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COMMENT
Two
wet dreams and a nightmare
By Robert L Adams
The mention of "wet dreams" may bring a smile to
adult males, but their metaphorical use here is nothing
to smile about. The wet dreams I refer to are every bit
as ephemeral and every bit as pleasurable to experience
while the illusion lasts, but their outcome will be far
worse than the embarrassment and unexpected laundry
requirements of boyhood.
The first wet dream
originates on the right end of the political spectrum: a
Pax Americana, global peace under an American empire. In
this out-dated fantasy drawn from centuries past,
so-called analysts compare US military and economic
power with all other nations and declare an empire in
the making. To them, it's clear that only the US can
provide the strong direction needed to end global
terrorism and the tyranny of despots like Saddam
Hussein. In theory, it sounds plausible. In practice,
it's another story.
Empires are extremely
expensive to create and maintain in both money and
lives. Just the current war on terror has thrown the US
budget into a major deficit after a period of surpluses,
and let's not talk about Iraq. Running some kind of
global empire is going to cost much, much more. In
addition, last September 11 "cost" the US nearly 3000
lives. Creating and maintaining a global empire is going
to cost many, many times that.
No one likes to
pay heavy taxes. No one likes to die. In the past,
empires have had to meet one of two basic requirements.
Either the empire must have the power to coerce its
citizens into paying these costs or its citizens must
lust after empire to such an extent that they willingly
pay the costs.
Can Americans be coerced into
empire-building? No. Americans have a strong tradition
of distrust of government and its bureaucracy. Despite
being as opinionated and emotional as any other people,
they don't like being coerced, even to do something they
want to do. Whether it's forbidding abortions,
guaranteeing equality for women, or requiring prayer in
public schools, Americans step back from amending their
own constitution. You might not think of a
constitutional amendment as coercion, but that's what it
amounts to for the people who disagree with the
amendment. Americans much prefer to legislate on these
and other controversial issues, allowing themselves the
right to change their minds at a later date. Coercion,
even coercion in support of a "good cause", is simply
not a popular approach in the US.
Do Americans
lust for a global empire? Far from it. Let's take one
very simple example: Canada. Over the last 50 years, I
can remember several occasions when Canadians have
accused the US of trying literally to absorb their
nation. I can remember several occasions when various
Canadian provinces have threatened to leave their
federation and seek US statehood. In all that time, I
cannot remember one occasion when "absorbing" Canada was
of any interest to the American public. It wasn't even
discussed. As for the rebel provinces of past years who
threatened to petition the US for statehood, these were
easy opportunities to express that lust. Not one of
those threats created any interest, much less imperial
excitement, in the US.
The philosophy of "live
and let live" has become the norm in American society,
especially in the last couple decades. We have often
been criticized by other nations as too self-absorbed.
We're no more self-absorbed than any other nationality,
we just want to get on with our lives and let everyone
else do the same. This is not the foundation for empire.
The second wet dream comes from the left end of
the political spectrum: peace and justice based on an
illusion.
Many pretend that the United Nations
is an effective organization because they don't want to
confront its ineffectiveness. The UN was founded nearly
60 years ago and reflected the desire of a very
war-weary world to avoid further violence. It was a
noble expression, but, in truth, it was never anything
more than a tool of a few nation-states.
Think
about it. Is anyone waiting for the General Assembly
debate on the issue of an attack on Iraq? No. It's the
Security Council and only the Security Council where the
debate is of any significance. And is it a question of
what the majority of Council members feel and how they
vote? Not really. It boils down to five nations with the
power to veto any resolution. It is their debate that
focuses our attention and for a very good reason. Theirs
are the only votes that count when all is said and done.
And does anyone really believe that a veto will prevent
the US from attacking?
There's more. Those of us
who have worked with the UN and its agencies over the
decades know perfectly well that it is one of the least
efficient, least effective bureaucracies ever created.
When it was founded over a half century ago, it was a
bold step into the future, a statement that the globe's
nation-states finally recognized the need to work
closely together to avoid war and ensure peace. It
remains a symbol, really our only symbol, of such a
dream, but it is still a dream and a fading dream at
that.
The left failed to confront Milosevic and
his Hitleresque plans for a "Greater Serbia". They
failed to confront the Taleban and its ugly oppression.
They simply ignore the killing going on in the Congo,
Sudan, Liberia, Indonesia, Kashmir, and a hundred other
places as someone else's problem. When a situation
finally gets so out of hand that it must be confronted,
they turn to the UN as if the UN actually was an
independent body that stood above the petty politics of
the nation-state.
The UN is a clubhouse for the
nation-state political elite. It has no taxing power,
thus no money, of its own. It depends on whatever is
supplied by the nation-states. It has no armed forces of
its own. It does not develop its own policies. It
depends on whatever is supplied by the nation-states,
and very few of them at that. It is neither a threat to,
nor a promise of, global peace, but a facade, not an
independent institution.
Others focus on
American foreign policy. Their arguments remind me of
those of the American right in the 50s and 60s when they
insisted that every global problem was somehow the
result of the Soviet Union's policies. It makes life
easy by dumping the responsibility on one government's
shoulders and removing it from your own. By arguing that
a change in American foreign policy will cure the ills
of terrorism, tyranny and other afflictions only
encourages the "empire complex" of the right. It's time
for that segment of the left to shoulder its own portion
of the responsibility.
These are wet dreams. The
problem with both is the problem with every wet dream.
They are fantasies that provide illusionary pleasure,
but disappear once we "wake up" to the real world.
What's the solution? A world government with its
own money, troops, and independent policies? No. Think
of China, India, the US, Indonesia, Brazil, Pakistan,
Russia, Bangladesh, Nigeria, and Japan, the 10 most
populous nations on Earth with more than half the total
global population. Do we seriously think the people of
these nations, much less their political elites, are
going to accept and pay for a world government that can
interfere in their lives at its discretion? Forget it.
One brief glance at Europe's struggle to unite over the
last five decades should be enough to put that idea to
rest. It's so unrealistic that I have yet to hear any
leader even suggest it, much less propose it. It's just
another wet dream. But hold on! It can happen …which
brings me to the nightmare.
The threats we face
in the 21st century are truly global. Terrorism knows no
borders. Global warming knows no borders. A virus, cyber
or biological, knows no borders. There are plenty of
others that could be listed, including some we haven't
even thought about yet, but one thing is clear.
Recognize it or not, we all live in one global
community. What makes al-Qaeda so different from other
terrorist groups is that they seem to have caught on to
this. Meanwhile, the rest of the world pretends that
borders still count as much today as they did 100, 50,
or even 20 years ago. We face global threats. Now we
have to develop a global response and no nation-state
empire, no collection of UN delegates, no fanciful world
government can do it for us. We have to develop
something entirely new.
In the past,
catastrophes, usually wars, have been the trigger that
forced new approaches to maintaining peace and fostering
development. We will be forced to deal with at least one
genuinely global catastrophe, probably more, in the 21st
century. I really don't care what form it takes, or who
or what is responsible for it. The only assumption I can
safely make is that one will occur and, to qualify, it
will be devastating. The responses of past centuries,
whether empires or "consultative bodies" or something
else, will not suffice.
There is one other thing
I can say with confidence. When that catastrophe occurs,
the global public is going to demand that it be dealt
with immediately and effectively. When the lives of tens
or hundreds of millions are threatened or, worst of all,
lost, there will be no patience with wet dreams. We will
be wide-awake and we will be more frightened than we
have ever been before. It is at this point that a global
police power is almost certain to arise. People who
today debate American hegemony or the loss of civil
liberties or the legitimacy of fundamentalist Islam's
demands will speak with one voice. Do something to stop
this, do it immediately, and make it work; we'll worry
about the details later. This is no way to create a new
world order.
The question is, in the face of
threats with global, catastrophic consequences beyond
any experienced in prior history, what can the "global
community" do to prepare in advance to defend itself
and, if we're very fortunate, avoid such catastrophes
entirely?
Our only hope is to wake up right now
and begin the serious search for an answer. What is that
answer? I don't know and neither do you. No one person
or one group or one ideology or one theology has the
answer. On the other hand, each of us has something to
offer if we take the question seriously and focus on it.
We are not doing that. We have not even begun to do
that. But hear me well. If we don't do it now, we will
do it when it's too late to do it thoughtfully, and only
after a catastrophe that scares the hell out of us and
litters the global landscape with dead bodies.
How can the process begin? If you look back at
the history of major social movements that first dealt
constructively with issues ranging from slavery to
women's rights to the environment and so many others,
the search for an answer began within the non-profit,
voluntary sector, whether it was called that at the time
or not. Unfortunately, non-profits have failed miserably
to deal with tyranny and terrorism, the issues most
pressing today.
The older, traditional groups
have been satisfied to offer "victims funds". They deal
with the aftermath of a catastrophe instead of measures
to avoid it in the first place. Their work in the past
has often been admirable, but this approach is no
solution and, in any event, will be immediately
overwhelmed by the immensity of the catastrophes to
come.
Other groups raise the issue, but make a
fatal error. They provide a detailed "solution". They
may believe their ideology or their theology is the one
answer to everyone's problems, but they aren't making
any noticeable progress in convincing the rest of us.
They seem completely unaware of their arrogance, but no
one else is. In order to be heard at all, they are
reduced to a form of verbal terrorism that further
alienates them from the very people whose best interests
they pretend to represent.
The non-profit I
direct, the Global Community Center, was founded seven
years ago purposely to help this global search for an
answer begin. Unfortunately, we were all professionals
from the non-profit field; thus we didn't and don't have
the resources to pull it off ourselves. For reasons I
trust are obvious, we won't go to a government agency
for support. Their political agendas are too powerful.
As for the members of the "institutional donor
community", they have as much trouble thinking outside
the box as any government. Talk about arrogance, I could
write a book on theirs. So we may not be the ones to get
this search for an answer initiated, but somebody has to
and soon.
We can lie half-awake in bed enjoying
the illusionary pleasures of a wet dream, only to find
ourselves trapped in an unending nightmare. Or we can
wake ourselves up now and deal with reality, not
illusions. It won't be easy, but it's that or the
nightmare.
(Copyright © 2002 Robert L Adams)
Robert L Adams is the
Executive Director of the non-profit Global Community
Center (www.globaldevelopment.org). His comments are his
own and do not represent the Center. He also offers a
personal weblog, Global
Angst. He can be written at
bob@globaldevelopment.org.
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