It will be forever relevant to recall the old Aesop’s fable about the wolf and the lamb. Ever since the appearance of life on this planet, the hunger of some has cost some or many others their dear lives. The force and power have generally prevailed, and it continues to be so despite all the inventions to mitigate the law of nature, and the political-religious discourses to hide the reality or wish it would be different.
Even Buddhism associated with ahimsa as a prime virtue, is known throughout its history as promoter and defender of violence. From the classic example of Emperor Ashoka in India, we know his historic contribution to expansion of Buddhism, but it followed his cruel war of Kalinga as a strategy to prevent revenge and retaliations from those he had sought to destroy or dominate. No one ever heard of his paying compensation to the families of nearly two and half lakh victims of his brutality, or any form of restoration for the loot of a prosperous Kalinga that had a profitable share in southeast Asian sea trade.
Curiously, the so-called international law was invented and was sought to be imposed by Europe when the age of Discoveries was threatening the rival interests of European powers of the time. During the previous centuries the papacy had been a guardian of the international law in Europe, and it was ruled by the Augustinian concept of the just war, which legalized the Iberian project of Discoveries and intercontinental expansion.
Following the Reformation disregard for the papal rulings, Hugo Grotius popularized the idea of the freedom of the seas. It was aimed at justifying the superior naval power of his Dutch brethren, who questioned the Iberian privileges under papal blessings. Whoever the rival beneficiaries of the dispute, the so-called international law was an instrument in the hands of the world powers to justify and protect their loot, and never meant to safeguard the interests of their common victims in the rest of the world, which was deemed as long-term beneficiaries of their colonial dispensation.
We know how short-lived was the League of Nations, and following the World War II, the United Nations was set up by the victorious powers to prevent, through their control of the Security Council and veto power, any form of effective revenge by populations and nations that were humiliated or restrained in their ambitions, and are since been kept under watch, while doling out to them some financial crumbs through development projects.
The tide of decolonization that followed the World War II was a natural consequence of the growth of financial capitalism that had fuelled the heavy industry, such as the railroads, ship building and arms industry, on a scale that made the World Wars unavoidable. Contrary to any naïve political-historical analysts who blame some individual leader or nation for causing wars, the deeper causes for inter-state or international conflicts have to be identified in the impersonal and diffused capitalist expansion.
The colonial empires had to go, ending the physically protected colonial markets of England, France, Germany, Italy, and so on. Their empires were becoming an irritable and intolerable impediment for the financial capital which only recognized a global market without borders. It is this global expansion that is now seeking new forms of domination with right to intervene anywhere, irrespective of national borders. Existing political and social structures are ignored, discreetly whenever possible, but aggressively when they seek to protest as violations of human rights. This dynamic is summed up in the title of this column.
Even recently, the so-called Arab springs and East European orange or crimson revolutions were cherished and promoted with glee by the financial capitalism as a functional strategy to penetrate weak economies. However, this stage seems to be already being overtaken by large-scale assaults on the banking systems and use of sanctions against sizable state players, as tried recently against Russia.
What is currently underway through Brexit and new emerging right wing movements in EU, may be seen as new forms of capitalist power struggle. They are likely to emerge at an ever increasingly fast rhythm, making it harder to predict their relative success or failure. The History is forever a box of surprises, and unexpected developments can throw the best planned strategies out of gear. Despite all human claims to be in charge of history, much of the historical evolution is made of unintended consequences. The unexpected consequences can surge in many different ways, never ignoring the fact that it is not only the holders of power, be through the States or other institutional State-sponsored agencies of varied nature, that determine the march of events. The great social and political movements in history have often emerged from desperation and exasperation.
If we can still learn from Toynbee’s Study of History (1934-1961) the rise and fall of civilizations is an ongoing process [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Hr3mACjg-4] and despite all the self-confidence of the dominant powers and their convictions about their continued will to rule, history has never been forever kind to such dreams. Most, if not all empires have their youthful phase of hard efforts that include winning a relatively wide support of its population, but they all grow
into senile oligarchies that fail to stay tuned to their surroundings.
(The writer is the founder-director, XCHR, Goa (1979-1994).
