Republican News · Thursday 24 July 2003

Excoriating global imperialism

The New Rulers of the World
By John Pilger
Verso
§11 paperback

For anyone who wants to understand global imperialism and capitalism and its dynamics, or rather the way the world operates, this book is vital and indispensable. No thinking republican should do without an analysis of the world, and this book goes a long way in providing this. It is written by one of the few decent investigative journalists anywhere, John Pilger, an Australian and a strident critic of the 'new world order'. It is very clearly and concisely written and is very readable.

The book is about global capitalism and global imperialism, principally in the guise of the United States, and how it rules the world. It takes into account four case studies, which are varied and different in their own way, but are all interlinked in their similarities. The first case deals with the Suharto regime in Indonesia, which the Western powers brought to power in 1965 and tells how the promising future of a postcolonial state was tied down firmly to Western interests.

The second case deals with Iraq in the last 12 years since the end of the First Gulf War of 1991 and how sanctions have affected the country. The third part is a general survey of America's concerns in Central Asia. It also discusses the US invasion of Afghanistan in October 2001. The last section in the book is set in Pilger's native Australia and that country's treatment of its indigenous Aboriginal population.

The book starts off by giving an overview of the affairs of the world in the last few years and the event surrounding the September 11 attacks in New York. This book claims that far from 9/11 being the instigation of a series of invasions, the Bush Administration was already well advanced in the planning stages. It deals with how America's geopolitical and economic concerns have expanded like they have never done before and how massive military manoeuvres are necessary for them to safeguard these.

Suharto's regime in Indonesia came to power in a virtual bloodbath. The United States and Britain were instrumental in installing this vicious, murderous regime, which murdered more than a million Indonesian communists, a third of East Timor's people, and many more besides. It also proved to be equally amenable to the interests of Western multinationals, as it sold off the massive wealth of its own resources for a fraction of its real value.

This had the effect of turning one of the potentially most wealthy countries in the world into one of the most heavily indebted, owing a massive $262 billion to its Western creditors, while at the same time its social provisions of health, education, housing, etc. are under more pressure than ever. The standards of these basic necessities have actually declined massively since the 1960s.

Needless to say, this gigantic expropriation was sustained by an abuse of human rights on a scale and intensity dwarfed by none other, a fact that the West was perfectly aware of, but turned a usual blind eye to.

The chapter titled 'Paying the price' examines the period in Iraq from the end of the First Gulf War in 1991 to just before the second one this year (when this edition was published). It deals with the appalling effects that sanctions had on the people of Iraq, directly causing the death of half a million children under the age of five in the first five years, by depriving them of access to essential medical supplies. The overall death toll from sanctions of all age groups would appear to be between 1 and 2 million in the 12-year period, and that being a conservative estimate.

The double standards of the West in applying sanctions, purportedly to bring down Saddam Hussein, actually had the effect of strengthening his power base while hurting the most vulnerable and powerless of the population. A country that once had the highest standards of education, health, housing, nutritional intake and literacy in the whole world had been reduced within 12 years to scoring among the lowest on all counts. The social fabric of Iraq, while a ruthless dictatorship, had been a secular society where women enjoyed far more rights than in most regional states. This was severely undermined, however, as massive poverty became the norm for people there, with its consequent social dislocation.

'The great game' discusses the events surrounding September 11 and the invasion of Afghanistan as part of America's strategic bridgehead into the resource rich region of Central Asia, which include major oilfields and oil pipelines. Much of the comment in this section deals with the media doublespeak in general towards the actions of the United States and its sidekick, Britain. Aside from the double standards of these powers, the double standards of the media comes in for scrutiny as they are exposed as the tools of disinformation, practically repeating verbatim the military line, glossing over horrendous human casualties and sanitising events for more palatable Western living room consumption.

'The chosen ones' is about the treatment by the Australian government of its Aboriginal population. It is a scathing attack on that government's master race attitude towards people they entirely dispossessed and then dumped on reservations with the most inadequate provisions possible. These provisions were so inadequate that their average life expectancy is 20 years less than the average Australian in the 21st century. The government over the years implemented what was practically a 'genocide by stealth' policy, where they forcibly separated children from their parents in order to 'civilise' them in abusive orphanages. As a result, this systematic oppression created ruined lives and ruined communities, leaving behind a legacy of hopelessness, desperation, unemployment, alcoholism, dependency and numerous other social ills - all in the name of civilisation, of course.

By and large, this book is a very good read and is to be recommended to people with an interest in global affairs. It helps develop an understanding of the true nature of imperialism and how it operates. One cannot put down a copy of this book after finishing it and not be left with an abiding impression that Western imperialism has a hell of a lot to answer for. An inherent racism is clearly palpable in each of the case studies and when the fog of the present lifts, the West will be excoriated by future historians.

But like Lenin said, imperialism is the highest stage of capitalism and in the light of the current affairs of the last 50 years, there can be little doubt that this is how capitalism is developing now. Capitalism promises not only political and military imperialism, but also economic imperialism, social imperialism and cultural imperialism, to the detriment of the vast majority of the human race.

BY CATHAL Ó MURCHÚ

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The Greatest of the Fenians

The Greatest of the Fenians: John Devoy and Ireland
By Terence Dooley
Wolfhound
§10 paperback

This new biography of the life of John Devoy is the latest on one of the Fenian leaders of the late 19th century. It is written by Terence Dooley, a historian based in NUI Maynooth and an authority on landlord families and their landed estates. This biography explores the life and times of John Devoy with particular emphasis on his upbringing in Ireland; his Fenian activities in Ireland; his arrest and imprisonment in 1866; his exile in New York from 1871 onwards; his illegal visit to Ireland in 1879; his family life; his unceasing and continuous agitation in America throughout the 1880s, 1890s, 1900s, 1910s and 1920s; and his triumphant to Ireland in 1924.

Ireland has produced a rich and varied tradition of revolutionaries and John Devoy is one such individual who merits more mention than he has hitherto received. He exemplifies the type of revolutionary that dedicated his entire adult life to "breaking the English connection" and throughout his very long life (1842-1928) he was contemporaneous with the major vicissitudes of Irish history; the Great Hunger, the Young Ireland risings, the Tenants' League, the funeral of Terence Bellew McManus, the Fenian Risings, the continuous mass Irish exodus to America, the Land War, the Gaelic Revival, Easter Week 1916, the Sinn Féin General Election victory of 1918, the Tan War and the Civil War. He was, therefore, a true witness to a very formative phase of Irish history.

John Devoy was born in Kildare to a family of landless peasants who claimed proud lineage from the seven septs (tribes) of Laois. From his upbringing, he retained throughout his life a firm and resolute opposition to landlordism and agitated unceasingly for its destruction. He joined the Irish Republican Brotherhood in 1861 and was arrested in 1866 for attempting to recruit British soldiers. He accepted exile under the amnesty agreement in 1870 and sailed for America. Once there, he quickly built up Clan na Gael to become the principle Irish-American organisation agitating for Irish independence.

During the Revolutionary period of 1912 to 1923, Devoy was always instrumental in providing significant funds for the republican movement and in drumming up support for the republican cause. He was the vital link in America for the 1916 Rising as with other phases of the struggle at the time. He clashed bitterly with éamon de Valera when the latter visited America in 1919 and both men maintained a lifelong enmity with each other thereafter.

It may be a disappointment to modern-day republicans that Devoy opted to accept the Treaty in 1921. This was partly out of his enmity with de Valera and respect for Michael Collins, but he also genuinely believed in the stepping stone strategy advocated by the latter. However, it is perhaps worth noting that he was an old man in his 80s and he more than likely saw the Treaty as some kind of tangible result from his undeniable commitment of years of lifelong effort. It should also be noted that he never maintained any hostility to anti-Treaty republicans during the Civil War, only to de Valera, and rather, he lamented that there was a civil war at all and was of the view that all sides carried some degree of responsibility. He stated this very clearly when the Free State government hosted his triumphant return in 1924, much to their embarrassment. He died in New York in 1928, aged 86

Overall, this book is reasonably well written and analyses quite successfully the kind of man that John Devoy was, with his positive and negative qualities. It is a fair assessment of his life, but could perhaps have concentrated a bit more on his social analysis. Sometimes the author goes into too much unnecessary detail, which can cause the reader to lose sight of the big picture It was Pádraig Mac Piaras who paid Devoy the accolade that he was "the greatest of the Fenians", hence the title of the book.

BY CATHAL Ó MURCHÚ