The New World Order
A. M. Rosenthal
| April 30, 1998 -- U.S. approves
another $1 billion in aid to Indonesia as part of the international
$40 billion economic bailout. President Suharto refuses to break up
the multibillion-dollar monopolies controlled by himself, his
family and friends. He says no political reforms until 2003, at
earliest. Police break up student protests. May 1 -- Washington Times and A.P. say C.I.A. reports China has nuclear missiles targeted at U.S. May 3 -- President Clinton's June visit to China will include welcome ceremonies at Tiananmen Square. Washington preparing to allow U.S. companies to sell nuclear reactors to China. May 4 -- Human rights workers report continued oppression in China and Indonesia: more executions in China than in all the rest of the world.  Its ideology, powers, rewards and punishments are supplanting those that prevailed internationally until 1994, when President Clinton joined the new order. If it continues, it will be the most important new international concept since the end of World War II. The order was created without formal parliamentary approval by its sponsors, or any treaty. But every week, sometimes every day, the underlying tenets are revealed, in action. See above. The following description of objectives and goals of the new order is so different from principles recently assumed in the West, though not always followed, that it may read as satire. It is not. The fundamental change, demanded by the dictatorships and agreed to in practice by the democracies, is that the rulers, and rights of the governed, are not a primary moral or economic consideration of the world. The democracies, under these values, can protest some internal acts of the dictatorships -- torture and such. But they must do so quietly, not allowing these acts, or often even security interests, to damage the new overriding value of the democratic leaders. |
and we know. That value is the trade and investment with the dictatorships that the democracies believe important to their national economies -- which are sometimes called jobs, but usually interpreted as corporate profit. In exchange, dictatorships allow democracies to invest and trade in enterprises the capitalists consider profitable to their corporate strength, although not necessarily to their own employees or the national economic health of their countries. If the dictatorships, or authoritarian governments as some are known more pleasantly, find their economies collapsing through the corruption generic to such societies, the International Monetary Fund and individual democracies rush to arrive with bailout. The explanation given is that otherwise the dictatorships' economies would disintegrate, bringing revolution. Now, the people of the dictatorships may long for revolution. Obviously that cannot be allowed to overcome saving the dictatorship and thus rescuing the money invested by nationals of democracies. Accepting these values, the events dated above become understandable, and even neatly logical. The Indonesian dictator, for instance, was installed by the army 33 years ago and has been in power ever since. Now he needs scores of billions with which to overcome his own ineptitude and family corruption, and do the right thing by his foreign investors. Who can deny him? The U.S. gets to sell strategic material to China, offering as an extra a visit by the U.S. President to honor Communist leaders and expand their power and political life span. Religious and political mavericks in the totalitarian partners of the new world order get prison, or death, often both. The press of democracies gets to write stories about the growth of order in the new order. Other citizens of the democracies get to say costs of imported goods are down, how nice. Americans and Europeans may come to object for political or moral reasons, or because the new world order may after all cost them their jobs. But they will never be able to say they never knew; see above. |
NYTimes, May 5, 1998, OpEd
Apr-30-1998