Wis[s]e Words

What happened in Haiti

Published on May 16, 2004

Another article from The New Left Review takes a look at what happened in Haiti earlier this year:

What began following the Lavalas election victory of 1990 was the deployment of a partially new strategy for disarming this revolution, at a moment when the Cold War no longer offered automatic justification for the repression of mass movements by the overwhelming use of force. Designed not simply to suppress the popular movement but to discredit and destroy it beyond repair, the key to this strategy was the implementation of economic measures intended to intensify already crippling levels of mass impoverishment, backed up by old-fashioned military repression and propaganda designed to portray resistance to elite interests as undemocratic and corrupt. The operation has been remarkably successful — so successful that in 2004, with the enthusiastic backing of the media, the UN and the wider ‘international community’, it resulted in the removal of a constitutionally elected government whose leadership had always enjoyed the support of a large majority of the population.

Planet of Slums

Published on May 15, 2004

Mike Davis, in The New Left Review writes about the urbanisation of the third world (as also touched upon in an earlier post):

Urbanists also speculate about the processes weaving together Third World cities into extraordinary new networks, corridors and hierarchies. For example, the Pearl River (Hong Kong-Guangzhou) and the Yangtze River (Shanghai) deltas, along with the Beijing-Tianjin corridor, are rapidly developing into urban-industrial megalopolises comparable to Tokyo-Osaka, the lower Rhine, or New York-Philadelphia. But this may only be the first stage in the emergence of an even larger structure: ‘a continuous urban corridor stretching from Japan/North Korea to West Java.’ [13] Shanghai, almost certainly, will then join Tokyo, New York and London as one of the ‘world cities’ controlling the global web of capital and information flows.

[…]

But slums, however deadly and insecure, have a brilliant future. The countryside will for a short period still contain the majority of the world’s poor, but that doubtful title will pass to urban slums by 2035. [49] At least half of the coming Third World urban population explosion will be credited to the account of informal communities. Two billion slum dwellers by 2030 or 2040 is a monstrous, almost incomprehensible prospect, but urban poverty overlaps and exceeds the slums perse.

A very frightening article, reminiscent, as Ken MacLeod also noted of science fiction novels like John Brunner’s Stand on Zanzibar.

The Pentagon as slumlord

Published on May 13, 2004

The Mogadishu debacle of 1993, when neighbourhood militias inflicted 60 percent casualties on elite army rangers, forced US strategists to rethink what is known in Pentagonese as ‘Mout: Militarised Operations on Urbanised Terrain’. Ultimately a National Defence Panel review in December 1997 castigated the army as unprepared for protracted combat in the impassable maze-like streets of poor cities. As a result, the four armed services launched crash programmes to master streetfighting under realistic Third World conditions. ‘The future of warfare’, the journal of the Army War College declared, ‘lies in the streets, sewers, high-rise buildings, and sprawl of houses that form the broken cities of the world.’

Socialist Review, May 2004

The results of this are currently on display in Iraq…

Link via Genosse Tabu

Recently Read

Published on May 13, 2004

Newton’s Wake – Ken Macleod
369 pages
published in 2004

I was a bit worried after finishing Engine City, as it wasn’t up to Ken Macleod’s usual standards; it read as if he had to force himself to finish it. Fortunately, Newton’s Wake is much better, basically a space opera trilogy complete in one book.

Singularity Sky – Charlie Stross
313 pages
published in 2003

Singularity Sky is a clever book masquerading as broad farce. Charlie Stross’
starting point seems to have been “what if 1905 Tsarist Russia had experienced a full Vingean
Singularity”. Don’t expect the same density of ideas as in his short stories; this is an almost
traditional space opera. Almost.

A Question of Blood – Ian Rankin
440 pages
published in 2003

Continuing the Scottish theme, this is the 14th Inspector Rebus series and one of the
better efforts. Rebus is a hardbitten, hard luck cop in Edinburgh, who this time gets called in to
investigate a school shooting. He’s also in trouble again, to great surprise, this time for possibly
being involved in the violent death of a small time crook who was harassing a friend.

Year’s Best SF 7 – David G. Hartwell & Kathryn Cramer (editors)
498 pages
published in 2002

The best short science fiction stories of 2001, according to the editors. Some good stories, but
their taste in science fiction is definately not mine. There’s a lot of chaff amongst the wheat.

The Great Siege: Malta 1565 – Ernle Bradford
256 pages, including notes and index
published in 1961

History written as if it was an adventure story, this tells about the siege of Malta by the great
Ottoman Emperor Soleyman. Ernle Bradford’s sympathies clearly lie with the besieged, the Knights of St. John, but he still manages to be objective. Worth a look if you can find it.

The morality of the pro-war left

Published on May 6, 2004

Does the fact that US soldiers have engaged in torture in Iraq demand of those on the left who supported the war to re-evaluate their position?

Wasn’t the main reason given by those on the left who supported this war why they did so, the chance to remove a dictatorial regime, rather than any of the official reasons given by the Bush administration?

Than surely, the fact that the liberators themselve engage in torture and rape, must cause some soul searching? After all, what does liberation matter if torture still happens?