Posted by Tony from ? (167.88.192.30) on Wednesday, December 11, 2002 at 1:57PM :
The "pax americana" in question
BY: Réda Benkirane
(TG, September
24, 1998)
In this thousand-year-old third day before, the "new
world order" seems irremediably unipolar. America
triumphs as a recluse in a world which goes, him,
towards an increasing and multidimensional plurality.
The United States is closely convinced to be the
Masters of planet, and no Western power clearly dares
to call into question an American foreign politics which
so strongly determines the International relations.
But of the divergent opinions are made more and more
hear. And when universalization is sometimes disputed,
it is also because it translates a "macdonalisation" of
the world. As in Geneva, last May, one wanted to
denounce this Anglo-Saxon subculture consumed for
the needs for the market, which fades about on all
within the planetary village.
It is regrettable that Washington did not cultivate in its
relations foreign a concern of "politically correct" ethics.
The war of the Gulf was the first great demonstration,
expensive and not succeeded, of the American order
in the area. Among the many by-effects of this conflict,
one will note the recrudescence of terrorist actions led
to the opposition to the United States these last years.
If the United Nations suffer today from a lack of
credibility, it is that it is often reproached to them for
being able to act differently than under dictation of
Washington. In same time, the United States
accumulates the financial arrears. The non-payment of
their contribution, together with a certain number of
conditions which constitute a kind of "diplomatic
blackmail" at the international community, is
responsible for the financial crisis of UNO and slows
down its effectiveness considerably.
Throughout this year, "Saga Monica" revealed in the
whole world the dysfunction of the political system
starting from an altogether minor business, even in
comparison with the American public opinion. The
sexuality of the President "mondialized" via the chains
of television and Internet network imposes, by a kind of
"effet butterfly ", a on-presence then a worrying eclipse
of the United States on the international scene. As
aberrant as it can appear, this business had
repercussions until on the American foreign politics;
thus last February, we were with two fingers of a new
war of the Gulf, and lately there was this bombardment
of a pharmaceutical factory close to Khartoum,
disputed by several high persons in charge for
American services of information.
But this presidential crisis could in the final analysis
prove to be salutary for the American democracy. It
could be the occasion there not to restrict the
presidential prerogatives - as it was the case after
Watergate- but to reconsider the whole of the political
system, by increasing the role of the public opinion
while restricting that of the media of mass. In
postindustrielle America, the two-party system
represented by the parties democrat and republican,
around of which revolve of powerful lobbys and other
lobbies accompanied by their armada media, are not
viable any more. It is the ultimate lesson of the
"Monicagate": the shift between a sclerosed
politico-legal world and a civil company crossed by a
contradictory pluralism and waves which largely
modified the typology of American way of life. The rise
of an electorate of independent, at the origin of the
phenomenon Ross Perrot in 1992, was a first clear
signal in this direction.
Pareillement, the sociological mobility which animated
during the Sixties the policies protestors (for the civic
rights, against the war of Vietnam, counter-culture)
escapes the duality démocrates/républicains to
redeploy in a range of activities (movements of
citizens, Community, libertarian, ecological, etc.) apart
from the traditional political system.
But these generations less basically did not transform
of it the economy and the world of work since they are
at the origins of the data-processing revolution started
at the beginning of the Seventies in California. They are
activated in new technologies, new materials and clean
energies. They prefer to weave a company in networks
rather than to take pleasure in the company of the
spectacle, play of the financial instruments and taste
little with the policy of the drain-hole. One the third of
the American electorate could inspire, via a battery of
software tools, new ways for the democracy. Thanks to
equipment hyperdense in television, telephone and
computer, the surveys could, for example, to leave
room to electronic votes which would reflect the
choices of the public opinion for a whole range of
expiries.
America is also the continent where the future is
invented. The sharpest intelligence is spread there with
audacity and success. Not having past or if little, the
United States projects their identity-to become in a
catalogue of possibilities; the innovation finds there a
compost fertile. Because precisely this country plays a
planetary role, its transformation (as for Russia) is also
the business of the international community.
To reform the United States, it is blow to foresee a
reform of the world system, great financial institutions
and of the United Nations. To denounce the aberrations
of the American order, it is to finally plead for a world
order pluripolaire and multiculturel.
Réda Benkirane
-- Tony
-- signature .