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It』s time to start a global anti-war movement Kuan-Hsing Chen
The 911 Incident is a turning point in global political history. For the first time, the center of global capital (World Trade Center) and of military power (Pentagon) was under attack, not outside but right inside the heart of U.S. territory. At this moment, it is still unclear where this turning point might move toward, somehow it is a threshold to be crossed over. In the past few days, there seems to have emerged a shared sentiment, in different parts of the world, in response to the event: 「we condemn terrorist act and feel great sympathy for the innocent people who were killed, but the U.S. government deserved it, and we hope American people can use this instance to critically reflect on what their government has done to the rest of the world, so as to change the brutality of its state power」. If this is an accurate capturing of the global sentiment, it actually means the Post World War II U.S. hegemony is finished. Hegemony, understood in Gramsci』s sense, means that leadership can only be won over by active consent and trust, not by coercive use of forces, military, police or otherwise, in the first and last instance. In this sense, this shared sentiment signals that the U.S. has lost its of global leadership and legitimacy. The question then becomes, how do we explain this wide spread sentiment against U.S. hegemony? This question can be explained an accelerated and accumulated effect. The immediate Post War era has seen the formation of Cold war structure, in which the globe was divided by the binarism of capitalist and socialist blocs, under the 『leadership』, if not protection, of the U.S. and USSR. Such crude system of 『balance of power』 was broken, when the socialist China started its 『reform』 in late 1970』s and then, more effectively, Soviet Union and Easter Europe collapsed in the late 1980』s. By early 1990』s, it was obvious the U.S. has emerged as the only hegemon on earth; economically, politically and militarily, no other nation-state could compete with the U.S. It was in this conjuncture, with the highly orchestrated announcement of the 『end of the Cold War』, that so-called neo-liberal 『globalization』 rhetoric was articulated and pushed forward in North America, so that American led capital power could penetrate anywhere on earth. Reagan』s neo-conservatism has started to draw discontent, but it was Clinton administration』s throwing bombs and missiles to Iraq and Cosov, without prior international consultation with the supposed headquarter of the nation-sate system—the UN security council, which in effect destroyed the post-war consensus as well as the international nation-state structure, that the U.S. has begun to lose its 『leadership』. The Seattle incident was already a signal, tangled with anti-globalization, against agenda set by the U.S. state and capital. But Clinton』s strategy was ambiguous enough, which partly made U.S. avoid becoming a global enemy. His policy to incorporate China as a 『partner』 rather than 『competitor』, his relative silence on the Two Kims』 Summit that has generated 『light』 for peace in the Korean peninsula, if not in the Asia region, etc. effected certain 『positive』 feelings of hope. The real turning point came into being when Bush took over power. The sudden changes of directions in the U.S. Taiwan-China policy, in Korean peninsula, and worse, in the tough handed opposition to the Kyoto agreement, etc, have produced the shared structure of feeling: the U.S. government has done everything it could possibly do to make itself a global enemy. This rather reductionist narrative can be modified in more sophisticated way. But it serves the purpose here to explain the overwhelming sentiment against U.S. state machine. Let us be cautious here, not to equate U.S. state power with American people. After the 911 Incident, we have heard reflexive voices within American society, registering the sympathy with Islamic people who are now discriminated against within the U.S., and even stronger stand, charging the U.S. as a 『terrorist state』. And there is a survey indicating that only 20% of American public support immediate attack, before identifying the group who committed the crime. In short, we need to side with and support those Americans who are opposing U.S. military empire, and to call for peace. In the past few days, we have observed the hard reality that, although we have been propagated that Cold War has ended in late 1980』s, the international state system has in reality not yet moved out of the shadow. Rather than breaking out to form autonomous and alternative stands against any possibility of war, various state leaders in different parts of the world have dangerously declared to support the U.S. military machine, and are willing to send troops under U.S. commandership. The escalation of mood war is further intensified by Bush』s formations: 『Civilization against terrorism』, 『the first global war in the 21st century』, 『war between the good the evil". By now it becomes clear that the international (nation)state system is still locked within the Cold War structure. There are huge gaps between the state operation logic--still subsuming under the U.S. empire--and the popular will. And it is in this critical moment that we need to voice that central difference: we do not support any state to send our brothers or sisters to sacrifice in the war. The said attack is going to take place on this coming Monday, after Sunday religous services. The scale of the attack, its form and the projected number of lost lives, of course, remain top secrete. But the situation is clear enough: the retaliation under the name of war is on. The questions need be posed: Is the world ready for the third world war to take place? Are we willing to see more loss of innocent lives? Are American people ready to fight it again, after the loss of Vietnam war? Are we going to keep silent, letting our state leaders to decide to play the war game? Can we as common people sit and wait for the war, in any form, to break out? What is to be done? Based on the wounded historical experiences of wars, no matter how large or small its scale was, we know that it』s impossible for victims to fully recover from the trauma; we also know once the war broke out, no one can predict the consequences, whether it will generate immediate impacts on our life, our families and our friends across the globe. This is the time we need to reactivate the Post War anti-war movement practices. And in fact, over the recent years, certain ground works have been laid out, in Asia and elsewhere, to form people to people alliances for peace and against war, beyond the domain of state power. The state leaderships have to seriously listen to the popular voices, if they still claim to represent popular wills. In
the era of globalization, when the local is already saturated by global
forces, we need to think globally and act globally. For the movement to be
effective, alliances need to be built locally and globally. It is time to
start a global anti-war movement.
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