40

 

LECTURES AND REFLECTIONS

 

LECTURE I – ASIAN AND GLOBAL REALITIES

 

I did not expect such formalities. After all, I left the Federation only three (3) months ago. Although this probably is the fate of former general secretaries, I had expected that even in the Federation, general secretaries never die, they just fade away. Although some general secretaries fade away more slowly than others. Yes, I said I didn't expect those formalities because I have been very much directly involved in the life of the Federation for the last four years. To a certain degree, I look at ASFOR as part of my own tenure since the planning, setting up, background, and even funding happened at the time I was still in Geneva. I knew the currents of thinking and programming that went into the setting up of ASFOR.

I might add that I was involved in the pre­decessor of ASFOR very directly. It was ALDEC at that time. I had known "plunge-ins" during ALDEC. I even got married as a result of ALDEC. I have heard about your various "plunge-ins" and understand how difficult it is reflecting about them. Well, these are all in the great tradition of the Federation "plunge-ins" during events like this, so don't be embarrassed about it.

I have taken seriously the instructions, which were given to me by Staff related to these lectures. I should add that I was not supposed to be the only one giving these talks. As a matter of fact, I expected to be among a team   of other people, but as always happens, there are a few drop-outs and I ended up being asked to give three lectures instead of one. I have taken very seriously also the admonition of Staff that these lectures are to be given in the form of baring. What I am going to give are probably simply Notes. I will share with you general things that have come into my mind about world and Asian realities and in the process provide some framework for shar­es (from you and with you) and then some discussion of these realities. I have been asked, at least for programmatic purposes, to divide the talks into three (3) general area areas: 1) some general reflections on world situation; 2) some general reflections on Asian realities; and 3) some talk, linking into the next sector of discussions on the role of the Church. This is basically the framework which I will follow.

Let me start then by sharing some general comments on the practice of reflecting in the WSCF. I think that it has been a habit, almost an inevitable part of any WSCF pro­gram, particularly on the content side of it, that we start by talking about the world situation first. And, almost every kind of regional reporting, for example, that we have in the last Assembly of the Federation, started with some kind of description of world situation. These are not always the same, not uniform by any means, but never­theless, some consideration of the world situation as the context, perhaps the broader context, within which we work.

I must immediately confess that I have some very basic disagreements, and even some suspicion, about this current way of reflec­ting on world situation (in the Federa­tion), which is oftentimes reflected in terms of the over-arching struggle of what people say  as  imperialist and anti-imperialist powers.  I say that I have some doubts about that in part because I see in that effort, basically, a search on our part, and on the part of others as well, of those hidden rationalities, you might even say hidden reason, the hidden spirit, behind forces, which are actually operating in world politics today. Usually, this is done in terms of, on the one hand, of the hand or the hidden hand of imperialism that is directing one set of forces, and the hand, or hidden hand of the anti-imperialist forces that are directing the opposition to it, on the other hand. The forces, of course, are not very often very hidden! But nevertheless, there is a basic tendency to try and immediately

 

41

 

divide the world between these two forces, and to begin to understand our task in terms of where we fall.

In this global division between the hidden, or not too hidden forces of imperialism on the one hand, or not too hidden forces of anti – imperialism on the other hand, I have some skepticism about this method for the simple reason that there are many grey areas in world politics today that are not immediately fitted within this framework. I so happen to think that, particularly in the politics of nations, there are simply too many incoherences and irrationalities that 3 not very easy to fit within this basic framework. One might learn lessons that constantly come in history often from the coherences and irrationalities, rather than e coherences or rationalities that surface very strongly into the history of world politics. There are simply too many other forms of conflict and struggle that are happening, all kinds of liberation struggles at are not simply, in my view, again fitted immediately into this whole schema of imperialism / anti – imperialism, but which are still important to deal with. I am also a bit hesitant to deal with issues on these terms partly because it is too much an echo of a party-line on world situation, the status of national liberations, the final struggle, final history, etc., and these are very much like the schematization of the speech of a chairperson of a central communist party. One example of this is the talk of Leonid Bhreshnev in the last meeting of the Central Committee of the CPSU, Communist Party of the Soviet Union) which follows very much this schematization.

As a matter of fact, this is one of my criticisms of this kind of analysis that I have been talking about — this search for those hidden irrationalities in world politics. Hidden frameworks by which various events that are happening are fitted along within a basically, coherent framework. Therefore, looking for those hidden spirits, those hidden things, usually leads to certain conspiratorial view of politics — either conspiracy of the right or conspiracy of the left. This search for those hidden ration­alities, hidden spirits, is in my view a form of left Hegelianism, a kind of inversion basical­ly of a Hegelian framework that is looking at those spirits behind events.

Therefore, the approach that I would like to take here is descriptive and not historical. Perhaps a bit empirical, that which I have been describing earlier and which in my view has become quite a pronounced tend­ency in certain sectors of the Federation. I'm stating this because I think it is important for us at the very beginning of our conversation.

Let me say immediately that my assessment of world situation today is one, which I would simply call the Post - 2nd World War era in world politics. Someone has said, and I think with a great deal of justification, that if the revolutionary result of the 1st World War was the emergence of the USSR, the emergence of a socialist power in world politics, the revolutionary result of the 2nd World War is the emergence of the American Empire. Some of you may disagree with how revolutionary this is. Perhaps, it is a reac­tionary result! If we are a bit conscious about the emerging trends of history in between the two world wars, I think it is very clear that the 2nd World War created in the arena of world politics this phenomenon, which in my view is unprecedented in its implication in that it dominates politics, technology, and military power. I don t think that there has ever been a country or a nation as powerful, in terms of imperial outreach, as the American which came almost in one dazzling flash. The American Empire came almost from nowhere, unlike the British Empire, which took hundreds of years to evolve. American Empire came into the arena of world politics with such dazzling idealism and incomparable power. The 2nd World War brought to the open the phenomenal emergence of what I would

 

42

 

simply call American Empire. I’m not, at this point, making any value judgment about empires but simply stating it as a historical fact.

I've been trying to discuss this issue with a small class at PCU relative to a course on Governments & Politics in Asia. The phe­nomenal emergence of the U.S. as a power in the Asia region, as an example, is a replacement of dominant powers governing the affairs of men and nations in this part of the world where before the war imperial powers were mostly Europeans: French, Dutch, British, German, and the whole host of European powers. Suddenly, after a war of four years duration, all these empires began to disappear completely. Suddenly, there was one imperial power in the world — The United States! The British still has something in Hong Kong which is guarded by a few tanks and barbed wires along the border of China. But, if China attacks the British they can take over the whole place within twenty-four hours. The impregn­ability of the British Empire is symbolized by the vulnerability, the weakness, of Hong Kong as its remaining bastion in Southeast Asia. The French could not even beat the Vietnamese in Dienbienphu. And where are the Dutch? And the Germans? They are all gone.

As a result of the 2nd World War, there emerged this awesome power of the American Empire that came into our consciousness. The power of the American Empire is even greater than the combined Powers of all the previous empires put together. If has all the ingredients of world dominance in a combine of military, politi­cal and economic powers. Its power is best symbolized by its unclear umbrella. The hopping of the atom bombs on Japan, as a military historian puts it, was not primarily for the final consummation of the war in Japan, but was a signal to the rest of the world, particularly to the Soviet Union, the socialist power, that the U.S. has the military might to deal with anyone in the post 2nd World War era. And, despite all the newly achieved technological, political and military achievements of the USSR, I don't think it can compare with the United States in terms of over-all power in the World today.

To a certain extent, the post 2nd World War era was a unipolar era dominated basically, by the rise and concentration of power in the United States. Now, as all empires go, in the U.S. there were a number of visionaries who tried to put content to this awesome military power and to the political, econo­mic and technological position that the U.S. assumed. One of the persons, him plus a number of people around him, who tried to provide a vision for the emerging American Empire, was no less than the former President — Franklin D. Roosevelt. His constant aspiration was towards the creation of one world. Americans will re­member that Roosevelt ran for the presi­dency around the emerging concept of one world that was already envisioned in the United Nations and the over-arching vision to "make the World safe for Democracy", which helped project him as a sort of vision­ary architect. He really was envisioning a world that is amenable to basically, American control and, in this sense, he was much more an architect of world politics than just a power politician. One world among many worlds was his vision, but one world in the image of the American world basically.

This is the second point that I would like to make, Roosevelt's vision of the one world in the American image began to crumble even before he died. It began to crumble before it was really hatched precisely for the simple fact that in the post 2nd World War era, there was the other world that was created as the revolutionary result of the 1st World War - the Socialist world — that somehow was not totally amenable to this. This world, which arose as a victory of Bolshevism in Russia came up and presented itself as a minor challenge. At the end of the 2nd World War, I don't think that the USSR was a competitive power with the

 

43

 

U.S. It was a lesser power, very much so, but nevertheless a power that did not want to be included within Roosevelt's vision of one world.

And so, the post 2nd World War era, instead of rising from the divisions and ashes of the war, (Europe was then ashes and the old empires were totally dependent on the Marshal plan for its re-development), became split into a bipolar world. To a certain degree, the forced split was an artificial division of the world into two camps. The anti-communism of the American-led world on the one hand, and the anti-imperialism of the USSR-led world on the other. From Roosevelt's vision of one world that emerged immediately after the 2nd World War, there was a less visionary, more pragmatic, and a more combative policy of containment by the American Empire. This, of course, mark­ed the beginning of the Cold War. World politics, it seems to me, from that point on until only recently, has been almost entirely dominated by the manner in which its pro­blems, dilemmas, possibilities, were being evaluated all the time, according to this policy of containment. We were products, to a certain degree, in this part of the world, of this policy. The continuing dis­cussion in Asia about U.S. military bases that ring China from 1949 — Korea, Hawaii, Midway islands, Philippines, and all the way to the Indian Ocean — was an implementa­tion of this policy of containment that was an adjustment on the part of Harry S. Tru­man to the fact that the one world that was envisaged under American aegis did not eventually come into being. It was a bipolar world that emerged and it was a policy of containment in which the two super-powers began pre dominating the politics of the world.

It was either you are for this power or that power. It was a totally bipolar world that emerged and began to be dominant in poli­tics. The ideological counterpart of this development, in my view, is the emergence of what the American liberal political historian Richard Hockstacher calls — the paranoid style of politics. Each camp is suspicious of the other. Each camp basically, has a conspiratorial view of the other Hockstacher's description of this paranoid style of politics is, by the way, basically, characteristic of the extreme right in the United States. He uses as a matter of factual way of explaining what is meant by this the phenomenon in Christian history, which is simply called the Manichean heresy in the Early Church. In the writings of St. Augus­tine against the Manicheans, he described the predominant conception of the world of history as totally the unending constant struggle between two forces. On the one hand, the forces of light, and on the other the forces of darkness — constantly at war with each other, each one constantly edging the other out. The Manicheans were constantly warning the Church to always be in its guard because the forces of Satan are so cagey, so brilliant, so untrustworthy that if one lets off his guard then it will take over. This vision of the world is particularly the politics of the American right.

This, basically, Manichean conception of world politics sees communism as the enemy. Communism has the face of Satan, its willingness, cageyness, and if you are going to put down your guard, it's going to come in, it's going to creep in (creeping socialism as they used to say), so you better be on your guard all the time. Likewise, the other point of view — the anti-imperialist (standpoint of Moscow) says that capitalism is so wild, so insidious, so cagey, so tricky; that capitalism is so wild, so insiduous, so cagey, so tricky, that the forces of anti-imperial liberation must always be on their guard. Every movement happening around the world is evaluated in terms of being Washington-inspired. In other words, Washington and Moscow are looked upon as, basically, conspiratorial powers providing rationalities to the world and coherences to world politics. When the revolution hap­pened in Cuba, the first thing that Washing­ton asked "where the hand of Moscow" was lurking behind the scene and manipulating

 

44

 

things that were happening. A group of students demonstrated here in the Philippines (i was one of them) in the early '50s on the issue of academic freedom at the University of the Philippines, and, the hand of com­munism was said to be there lurking all over the place directing the grand design of communist conquest. When a new policy emerges, say in Japan or in the Philippines, Moscow and the socialist world would say that Washington must be behind that too.

There are no novelties anymore in politics. In other words, the nations of the world have lost their freedom and their initiative. They are being guided by this invisible hand, either of the communist world on the one hand from the standpoint of the Capitalists, or by the capitalist powers on the other hand from the standpoint of the Communists.

As a result, there emerged an ideology of false anti-communism and an anti-imperial­ism and both are engaged in some kind of endless clash with each other. Even if you don't know it, you are being used by either one. In more recent American politics, it seems that they believe that world politics was simply a large chessboard of black and white pieces being maneuvered by two grandmasters on each side trying to out-maneuver each other. By the way, one of the better chess players of the white pieces was Kissinger.

I think the currents of world politics today could no longer be defined in terms of a vision of one world being dominated by one empire, the U.S.; neither can it be continued to be defined almost entirely in terms of the bipolar world of communism, on the one "and, and capitalism, on the other. Our world, and this is my main point, is a much more cluttered world politically; it is more cluttered ideologically and economically than the post 2nd World War. There are many forces that simply can no longer be controlled either by the American Empire or could be controlled in terms of those two Polar forces that began to dominate world Politics in the post 2nd World War era.

One of the most traumatic experiences of the U.S. as a world power, and which finally drove home the point in a very crushing way that the world is not manageable even by its great economic, political, military, technological and cultural powers, was its defeat in Vietnam. The refusal of the Vietnamese people to be incorporated in that managed world was what drove home the point that earlier vision of a manageable world policed by American power ended with the defeat of the U.S. in Vietnam. It was a trauma on the part of the U.S. as they were trying a new policy, a new strategy, which is known as the famous Vietnamization policy of the Nixon admini­stration. While the policy bears the name of Vietnam — it means that American techno­logical power will be given to foot soldiers of other nations to fight the war for Americans. This is applicable to other nations of the capitalist world with whom the U.S. has relations.

Washington began to feel the traumatic experience that the world, basically, was not manageable by it. In the Vietnam war, the U.S. did not only lose, but even the allies did not want to fight in the same way that Americans wanted to fight that war. There was a period in that war when the U.S. was looking for allies to come in. There were a few who came and followed U.S. signals, South Korea and the Philippines. They sent troops to Vietnam so other would follow suit. That not many, followed, suit signaled the fact that the world was not manageable by American power and that its allies in the so-called capitalist world were not manag­eable, either. American vision of a one world or its policy of containment were not working at all.

There are also a number of voices beginning to emerge in the Socialist camp. Moscow does not control the communist world, either. The lonely voice of Tito of Yugo­slavian communism was joined by the giant protest of China that said, basically, that while they are communists, they will not be controlled by Moscow. Currently, there is an

 

45

 

ongoing debate between Santiago Carillo of the Spanish Communist Party and Leonid Brezhnev on European Communism (Euro-Communism so called). It is reported that already, Santiago Carillo simply does not follow, the Moscow line. The still somewhat loud voice of Bhreshnev calling for pro­letarian internationalism is found in his last speech again. A lot of people both outside the Communist camp, and inside as well, listen to this kind of word with some hollowness about it. World proletarian inter­nationalism is increasingly becoming nothing more than a re–encantation of the re–emergence of Soviet leadership in the communist world, which many simply do not respect anymore.

The Soviet Union has a policy that perhaps parallels American Vietnamization – Cubanization. It is no longer necessary for the USSR to have the direct controlling hand in communist forces in the world and nowhere will you see Soviet forces being sent there. Cube has forces in some countries of Africa but everybody knows who is providing the logistics, the monies for that kind of involvement.

In the world today, there are, in fact, many kinds of socialism. I begin to be very, very leery and weary when people still speak of socialism in the singular. There are really many historical models of socialism in the world right now. There is a world of difference between the socialism of Cam­bodia and that of Tanzania. So different are they that you will begin to wonder, if you took a close look at both if they belonged to the same political camp at all. The Chinese for example, will say that their Socialism is not Soviet Socialism. The Chinese and Soviets as you know, even if they are both Socialists have massed almost equivalent military force along their borders — say 10 divisions of foot soldiers, 10 tank divisions. Look at models of Socialism and you will form the conclusion that theirs is not a homogenous world.

At the same time, ask the planner and ideologues of capitalism here and our own President and his First Lady (mind you I am being respectful) are constantly going to the U.S. convincing the American public that what they are trying to build here is a new experiment in capitalist democracy which cannot and should not, be judged according to the images of capitalist democracy evolved elsewhere. But, it is still capitalist democracy! It is constitutional authoritarianism, as Mr. Marcos puts it and his Foreign Affairs Secretary, Mr. Carlos P. Romulo give speeches to various Kiwanis groups in the States presenting this image that what is happening in the Philippines is not anti-democratic. As a matter of fact, it is a new and noble experiment in the unfolding drama of democratic traditions.

May I make one parenthetical comment, and then I will close. It seems to me that the accolade, or the description that Jimmy Carter is the new Roosevelt has some content to it. What Carter is trying to do at this time is precisely to try and revivify what I call as a basically architectural, conceptual history of world politics which Roosevelt began to inject after the 2nd World War. World politics is not so much a matter of main­taining a balance of power between two superpowers. This was the preoccupation of the Kissinger line. But, world politics implies that America is one of the big powers in the world which is designing a new world order. It is a design, which the present National Security adviser, Brezinzky, claims is not ideological so much as an article of faith. It is an expression of faith in which we have the old Roosevelt claim that "the world must be made safe for democracy" is also found. But, this time, I think, Mr. Carter insists that the world must be made safe for "big business".

There was an article in Far Fasten Economic Review about a year ago, shortly after Carter's presidential triumph, relative to Carter and the people who will be found in his new administration — Vance, Brzezinski, Mondale. All these, and Carter too, were

 

46

 

once part of a big multi–national “think tank” that in its membership people like Rockefeller, the Chairman of the BOARD OF Mitsubishi, big European corporation executives, etc. this group was trying to chart out ways by which their joint interests might best be served in the emergence of a new world social order. One element in this is the present pre–occupation of Mr. Carter over human rights. If I may be allowed, I think what Carter wants to evolve is the possibility of a capitalist order (or Capitalism) with a human face. Is this possible?

Now, I think there is a point I missed when I was describing the fact of the bi-polar world that was beginning to crumble. This is the fact that even very early during the post 2nd World War period, around the early '50s, there was already an emerging loud voice of what time was simply referred to as the "non-aligned" countries that did not want at least ideologically to be fitted in either of the two worlds. It is revealing that in my class of 25 students in Southeast Asian politics, nobody remembers or even knows about the BANDUNG CONFERENCE of 1955. This Bandung group of non-aligned nations of which Sukarno was one of the architects articulated a middle point in world politics that did no want to be incor­porated into the division (bipolar) of the world at that time.

Secretary Romulo of the Philippines at that time did not even want to shake hands with Chou En-lai, the then Foreign Secretary of the Peoples' Republic of China. At that time, as you know, Chou En-lai was trying to put out a platform for an independent third-world that was not governable by any of the two ideological camps. The so-called third-world countries has things in common economic underdevelopment, poverty, large masses of people. The type of oppression they were suffering renders the traditional way of classifying nations as belonging either to the first or second world as unimaginable. There is a tradition called "BANDUNG that I think needs to be evaluat­ed presently as the BANDUNG PRINCI­PLES. The new ASEAN DECLARATION, in a sense, repeats if not exactly copies, the BANDUNG principle of non-interference and making Southeast Asia as a Zone of Peace.

The current feeling of Asian countries in wanting their sovereignty to be respected belongs to the tradition of the BANDUNG PRINCIPLE. I think this means that the nations of Asia today are faced with very difficult ideological and political tasks, for the simple reason that our own conceptions of ourselves become less determined by our alignment than in our own faithfulness to our own situation and our people's. I said less by our alignment but more out of our faithfulness in that we must chart our own identification of our own situation and to our people's in the political struggles hap­pening in each of our countries.

In conclusion, all I can say at this time, is that perhaps, it is only such faithfulness to our people, rather than to global alignments that a new shape, a new solidarity, may emerge. What shape this will take I would not want to predict.