outbreak. let's take over. american empire als wille ... - Rainer Rilling

these external and internal effects in turn. (…) A major consequence of this
preoccupation with the frontier has been a new political agenda. The salient
issues today have shifted from the controversies over distribution that
troubled the politics of the West… They have become questions of citizenship,
residence, and belonging: who will be in and who will be outside our
polities, and what intermediate rights—such as employment, welfare entitlements,
and local suffrage—they might be granted. (…) Empires are in the
business of producing world order. But not all orders are alike: some enhance
freedom and development; others repress it. I believe that American empire
has served some beneficial functions, above all in opposing far more
authoritarian and repressive contenders for international dominance and in
defending ideals of liberty and opportunity. Still, no matter how benevolent
the intentions, the exercise of empire will generate some violence. The
problem is that for every greater inclusive effort, there must still be those
left outside the expanded walls clamoring to enter, or those not willing to
participate vicariously in the lifestyles of the rich and famous—and those,
indeed, embittered by the values of secular consumerism (which contemporary
empires rely on to generate public loyalties) and imbued with far
more zealous and violent visions of fulfillment. These issues of inclusion
and exclusion, belonging and estrangement, the peace of empire and the
violence it generates despite its efforts, is what twenty-first-century politics,
certainly since September 11, is increasingly about.” 421 Beziehungen der Ungleichheit
(die Widerstand provozierende Unterwerfung (Subordination) bis
zur Exklusion zuspitzen) zwischen Zentrum (Metropole) und Rest (Peripherie)
und der globale Transformationsanspruch (Schaffung einer neuen
Weltordnung) sind für Meier die auszeichnenden Merkmale eines Empire.
Einen substantiellen Pro-Empire-Text (“In Defense of Empires”) hat Deepak
Lal am 30. 10. 2002 vor dem AEI vorgetragen. Er versucht sich wie
Meier an einer kleinen Typologie der Empire, unterscheidet aber nicht
„geopolitisch“ zwischen territorialen und kolonialen Empires, sondern zwischen
integrationspolitisch zwischen “multikulturellen” (“multi ethnic
conglomerates held together by transnational organisational and cultural
ties”) und “homogenisierenden” Empires, für die stehen etwa die Reiche
der Ottomanen, Habsburger oder Engländer einerseits, Chinas, der Sowjetunion
und der USA andererseits. Für ihn ist auch Europa ein Empire. Der
neokonservative Politikwissenschaftler James Kurth schließt daran an:
“Today, there is only one empire--the global empire of the United States, a
state which is neither national nor multinational in the traditional sense,
but which is more accurately described as multicultural and transnational”.
422 Während hier der neuartige transnationale und damit multikul-
421
An American Empire? In: Harvard-Magazine 2 / 2002. Hervorhebung RR.
422
James Kurth: Migration and the dynamics of empire, in: The National Interest Spring 2003 ???. Kurth verweist auch
auf die soft power, welche das US-Empire zu einer Repräsentation des Informationszeitalters mache.
169