Imperialism – Page 4 – Wis[s]e Words

Orientalism – Edward Said

Published on March 5, 2008

Cover of Orientalism

Orientalism
Edward Said
396 pages including index
published in 1978

There are some books that I’m sort of ashamed to review, not because the books themselves are so bad but just because I should’ve read them years ago. Orientalism is one such book. Both it and its author are so often namechecked by leftwing bloggers that I felt a slight twinge of embarassement for only reading it now. Also, I don’t know how it is with you, but I’m often wary to read such widely acclaimed books anyway, as there’s something so “Rik the people’s poet” about reading Said, or Chomsky for that matter. It can look poseurish and nobody wants to come over as that.

Nevertheless, Orientalism is a genuinely important book, even now, thirty years after its first publication. It’s main argument — that Asia in general and the Middle East in particular have long been misrepresented in the west as “the Orient”, an exotic world filled with prejudices and cliches in order to serve imperialist goals in the region — may look a bit obvious now, not as radical as it was at first publication, but this is in great part because Orientalism laid out this argument so convincingly first. In fact it had such an impact, that even thirty years onwards there are still people trying to cut it down to size, as a quick Google search shows. It touched a nerve, perhaps not in the least because Said was an outsider to the academic orientalist tradition he was criticising.

What’s the deal with Mugabe?

Published on December 10, 2007

Yeah, alright, Robert Mugabe is a Bad Man ™, the kind of authoritarian asshole who doesn’t hesitate to sent the riot police against his ooposition, or rig the elections. He’s also been accused of stealing white people’s land, which is just wrong; doesn’t he know it can only be done the other way around? Cheap sarcasm aside, it’s clear Mugabe is a thug, but he’s hardly unique.

So why is it that during the EU-Africa summit this weekend, all attention was on Mugabe being present and how awful it was that such a tyrant should’ve been invited, when much worse people were present as well? People like Hosni Mubarak? He’s surely as authoritarian as Mugabe, but there has been nothing like the hysteria that surrounded Mugabe’s participation, none of the official denounciations, no carefully staged mediafriendly protests against him. Why is that?

Surely not because Mubarak, unlike Mugabe, is careful to stay on the right side of “the west”, e.g. helping us out by providing handy extralegal torture facilities for those pesky suspects we cannot torture ourselves?

Realist empire

Published on October 13, 2007

Jamie explains how the current backlash against the Israel lobby, even if limited, might help to strengthen the power of the (Bush) presidency and hence the American empire:

Take the famous Mearsheimer and Walt book. Responses have centred on whether its portrayal of the dimensions and influence of the Israel Lobby in the United States are accurate; at least when they haven’t been a competition for the most creative ways of suggesting that M & W are anti-semites.

Behind that there’s another point. Lobbies flourish in the US because the law permits them wide latitude to influence public affairs in whatever way they can. You can’t change the terms of trade for Israel without changing them for all the other lobbies. And one of the most efficient ways to do that is to limit Congress’s ability to respond to their lobbying. That in turn implies limiting its freedom of action, something which would automatically strengthen the executive.

I have noticed a … tendency amongst those American liberals brave enough to admit and object to the existence of a Israel lobby to believe that it was largely that lobby that was responsible for the War on Iraq. In a strange way, the wingnut insistence that liberals use “neocon” as an antisemitic slur (don’t bother with the reasoning behind that) also draws from this belief. Having an existing and clearly very succesful lobby to put the blame on makes it of course easier to ignore the flaws and malice in American politics itself that made it possible to start an illegal and immoral war on the flimsiest of reasons.

The long arm of US imperialism

Published on September 19, 20051 Comment

Antonio Bento Bembe

There are so many outrages being committed every day it is easy to miss them, so I’m grateful to the local free rag Spits for alerting me to this one. And quite an outrage it is too:

Antonio Bento Bembe is the secretary-general of the FLEC, which has at its aim the liberation of Cabinda, a small Angolan enclave within the Democratic Republic of Congo, which used to be a Portuguese colony independent from its Angolan colony; the FLEC was active against the Portuguese before it had to fight against the MPLA, the Angolan independent movement. The FLEC and the MPLA/Angolan government have been fighting for decades ever since the MPLA first invaded Cabinda in 1975.

Before Cabinda had become a Portuguese colony, it had been a Dutch trading post, which may explain the continuing interest of the Dutch ministry of foreign affairs in the region; it has been acting as a neutral peace broker. It was in this capacity that Antonio Bento Bembe was invited to come to the Netherlands for peace talks. when he did so, he was arrested…

Turns out the United States, once it had learned Antonio Bento Bembe was in the Netherlands, had asked for his extradiction, allegedly because he was involved with the kidnapping of an American pilot in 1990 or 1991. So when he came to the Netherlands in June of this year, he was promptly arrested.

At first glance this just seems to be another example of American cack-handedness; favouring domestic concerns above foreign political realities. Tactless and stupid, but not actively malicious. A second look however reveals that there might be more to the story. As per usual, the whole affair might just revolve around one little word:

Oil.

It turns out most of Angola’s oil production is coming from Cabina, of which the American oil company Chevron has the lion’s share (39.2%, according to Wikipedia). Angolan oil –as noted, largely Cabinan– at the moment also accounts for 4% of the US’ oil imports. The Angolan government is very favourable towards the US and Chevron, a newly independent Cabina might not be, especially since little of the oil profits flow into the province itself, the industry causes huge pollution within it and Angola is harsh in repressing any “unrest”.

Now that pilot that was supposedly kidnapped, was working for Chevron at the time. Who else was working for Chevron before she became Bush’s handler? Guess who signed the extradition request?

It would be just like the Bushies to fuck up a fledgling peace process by wanting to arrest one of the participants, just to make sure America (and Chevron) gets that all important oil…

Maroc.nl has a good overview of the affair, though sadly only in Dutch.

Chagos islanders win court victory

Published on May 13, 2005

Three years ago I wrote about the plight of the Chagos islanders, who were kicked out of their archipelo back in the sixties to make way for the enormous US military base of Diego Garcia, located on the largest island of the Chagos archipelo. The Chagos islands were then and still are now a colony of the UK and it was the UK government who forcibly removed, “compensated” and dumped the inhabitants, the Ilois, in Mauritius, recently made independent. That would’ve been the end of it, if not for the incredible determination of the Ilois, who are still fighting for the right to return to their islands.

And that right came a step closer this week when they won a High Court judgment, which ruled that their removal was illegal. However, since it also granted the government the right to appeal, this is not the end of it. Also, even if this judgment is not appealed against, there are still other hurdles for them to jump through: the US has already stated it will not allow any of the islanders to return no matter what the UK courts decide…