From: "Harald Beyer-Arnesen" <haraldba-AT-online.no>
Subject: AUT: Re: anachronisms...
Date: Sat, 2 Nov 2002 22:43:45 +0100



----- Original Message -----
From: <topp8564-AT-mail.usyd.edu.au>
To: <aut-op-sy-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu>
Sent: 29. oktober 2002 17.11
Subject: AUT: anarchronisms...


Thiago, interesting questions.
        I do not disagree when you say: "My feeling on
this is that capitalism thrives on anachronisms of the
sort you mention."  That is up too a certain point,
and not unsignificantly: To the degree we let it do so.
It is question of great complexity. I am far from
satisfied with this answer. But as it probably would
take me half a year or more to write something
I was fairly satisfied with ...

        One part of the question, as I see it is  -- in
particular when touching on things such as nationalisms
gone mad --  is how much time and blood it will take
to going beyond that point? Or to put it otherwise, and
in capitalistic terms, there comes a point of "some
damn ordnung muss sein". Not the best chosen words
in this context perhaps, given their close assocation
with a period of "nationalism gone mad," but still.

        Everything can boil over of course. Things can
always go from bad to worse and way beyond that.
This is however not something that just happens. It
is possible to create remedies against it. We are not
mere cogs in the wheels and puppets of natural
capitalist forces. Nor are these forces something
our Masters can simple adjust at their will, and very
rarely are they of one mind about such things either.
This we to a certain extent can use to our own gain.

        You write: "Borders and bizarre chauvinism are
not atavistic remnants of the age of Nationalism which
will be molten away by neoliberal development or E.U.
style federation, which are dependent on all manner
of 'dirty work'."

        Whatever one might think about the European
Union -- there is much with it I dislike, and it may fall
apart still -- but once upon a time it was unconceivable.
New walls have been built for certain, but on a wider
basis. That Germany and France are not likely to go
to war against each other any time soon is not only
a cheap marketing phrase.
        At the same time there are people drowning
while trying to get inside. On the inside, the relation-
ship between people of Eurpean and non-
European descent (but also between people coming
from the old Eastern and those still living in
Western Europe) is undergoing  some very trouble-
some  developments but also the opposite. That
there now live people from every conceivable part
of the world In Norway, and children of all these
backgrounds are growing up together with blue-
eyed natives, also brings hope for the future. There
is far more racism here now than a couple of
decades ago but also far more genuine human
communication. Which way it turns in the end is
undetermined.
        Some say things have gotten worse after
September 11, 2001. I am inclined to hold the
opposite view as far as the situation here
goes. But still very condradictory. And I far "prefer"
Pym Furtuine to some currents in other countries,
including in Norway, precisly because he was
not that easy to place, and seemed also to have
divided the "darker-than-Dutch" communities.
It certainly is nothing to be celebrated, but I
can assure you it could have been far worse,
given that about half of the residents of
Rotterdam have "alien" origins.

Bizarre chauvinisms are not like to go away any-
time soon. But there is an absolute crucial
difference between their continued existence and
they becoming dominant and growing in force,
and then entering into a visicious circle of mututal
blood-dripping reinforcement.
        An amount of more or less irrational prejudges
is not that bad. But when when people start to act
on them, and they grow to become among the most
important part of their life and dominating them,
then hell is loose.
        The civil wars which has ravaged large part
of Africa in the recent decades cannot go on
forever. There is something about that modern
guns have become too effective. During the ex-
Yugoslavia bloodbath, I was at times tempted to
suggest: "cannot somebody just build a wall around
the whole mess, and not open the gates until
they tired on killing each other" It might not had
been such a bad idea were it not for the majority
of the population caught in the crossfire. But
when to ex-Yugoslavs at my workplace who had
been friends until hell broke loose back
home, and  their "nationality" suddenly became
of great importance to them, and they started
shouting at each other, I told them : "Why don't you
just go back and kill each other?" That helped.
They decided that it was not such a good idea.
After that, they with some intervention from me,
could seemingly agree on that all The Master of
War were using them as pawns in their games,
although they were undoubtable still a bit
"schizofrenic" on the matter. But that they after
could behave civilisized to each other (and
I use that word intentionally) no doubt was
important for them. Something to do with self-
respect and certain feeling of sanity during a
periods where events had set loose emotions
they did not fully understand or control. 


"You keep returning to this phrase "East Mediterranean."
Palestinians that I  know tend to object to the phrase
"Middle East" because of its eurocentricity,  I wonder if
this phrase is any better. In my mind it seems to suggest
that the federation would include Turkey, Cyprus, Israel
and the coastal Arab states. That's maybe a not too far
fetched angle of expansion for the E.U. if Washington
were to be transplanted to a moon of Saturn. Why not
see the integration as moving eastward, which seems
much more likely, or southward (as was the case until
the colonialist scramble in the 1870s)? Why imagine
that the force of integration will be some sort of
liberalist European philosophy?"

        Turkey, is actually a North Mediterranean country.
But I am hardly out after drawing borders. None the less,
what I foremost have in mind as the core, for historical,
cultural, economical, geographical and realisitic
reasons, was the old geographical Syria, or Bilad al-Sham.
(Syria, Lebanon, Jordan Palestine/Israel)

        Southward is Arabia  proper, (bilad al-Sham, refers
to the land north of this). South-west lies Egypt, and in
the east, Iraq. There are however cultural historical-
geographical reasons for that  basically the same Arab
dialect to my knowledge have been spoken throughout
geographical Syria/bilad al-Sham. This region also has
the advantage of being historically composed of many
minorities, but also with a significant dose of what might
be called a cosmopolitican outlook.

        There is of course a critical psycological element
involved in  this too, if you want to undermine Zionism
from within. Something to do with a certain degree of
proportionality.

        Iraq,  at this moment, and I think long time to come,
might have enough with figuring out its own indenity of
differerences. Its history very much has its particular
traits, something Iraqis tend to be very well aware of.
The same pretty much goes for  the Arabia proper (the
peninsula) and Egypt. But again, I am hardly out after
drawing borders,just saying what I fine most realistic
to achieve, though much will be determined by factors
now unknown. So I do not see the integration as
moving eastward as being the most likely and realistic.
        Otherwise also due to the world we are living in,
which to be "funny," last time I chequed, still was capitalist.
So where the largest markets are, and thus also the
Mediterranean Sea, will have an effect. I could be wrong
in this of course. But coastlines still tend to be
important.
        But it is not a question of either or.
        A greater integration with the oil-economies to
the east and the south would give a broader basis in
the longer term. (And oil-production of course also
implies potential markets, as does religious mass-
getherings. Egypt has a large population, and as
such also a market of some size.
        Sorry to have to address this in such capitalistic
terms. But within capitalism, economical development
will necessarily take place on capitalistic terms. 

Regardless, of this, we will of course always try to create
relations of workers-to-workers solidarity wherever
possible, and regardless of borders. 
        I originally stole the pretty self-evident term East
Mediterranean from Ilan and his group


"Why imagine that the force of integration will be some
sort of liberalist European philosophy," you ask.
        
I am not sure precisely what you imply with the
term "liberalist European philosophy" here. Could
you specify or elaborate the question?


I do not know how much of the above that made
sense. It is an extremely interwined and complex
theme were economical and cultural-historical
forces meet, creating forms of alienation that
are at the same time archaic and hyper-modern.
Surely far too much to address halfway decently
within the framework of an email like this.

Basically, my point of view can be summed up
as the future is open.
 
Harald














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