Students unimpressed as Union announces Summer ... - The Founder

6 The Founder | Wednesday 28 May 2008
tf Comment & Debate
The Beginning of a new history...
Liam Hoare
As a global humanity
we are entering
into a new era
of geopolitics. For
the last seventeen
years since the
Soviet Union plummeted into the
post-socialist abyss, politics has
been operating under the shadow
of an unchallenged American
hegemony. After the Berlin Wall
fell academics proudly declared the
end of history, while
“
economists
sold the idea of
the peace dividend
across the world.
History though
never ended: for
where communism
was once the
world’s great evil;
Islamic fundamentalist
terrorism
and new totalitarian
states merely
replaced it. This placed America on
the defensive and thus she has been
forced into reasserting herself on
the world stage. Following September
11 this manifested itself into the
neo-conservative led, imperialistic
effort to rebuild nation-states in
their own image.
Nation-building isn’t really a new
idea. Throughout the Cold War
both the US and the USSR shuffled
money and arms across the world
in order to secure another outpost
in their ideologically-driven proxy
war. The world had hoped, perhaps
too optimistically, that when the
Soviet Union collapsed, this era
would be over. After all we were entering
into the post-modern, postsuperpower
end of history. But the
disintegration of the Soviet Union
only created
a vacuum for
another evil to
take its place.
When the
communism
system imploded
right
”
the way across
the Second
World,
capitalism
was unleashed upon it in its place.
China was ultimately the main beneficiary
of the flowering of the free
market. Her leaders abandoned the
economic aspects of Maoism in the
The disintegration
of the Soviet
Union only created
a vacuum for
another evil to
take its place.
1980s, while retaining the repressive
political system. With her economic
power came serious political
clout, to such an extent that she is
now a superpower and a threat to
fair and free liberal societies.
Just as Britain and France did in
the nineteenth century, and America
and the Soviets in the twentieth,
China has chosen Africa as the
terrain on which to exercise her
politico-economic power. Through
brute strength she’s plundering the
continent; some have described her
inevitable and relentless drive as
a second ‘long march’. In 2005 for
example China poured $1.6 billion
in the coffers of African regimes.
Perhaps what shocked the world
most of all is China’s unwavering
support for some of the world’s
most horrific governments. Over
$300 million went into Sudan in
2005, while its government committed
genocide in the region of
Darfur. Whereas the West offers aid
in return for humanitarian concessions,
China’s dirty money comes
with no strings attached. Perhaps it
is this that has allowed China to so
easily dominate Africa.
The truth of the matter is that
for whatever reasons, perhaps guilt
for past offences, governments like
Britain feel a duty toward Africa.
America for instance donates millions
to fight Aids, while we offer
our funds to end malaria. Yet, China
is merely pillaging: for copper in
Zambia; for iron ore in Gabon; for
oil in Angola. They import all their
own materials and workers at the
expense of the indigenous population.
Their work does little for the
people of Africa.
Possibly the saddest and most
worrying part of this whole sordid
affair is that the West has allowed
“
this to happen, up to a
point where we can no
longer control the situation.
We continued with
the old Cold War idea
that an enemy’s enemy
is our friend, so long as
they cooperate with us of
course. China’s economy
was permitted to expand
as they were following
capitalist principles, yet,
at the same time we put
little pressure on them to open up
politically. On that front our chickens
really have come home to roost.
Western ideas of liberty and
freedom are now therefore, under
direct threat more than ever. In
the Middle East fundamentalist
ideologues are taking over from
moderate Islamists, as seen in Gaza.
In Africa, China is crushing the
continent with her economic fist.
Back at home she’s suppressing the
people of Tibet, and funding the
violent junta in Burma that’s murdering
her own peoples.
Truly, then, we are entering into
a new political epoch. The communist
threats are long dead and
American supremacy is on the
wane. In its place we have a new
In Africa,
China is
crushing the
continent with
her economic
fist.
grand narrative,
where Western
liberalism
is fighting an
ideological war
on two fronts,
against Islamic
fundamentalism,
and Chinese
economic imperialism.
The
naïve promises
of peace and
”
prosperity failed to materialise. We
have unwittingly returned to the
age of conflict and of the superpower.
History never ended, we merely
turned the page.
In defence of the arms’ trade!
Charles Patrick
The move to withdraw
investment
from universities
to businesses in the
arms trade will likely
be hailed as a victory
for ethical reasoning. Yet, the
advocates for such a policy would
be hypocrites. The arms trade has,
whether we like it or not, made this
world today. A lot of the technology
we use today has had direct lineage
from the arms industry. This fact is
casually brushed aside by protesters
against the arms trade who shove
grotesque pictures of the victims of
warfare in your face.
I am not supporting warfare by
saying that it is ethical. Warfare is a
horrible place to be, for both sides,
but the sheer self-righteousness of
some of the arms trade protestors
in saying,‘we stop selling arms here
so all war will stop’ is a sheer maniacal
and delusional thought. If we
don’t sell them, someone else will.
So has warfare stopped? Warfare
has and will probably always be
present in human history. With
the development of more precise
weaponry, military forces nowadays
are able to drastically reduce the
collateral damage whilst hitting
their targets. That is surely a good
thing.
The organisers of protests against
the arms trade probably
“
used the
internet, which
was a product
on the initiative
of the Pentagon.
Likewise
another history
changing
moment, the
Space Race of
the 1950s and 1960s was a product
of the arms industry. Yuri Gagarin,
the first man in space was hurled
aloft atop a missile, originally
designed to carry a thermonuclear
package to New York at the Soviet
taxpayer’s expense. Likewise, Werner
Von Braun used the Nazi arms
industry to design and build the
V-2 missile, which he would then
adapt in further designs for more
peaceful purposes in his dream of
spaceflight e.g.: the Saturn V rocket.
The satellites that supply us with:
the internet, TV, phone lines, etc is
progeny of the first ones originally
designed
to spy on the other side.
The aircraft you fly on to go on
holiday has origins in requirements,
issued by defence departments,
to design
Warfare has and will
probably always be
present in human
history.
long-range
warplanes.
For
example,
”
the Avro
Lancaster
bomber
that
bombed Dresden on February 14th
1945, supposedly causing a war
crime, was developed into the Avro
Lancastrian civil transport that
helped restart civil aviation after
World War 2.
Restricting the investment of the
arms trade by universities would
be bad for education as some of
the most exciting engineering and
science jobs, on the cutting edge of
their fields, are in the arms trade.
By fulfilling your self-righteous ego
you sacrifice someone else’s job opportunities.
It is the environment of the
arms trade that allows eccentric
or even mad ideas to flourish:
Project Orion, anyone? The aspects
of money and risk investment are
not as prevalent in the arms trade
as they are in the free market and
its resident cutthroats. The arms
industry can, therefore, be one of
the most creative environments for
human ingenuity.
Photograph: Campaign against arms’ trade/UCL
Man is at his best when he is at
his worst. That is regrettable but
since we see the products of that
area adapted to a peaceful function,
we should at least acknowledge
where they came from.
So, as you sit down to watch a
television programme when you
reach for the control, just remember.
The infra-red sensor inside was
probably developed from the seeker
system of an air-to-air missile, a
product of the industry you went to
protest against.