17.10.03
Iraq and the Third Camp
There is taking place a triangular struggle for the world. Three responses to the ending of "the short twentieth century" and its political and economic architecture.
The first, emergent for over a century but unleashed since the end of the Cold War, is the United States of America. The U.S. is now the world's hyperpower with a grand strategy to reshape global political and economic relations in its favor and in the interests of global capital.
The second - which cannot be reduced to mere "blowback" -is an entirely reactionary and frequently terroristic Jihad fundamentalism seeking the defeat of the "infidel" world of women's rights, democracy, secularism, sexual self-determination and individual liberty.
These two forces crashed into each other, with the al-Qaeda terrorist atrocities of September 11, 2001 and the subsequent U.S.-led wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. The turbulence has capsized parts of the left. To right itself the left needs to turn toward the perspective of a "third camp": the burgeoning global working class leading the progressive social movements of global civil society.
During the Cold War the third camp opposed both Russia and the U.S. in the name of all the democratic forces struggling for peace and democracy. The contemporary meaning of third camp socialism is the refusal to be enlisted into some new "Great Contest" as cheerleader or critical supporter of either reactionary camp, and the elaboration of a positive and practical political alternative to both.
Læs artiklen af Alan Johnson i sidste udgave af det amerikanske tidsskrift New Politics
There is taking place a triangular struggle for the world. Three responses to the ending of "the short twentieth century" and its political and economic architecture.
The first, emergent for over a century but unleashed since the end of the Cold War, is the United States of America. The U.S. is now the world's hyperpower with a grand strategy to reshape global political and economic relations in its favor and in the interests of global capital.
The second - which cannot be reduced to mere "blowback" -is an entirely reactionary and frequently terroristic Jihad fundamentalism seeking the defeat of the "infidel" world of women's rights, democracy, secularism, sexual self-determination and individual liberty.
These two forces crashed into each other, with the al-Qaeda terrorist atrocities of September 11, 2001 and the subsequent U.S.-led wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. The turbulence has capsized parts of the left. To right itself the left needs to turn toward the perspective of a "third camp": the burgeoning global working class leading the progressive social movements of global civil society.
During the Cold War the third camp opposed both Russia and the U.S. in the name of all the democratic forces struggling for peace and democracy. The contemporary meaning of third camp socialism is the refusal to be enlisted into some new "Great Contest" as cheerleader or critical supporter of either reactionary camp, and the elaboration of a positive and practical political alternative to both.
Læs artiklen af Alan Johnson i sidste udgave af det amerikanske tidsskrift New Politics
