ifda dossier 74 - Dag Hammarskjöld Foundation

ifda dossier 74 . november/december 1989 global space
The new detente:
Some reflections from the South
by Rajni Kothari
Lo kayan
Alipur Road 13
New Delhi 110 054, India
Wliat is happening all around us? Is the world suddenly becoming a better place to
live in? More secure, less militarising with the shadow of nuclear war receding and
the arms race being contained under the impact of what may turn out to be a New
Detente? Is it also going to be a more humane place to be in, more permissive of
human rights and cultural plurality, more democratic internally and accommodative
for di~zrse national aspirations externally? In effect providing a truly multilateral
global order, cooperative within and across regions, keen to resolve long-standing
disputes in power relations, with softening of 'hard' positions by tnajor power centres,
triggering off a chain of softening up across the board? Building on positive'
tendencies within specific regions and countries while at the same time attending to
tnajor crises domestically within major countries (mainly in respect of the economy),
hence producing pressures for demilitarization for oilier societies as well?
Sounds too good to be true? In reality
things don't quite work out that way.
Human history is witness to major
reversals in world affairs, at times for
the better, especially after the balance
of forces that govern the world have
gone so off the keel and appear close
to an abyss. Either son^ small or large
step somewhere starts off a chain of
happenings that keep extending into
other spheres or there are simultrineous
spurs from diverse spaces all of which
cumulate towards a brighter opening up
of human prospects. Is something of
this kind happening around us? Don't
at least the announced intentions of
major powers indicate some such turn
in the process of history, at any rate of
contemporary history, with possible
consequences for the longer term too?
No doubt, there are bound to be and
there will be forces at work that would
like this not to happen and will try to
intercede accordingly. And, of course,
there will be persisting counter-tenden-
cics still at work which will nut allow
the changeover to be in any way
smooth or easy to accomplish. And yet
doesn't one notice a whole array of
happenings that have so far at any rate