File spoon-archives/marxism-international.archive/marxism-international_1998/marxism-international.9803, message 33


From: Nestor Miguel Gorojovsky <nestor-AT-sisurb.filo.uba.ar>
Date: 	Mon, 2 Mar 1998 21:14:09 +0000
Subject: Re: M-I: on nation building


El  2 Mar 98 a las 12:49, james m blaut nos dice(n):

> James Heartfield neglects the point made by me and Nestor and Gary:
> national liberation struggles go on regardless of the colors on the
> flag waving overhead. The operative word is "neocolonialism."

The word may be "neo", but this is old stuff. The policy so termed 
was somehow devised before imperialism (in the technical Leninist 
sense) did appear.  It was -you may bet on it- an Englishman, George 
Canning, and the occasion was the policy to be pursued with former 
Spanish America.

While most British rulers imagined colonial policy as a matter of 
sending in troops and formal occupation, Canning sensed the relative 
strengths of South American new born countries (not nations, this is 
an entirely different thing), and accurately decided that there would 
not be enough British troops to turn them British.

So, he coined a phrase that marked the whole British policy towards 
Latin America (and, afterwards, North American policies):  "The wedge 
is cast, South America is free.  And if we know how to act, South 
America will be British".  By this he meant informal empire over 
formally independent countries.  Is it not the most clear 
prefiguration of what we now call "neocolonialism"?

And it dates back to the 1820s...


Before departure,

Nestor Gorojovsky 


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