Is the US About to Treat the Rest of the World Better? Maybe...
American foreign policy is subject to structural pressure that has not dissolved
by Johann Hari
The
tears are finally drying – the tears of the Bush years, and the tears
of awe at the sight of a black President of the United States. So what
now? The cliché of the day is that Barack Obama will inevitably
disappoint the hopes of a watching world, but the truth is more subtle
than that. If we want to see how Obama will affect us all – for good or
bad – we need to trace the deep structural factors that underlie United
States foreign policy. A useful case study of these pressures is about
to flicker on to our news pages for a moment – from the top of the
world.
Bolivia
is the poorest country in Latin America, and its lofty slums 13,000
feet above sea level seem a world away from the high theatre of the
inauguration. But if we look at this country closely, we can explain
one of the great paradoxes of the United States – that it has incubated
a triumphant civil rights movement at home, yet thwarted civil rights
movements abroad. Bolivia shows us in stark detail the contradictions
facing a black President of the American empire.
The
President of Bolivia, Evo Morales, has a story strikingly similar to
Obama's. In 2006, he became the first indigenous president of his
country – and a symbol of the potential of democracy. When the Spanish
arrived in Bolivia in the 16th century, they enslaved the indigenous
people and worked millions to death. As recently as the 1950s, an
indigenous person wasn't even allowed to walk through the centre of La
Paz, where the presidential palace and city cathedral stand. They were
(and are) routinely compared to monkeys and apes.
Morales
was born to a poor potato-farmer in the mountains, and grew up
scavenging for discarded orange peel or banana skins to eat. Of his
seven siblings, four died in infancy. Throughout his adult life, it was
taken for granted that the country would be ruled by the white
minority; the "Indians" were too "child-like" to manage a country.
Given
that the US is constitutionally a democracy and its presidents say they
are committed to spreading democracy across the world, you would expect
them to welcome the democratic rise of Morales. But wait. Bolivia has
massive reserves of natural gas – a geo-strategic asset, and one that
rakes in billions for American corporations. Here is where the
complications set in.
Before
Morales, the white elite was happy to allow American companies to
simply take the gas and leave the Bolivian people with short change:
just 18 per cent of the royalties. Indeed, they handed almost the
entire country to US interests, while skimming a small percentage for
themselves. In 1999, an American company, Bechtel, was handed the water
supply – and water rates for the poor majority doubled.
Morales
ran for election against this agenda. He said that Bolivia's resources
should be used for the benefit of millions of bitterly poor Bolivians,
not a tiny number of super-rich Americans. He kept his promise. Now
Bolivia keeps 82 per cent of the vast gas royalties – and he has used
the money to increase health spending by 300 per cent, and to build the
country's first pension system. He is one of the most popular leaders
in the democratic world. I have seen this pink tide rising through the
barrios and favelas across South America. Millions of people are seeing
doctors and schools for the first time in their lives.
I
suspect that a majority of the American people – who are good and
decent – would be pleased and support this process if they were told
about it honestly. But how did the US government (and much of the
media) react? George Bush fulminated that "democracy is being eroded in
Bolivia", and a recent US ambassador to the country compared Morales to
Osama bin Laden. Why? To them, you are a democrat if you give your
resources to US corporations, and you are a dictator if you give them
to your own people. The will of the Bolivian people is irrelevant.
For
these reasons, the US has been moving to trash Morales. By an odd quirk
of fate, almost all of Bolivia's gas supplies are in the east of the
country – where the richest, whitest part of the population lives. So
the US government has been funding and fuelling the hard-right
separatist movements that want these regions to break away. Then the
whites would happily hand the gas to US companies like in the good ol'
days – and Morales would be left without resources. The interference
became so severe that last September Morales had to expel the US
ambassador for "conspiring against democracy". This weekend, Morales is
holding a referendum on a new constitution for the country which will
entrench the rights of indigenous people.
Enter
Obama – and his paradoxes. He is obviously a person of good will and
good sense, but he is operating in a system subject to many
undemocratic pressures. Bolivia illustrates the tension. The rise of
Morales reminds us of the America the world loves: its yes-we-can
openness and civil rights movements. Yet the presence of gas reminds us
of the America the world hates: the desire to establish "full spectrum
dominance" over the world's resources, whatever the pesky natives think.
Which
America will Obama embody? The answer is both – at first. Morales has
welcomed him as "a brother", and Obama has made it clear he wants a
dialogue, rather than the abuse of the Bush years. Yet who is Obama's
Bolivia adviser? A lawyer called Greg Craig, who represents Gonzalo
Sánchez de Lozada – the hard-right former president of Bolivia who
imposed some of the most extreme privatisations of the 1980s, and is
now wanted on charges of genocide. Craig's legal team says Morales is
(yes) leading "an offensive against democracy".
The
structural pressures within the US system that drove hostility to a
democratic civil rights leader like Morales have not dissolved in the
cold Washington air. The US is still dependent on foreign fossil fuels
to keep its lights on, and US corporations still buy senators from both
parties. Obama will still be swayed by those factors.
But
while this is a reason to be frustrated, it isn't a reason to be
cynical. Why? Because while he will be swayed by those factors, he will
also subtly erode them over time. Obama has made energy independence –
a massive transition away from foreign oil and gas, and towards the
wind, sun and waves – the centre of his governing programme. If the US
is no longer addicted to Bolivian gas, then its governments will be
much less inclined to topple anybody else who wants to control it. (If
they're off oil, they'll be much less invested in the Saudi tyranny and
petro-wars in the Middle East too.)
Obama
also says he wants to peel back the distorting effect of corporate
money on the US political system. He is already less slathered in
corporate cash than any president since the 1920s. The further he
pushes it back, the more breathing space democratic movements like
Morales's have to control their own resources.
But
we will see. If you want to know if Obama is really altering the
tectonic forces that drive American power, keep an eye on the rooftop
of the world.
--Johann Hari
Comments (5)
Thank you for this. I really pray - fervently - that Obama survives in office to achieve what he has set out to do.
i somehow doubt ears has the same agenda as evo,,,, if he was seeking out orang peels,,, he is obviously new in the political game,,,
now if ears was from the barrio and never held office,,, hes not,,, hes a carreer politician,,,
Bully 4 Bolivia! Bollocks 4 Bush! Bravo 4 Barky!!!!!!!!
So in essence Obama's good even when he's bad
@EminemsRevenge - Yes, E.R.
The point you're supposed to get from the article is the complexity and obduracy of the systemic or structural pressures in America that Obama would have to go up against in order to be truly good.
Comments are closed.