EMPIRE

EMPIRE

Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri are two philosophers that have written together the book "Empire" in 2000, in this same book they stated these sentences:

 “The United States does not, and indeed no nation-state can today, form the center of an imperialist project. Imperialism is over. No nation will be world leader in the way modern European nations were.” 

I though this would be an interesting subject related to international relations, globalization and imperialism.

 Hence this allegation leads us to question the world as we conceive it nowadays. More specifically the question aroused by the authors is : 

"Although the great colonial empires have collapsed during the past half century, their legacy shape almost every aspect of life on a global scale. (...) Meanwhile there are fierce arguments about what have replaced these empires. Do the United States (...) and the transnational companies constitute a new imperial system?”.

 First of all, when it comes to talk about this subject, we can say that, we do certainly find many accusations of so called “imperialism” around the press ( very easily) :  as it is the case for the Iraqi war, Valentine's day, McDonald's Restaurants... 

These accusations are so easily spread that even Noam Chomsky’s (the greatest critic of American Imperialism) trial against Turkey is seen as American imperialism. 

Sometimes it can be very paradoxical and derisive as in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict becase while the Palestinians consider Israel occupation as a consequence of British and American imperialism, the Israelis see their actions as a resistance to imperialism. 

Additionally we could notice that even the word “Empire” has contested meanings and through history it has taken many forms : imperialism, colonialism, or neocolonialism. The use of such words is, itself, political and implies criticism and hostility. There is no doubt that it is inherently immoral and a wrong strategy.

 Furthermore we should emphasize a important paradox. Which is, that the great fallen empires like Rome are also surrounded with a positive mythology. 

To put it differently, Imperialism has so many consequences that can not be denied but the abusive use of this word can also be drastic. For example some Austrians, proud descendants of settlers, can see themselves as freed from the colonial British empire, and nevertheless fear from being invaded by colonies of Asian migrants. 

The general opinion says that, an Empire, behaving with Imperialism, implies the existence of a dominant center exerting a force on a dominated periphery. Hence, during the Cold War the soviet rhetoric started to link capitalism to imperialism, reminding the permanent need expansion and growth of a capitalist economy. Conversely, today’s United States Imperialism is based on Cultural expansion.

A first analysis is that culture is moving from the center, from the West, towards the Third World. We can so, see an asymmetry in the structure of the migrations of meanings (we are talking about culture in the sense of John Tomlinson, “that part of existence that allows people to live their lives individually or collectively according to a given meaning”). 

Another question at stake is that, the process of globalization implies the domination of some cultures over others.

Deterritoriality is thus conceived as the promotion of a convergence of cultural style to the extent that Western-style culture penetrates into homes all over the world. But from my point of view this vision ignores the way in which the local adapts to globalization.

If we take a look at Ulrike Schürkens work, among others, we understand how globalization adapts locally. This phenomenon is called : Glocalization. The term comes from the Japanese concept Dochakuka - techniques for cultivating the land adapting to local conditions. This neologism is built on "Globalization" and "Localization". This means then that the articulation between global and local, this negotiation between the forces of globalization and the resistances of the local, is Glocalization.

Ergo, this adaptation can be seen as a fierce resistance against imperialism attempts, because no matter how hard an ideology is pushed, no matter how good an object or an idea is, the local, the people, will own it, change it and innovate. To put it in a nutshell, I would say that Local has become the limit of Global, but for instance it hasn't come to an end yet.