interests, notably for the United Fruit Company.
1904 The US government funds the new Panama Canal and declares sovereignty over the Panama Canal Zone.
AFTER
1934 US president Franklin D. Roosevelt institutes the Good Neighbor Policy, limiting US intervention in Latin America.
1981 Contra rebels backed by the US oppose the Sandinista government in Nicaragua.
2003 The US-led invasion of Iraq leads to the granting of concessions to US businesses.
Industrialization in the Western world has radically altered the nature of both trade and warfare. The relationship between economic interests and foreign affairs has raised questions about the motives and benefits of armed conflict, leading many people, including Smedley D. Butler, to highlight the role of the military in driving foreign policy.
"War is conducted for the benefit of the very few, at the expense of the very many."
Smedley D. Butler
Butler was a highly decorated US Marine Corps general who served for 34 years in numerous overseas campaigns, particularly in Central America. Drawing on his own experiences, especially during the “Banana Wars”, Butler felt that much of his military career had served to secure US business interests overseas, with him acting as “a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism”.
Redefining a just war
Concerned that the main benefits of military action were the profits made by industrialists through securing foreign sites for trade and investment, Smedley suggested limiting the justification for war to self-defence and the protection of civil rights.
On retiring from the Marines, Butler voiced his concerns in a series of talks, and in War is a Racket, published in 1935, he set out his agenda for limiting the profitability of war and restricting governments’ capacity to engage in offensive action overseas.
Although Butler’s impact at the time was limited, his views on war profiteering and US foreign policy have remained influential.
See also: José Martí • Hannah Arendt • Noam Chomsky
IN CONTEXT
IDEOLOGY
Nationalism
FOCUS
Representative democracy
BEFORE
1453 Mehmed II attacks Constantinople, and the city becomes the capital of the growing Ottoman empire.
1908 The Young Turk Revolution re-establishes the parliament, which the sultan had suspended in 1878.
1918 The Ottoman empire is defeated in World War I.
AFTER
1952 Turkey joins NATO and aligns itself with the West in the Cold War.
1987 Turkey applies for full membership of the European Economic Community.
2011 Turkey’s top military command resigns, ceding political control to the prime minister for the first time.
Following the Ottoman empire’s defeat in World War I, the 1920 Treaty of Sèvres dispossessed it of its Arab provinces, set up an independent Armenia, made the Kurds self governing, and put Greece in control of western parts of Turkey. A rebel Turkish army, under the command of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, rose up to challenge the caliphate army of the Ottoman sultan and the occupying forces that were supporting it. The war for Turkish independence had begun.
With the help of Russian Bolshevik weapons and money, Atatürk defeated the foreign occupiers and the sultan fled to Malta on a British battleship. Just three years after the Treaty of Sèvres, the Treaty of Lausanne recognized an independent Turkish state, and Atatürk was elected its first president.
Sovereign will of the people
Atatürk was determined to establish a modern nation-state amid the ruins of the feudal Ottoman empire, which had undergone little industrial development. He believed that a balanced and equitable society, which could deliver the essential guarantees of freedom and justice for individuals, could only be built upon a state’s unconditional power to govern itself, or “the sovereignty of the people”. This, he insisted, could not be granted or negotiated, but had to be wrested by force.
Sovereignty meant, first of all, democratic self-rule, free from any other authority (including the sultan-caliph), from religious interference in government, and from outside powers. Atatürk’s “Kemalist” nationalism saw the Turkish state as a sovereign unity of territory and people that respected the same right to independence in all other nations. Although an alliance with those outside powers, or “civilization”, would act as an ongoing support for the new nation, the nation would still have to bring itself into being, politically, culturally, and economically, through revolutionary self-imposed reforms.
"There is only one power. That is national sovereignty. There is only one authority. That is the presence, conscience, and heart of the nation."
Mustafa Kemal Atatürk
This concept of the sovereign power of a people to reform their own state was alien to the bulk of the population. Many in poor rural areas saw Atatürk’s programme of modernization as the imposition of the will of a secular urban elite on an illiterate and deeply religious rural culture. Atatürk’s ability to harness the support of the armed forces enabled him to shape the new Turkish republic as a secular, Western-looking nation-state, but tensions between rural Islamists and the secularist military and urban elites persist to this day.
In accordance with Atatürk’s strict secularist ideals, the Muslim hijab, or headscarf, is banned in many Turkish institutions such as universities. This policy is a source of ongoing dispute.
MUSTAFA KEMAL ATATÜRK
Mustafa Kemal was born in Salonica, Greece in 1881. He was a distinguished student at military school, excelling in mathematics and literature, and completed his studies in the School of the General Staff in Constantinople. He quickly rose through the ranks and took command of the Seventh Army during World War I, but resigned from the Ottoman army in 1919 to head a resistance movement against the occupying forces.
From an early age, Kemal had taken part in underground opposition groups, and he led Turkey to independence in 1923, becoming the first president of the new, secular state. He was given the name “Atatürk”, meaning “Father of the Turks” in 1934 by the Turkish parliament. He died in 1938 of cirrhosis of the liver, after many years of heavy drinking.
Key works
1918 A Chat with the Chief Commander
1927 Nutuk (transcript of a speech to the Grand National Assembly of Turkey)
See also: Jean-Jacques Rousseau • Ito Hirobumi • Sun Yat-Sen
IN CONTEXT
IDEOLOGY
Liberalism
FOCUS
Pro-intellectualism
BEFORE
380 BCE Plato advocates rule by philosopher kings.
1917 In Spain, news of the Russian Revolution instills fear in Primo de Rivera’s regime, which consolidates its power by control of the masses.
AFTER
1936–1939 The Spanish Civil War results in the deaths of more than 200,000 people.
1979 French philosopher Pierre Bourdieu examines the ways that power and social positioning have an influence on aesthetics.
2002 US historian John Lukacs publishes At the End of an Age, arguing that the modern bourgeois age is coming to an end.
Philosopher José Ortega y Gasset first rose to prominence during the 1920s, a period of great social unrest in Spain. The monarchy was losing its authority following unrest in Spanish Morocco, and the dictatorial regime of Miguel Primo de Rivera had deepened divisions between left- and right-wing forces. These divisions would eventually lead to civil war in 1936.
World War I had been a period of economic boom in neutral Spain, which supplied both sides during the conflict. As
a result, the country had rapidly industrialized, and the swelling masses of the workers were becoming increasingly powerful. Concessions were won, and a strike in Barcelona in 1919 led to Spain becoming the first country to institute an eight-hour day for all workers.
"The European stands alone, without any living ghosts by his side."
José Ortega y Gasset
Rise of the masses
As worker power increased, the question of social class was at the centre of philosophical and sociological debate in Europe, but Ortega y Gasset challenged the idea that social classes are purely a result of an economic divide. Rather, he distinguished between “mass-man” and “noble-man” on the basis of their allegiance to moral codes based on tradition. In his book The Rise of the Masses, he explained that “to live as one likes is plebeian; the noble man aspires to order and law”. Discipline and service bring nobility, he believed. He saw the accession to power of the masses and their increased tendency towards rebellion – through strikes and other forms of social unrest – as highly problematic, calling it one of “the greatest crises that can afflict people, nations, and civilizations”.
To Ortega y Gasset, the threat posed by the masses was linked to a wider demoralization in post-war Europe, which had lost its sense of purpose in the world. The decline of imperial power, coupled with the devastation of the war, had left Europe no longer believing in itself, despite remaining a strong industrial force.
Pseudo-intellectuals
Ortega y Gasset argued that the rise of the masses is accompanied by the decline of the intellectual. This signals the triumph of the pseudo-intellectual – a vulgar man with no interest in traditions or moral codes, who sees himself as superior. The pseudo-intellectual represents a new force of history: one without a sense of direction.
For Ortega y Gasset, the masses lack purpose and imagination and limit themselves to demands for a share in the fruits of progress without understanding the classical scientific traditions that made progress possible in the first place. The masses are not interested in the principles of civilization or in the establishment of a real sense of public opinion. As such, he views the masses as highly prone to violence. In his eyes, a Europe without real intellectuals, dominated by disinterested masses, is somewhere that risks losing its place and purpose in the world.
Ortega y Gasset’s philosophy remains influential today. His followers stress the links between economic class and culture.
Following World War I, workers – such as these striking metal workers in France – won significant concessions and began to wield political power.
JOSÉ ORTEGA Y GASSET
Ortega y Gasset was born in Madrid to a political family with a deep liberal tradition. His mother’s family owned the newspaper El Imparcial, while his father edited it. He studied philosophy in Spain and continued his education in Germany at Leipzig, Nuremberg, Cologne, Berlin, and Marburg, where he became deeply influenced by the neo-Kantian tradition.
In 1910, Ortega y Gasset became full professor of metaphysics in Madrid. He later founded the magazine Revista de Occidente, which published work by some of the most important figures in philosophy at the time. Elected to Congress in 1931 after the fall of the monarchy and de Rivera’s dictatorship, he removed himself from politics having served for less than a year. He left Spain at the outbreak of the Civil War and travelled to Buenos Aires, Argentina, only to return to Europe in 1942.
Key works
1930 The Revolt of the Masses
1937 Invertebrate Spain
1969 Some Lessons in Metaphysics
See also: Plato • Immanuel Kant • Friedrich Nietzsche • Michael Oakeshott
IN CONTEXT
IDEOLOGY
Black nationalism
FOCUS
Social activism
BEFORE
16th century The Maafa, or African Holocaust, of transatlantic slavery begins.
1865 The 13th Amendment makes slavery illegal throughout the US.
1917 The city of East St Louis explodes in one of the worst race riots in US history.
AFTER
1960s The “Black is Beautiful” movement gathers pace.
1963 Martin Luther King delivers his “I have a dream” speech at a vast civil rights march in Washington, DC.
1965 US Congress passes the Voting Rights Act, outlawing discrimination that prevented African-Americans from exercising their vote.
In the early 20th century, Jamaican activist Marcus Garvey gave black people in the Americas a rousing response to white supremacy. He founded the Universal Negro Improvement Association in 1914, and called for the “400 million” Africans around the world to unite in a commitment to liberate the African continent – and their own lives – from racial oppression. Two years later, he took his campaign to the United States, where he organized businesses to employ African-Americans.
"I am the equal of any white man; I want you to feel the same way."
Marcus Garvey
Confident that black people could advance through any cultural, political, or intellectual field they chose, Garvey put race first, individual self-determination next, and black nationhood last. He envisaged a United States of Africa that would preserve the interests of all black people, galvanized by an almost religious sense of racial redemption. The “New Negro” consciousness would borrow from existing intellectual traditions, yet forge its own racial interpretation of international politics. Coining the term “African fundamentalism”, Garvey promoted a sense of black selfhood, rooted in the belief that ancient African civilizations that had declined would be regenerated.
Garvey’s radical message – and the mismanagement of his many blacks-only businesses – attracted the ire of rival black leaders and the US government. Yet he was the first to insist on black power, and the first to articulate the African liberation proposition that animates African nationalists to this day.
See also: John C. Calhoun • Jomo Kenyatta • Nelson Mandela • Malcolm X • Martin Luther King
IN CONTEXT
IDEOLOGY
Revolutionary socialism
FOCUS
Permanent revolution
BEFORE
1617 The Mughal emperor permits the English East India Company to trade in India.
1776 America’s Declaration of Independence asserts people’s right to govern themselves.
1858 The Indian Rebellion results in the British Crown assuming direct rule of the Raj.
1921 Mahatma Gandhi is elected leader of the Indian National Congress and urges non-violent civil disobedience.
AFTER
1947 The Indian Independence Act brings the British Raj to an end.
1961 Frantz Fanon’s Wretched of the Earth analyses the violence of colonialism and the need for armed resistance.
In 1931, after returning to India from a tour of the world’s communist governments, Indian activist and political theorist M.N. Roy was charged by the British with “conspiring to deprive the King Emperor of his sovereignty in India”, under the notorious Section 121-A of the Penal Code. Tried in prison instead of a court – and allowed no defence statement, witnesses, or jury – Roy was sentenced to 12 years in squalid jails that would ruin his health.
"Once we have consciously set our feet on the right road, nothing can daunt us."
M. N. Roy
Ironically, in Roy’s writings on British sovereignty in India, he had always grounded his arguments on English principles of justice. Accused by the authorities of advocating violence, he held that the use of force was honourable when employed to defend the “pauperized” masses of India against despotism, and was dishonourable when employed to oppress those masses. Over three centuries, the British had acquired “this valuable possession” through the “quiet” transfer of power from the declining Mughal empire to the East India Company – whose administration was backed by a large army – and, ultimately, to the British Crown.
Arguing that the British government in India had no
t been established for the purpose of advancing the wellbeing of its people, but solely for the benefit of a “plutocratic dictatorship”, Roy held that the interests of the Indian people could only be served by an absolute severance from the British, by force if necessary.
See also: Mahatma Gandhi • Paulo Freire • Frantz Fanon
IN CONTEXT
IDEOLOGY
Conservatism
FOCUS
Extrajudicial power
BEFORE
1532 In The Prince, Niccolò Machiavelli lays out the principles of sovereignty.
1651 Thomas Hobbes’s Leviathan uses the concept of the social contract to justify the power of the sovereign.
1934 Adolf Hitler comes to power in Germany.
AFTER
2001 John Mearsheimer uses Schmitt’s theories to justify “offensive realism”, where states are ever-prepared for war.
2001 The Patriot Act in the US establishes a permanent installment of martial law and emergency powers.
Carl Schmitt was a German political theorist and lawyer whose work during the early 20th century established him as a leading critic of liberalism and parliamentary democracy. Schmitt saw the “exception” (Ernstfall) – unexpected events – as a quintessential characteristic of political life. For this reason, he disagreed with the liberal idea that the law is the best guarantor of individual liberty. While the law is able to provide a framework through which to manage “normal” states of affair, Schmitt argued that it was not designed to deal with “exceptional” circumstances such as coups d’etat, revolutions, or war. He saw legal theory as too far removed from legal practice and changing social norms. It was unfit to deal with the unexpected turns of history, many of which could threaten the very existence of the state. A president, he argued, is better able to guard a country’s constitution than a court, and so should necessarily be above the law. The ruler should be the ultimate law-maker in exceptional situations.