Reclaiming the Nation: The Return of the National Question in Africa, Asia and Latin America

361 Pages·2011·3.27 MB·English

by  Sam Moyo

Reclaiming the Nation
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ReclaimiNg the NatioN
the Return of the National Question
in africa, asia and latin america
Edited by
Sam Moyo and Paris Yeros
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First published 2011 by Pluto Press
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www.plutobooks.com
Distributed in the United States of america exclusively by
Palgrave macmillan, a division of St. martin’s Press llc,
175 Fifth avenue, New York, NY 10010
copyright © Sam moyo and Paris Yeros 2011
the right of the individual contributors to be identified as the authors
of this work has been asserted by them in accordance with the copyright,
Designs and Patents act 1988.
British library cataloguing in Publication Data
a catalogue record for this book is available from the British library
iSBN 978 0 7453 3083 9 hardback
iSBN 978 0 7453 3082 2 Paperback
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contents
Preface vii
IntroductIon
1 the Fall and rise of the national Question 3
Sam Moyo and Paris Yeros
Part I: aFrIca
2 rethinking Pan-africanism, nationalism and the
new regionalism 31
Thandika Mkandawire
3 nation-Building and State Fracture in Sudan 54
Mahmood Mamdani
4 after Zimbabwe: State, nation and region in africa 78
Sam Moyo and Paris Yeros
Part II: aSIa
5 Peripheral States in asia under neoliberalism and after 105
Korkut Boratav
6 the national Question in India 127
Sandeep Chachra
7 the Palestinian national Question:
Settler-colonialism and the International Power regime 151
Jamil Hilal
8 the national Question and the unfinished revolution
in nepal 172
Hari Roka
9 neoliberalism in turkey 191
Cem Somel
Part III: LatIn aMErIca
10 Latin american thinking on the State and
development: From Statelessness to Statelessness 215
Atilio A. Boron
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vi ReclaimiNg the NatioN
11 the national Question and the autonomy of the
State in Bolivia 235
Lorgio Orellana Aillón
12 Kirchner’s argentina: In Search of a new
International Presence 255
Javier A. Vadell
13. State and nation in Brazil: old Questions,
new challenges 275
Sebastião C. Velasco e Cruz and Reginaldo C. Moraes
14 South american cleavages and Venezuela’s role 299
Rafael DuarteVilla
concLuSIon
15 national States: Which Way Forward? 325
Samir Amin
Notes on Contributors 345
Index 347
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Preface
this book is the second in a series of tri-continental research
initiatives undertaken by the african Institute of agrarian Studies
(aIaS) in Harare, Zimbabwe. It is the result of a partnership with
the department of International relations at the catholic university
of Minas Gerais (Puc Minas) in Belo Horizonte, Brazil, and the
centre for Policy Studies in Johannesburg, South africa. the three
institutions have supported this project in its different stages,
including its initial conceptualisation and network-building, the
organisation of a conference, hosted by Puc Minas in May 2007,
the subsequent translation of chapters, and the publication of the
book. Generous support has also been extended by official sources
in Brazil, namely cnPq (national council of technological and
Scientific development) and FaPEMIG (Foundation for research
Support of the State of Minas Gerais).
this second tri-continental project has aimed to address issues
that arose from the first, which focused on the agrarian question
and the rise of rural movements under neoliberalism – see our
Reclaiming the Land: The Resurgence of Rural Movements in
Africa, Asia and Latin America (London and cape town: Zed
Books and david Philip, 2005). Specifically, the character of the state
under neoliberalism, and the rise of new (or revived) nationalisms
against neoliberalism, were discussed in relation to agrarian change,
but were not investigated in a holistic and systematic manner.
thus, another comparative study dedicated to these issues became
necessary and urgent. We hope that this second volume will begin
to fill the gap.
It is important to say a few words, as editors, on the nature
of the book. our insistence on addressing properly the national
question has been driven by our profound disquiet with its fate over
the last 30 years. clearly, this fundamental political and economic
question of the modern world suffered severe setbacks, just two
decades after decolonisation and the end of empire. the neoliberal
assault, together with its newly-found allies – on the one hand,
the post-modernist trend; on the other, a much older false cos-
mopolitanism practiced by dominant sections of the Marxist left
– succeeded in submerging the national question under a flood of
vii
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viii ReclaimiNg the NatioN
illusions regarding the ‘globalised’ nature of the world economy
‘beyond’ states and nations, centres and peripheries.
It is clear to us that the enhanced integration of the South into
the commercial and financial centres of the world economy, rather
than superseding states and nations, could only be effected by
mobilising state apparatuses against nations, and by reinforcing
tendencies towards national disintegration and international dif-
ferentiation. Social, racial, ethnic and regional cleavages; state
violence, rural conflict, urban crime and communal strife; serial
economic crises and institutional ruptures – these have all been
intrinsic to globalisation, as have the rise of the semi-peripheries,
new monopolies, new middle classes and, of late, new South-South
relations. the re-militarisation of uS/Western foreign policies
against the South, the proliferation of sanctions regimes and the
scramble all around for energy resources, minerals and irrigated
land – these, too, have been intrinsic to globalisation.
until recently, the task of bringing the national question back to
life, as a specifically economic question, was left almost entirely to
the radicalising social forces in the peripheries of the system; perhaps
unsurprisingly, they were based mainly, though not exclusively, in
the countryside (see our Reclaiming the Land). Even the World
Social Forum (WSF), the main global network of social movements
of recent years, did not manage to grasp the national question fully:
the radicalisation of social forces ran ahead, even away, from the
WSF. Such social forces are now recuperating lost ground and going
far beyond abstract ‘identity’ politics and ‘plural’ democracy to
reclaim natural resources, namely land, energy and mineral deposits,
and even to restructure the apparatus of the state in the name of the
oppressed – most often the racially oppressed – with all the con-
tradictions that such a process entails. the recent phenomenon of
‘radicalised states’ – a term that remains contested – is most evident
in South america (see Venezuela and Bolivia in this volume), but it
has its parallels in africa (Zimbabwe) and asia (nepal).
the emerging semi-peripheries have also been broaching the
economic dimension of the national question, but in an entirely
different manner: by re-connecting the South through trade,
finance and investment. this is an aspect which we do not fully
explore in this book – it awaits another tri-continental research
project – although it is increasingly evident that, as a process led by
newly-aspiring business interests, its political orientation remains
ambiguous: there is new space for manoeuvre, but also limits to
solidarity. the questions which we explore have more to do with
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PReFace ix
the internal dynamics of these states and less with their external
relations. By contrast to the radicalised states, these emerging semi-
peripheries (Brazil, argentina, India, turkey) seem to be ‘stabilising’,
by co-opting or disorganising radicalisation, even after serial bouts
with crisis, and seeking control over their regional neighbourhoods
as well.
But beyond the economic dimension of the national question, there
are states and peoples still struggling to maintain their territorial
integrity or obtain political independence, long after the formal end
of empire. these struggles are not only inseparable from the others,
they are of a higher global priority, requiring unalloyed, principled
solidarity. they are the ‘fractured’ states – not exactly ‘failed’, as
the pundits would have it – those that succumb to the disintegrating
forces of peripheral capitalism and external interference (Sudan),
as well as the unresolved cases of colonised/occupied peoples
(Palestine), who have now been joined by the newly invaded and
re-colonised, for whom imperialist strategy has found no other way,
once again, but to extinguish their sovereignty altogether.
We ought to be asking: why do some states radicalise, while others
stabilise, fracture or come under occupation? of course, fracture
may lead to occupation, and vice versa, just as radicalisation may
give way to all of the above, or stabilisation to radicalisation. But
these are not a matter of chance, or historical stages, or detours, or
discursive flurries. are there deeper structural tendencies, deriving
from the economic and social disarticulation that holds within the
periphery, or perhaps the constitution of the business classes, or the
organisation of the popular classes, which make certain countries
more propitious to inclining one way or another? are certain semi-
peripheral countries, with their more established business classes,
which have even entered the monopoly phase, and now boasting
a ‘shining’ populism, more capable of evading radicalisation? are
there specific ideological conditions, such as those deriving from
racial or caste consciousness, which play a special role in unifying
social forces across the rural-urban divide, and tilting the balance?
What are the potentialities and limits of the new international
relation of forces – regional and north-South – in determining the
direction of change? and if change is to be progressive, what is
to be made of the state as a conservative bureaucratic apparatus?
For whom and for what purpose should its relative autonomy be
exercised? these are just some of the questions that need now to be
taken seriously, as the ‘globalisation’ floodwaters retreat.
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