ΣΑΠΦΟΥΣ 12: 22 Φεβ 2009

Σάββατο 28 Φεβρουαρίου 2009

A turn for the better in Congo?

Home News Regional News A turn for the better in Congo? A turn for the better in Congo? Wednesday, 25 February 2009 20:03 By J. Peter Pham Recent events on the ground in Congo have led both to an escalation of conflict and, paradoxically, to the possibility that a comprehensive resolution to the longstanding regional instability might be in sight. General Nkunda (L) walking through the area he controlled in North Kivu in DRC. At the root of the DRC’s problems is the artificial nature of the Congolese state. More than a century ago, the immense natural wealth of Congo led King Leopold II of Belgium to hire Henry Morton Stanley to carve out for him a territory 76 times larger than his kingdom in Europe. No move was ever made to right this historical wrong of throwing together in a single unit the size of western Europe an explosive mixture of peoples with little historical basis for national cohesion. This state of affairs has largely determined the course of events in the DRC. As what had passed for central government essentially withered, various armed groups seized control of patches of territory, acquiring effective dominion over strategic assets which they used to acquire the resources to combat opposing factions. The 2002 “Sun City Agreement” brokered by then-South African president Thabo Mbeki was supposed to put an end to all the strifes. However, the terms of the accord were never fully implemented, despite the presence of the largest UN peacekeeping operation in the world today, the Mission de l’Organisation des Nations-Unies au Congo (MONUC). The 2006 national elections did little more than bestow a thin veneer of electoral respectability on an unsavoury cast of characters, including President Joseph Kabila who, before he was even 30 years old, had inherited the presidential mantle from his assassinated warlord father Laurent. Not surprisingly, despite the formal “peace,” conflicts continued in various parts of the DRC before and after the elections. In eastern Congo, particularly the provinces of North and South Kivu, militiamen loyal to the Congrès National pour la Défense du Peuple (CNDP), a largely Tutsi group led by General Laurent Nkunda and surreptitiously backed by Rwanda, continued its fight against the Forces Démocratiques de la Libération du Rwanda (FDLR), a group of armed Hutu insurgents, including some responsible for the 1994 genocide, which enjoyed the backing of the Congolese army, the Forces Armées de la République Démocratique du Congo (FARDC), and, presumably, of the Kabila regime. By 2007, Nkunda, who is sought on an International Criminal Court arrest warrant for abducting children and using them in combat, was in open rebellion against the far-off government in Kinshasa. After the collapse of several attempts at mediation, fighting broke out anew in the autumn of 2008, which resulted in the CNDP gaining control of most of North Kivu after the FARDC failed spectacularly in an attempt to take down General Nkunda in open battle. In December, in the Rwandan resort town of Gisenyi, just across the border from the North Kivu capital of Goma, I asked international observers and Rwandan officials for their assessment of the situation. One thing was clear: that nothing would change unless the Kabila regime 1) acknowledged the reality of the CNDP, with which it was refusing to talk, and 2) addressed the concerns of Rwanda over the continuing presence on Congolese territory of the Hutu killers. Whatever anyone else might think of Nkunda’s CNDP, the movement was viewed by many residents of the Kivus as their protector against the predations of FARDC troops and irregular forces allied to them. While CNDP militiamen are generally not paid for their service, they are fed and receive medical care. Their families likewise benefit from a basic social welfare system. In short, the group has earned legitimacy by providing its adherents – whose ranks have expanded beyond the core Tutsi base to embrace other ethnic groups, including Hutu – with the social goods that the Kabila regime has thus far failed to provide. Given Rwanda’s recent history, it is understandable that President Paul Kagame is troubled by the thousands of armed Hutus are just over the border, to say nothing of the support that Kinshasa gives to the militia. After all, the FDLR makes no secret of its ambitions: its website, emblazoned with the flag of the “Hutu power” regime that ruled Rwanda from 1962 until 1994, brands the current government in Kigali “tyrannic [sic] and barbaric “ and proclaims its goal to “liberate Rwanda.” The FDLR supports itself by operating primitive mines in the areas under its control, in collaboration with Congolese businessmen. What sovereign state, much less one that undergone the trauma that Rwanda has, could be expected to put up with such a provocation? While the Nairobi talks continued, shifts were taking place closer to the ground. A few weeks ago, the Rwandan Defence Force (RDF) chief of staff, General James Kabarebe, flew to Kinshasa to meet President Kabila, causing a flurry of rumours about a secret deal. A week later, a group of CNDP leaders announced that it had removed Nkunda. While Nkunda’s supporters discounted the manoeuvre, it gained traction when General Kabarebe appeared alongside DRC interior minister Célestin Mbuyu at a meeting of the dissident CNDP leaders, who declared a ceasefire and said that they were prepared to integrate into the FARDC to fight the FDLR. But these developments were but a prelude for the entente between Kigali and Kinshasa that followed. First, Rwandan troops entered eastern DRC, with Kinshasa’s assent, to pursue the FDLR. Reports are that up to 7,000 Rwandan troops were sent in the effort to flush out the Hutu militia. Second, and perhaps the biggest surprise of all, Rwandan forces arrested General Nkunda, who had entered Rwanda as the joint operation began. The arrest sparked demonstrations – which were quickly dispersed – by Congolese Tutsis, including some in refugee camps in Rwanda, among whom the general is still popular. This turn of events may present a significant opportunity to break the logjam that has kept the heart of Africa locked in conflict. If military coordination between Kigali and Kinshasa can lead to security cooperation, then perhaps the two neighbours, so long at odds, may come to believe that it is in their interests to strive for a comprehensive political settlement and then, with effort and a bit of luck, joint economic development, leveraging the comparative advantages of each country: Congo’s natural wealth and Rwanda’s growing economy – it grew 10 percent in 2008 – along with its efficient government and enterprise-friendly policies. Of course, for now, this is all aspiration. More immediately, the Rwandan intervention raises a number of questions, beginning with how long the RDF will remain in the two Kivus. Among the Hutu militants being pursued across North Kivu are some 7,000 individuals wanted in Rwanda for having taken part in the genocide. Certainly the Rwandan forces cannot be expected to withdraw until the FDLR is totally disarmed, a task which MONUC, with its 18,422 personnel and annual budget of $1.2bn, has been unable to accomplish in eight years. Even if the Hutus no longer pose a military threat to the Rwandan state, any government in Kigali would still have a tutelary interest in the fate of the Tutsi minority in eastern Congo. Add to these calculations the temptations of the region’s abundant resources and one could see a scenario whereby Rwanda maintains a presence in the Kivus for some time, either openly through a status of forces agreement with the Kabila regime in Kinshasa or via proxy in the form of a reconstituted CNDP, presumably under a more malleable leader than the irascible General Nkunda. The international community has been slow to react to these changing dynamics. President Barack Obama, whose foreign policy agenda on the White House website specifically cites “countering instability in Congo” as an example of his Senate record of “bringing people together ... to advance important policy initiatives,” has yet to even nominate an assistant secretary to head the state department’s Africa bureau, much less a special envoy to deal with the various conflicts across the Great Lakes region, most of which are beyond the scope of any one ambassador’s mission. The UN has done little more than to send the secretary-general’s special representative in the DRC, Alan Doss, on another fact-finding tour of North Kivu. As for the African Union, the chairperson of the AU Commission, Jean Ping, managed to make it through his late January press conference without even mentioning the word “Congo.” Despite these disappointments, the mere fact that Rwanda and the Congo are not pulling in entirely opposite directions, at least for the moment, is in itself reason enough to give rise to hope. J. Peter Pham is Director of the Nelson Institute for International and Public Affairs at James Madison University in Harrisonburg, Virginia. He is a Senior Fellow at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies in Washington, D.C., as well as Vice President of the Association for the Study of the Middle East and Africa (ASMEA). His recent publications include “Liberia: Portrait of a Failed State” (Reed Press, 2004), and “Child Soldiers, Adult Interests: The Global Dimensions of the Sierra Leonean Tragedy” (Nova Science Publishers, 2005).

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Παρασκευή 27 Φεβρουαρίου 2009

Yale’s Tobin Guides Obama From Grave as Friedman Is Eclipsed

After a three-decade run, the free-market philosophies of Friedman that shaped U.S. policy are being eclipsed by the pro- government ideas of Tobin, the late Yale economist and Nobel laureate who brought John Maynard Keynes into the modern era. Tobin’s stamp is on the $787 billion stimulus signed by President Barack Obama, former students and colleagues say. His philosophies are influencing Austan Goolsbee, a former Tobin student advising Obama, and Ben S. Bernanke, head of the Federal Reserve. Unlike Friedman, Tobin provides guidance for today’s problems, said Paul Krugman, a Princeton University economist. “Hard-line doctrines don’t seem very appropriate at this troubled moment,” said Krugman, a New York Times columnist who also worked with Tobin at Yale from 1977 to 1979. “Tobin was never a guru in the way Milton Friedman was; he never had legions of Samurai ready to spring to the defense of his theories, but that’s part of why he is so relevant right now.” The decision by Bernanke last year to invoke the Fed’s emergency powers and put mortgages and other assets on the central bank’s balance sheet “is pure Tobin,” Krugman said. Bernanke cited Tobin’s 1969 essay on monetary theory in a 2004 paper discussing options available to the Federal Reserve for stimulating the economy when interest rates approach zero. Tobin’s experience of the depression as a teenager in the 1930s gave him a lifelong loathing of unemployment. ‘Livid’ Response “As a young professor I did a paper where I analyzed the optimal unemployment rate,” said Joseph Stiglitz, a professor at Columbia University in New York, who knew Tobin at Yale. “Tobin went livid over the idea. To him the optimal unemployment rate was zero.” Like Keynes, Tobin was an advocate for the role of government in maintaining full employment, said James Galbraith, an economist at the University of Texas in Austin. The current economic and financial crisis has validated that philosophy, said Galbraith, a former Tobin student and the son of the late John Kenneth Galbraith, who was a friend of Tobin. “It’s clear that the position that the federal government has a responsibility for the level of employment, for the economy, has prevailed,” Galbraith said. “The position that the Fed can walk away from the level of employment has completely collapsed. That was the absolutely dominant position coming out of the University of Chicago.” In contrast to the Friedman-influenced proponents of tax cuts, deregulation and tight control of the money supply, followers of Tobin are more receptive to government intervention in the economy, including stimulus spending. Herbert Hoover “I do not believe that over the next two years, we can make major deficit reduction or balancing the budget a goal,” Goolsbee, nominated by Obama to the Council of Economic Advisers, said at a Senate hearing on Jan. 15. “I think that would run the risk of repeating one of the mistakes of Herbert Hoover that led us into Depression.” Goolsbee was Tobin’s research assistant at Yale. Tobin was born in 1918 in Champaign, Illinois, the son of a former reporter who was a publicist for the University of Illinois football team. His high school years during the depression motivated him to study economics at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Tobin said in an essay written for the Nobel committee. “The miserable failures of capitalist economies in the Great Depression were root causes of worldwide social and political disasters,” he wrote. Economics “offered the hope, as it still does, that improved understanding could better the lot of mankind.” Nobel Winners Tobin, who died in 2002, won the 1981 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences for his analysis of the effect of financial markets on inflation and employment. His followers have been honored as well. Krugman won the 2008 prize, for work on international trade and economic geography. Stiglitz shared the 2001 award, which cited analyses of markets in which some participants have much better information than others. Tobin helped pioneer the study of financial markets and their importance to economic performance, said William Brainard, a Yale colleague and friend. “He believed financial markets could serve a valuable service in diversifying risk and moving capital in efficient ways,” Brainard said. “But he was not someone who believed the market always got it right and that private incentives were always aligned with the public good.” Keynes, who died in 1946, was the British economist whose ideas helped shape U.S. policies for more than four decades, beginning in President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal. Discredited Idea? Not all economists accept that Tobin’s theory of government intervention has replaced the Friedman model. John Cochrane, a finance professor at the Booth School of Business at the University of Chicago, said that while Tobin made contributions to investing theory, the idea that spending can spur the economy was discredited decades ago. “It’s not part of what anybody has taught graduate students since the 1960s,” Cochrane said. “They are fairy tales that have been proved false. It is very comforting in times of stress to go back to the fairy tales we heard as children but it doesn’t make them less false.” To borrow money to pay for the spending, the government will issue bonds, which means investors will be buying U.S. Treasuries instead of investing in equities or products, negating the stimulative effect, Cochrane said. It also will do nothing to unlock frozen credit, he said. ‘Tobin Tax’ Tobin proposed taxing financial transactions to slow the flow of money to and from markets. Tobin worried that too much efficiency would create instability in the markets as transaction costs fell, said Stiglitz. While there was a flurry of interest in what became known as the “Tobin Tax” during the Asian financial crisis of the late 1990s, the idea never received political support. Tobin’s understanding of the role of financial markets in the economy was rooted in his study of the decisions made by investors, and he was the intellectual force behind many of the tools they use today, Stiglitz said. He devised the Q Ratio, a formula that divides total market capitalization by the cost of replacing assets. Q of greater than one suggests a fast-growing company with incentive to make new capital investments; a Q lower than one suggests a company that might be ripe for takeover because buying its shares would cost less than replacing its assets. “He’s the father of modern asset pricing,” Stiglitz said. After Harvard, where he studied under the late Joseph Schumpeter, he spent four years in the U.S. Navy, serving on a destroyer that supported the invasion of North Africa. Wouk Character While training to be an officer, he served with Herman Wouk, who later wrote “The Caine Mutiny.” Tobin was Wouk’s model for a character called Tobit, a “mandarin-like midshipman” who had “a domed forehead, measured quiet speech and a mind like a sponge.” Tobin began teaching at Yale, in New Haven, Connecticut, in 1950, leaving in 1961 and 1962 to serve on the U.S. Council of Economic Advisors under President John F. Kennedy. At Yale, he put his stamp on generations of economists who studied or taught there. Those include Goolsbee, Krugman, Stiglitz, and Galbraith. Others influenced by Tobin at Yale include Robert Shiller, a Yale economist and creator of the Case/Shiller home price index; Nouriel Roubini, the New York University economist who predicted the financial collapse; Janet Yellen, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco; and David Swensen, Yale’s investment manager. Levin’s Wish Tobin’s influence on today’s policy makers is still not as powerful as former students would like to see. Richard Levin, the president of Yale, said Tobin would have wanted the stimulus package to create more jobs and contain fewer tax cuts. “Tobin’s insights are what’s needed right now,” Levin said. “I wish policy makers would listen more carefully to Tobin.” By Oliver Staley and Michael McKee, February 27 Bloomberg.com

The new liberal imperialism

In 1989 the political systems of three centuries came to an end in Europe: the balance-of-power and the imperial urge. That year marked not just the end of the Cold War, but also, and more significantly, the end of a state system in Europe which dated from the Thirty Years War. September 11 showed us one of the implications of the change. To understand the present, we must first understand the past, for the past is still with us. International order used to be based either on hegemony or on balance. Hegemony came first. In the ancient world, order meant empire. Those within the empire had order, culture and civilisation. Outside it lay barbarians, chaos and disorder. The image of peace and order through a single hegemonic power centre has remained strong ever since. Empires, however, are ill-designed for promoting change. Holding the empire together - and it is the essence of empires that they are diverse - usually requires an authoritarian political style; innovation, especially in society and politics, would lead to instability. Historically, empires have generally been static. In Europe, a middle way was found between the stasis of chaos and the stasis of empire, namely the small state. The small state succeeded in establishing sovereignty, but only within a geographically limited jurisdiction. Thus domestic order was purchased at the price of international anarchy. The competition between the small states of Europe was a source of progress, but the system was also constantly threatened by a relapse into chaos on one side and by the hegemony of a single power on the other. The solution to this was the balance-of-power, a system of counter-balancing alliances which became seen as the condition of liberty in Europe. Coalitions were successfully put together to thwart the hegemonic ambitions firstly of Spain, then of France, and finally of Germany. But the balance-of-power system too had an inherent instability, the ever-present risk of war, and it was this that eventually caused it to collapse. German unification in 1871 created a state too powerful to be balanced by any European alliance; technological changes raised the costs of war to an unbearable level; and the development of mass society and democratic politics, rendered impossible the amoral calculating mindset necessary to make the balance of power system function. Nevertheless, in the absence of any obvious alternative it persisted, and what emerged in 1945 was not so much a new system as the culmination of the old one. The old multi-lateral balance-of-power in Europe became a bilateral balance of terror worldwide, a final simplification of the balance of power. But it was not built to last. The balance of power never suited the more universalistic, moralist spirit of the late twentieth century. The second half of the twentieth Century has seen not just the end of the balance of power but also the waning of the imperial urge: in some degree the two go together. A world that started the century divided among European empires finishes it with all or almost all of them gone: the Ottoman, German, Austrian, French , British and finally Soviet Empires are now no more than a memory. This leaves us with two new types of state: first there are now states - often former colonies - where in some sense the state has almost ceased to exist a 'premodern' zone where the state has failed and a Hobbesian war of all against all is underway (countries such as Somalia and, until recently, Afghanistan). Second, there are the post imperial, postmodern states who no longer think of security primarily in terms of conquest. And thirdly, of course there remain the traditional "modern" states who behave as states always have, following Machiavellian principles and raison d'ètat (one thinks of countries such as India, Pakistan and China). The postmodern system in which we Europeans live does not rely on balance; nor does it emphasise sovereignty or the separation of domestic and foreign affairs. The European Union has become a highly developed system for mutual interference in each other's domestic affairs, right down to beer and sausages. The CFE Treaty, under which parties to the treaty have to notify the location of their heavy weapons and allow inspections, subjects areas close to the core of sovereignty to international constraints. It is important to realise what an extraordinary revolution this is. It mirrors the paradox of the nuclear age, that in order to defend yourself, you had to be prepared to destroy yourself. The shared interest of European countries in avoiding a nuclear catastrophe has proved enough to overcome the normal strategic logic of distrust and concealment. Mutual vulnerability has become mutual transparency. The main characteristics of the postmodern world are as follows: • The breaking down of the distinction between domestic and foreign affairs. • Mutual interference in (traditional) domestic affairs and mutual surveillance. • The rejection of force for resolving disputes and the consequent codification of self-enforced rules of behaviour. • The growing irrelevance of borders: this has come about both through the changing role of the state, but also through missiles, motor cars and satellites. • Security is based on transparency, mutual openness, interdependence and mutual vulnerability. The conception of an International Criminal Court is a striking example of the postmodern breakdown of the distinction between domestic and foreign affairs. In the postmodern world, raison d'ètat and the amorality of Machiavelli's theories of statecraft, which defined international relations in the modern era, have been replaced by a moral consciousness that applies to international relations as well as to domestic affairs: hence the renewed interest in what constitutes a just war. While such a system does deal with the problems that made the balance-of-power unworkable, it does not entail the demise of the nation state. While economy, law-making and defence may be increasingly embedded in international frameworks, and the borders of territory may be less important, identity and democratic institutions remain primarily national. Thus traditional states will remain the fundamental unit of international relations for the foreseeable future, even though some of them may have ceased to behave in traditional ways. What is the origin of this basic change in the state system? The fundamental point is that "the world's grown honest". A large number of the most powerful states no longer want to fight or conquer. It is this that gives rise to both the pre-modern and postmodern worlds. Imperialism in the traditional sense is dead, at least among the Western powers. If this is true, it follows that we should not think of the EU or even NATO as the root cause of the half century of peace we have enjoyed in Western Europe. The basic fact is that Western European countries no longer want to fight each other. NATO and the EU have, nevertheless, played an important role in reinforcing and sustaining this position. NATO's most valuable contribution has been the openness it has created. NATO was, and is a massive intra-western confidence-building measure. It was NATO and the EU that provided the framework within which Germany could be reunited without posing a threat to the rest of Europe as its original unification had in 1871. Both give rise to thousands of meetings of ministers and officials, so that all those concerned with decisions involving war and peace know each other well. Compared with the past, this represents a quality and stability of political relations never known before. The EU is the most developed example of a postmodern system. It represents security through transparency, and transparency through interdependence. The EU is more a transnational than a supra-national system, a voluntary association of states rather than the subordination of states to a central power. The dream of a European state is one left from a previous age. It rests on the assumption that nation states are fundamentally dangerous and that the only way to tame the anarchy of nations is to impose hegemony on them. But if the nation-state is a problem then the super-state is certainly not a solution. European states are not the only members of the postmodern world. Outside Europe, Canada is certainly a postmodern state; Japan is by inclination a postmodern state, but its location prevents it developing more fully in this direction. The USA is the more doubtful case since it is not clear that the US government or Congress accepts either the necessity or desirability of interdependence, or its corollaries of openness, mutual surveillance and mutual interference, to the same extent as most European governments now do. Elsewhere, what in Europe has become a reality is in many other parts of the world an aspiration. ASEAN, NAFTA, MERCOSUR and even OAU suggest at least the desire for a postmodern environment, and though this wish is unlikely to be realised quickly, imitation is undoubtedly easier than invention. Within the postmodern world, there are no security threats in the traditional sense; that is to say, its members do not consider invading each other. Whereas in the modern world , following Clausewitz' dictum war is an instrument of policy in the postmodern world it is a sign of policy failure. But while the members of the postmodern world may not represent a danger to one another, both the modern and pre-modern zones pose threats. The threat from the modern world is the most familiar. Here, the classical state system, from which the postmodern world has only recently emerged, remains intact, and continues to operate by the principles of empire and the supremacy of national interest. If there is to be stability it will come from a balance among the aggressive forces. It is notable how few are the areas of the world where such a balance exists. And how sharp the risk is that in some areas there may soon be a nuclear element in the equation. The challenge to the postmodern world is to get used to the idea of double standards. Among ourselves, we operate on the basis of laws and open cooperative security. But when dealing with more old-fashioned kinds of states outside the postmodern continent of Europe, we need to revert to the rougher methods of an earlier era - force, pre-emptive attack, deception, whatever is necessary to deal with those who still live in the nineteenth century world of every state for itself. Among ourselves, we keep the law but when we are operating in the jungle, we must also use the laws of the jungle. In the prolonged period of peace in Europe, there has been a temptation to neglect our defences, both physical and psychological. This represents one of the great dangers of the postmodern state. The challenge posed by the pre-modern world is a new one. The pre-modern world is a world of failed states. Here the state no longer fulfils Weber's criterion of having the monopoly on the legitimate use of force. Either it has lost the legitimacy or it has lost the monopoly of the use of force; often the two go together. Examples of total collapse are relatively rare, but the number of countries at risk grows all the time. Some areas of the former Soviet Union are candidates, including Chechnya. All of the world's major drug-producing areas are part of the pre-modern world. Until recently there was no real sovereign authority in Afghanistan; nor is there in upcountry Burma or in some parts of South America, where drug barons threaten the state's monopoly on force. All over Africa countries are at risk. No area of the world is without its dangerous cases. In such areas chaos is the norm and war is a way of life. In so far as there is a government it operates in a way similar to an organised crime syndicate. The premodern state may be too weak even to secure its home territory, let alone pose a threat internationally, but it can provide a base for non-state actors who may represent a danger to the postmodern world. If non-state actors, notably drug, crime, or terrorist syndicates take to using premodern bases for attacks on the more orderly parts of the world, then the organised states may eventually have to respond. If they become too dangerous for established states to tolerate, it is possible to imagine a defensive imperialism. It is not going too far to view the West's response to Afghanistan in this light. How should we deal with the pre-modern chaos? To become involved in a zone of chaos is risky; if the intervention is prolonged it may become unsustainable in public opinion; if the intervention is unsuccessful it may be damaging to the government that ordered it. But the risks of letting countries rot, as the West did Afghanistan, may be even greater. What form should intervention take? The most logical way to deal with chaos, and the one most employed in the past is colonisation. But colonisation is unacceptable to postmodern states (and, as it happens, to some modern states too). It is precisely because of the death of imperialism that we are seeing the emergence of the pre-modern world. Empire and imperialism are words that have become a form of abuse in the postmodern world. Today, there are no colonial powers willing to take on the job, though the opportunities, perhaps even the need for colonisation is as great as it ever was in the nineteenth century. Those left out of the global economy risk falling into a vicious circle. Weak government means disorder and that means falling investment. In the 1950s, South Korea had a lower GNP per head than Zambia: the one has achieved membership of the global economy, the other has not. All the conditions for imperialism are there, but both the supply and demand for imperialism have dried up. And yet the weak still need the strong and the strong still need an orderly world. A world in which the efficient and well governed export stability and liberty, and which is open for investment and growth - all of this seems eminently desirable. What is needed then is a new kind of imperialism, one acceptable to a world of human rights and cosmopolitan values. We can already discern its outline: an imperialism which, like all imperialism, aims to bring order and organisation but which rests today on the voluntary principle. Postmodern imperialism takes two forms. First there is the voluntary imperialism of the global economy. This is usually operated by an international consortium through International Financial Institutions such as the IMF and the World Bank - it is characteristic of the new imperialism that it is multilateral. These institutions provide help to states wishing to find their way back into the global economy and into the virtuous circle of investment and prosperity. In return they make demands which, they hope, address the political and economic failures that have contributed to the original need for assistance. Aid theology today increasingly emphasises governance. If states wish to benefit, they must open themselves up to the interference of international organisations and foreign states (just as, for different reasons, the postmodern world has also opened itself up.) The second form of postmodern imperialism might be called the imperialism of neighbours. Instability in your neighbourhood poses threats which no state can ignore. Misgovernment, ethnic violence and crime in the Balkans poses a threat to Europe. The response has been to create something like a voluntary UN protectorate in Bosnia and Kosovo. It is no surprise that in both cases the High Representative is European. Europe provides most of the aid that keeps Bosnia and Kosovo running and most of the soldiers (though the US presence is an indispensable stabilising factor). In a further unprecedented move, the EU has offered unilateral free-market access to all the countries of the former Yugoslavia for all products including most agricultural produce. It is not just soldiers that come from the international community; it is police, judges, prison officers, central bankers and others. Elections are organised and monitored by the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE). Local police are financed and trained by the UN. As auxiliaries to this effort - in many areas indispensable to it - are over a hundred NGOs. One additional point needs to be made. It is dangerous if a neighbouring state is taken over in some way by organised or disorganised crime - which is what state collapse usually amounts to. But Usama bin Laden has now demonstrated for those who had not already realised, that today all the world is, potentially at least, our neighbour. The Balkans are a special case. Elsewhere in Central and Eastern Europe the EU is engaged in a programme which will eventually lead to massive enlargement. In the past empires have imposed their laws and systems of government; in this case no one is imposing anything. Instead, a voluntary movement of self-imposition is taking place. While you are a candidate for EU membership you have to accept what is given - a whole mass of laws and regulations - as subject countries once did. But the prize is that once you are inside you will have a voice in the commonwealth. If this process is a kind of voluntary imperialism, the end state might be describes as a cooperative empire. 'Commonwealth' might indeed not be a bad name. The postmodern EU offers a vision of cooperative empire, a common liberty and a common security without the ethnic domination and centralised absolutism to which past empires have been subject, but also without the ethnic exclusiveness that is the hallmark of the nation state - inappropriate in an era without borders and unworkable in regions such as the Balkans. A cooperative empire might be the domestic political framework that best matches the altered substance of the postmodern state: a framework in which each has a share in the government, in which no single country dominates and in which the governing principles are not ethnic but legal. The lightest of touches will be required from the centre; the 'imperial bureaucracy' must be under control, accountable, and the servant, not the master, of the commonwealth. Such an institution must be as dedicated to liberty and democracy as its constituent parts. Like Rome, this commonwealth would provide its citizens with some of its laws, some coins and the occasional road. That perhaps is the vision. Can it be realised? Only time will tell. The question is how much time there may be. In the modern world the secret race to acquire nuclear weapons goes on. In the premodern world the interests of organised crime - including international terrorism - grow greater and faster than the state. There may not be much time left. • Robert Cooper is a senior serving British diplomat. This article is published as The post-modern state in the new collection Reordering the World: the long term implications of September 11, published by The Foreign Policy Centre.

ΛΟΙΜΩΞΕΙΣ ΣΕ ΜΟΥΣΟΥΡΓΟΥΣ

Τα λοιμώδη νοσήματα αποτελούσαν μία από τις μεγαλύτερες αιτίες θνητότητας προ της εισαγωγής της αντιμικροβιακής χημειοθεραπείας.Μορφές της Ιστορίας,της Τέχνης,των Επιστημών όπως και εκατομμύρια άλλων ατόμων πέθαναν,πολλοί σε νεαρή ηλικία,από λοιμώξεις κατά το μάλλον και ήττον ιάσιμες στην σημερινή εποχή.Ανασκοπώντας τις βιογραφίες των μεγάλων μουσουργών η σκέψη αυτή επιβεβαιώνεται απόλυτα. Η πνευμονία οδήγησε στον θάνατο αρκετούς μουσουργούς.Ο Χένρυ Πέρσελ πέθανε το 1695 σε ηλικία 36 ετών μένοντας αρκετές ώρες στην υγρασία της νύχτας του Λονδίνου μετά οινοποσία.Ο Φραντς Λιστ υπέκυψε σε πνευμονία στο Μπαϋρόϋτ το 1886 σε ηλικία 75 ετών.Υπέφερε από υδρωπικία και νόσησε παρακολουθώντας μία παράσταση "Τριστάνου και Ιζόλδης" του Βάγκνερ.Ο Γιόχαν Στράους,ο βασιλιάς του βαλς,κατέληξε μετά "διπλή πνευμονία" σε διάστημα δύο ημερών,στην Βιέννη το 1899 σε ηλικία 74 ετών.Ο Αρρίγκο Μπόϊτο (1842-191 νόσησε κατά την διάρκεια λειτουργίας στην εκκλησία του Σαντ' Αμπρότζιο στο Μιλάνο και πέθανε μετά λίγες μέρες στο γηροκομείο της ίδιας πόλης.Ο Λέος Γιάνατσεκ κρύωσε κάνοντας πεζοπορία στα δάση του Χούκβαλντυ, παρουσίασε βρογχοπνευμονία και πέθανε σε νοσοκομείο της Πράγας το 1928, στα 74 του χρόνια.Από την μοίρα της πνευμονίας δεν ξέφυγε και ένας από τους μεγαλύτερους μαέστρους όλων των εποχών.Ο Βίλχελμ Φουρτβαινγκλερ (1885-1954) υπέκυψε από συνδυασμό πνευμονίας και καρδιακής ανεπάρκειας σε σανατόριο του Μπάντεν-Μπάντεν. Η σύφιλη οδήγησε στην παραφροσύνη και τελικά στο θάνατο τον Μπέντριχ Σμέτανα,ο οποίος μετά κώφωση,απώλεια μνήμης και λόγου πέθανε σε άσυλο το 1884 σε ηλικία 60 ετών.Ο Γκαετάνο Ντονιτσέττι παρουσίασε το 1844 επεισόδια πυρετού,διαταραχές της σκέψης,κρίσεις οργής και άλλα σημεία διανοητικής αστάθειας από την ίδια αιτία.Τελικά εγκαταστάθηκε παράλυση και παραφροσύνη και παρέμεινε σε ημικωματώδη κατάσταση πριν πεθάνει στο Μπέργκαμο σε ηλικία 51 ετών το 1848.Ο Φρέντερικ Ντήλιους νόσησε από συφιλίδα το 1894 και το 1922 παρουσίασε τύφλωση και γενικευμένη παράλυση.Πέθανε το 1934 στα 72 του χρόνια.Ο Ρόμπερτ Σούμαν μολύνθηκε από την ωχρά σπειροχαίτη στα νεανικά του χρόνια και άρχισε να παρουσιάζει ακουστικές ψευδαισθήσεις όταν ήταν 43 ετών.Νόμιζε ότι άκουγε αγγέλους ή πνεύματα νεκρών συνθετών,όπως του Σούμπερτ ή του Μέντελσον,να του υπαγορεύουν μουσικές νότες.Αλλοτε νόμιζε ότι ακούει δαίμονες ή ότι τον καταδιώκουν τίγρεις και ύαινες.Τον Φεβρουάριο του 1854 προσπάθησε να αυτοκτονήσει πέφτοντας στα νερά του Ρήνου.Πέρασε τα τελευταία δύο χρόνια της ζωής του,βυθισμένος στην παραφροσύνη,κλεισμένος στο άσυλο του Εντενιχ,κοντά στην Μπόνν και ήταν μόνο 46 ετών όταν πέθανε το 1856.Ο Φραντς Σούμπερτ νόσησε από συφιλίδα το 1822 και ίσως η άσχημη ψυχολογική του κατάσταση τον εμπόδισε να ολοκληρώσει την ογδόη συμφωνία του,αυτή που έμεινε γνωστή γιά πάντα ως " Ημιτελής ".Τον Μάϊο του 1823 νοσηλεύθηκε στο νοσοκομείο της Βιέννης και αργότερα είχε εκδηλώσεις συναισθηματικής αστάθειας.Υπάρχει διχογνωμία στους βιογράφους του γιά το κατά πόσον η σύφιλη ή ο τυφοειδής πυρετός υπήρξε η αιτία θανάτου,αν και η δεύτερη εκδοχή ίσως είναι επικρατέστερη.Αναφέρονται στίς περιγραφές του θεράποντα ιατρού του Ρίννα αλλά και σε επιστολές του ίδιου του Σούμπερτ έμετοι,αδυναμία λήψεως τροφής και έντονη καταβολή.Ο Θάνατος ήλθε μέσα σε παραλήρημα την 19η Νοεμβρίου 1828 μετά νόσηση τριών εβδομάδων συνολικά.Ηταν μόλις 31 χρόνων. Η φυματίωση σφράγισε τραγικά την ζωή του Φρειδερίκου Σοπέν (1810-1849) Η μικρότερη αδελφή του Αιμιλία,που ο Σοπέν υπεραγαπούσε,πέθανε από την νόσο αυτή το 1827.Εννιά χρόνια αργότερα στο Παρίσι πυρετός,βήχας και αιμοπτύσεις σηματοδοτούν το ξεκίνημα της αρρώστιας στον ίδιο.Οταν το φθινόπωρο του 1838 πηγαίνει με την Γεωργία Σάνδη στη Μαγιόρκα,οι συνεχείς βροχές και οι άσχημες συνθήκες στο μοναστήρι της Βαλντεμόζα όπου έμεναν προκαλούν παρόξυνση της νόσου με φοβερές αιμοπτύσεις.Φεύγει από το νησί στα πρόθυρα του θανάτου και σώζεται από τις προσπάθειες και την ανθρωπιά του ιατρού του γαλλικού πολεμικού πλοίου " Μελέαγρος".Η φυματίωση θα τον βασανίζει συνεχώς στα επόμενα χρόνια και τον Νοέμβριο του 1848 επιστρέφει από περιοδεία στο Παρίσι σε άσχημη κατάσταση.Συμβουλεύεται τους ιατρούς Ροτ,Λουί και τον καθηγητή Σιμόν που διατάζουν ηρεμία και προφύλαξη.Ο Σοπέν παρατηρεί ειρωνικά "κάποτε θα βρω την ποθητή ηρεμία,αλλά θα την αποκτήσω δίχως αυτούς".Πριν περάσει ένας χρόνος,τον Οκτώβριο του 1849,θα σβήσει στα 39 του χρόνια μέσα σε συνεχείς αιμοπτύσεις και τρομερή εξάντληση.Ο Πολωνός συνθέτης Κάρολ Σζυμανόφσκυ (1882-1937) θα έχει την ίδια μοίρα με τον διάσημο συμπατριώτη του πεθαίνοντας σε σανατόριο της Λωζάννης από φυματίωση πνευμόνων και λάρυγγος. Ο Ζαν-Μπατίστ Λουλλύ (1632-1687) διευθύνοντας δοξολογία γιά την ανάρρωση του Λουδοβίκου 14ου,κρατούσε τον χρόνο χτυπώντας με την ράβδο του Αρχιμουσικού το δάπεδο και τραυμάτισε το μεγάλο δάκτυλο του ποδιού του.Ακολούθησε γάγγραινα και παρά τον ακρωτηριασμό που έγινε από τον ιατρό της Αυλής Alliot ο συνθέτης δεν μπόρεσε να σωθεί. Ο θάνατος του Αλμπαν Μπεργκ είχε επίσης περίεργη αιτιολογία.Τον Σεπτέμβριο του 1935 παρουσίασε απόστημα στην ράχη μετά τσίμπημα εντόμου.Τρείς μήνες αργότερα μετά ρήξη του αποστήματος παρουσίασε σηψαιμία και παρά δύο χειρουργικές επεμβάσεις στο Νοσοκομείο της Βιέννης,καθώς και μεταγγίσεις,πέθανε σε ηλικία 50 ετών την Παραμονή των Χριστουγέννων του ίδιου χρόνου.Ο Βιτσέντζο Μπελλίνι το 1835 παρουσίασε απόστημα ήπατος κατόπιν φλεγμονής του παχέος εντέρου και κατέληξε σε ηλικία 34 ετών. Ο Πιότρ Ιλλιτς Τσαϊκόφσκυ (1840-1893) πέθανε μέσα σε δραματικές συνθήκες καθώς υπήρξε θύμα χολέρας.Λίγες μέρες μετά την πρεμιέρα της 6ης συμφωνίας του,της γνωστής ως Παθητική,ήπιε άβραστο νερό βρύσης,κάτι που εθεωρείτο στην Αγία Πετρούπολη σχεδόν αδιανόητο καθώς υπήρχε επιδημία χολέρας.Μετά σύντομη πορεία 4 ημερών,μέσα σε δίψα,σπασμούς και νεφρική ανεπάρκεια που μάταια αντιμετωπίστηκε με θερμά λουτρά ο συνθέτης πέθανε στις 6 Νοεμβρίου 1893 σε ηλικία 53 ετών.Η σορός του εκτέθηκε σε προσκύνημα,κάτι που δεν επέτρεπαν οι αυστηροί κανονισμοί καραντίνας και αυτό έδωσε λαβή σε φήμες ότι αιτία θανάτου ήταν αυτοκτονία με δηλητήριο γιά να μην αποκαλυφθεί κάποιο σκάνδαλο.Πάντως ο γνωστότερος ιατρός της πόλης,ο Μπέρτενσον,καθώς και άλλοι δύο που εκλήθησαν σε συμβούλιο διέγνωσαν χολέρα. Ο Γκούσταβ Μάλερ προσεβλήθη από ρευματικό πυρετό σε νεαρά ηλικία στην Βοημία. Παρουσίαζε συχνά φαρυγγίτιδα και το 1907 διεγνώσθη βαλβιδοπάθεια.Είχε στη συνέχεια πυρετούς με ρίγος και επιδείνωση της καρδιακής λειτουργίας.Η γνώμη του ιατρού Φράνκελ στη Νέα Υόρκη ήταν "σοβαρά λοίμωξη του αίματος",δηλαδή ενδοκαρδίτις.Σε καλλιέργεια που έκανε το 1911 ο Andre Chantemesse του Ινστιτούτου Παστέρ στο Παρίσι απεμόνωσε στρεπτόκοκκο και η σύσταση του διάσημου καθηγητή Chvostek ήταν να επιστρέψει ο Μάλερ στην Βιέννη,υπονοώντας ότι δεν υπάρχουν θεραπευτικά περιθώρια.Στις 18 Μαϊου 1911 ο Μάλερ πέθανε ανάμεσα στη σύζυγό του και τους φίλους του σε ηλικία 51 ετών.Αιτία θανάτου του Ζωρζ Μπιζέ (1838-1875) αναφέρεται "λοίμωξη του φάρυγγα" που παρουσίαζε υποτροπές από την εποχή των φοιτητικών του χρόνων στη Ρώμη. Στοιχεία γιά λοιμώδη νοσήματα υπάρχουν σε όλες σχεδόν τις βιογραφίες των μεγάλων μουσουργών,όπως γιά παράδειγμα στον Λούντβιχ Βαν Μπετόβεν (1770-1827) όπου καταγράφεται ευλογιά σε νεανική ηλικία,εξανθηματικός τύφος που ενδεχομένως απετέλεσε αιτία της κώφωσης του καθώς και πνευμονία τυπικά περιγραφόμενη με πυρετό,ρίγος,βήχα και πλευρωδυνία τον Δεκέμβριο του 1826 Θ.Πέππας,Δ.Βουτσινάς Ιατρείο Λοιμώξεων,Περ.Γενικό Νοσοκομείο Νικαίας,Πειραιάς. Ανακοινώθηκε στο 18ο Πανελλήνιο Ιατρικό Συνέδριο,Αθήνα,12-16 Μαίου 1992