"Indeed, a kind of role reversal happened between imperialism and its enemies. President Barack Obama did not exactly wear himself out designing an ideological banner for his next war. This time, there would be no “battle for democracy” or war in the name of “freedom for Afghan women.” Not even “freedom for the Syrian people.” This would be a war, rather, about American “red lines” and “national security.” Here, imperialism appeared totally bare, stripped of its characteristic self-presentation as the gate of redemption for the peoples of the world. To find a discourse singing this familiar refrain, one must move to the opposite side, where important anti-war left wing activists and thinkers have taken it upon themselves to promote the “white man’s” ideology, having paradoxically borrowed and redeployed an imperialist discourse in the name of fighting imperialism. They do not object to the idea of using the military strike to redeem the Syrian people. Rather, they object to it on another basis: the revolutionary Syrians do not deserve to be redeemed because they have not proven their radical qualifications and secular-democratic orientation, so we should not interfere on their behalf. In making its case against military intervention, the discourse of opposition to the military strike thus fell into the trap of cultural imperialism when it thought it was standing against military imperialism."
Posted on: Tue, 17 Sep 2013 00:22:14 +0000