The World Is Not All The Same!

Regular readers will be aware that I am firmly opposed to the development of international and supra-national alliances and organizations. For me, these nexuses of power incorporate many problems, both conceptually and operationally. One of the operational issues is that they tend to use cookie-cutter mechanics in their processing. They choose a set of function points or performance criteria and attempt to apply them in every case, regardless of need or damage caused. The generalized destruction in the wake of IMF and World Bank "structural adjustment" interventions are the classic examples of this disaster in operation.

In support of this opposition to cookie-cutter mentalities, Sayed Mohammed Ali opines in Pakistan's Daily Times that development organizations need to ensure that they specifically engage with the culture's they are purporting to assist:

"Development initiatives cannot confine their attention to negotiating with economic and political institutions alone; they must also engage with the socio-cultural traditions of a society where a specific programme is being introduced ... For development to be meaningful, it must embody aspirations that are relevant to specific cultures rather than advocating homogenising values imported from elsewhere ... In fact, development assumes imperialist tendencies when it encourages the subversion of any culture, enabling vested interests to take advantage of their dominance."

He argues firmly that

"[c]ountless indigenous localities have been integrated into an overarching structure in which dictates of the market or administrative rationalities maintained by the national elites and international experts override local decision-making processes."

We see the same thing, of course, in the regime-building in Baghdad, and, in fact, almost everywhere that American foreign policy makes itself felt. Always there is a demand for democracy, democracy and nothing but democracy. This is even though the darling intellectual of the rampant right-wing, Bernard Lewis, is quite clear that:

"We talk sometimes as if democracy were the natural human condition, as if any deviation from it is a crime to be punished or a disease to be cured. That is not true. Democracy, or what we call democracy nowadays, is the parochial custom of the English-speaking peoples for the conduct of their public affairs, which may or may not be suitable for others.”

Most of the far-right don't actually read their intellectuals, of course, finding them useful only for the coffee table and as name-dropping conversation fillers. So, unfortunately, it is unlikely that the Americans -- and their surrogates in the international financial arena -- are going to change their ways anytime soon.