Globalisation, Democracy and Terrorism

Globalisation, Democracy and Terrorism By Eric Hobsbawn, ERIC HOBSBAWM (LOBALISATION, DEMOCRACY AND TERRORISM 'One of the outstanding biscorians of our age' Independent on Sunday Eric Hobsbawn's new book, compiled from a series of lectures, is a welcome analysis of the three elements in the title but also of related subjects such as nationalism, migration, as well as football and crime. Hobsbawn was born in 1917 in Egypt. Following the death of his parents, he moved to Vienna in 1931 and then Berlin where he demonstrated with the left against the Nazis. Later he was in Paris during the Popular Front and joined the Communist Party in 1936. He reminds us in this book that the 20th century could be defined as the century of wars and has been the most murderous, with 187 million or 10% of the world's population of 1913, dying in wars. Hobsbawn argues that the recent period of 'globalization' is responsible for greater inequality in the world with, amongst other factors, a reversal of the welfare state, a decline of the territorial state and of the acceptance of state legitimacy, the spread of weapons in private hands and the increasing military interventions for spurious humanitarian or democratic reasons. Now even ordinary crime operations are defined in terms of war, such as the war against crime, drugs, etc. With the support Little, Brown 2007 £17.99 strike was possible. Hobsbawn demolishes any illusion that globalization can play a progressive role or could lead to a better world. He polemicises against those who see a new empire as a force for peace by looking at the British Empire and reminding readers that the Pax Britannica, and Pax Romana for that matter, were enforced through military might. He argues that empires can win wars militarily but can't maintain the peace and quotes Napoleon who said, 'you can do anything with bayonets except sit on them'. However, he is unable to answer his own question as to why US imperialism is attempting global domination when he writes, 'Frankly, I can't make sense of what has happened in the US since 9/11 enabled a group of political crazies to realise long-held plans for an unaccompanied solo performance of world supremacy. No mention is made of the new global justice movement or of the new resistance to imperialism emerging in Latin America and elsewhere, and the need for 'the crazies' to seize the initative to roll back these Hobsbawn fails to answer other questions he poses such on the future of nation states and liberal democracy in the twenty-first century, and of course the big one for all on the left which is, 'will the US ... maintain an eroding global position by relying on political military force ... and in so doing promote... not the advance of civilisation but of barbarism?'. The reason he gives for not providing an answer, or at least a speculation, is that historians are not This may be true and is an amusing joke upon which to conclude a lecture, but it does leave the reader hungry for more. This is especially the case as sometimes his remarks on the past suggest that he does have his own answers to the questions. For example he believes that during the Cold War, the existence of the USSR played a moderating role on the imperialist expansionism of the US. The possession of REVIEW Reviewed by Fred Leplat prevented the prospect of a MAD (mutually assured destruction) scenario. However what North America, as well as the victorious struggles for national liberation in the developing world, some of which overthrew capitalism as in China, Cuba and Vietnam. Of course, Hobsbawn's own history explains this political thread in the book. He was a longstanding member of the Communist 'approved with a heavy Party from 1936. He, heart' the invasion of Hungary by Soviet tanks in 1956. In the late1970s he supported the 'euro-communist' wing of the CP. He argued then that the working class had lost its central role in society and supported Neil Kinnock's changes to the Labour Party. He even believes that Brown will be an enormous improvement on Tony Blair (Guardian 1st September 2007). The unanswered questions at the end of each chapter are frustrating. Furthermore, although the chapters on democracy are fascinating for their examination of liberal democracy, they do not look at the attempts to develop alternative democratic experiences in the world in the last century. This is no small matter, as one of the biggest challenges for socialists is that we are still burdened with the millstone of the Stalinist experience in the USSR, and the continuation of bureaucratic methods in the trade unions. Equally disappointing is that probably the biggest threat facing humanity, the threat to the environment by capitalist globalisation, is barely mentioned. This is also the biggest challenge for socialists in the coming decade. However, despite these limitations, Globalisation, Democracy, and Terrorism, is fascinating looking at the general trends in society and politics today, and deserves to be widely read.