Links for 08.22.09 to 08.30.09

✪ Eric Hobsbawm's On Empire: when Hobsbawm writes, Angry Arab reads carefully | I just read this book and completely agree with Angry Arab's praise.
✪ Global BDS Movement | Website of the Boycott - Divestment - Sanctions movement.
✪ How settlements in the West Bank are creating a new reality, brick by brick | World news | The Guardian | Good story on the settlements by Rory McCarthy.
✪ Boycott Israel -- latimes.com | An Israeli's call.
✪ Privatization by other means: How the Public Transport sector was “murdered” at 3arabawy | How five years ago, eager to justify the privatization of public sector transport, the government stopped making spare parts available for Cairo's buses. Outrageous and worthy of more digging.
✪ Important Film | A cartoon for children against sexual harassment.
✪ Israeli watchdog sees no settlement freeze | "The construction of settlements in the occupied West Bank is continuing 'as usual', a group reported, despite the Israeli government's announcement that it has stopped initiating new housing projects."
✪ Ramadan under siege « In Gaza | On the pauperization of Gaza: there is food, because of the tunnels, but only for the few who can afford it.
✪ Mehdi Karoubi, un mollah atypique et réformateur, devenu le porte-parole de la contestation en Iran - Asie-Pacifique - Le Monde.fr | On the other reformist candidate in Iran.
✪ مدونة محمد بن عبد الكريم الخطابي | A new blog dedicated to the Moroccan anti-colonial hero Abdel Krim.

Comments

[AM]

Issandr,

I looked up Hobsbawm's book as per your recommendation. Publisher's Weekly Review (on Amazon and below) makes it sound quite ridiculous. Any thoughts?

In this collection of essays, the British historian denounces globalism's increasing economic inequalities, which in classic Marxist form, he claims burdenthose who benefit least. Not surprisingly, Hobsbawm expects developing political resistance to retard globalism's progress in the next 20 or so years. Eventually, he implies, globalism will merely be a blip in the historically determined process of the international proletariat's triumph. The major obstacle to that development is the United States. Hobsbawm's America essentially has become a rogue superpower that rejects international common law in favor of what he calls imperialism of human rights, which, combined with a fear of terrorism, legitimates U.S. military intervention anywhere the uncontrollable and apparently irrational U.S. government decides. Hobsbawm contrasts the instability, unpredictability, aggression of the American pattern with an earlier, more measured, economically based British version that he considers almost benign by comparison (and is a far cry from his earlier writing on the subject). His loathing for American reliance on politico-military force to pursue global ambitions as unlimited as they are undefined has reached new depths. This erudite polemic may appeal to the intellectual left, but is unlikely to change many minds outside that sphere.

[arabist]

The first part is grossly inaccurate. I don't have the book at hand right now but remember nothing about "the international proletariat" nor more generally speaking any overt dialectical / historical materialist analysis. Of course Hobsbawn is a Marxist and is associated with that philosophical school, but while this is a leftist book it does not repeat these meta-historical themes. The following is fairly representative of the book though:

Hobsbawm’s America essentially has become a rogue superpower that rejects international common law in favor of what he calls imperialism of human rights, which, combined with a fear of terrorism, legitimates U.S. military intervention anywhere the uncontrollable and apparently irrational U.S. government decides. Hobsbawm contrasts the instability, unpredictability, aggression of the American pattern with an earlier, more measured, economically based British version that he considers almost benign by comparison (and is a far cry from his earlier writing on the subject). His loathing for American reliance on politico-military force to pursue global ambitions as unlimited as they are undefined has reached new depths. This erudite polemic may appeal to the intellectual left, but is unlikely to change many minds outside that sphere.

So basically, it is:

1. a critique of humanitarian interventionism ("imperialism of human rights");
2. an essay on the decline of American power and the way that power has been wielded, in political economy terms, in comparison to earlier European imperialism.

Yes of course it is an extremely leftist book, and extremely critical of American military adventurism especially under Bush (it's a very Bush era book, published in 2007). You can criticize it for that, and for it being at times disproportionate in comparing American imperialism to European ones. But the key comparison is not about which one is morally worse (Hobsbawm doesn't care much about that), but rather the different methods used and the speed at which the American empire (i.e. the Pax Americana of the post-WW2 West and its dependencies in the Third World) has unravelled due to Bush pushing extremist and irrational policies. Overall it's classic Hobsbawm, if you liked his wonderful "ages" series you'll find this stimulating even if you don't agree with the politics. It's very much along the line of the meta-debates we've had at times, as well as strategic issues relating to the current wars. And it's a silm volume!