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Antimulticulture
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Posted: Thu Mar 29th, 2007 02:20 pm |
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Liberal Democracy vs. Transnational Progressivism:
http://www.unc.edu/depts/diplomat/archives_roll/2002_04-06
/fonte_ideological/fonte_ideological.html
The Ideological War Within The West
John Fonte
Nearly a year before the September 11 attacks, news stories provided a
preview of the transnational politics of the future. In October 2000, in
preparation for the UN Conference Against Racism, about fifty American
nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) called on the UN "to hold the
United States accountable for the intractable and persistent problem of
discrimination."
The NGOs included Amnesty International-U. S.A. (AI-U. S.A.), Human
Rights Watch (HRW), the Arab-American Institute, National Council of
Churches, the NAACP, the Mexican-American Legal Defense and
Educational Fund, and others. Their spokesman stated that their demands
"had been repeatedly raised with federal and state officials [in the U. S.]
but to little effect. In frustration we now turn to the United Nations." In
other words, the NGOs, unable to enact the policies they favored through
the normal processes of American constitutional democracy-the Congress,
state governments, even the federal courts-appealed to authority outside
of American democracy and its Constitution.
At the UN Conference against Racism, which was held in Durban two
weeks before September 11, American NGOs supported "reparations"
from Western nations for the historic transatlantic slave trade and
developed resolutions that condemned only the West, without mentioning
the larger traffic in African slaves sent to Islamic lands. The NGOs even
endorsed a resolution denouncing free market capitalism as a
"fundamentally flawed system."
The NGOs also insisted that the U. S. ratify all major UN human rights
treaties and drop legal reservations to treaties already ratified. For
example, in 1994 the U. S. ratified the UN Convention on the Elimination
of Racial Discrimination (CERD), but attached reservations on treaty
requirements restricting free speech that were "incompatible with the
Constitution." Yet leading NGOs demanded that the U. S. drop all
reservations and "comply" with the CERD treaty by accepting UN
definitions of "free speech" and eliminating the "vast racial disparities. in
every aspect of American life" (housing, health, welfare, justice, etc.).
HRW complained that the U. S. offered "no remedies" for these disparities
but "simply supported equality of opportunity" and indicated "no
willingness to comply" with CERD. Of course, to "comply" with the NGO
interpretation of the CERD treaty, the U. S. would have to abandon the
Constitution's free speech guarantees, bypass federalism, and ignore the
concept of majority rule-since practically nothing in the NGO agenda is
supported by the American electorate.
All of this suggests that we have not reached the final triumph of liberal
democracy proclaimed by Francis Fukuyama in his groundbreaking 1989 essay.
POST-SEPTEMBER 11
In October 2001, Fukuyama stated that his "end of history" thesis
remained valid: that after the defeat of communism and fascism, no
serious ideological competitor to Western-style liberal democracy was
likely to emerge in the future. Thus, in terms of political philosophy, liberal
democracy is the end of the evolutionary process. There will be wars and
terrorism, but no alternative ideology with a universal appeal will
seriously challenge the principles of Western liberal democracy on a global scale.
The 9/11 attacks notwithstanding, there is nothing beyond liberal
democracy "towards which we could expect to evolve." Fukuyama
concluded that there will be challenges from those who resist progress,
"but time and resources are on the side of modernity."
Indeed, but is "modernity" on the side of liberal democracy? Fukuyama is
very likely right that the current crisis with radical Islam will be
overcome and that there will be no serious ideological challenge
originating outside of Western civilization. However, the activities of the
NGOs suggest that there already is an alternative ideology to liberal
democracy within the West that has been steadily evolving for years.
Thus, it is entirely possible that modernity-thirty or forty years
hence-will witness not the final triumph of liberal democracy, but the
emergence of a new transnational hybrid regime that is post-liberal
democratic, and in the American context, post-Constitutional and
post-American. This alternative ideology, "transnational progressivism,"
constitutes a universal and modern worldview that challenges both the
liberal democratic nation-state in general and the American regime in
particular.
TRANSNATIONAL PROGRESSIVISM
The key concepts of transnational progressivism could be described as
follows:
The ascribed group over the individual citizen. The key political unit is
not the individual citizen, who forms voluntary associations and works with
fellow citizens regardless of race, sex, or national origin, but the
ascriptive group (racial, ethnic, or gender) into which one is born.
A dichotomy of groups: Oppressor vs. victim groups, with immigrant
groups designated as victims. Transnational ideologists have incorporated
the essentially Hegelian Marxist "privileged vs. marginalized" dichotomy.
Group proportionalism as the goal of "fairness." Transnational
progressivism assumes that "victim" groups should be represented in all
professions roughly proportionate to their percentage of the population. If
not, there is a problem of "underrepresentation."
The values of all dominant institutions to be changed to reflect the
perspectives of the victim groups. Transnational progressives insist that it
is not enough to have proportional representation of minorities in major
institutions if these institutions continue to reflect the worldview of the
"dominant" culture. Instead, the distinct worldviews of ethnic, gender, and
linguistic minorities must be represented within these institutions.
The "demographic imperative." The demographic imperative tells us that
major demographic changes are occurring in the U. S. as millions of new
immigrants from non-Western cultures enter American life. The traditional
paradigm based on the assimilation of immigrants into an existing
American civic culture is obsolete and must be changed to a framework
that promotes "diversity," defined as group proportionalism.
The redefinition of democracy and "democratic ideals." Transnational
progressives have been altering the definition of "democracy" from that
of a system of majority rule among equal citizens to one of power sharing
among ethnic groups composed of both citizens and non-citizens. James
Banks, one of American education's leading textbook writers, noted in
1994 that "to create an authentic democratic Unum with moral authority
and perceived legitimacy, the pluribus (diverse peoples) must negotiate
and share power."
Hence, American democracy is not authentic; real democracy will come
when the different "peoples" that live within America "share power" as
groups.
Deconstruction of national narratives and national symbols of democratic
nation-states in the West. In October 2000, a UK government report
denounced the concept of "Britishness" and declared that British history
needed to be "revised, rethought, or jettisoned." In the U.S., the proposed
"National History Standards," recommended altering the traditional
historical narrative. Instead of emphasizing the story of European settlers,
American civilization would be redefined as a multicultural "convergence"
of three civilizations-Amerindian, West African, and European. In Israel, a
"post-Zionist" intelligentsia has proposed that Israel consider itself multicultural and deconstruct its identity as a Jewish state. Even Israeli
foreign minister Shimon Peres sounded the post-Zionist trumpet in his
1993 book , in which he deemphasized "sovereignty" and called for
regional "elected central bodies," a type of Middle Eastern EU.
Promotion of the concept of postnational citizenship. In an important
academic paper, Rutgers Law Professor Linda Bosniak asks hopefully
"Can advocates of postnational citizenship ultimately succeed in
decoupling the concept of citizenship from the nation-state in prevailing
political thought?"
The idea of transnationalism as a major conceptual tool.
Transnationalism is the next stage of multicultural ideology. Like
multiculturalism, transnationalism is a concept that provides elites with
both an empirical tool (a plausible analysis of what is) and an ideological
framework (a vision of what should be). Transnational advocates argue
that globalization requires some form of "global governance" because
they believe that the nation-state and the idea of national citizenship are
ill suited to deal with the global problems of the future.
The same scholars who touted multiculturalism now herald the coming
transnational age. Thus, Alejandro Portes of Princeton University argues
that transnationalism, combined with large-scale immigration, will redefine
the meaning of American citizenship.
The promotion of transnationalism is an attempt to shape this crucial
intellectual struggle over globalization. Its adherents imply that one is
either in step with globalization, and thus forward-looking, or one is a
backward antiglobalist. Liberal democrats (who are internationalists and
support free trade and market economics) must reply that this is a false
dichotomy-that the critical argument is not between globalists and
antiglobalists, but instead over the form global engagement should take in
the coming decades: will it be transnationalist or internationalist?
TRANSNATIONAL PROGRESSIVISM'S SOCIAL BASE:
A POST-NATIONAL INTELLIGENTSIA
The social base of transnational progressivism constitutes a rising
postnational intelligentsia (international law professors, NGO activists,
foundation officers, UN bureaucrats, EU administrators, corporate
executives, and politicians.) When social movements such as
"transnationalism" and "global governance" are depicted as the result of
social forces or the movement of history, a certain impersonal inevitability
is implied. However, in the twentieth century the Bolshevik Revolution, the
National Socialist revolution, the New Deal, the Reagan Revolution, the
Gaullist national reconstruction in France, and the creation of the EU were
not inevitable, but were the result of the exercise of political will by
elites.
Similarly, transnationalism, multiculturalism, and global governance, like
"diversity," are ideological tools championed by activist elites, not
impersonal forces of history. The success or failure of these values-laden
concepts will ultimately depend upon the political will and effectiveness of
these elites.
HUMAN RIGHTS ACTIVISTS
A good part of the energy for transnational progressivism is provided by
human rights activists, who consistently evoke "evolving norms of
international law." The main legal conflict between traditional American
liberal democrats and transnational progressives is ultimately the question
of whether the U. S. Constitution trumps international law or vice versa.
Before the mid-twentieth century, traditional international law referred to
relations among nation-states. The "new international law" has
increasingly penetrated the sovereignty of democratic nation-states. It is
in reality "transnational law." Human rights activists work to establish
norms for this "new international [i.e. transnational] law" and then attempt
to bring the U. S. into conformity with a legal regime whose reach often
extends beyond democratic politics.
Transnational progressives excoriate American political and legal practices
in virulent language, as if the American liberal democratic nation-state
was an illegitimate authoritarian regime. Thus, AI-U.S.A. charged the
U.S. in a 1998 report with "a persistent and widespread pattern of human
rights violations," naming the U. S. the "world leader in high tech
repression." Meanwhile, HRW issued a 450-page report excoriating the
U.S. for all types of "human rights violations," even complaining that "the
U. S. Border Patrol continued to grow at an alarming pace."
ANTI-ASSIMILATION ON THE HOME FRONT
Many of the same lawyers who advocate transnational legal concepts are
active in U. S. immigration law. Louis Henkin, one of the most prominent
scholars of international law, calls for largely eliminating "the difference
between a citizen and a non-citizen permanent resident." Columbia
University international law professor Stephen Legomsky argues that dual
nationals holding influential positions in the U. S. should not be required to
give "greater weight to U. S. interests, in the event of a conflict" between
the U. S. and the other country in which the American citizen is also a dual
national.
Two leading law professors (Peter Spiro from Hofstra and Peter Schuck
from Yale) complain that immigrants seeking American citizenship are
required to "renounce all allegiance" to their old nations." Spiro and
Schuck even reject the concept of the hyphenated American and endorse
what they call the "ampersand" citizen. Thus, instead of traditional
"Mexican-Americans" who are loyal citizens but proud of their ethnic roots,
they prefer postnational citizens, who are both "Mexican & American,"
who retain "loyalties" to their "original homeland" and vote in both
countries.
University professor Robert Bach authored a major Ford Foundation report
on new and "established residents" (the word "citizen" was assiduously
avoided) that advocated the "maintenance" of ethnic immigrant identities
and attacked assimilation as the "problem in America." Bach later became
deputy director for policy at the INS in the Clinton administration.
The financial backing for this anti-assimilationist campaign has come
primarily from the Ford Foundation, which made a conscious decision to
fund a Latino rights movement based on advocacy-litigation and group
rights. The global progressives have been aided-if not always consciously,
certainly in objective terms-by a "transnational right." It was a determined
Right-Left coalition led by libertarian Stuart Anderson, who currently holds
Bach's old position at the INS, that killed a high-tech tracking system for
foreign students that might have saved lives on September 11. Whatever
their ideological or commercial motives, the demand for "open borders"
(not simply free trade, which is a different matter altogether) by the
libertarian right has strengthened the Left's anti-assimilationist agenda.
THE EU AS A STRONGHOLD OF TRANSNATIONAL PROGRESSIVISM
The EU is a large supranational macro-organization that embodies
transnational progressivism. Its governmental structure is
post-democratic. Power in the EU principally resides in the European
Commission (EC) and to a lesser extent the European Court of Justice
(ECJ). The EC, the EU's executive body, initiates legislative action,
implements common policy, and controls a large bureaucracy. It is
composed of a rotating presidency and nineteen commissioners chosen
by the member-states and approved by the European Parliament. It is
unelected and, for the most part, unaccountable.
A white paper issued by the EC suggests that this unaccountability is one
reason for its success:"[the] "essential source of the success of European
integration is that [it] is_independent from national, sectoral, or other
influences." This "democracy deficit" represents a moral challenge to EU
legitimacy.
The substantive polices advanced by EU leaders on issues such as "hate
speech," "hate crimes," "comparable worth" for women's pay, and group
preferences are considerably more "progressive" in the EU than in the
U.S. The ECJ has overruled national parliaments and public opinion in
nation-states by ordering the British to incorporate gays and the Germans
to incorporate women in combat units in their respective military services.
The ECJ even struck down a British law on corporal punishment, declaring
that parental spanking is internationally recognized as an abuse of human
rights.
Two Washington lawyers, Lee Casey and David Rivkin, have argued that
the EU ideology that "denies the ultimate authority of the nation-state"
and transfers policy making from elected representatives to bureaucrats
"suggests a dramatic divergence" with "basic principles of popular
sovereignty once shared by both Europe's democracies and the United States."
In international politics, in the period immediately prior to 9/11, the EU
opposed the U. S. on some of the most important global issues, including
the ICC, the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, the Land Mine Treaty, the
Kyoto Global Warming Treaty, and policy towards missile defense, Iran,
Iraq, Israel, China, Cuba, North Korea, and the death penalty. On most
of these issues, transnational progressives in the U. S.-including
politicians-supported the EU position and attempted to leverage this
transnational influence in the domestic debate. At the same, the Bush
administration on some of these issues has support in Europe, particularly
from parts of the British political class and public, and elements of
European popular opinion (e.g., on the death penalty.)
After 9/11, while some European nation-states sent forces to support the
U.S. in Afganhistan, many European leaders have continued to snipe at
American policies and hamper American interests in the war on terrorism.
In December 2001 the European Parliament condemned the U. S. Patriot
Act (the bipartisan antiterrorist legislation that passed the U. S. Congress
overwhelmingly) as "contrary to the principles" of human rights because
the legislation "discriminates" against non-citizens. Leading European
politicians have opposed extraditing terrorist suspects to the U. S. if those
terrorists would be subjected to the death penalty. Even a long-time
Atlanticist, like the Berlin Aspin Institute's Jeffrey Gedmin, questions the
"basis for a functioning alliance" between the U. S. and Western Europe.
Both realists and neoconservatives have argued that some EU, UN, and
NGO thinking threatens to limit both American democracy at home and
American power overseas. As Jeanne Kirkpatrick puts it, "foreign
governments and their leaders, and more than a few activists here at
home, seek to constrain and control American power by means of
elaborate multilateral processes, global arrangements, and UN treaties
that limit both our capacity to govern ourselves and act abroad."
CONCLUSION
Talk in the West of a "culture war" is somewhat misleading, because the
arguments over transnational vs. national citizenship, multiculturalism vs.
assimilation, and global governance vs. national sovereignty are not
simply cultural, but ideological and philosophical. They pose Aristotle's
question: "What kind of government is best?"
In America, there is an elemental argument about whether to preserve,
improve, and transmit the American regime to future generations or to
transform it into a new and different type of polity. We are arguing about
"regime maintenance" vs. "regime transformation."
The challenge from transnational progressivism to traditional American
concepts of citizenship, patriotism, assimilation, and the meaning of
democracy itself is fundamental. If our system is based not on individual
rights (as defined by the U. S. Constitution) but on group consciousness
(as defined by international law); not on equality of citizenship but on
group preferences for non- citizens (including illegal immigrants) and for
certain categories of citizens; not on majority rule within constitutional
limits but on power-sharing by different ethnic, racial, gender, and
linguistic groups; not on constitutional law, but on transnational law; not
on immigrants becoming Americans, but on migrants linked between
transnational communities; then the regime will cease to be
"constitutional," "liberal," "democratic," and "American," in the understood
sense of those terms, but will become in reality a new hybrid system that
is "post-constitutional," "post-liberal," "post-democratic," and post-American."
This intracivilizational Western conflict between liberal democracy and
transnational progressivism accelerated after the Cold War and should
continue well into the twenty-first century. Indeed, from the fall of the
Berlin Wall until the attacks of September 11, the transnational
progressives were on the offensive.
Since September 11, however, the forces supporting the
liberal-democratic nation state have rallied throughout the West. In the
post-9/11 milieu there is a window of opportunity for those who favor a
reaffirmation of the traditional norms of liberal-democratic patriotism. It
is unclear whether that segment of the American intelligentsia committed
to liberal democracy as it has been practiced on these shores has the
political will to seize this opportunity. In Europe, given elite opinion, the
case for liberal democracy will be harder to make. Key areas to watch in
both the U. S. and Europe include immigration-assimilation policy;
arguments over international law; and the influence of a civic-patriotic
narrative in public schools and popular culture.
FOURTH DIMENSION?
I suggest that we add a fourth dimension to a conceptual framework of
international politics. Three dimensions are currently recognizable. First,
there is traditional realpolitik, the competition and conflict among
nation-states (and supranational states such as the EU). Second is the
competition of civilizations, conceptualized by Samuel Huntington. Third,
there is the conflict between the democratic world and the undemocratic
world. My suggested fourth dimension is the conflict within the democratic
world between the forces of liberal democracy and the forces of
transnational progressivism, between democrats and post- democrats.
The conflicts and tensions within each of these four dimensions of
international politics are unfolding simultaneously and affected by each
other, and so they all belong in a comprehensive understanding of the
world of the twenty-first century. In hindsight, Fukuyama is wrong to
suggest that liberal democracy is inevitably the final form of political
governance, the evolutionary endpoint of political philosophy, because it
has become unclear that liberal democracy will defeat transnational
progressivism. During the twentieth century, Western liberal democracy
finally triumphed militarily and ideologically over National Socialism and
communism, powerful anti-democratic forces, that were, in a sense,
Western ideological heresies. After defeating its current antidemocratic,
non-Western enemy in what will essentially be a material-physical
struggle, it will continue to face an ideological-metaphysical challenge
from powerful post-liberal democratic forces, whose origins are Western,
but, which could be in the words of James Kurth, called "post-Western."
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