By Reason Wafawarova April 28, 2008

Giving a lecture at the American University of Beirut in May 2006, Noam Chomsky(Picture Below) said, “One will search in vain for evidence of the superior understanding and abilities of those who have the major influence on policy, apart from protecting their own interests.”

Power has got a soul, and a great soul for that. The great soul of power is often enshrined in what the political ruling elite will always call “the national interest”. The concept of “interest” as the epicentre to power extends far beyond states, to every domain of life, from families to international affairs. The question that often goes without an answer is who determines the “group interest”, be it that of a family, a nation, a region, a continent or that of the entire globe.

The Marxist perspective asserts that the economic base forms the superstructure. This superstructure is evidently made up of the various social classes, which from an economic point of view are generally classified as lower, middle and upper class. However the social perspective views classes as gender based, age based, ethnic based and also economic based. From this point of view these social classes are described as women, the young, the elderly, workers, farmers, minorities or majorities.

According to a study conducted by a US study group, the Trilateral Commission in 1975 these groups or classes were described as having “the disruptive special interests” that were reflective in what the study group called the “crisis of democracy”. This is when the US ruling elite faced a major challenge to their power in the 1960s – a challenge that came on the backdrop of the rise of the normally passive sectors that sought to enter the political arena to advance their own concerns.

The “improper” initiatives created what the study called a “crisis of democracy” in which the proper functioning of the state was threatened by “excessive democracy”
The study, however conspicuously left out the corporate sector among their “special interests” groups. The Trilateral Commission was made up of liberal internationalists from the US, Europe and Japan and in that context the omission of the corporate sector made perfect sense.

To these people the corporate sector makes the national interest at state level and the same sector makes foreign policy at international level. In this context it becomes natural that state power protects the national interest and foreign policy.

At state level, special interests groups are said to engage in “improper initiatives” or even “lawlessness” whenever they rise to participate in the main political arena. To overcome this crisis, the special interest groups must be restored to their proper function as passive observers and many times this is done by way of police or military force, especially in less developed countries. In the developed communities this is done by media deception, threats by claims of such evils as terrorism or simply by well thought out diversionary tactics.

At international level, the special interests groups are represented by those maverick nation states that pursue economic policies that are popular with their own people but contrary to the liberal imperial world order. These are countries pursuing “improper initiatives” or “unsound policies” that threaten the flow of global capital – in essence the flow of imperial capital from the capitalist centre to the periphery.

Countries that have stood out in seeking to enter the global political arena to advance their own concerns and interests this century include Venezuela, Iran, North Korea, Syria, Zimbabwe, Bolivia and of course Cuba. Some of these countries have been mentioned as members of President George W. Bush’s “axis of evil” and the US has expressed its resolve to end their ambitions at all cost.

Zimbabwe is currently seen as being on the verge of being restored to its proper function as a passive international observer to the global political process. This possibility comes through what is seen as an imminent fall of the Robert Mugabe government otherwise preferably known as the “rogue regime” in Western circles.

Zimbabwe’s “improper initiative” was the decision by the Mugabe government to reclaim land from the minority white settler farmers in 2000 – land that has since been redistributed to thousands of landless peasants. The reply to this mischief from the corporate sector and its political ruling elite in the imperial circles was swift and precise. Zimbabwe was slapped with a blanket travel ban for all its government officials and also wide ranging economic sanctions that have brought the economy to a virtual standstill.

The just ended election would make it appear like the special interests of Zimbabwe, as manifested in the agrarian reforms – can no longer outweigh the need to overcome the hardships brought about by the sanctions-induced economic decline.

Iran and Venezuela seem to be still riding high on their anti-imperialist moves; with Iran insisting on its development of nuclear energy, a programme the US calls the making of a nuclear weapon. Venezuela is adamant that it will have full control of its oil resource and has even kicked out Exxon, the American international oil company.

In all this what is the role of the intellectual? These are the people the masses are told to obey because they are said to be authorities. The culture of the empire has a specific responsibility for intellectuals. Hans Morgenthau, a founder of international relations theory, revealed that this responsibility has a “conformist subservience to those in power.”

Morgenthau was not referring to commissars of the so-called totalitarian regimes but to Western intellectuals, people whom Noam Chomsky says “cannot plead fear but only cowardice and subordination to power.”

The major problem with intellectuals is that they command a history only written by themselves, and not surprisingly, they are often portrayed as defenders of right and justice, upholding the highest values and confronting power and evil with admirable courage and integrity.

The other problem with intellectuals is that they believe that intellect has such a great soul and such a vast range of views beyond the comprehension of the less learned. When one combines this with what John Quincy Adams, one of the founding Presidents of the US, the combination of political power and intellect becomes just deadly.

Said Adams, “Power always thinks it has a great soul and vast views beyond the comprehension of the weak.” As Noam Chomsky put it, this attitude is the root of “the combination of savagery and self-righteousness that infects the imperial mentality – and in some measure, every structure of authority and domination.”

This reverence for that great soul of power is the normal stance of intellectual elites, who always feel like they should be close neighbours to those in the echelons of power.

There are basically two categories of intellectuals and the Trilateral Commission, already cited, offered a very revealing description of these. The study said there is the “technocratic and policy-oriented intellectuals” – responsible for sober, constructive and positive contributions. The study then talks of “value oriented intellectuals,” a sinister grouping who pose a threat to democracy as they devote themselves to “derogating of leadership, the challenging of authority, and the unmasking of established institutions.”

The rightwing enlists the services of technocratic and policy oriented intellectuals and this is why the general doctrine of US foreign policy reigns in Western journalism and almost all scholarship, even among critics of their policies.

The so-called value oriented intellectuals are usually leftist and they are often faced with the two unenviable options of cooption or total sidelining. Their corporate ladder often begins and ends with teaching in universities and colleges while their counterparts, the technocratic and policy-oriented intellectuals, are often destined for diplomatic postings and senior advisory roles to the ruling elite.

To these intellectuals the term interests does not refer to the interests of the population but to what they call “the national interest” – in essence the interests of the concentrations of power that dominate the world system and individual states.

These are the intellectuals who promote American exceptionalism: the thesis that says the United States is unlike any other country, even unlike any other of the great powers, past and present, because it has the God given blessing of fighting for freedom and equality.

It is because of this exceptionalism that the Anglo-American coalition of the US and Britain is portrayed as having a divine right to intervene in countries viewed as less righteous than the West, a judgement passed on the grounds of an astonishing self-anointing by the rightwing intellectuals.

When John Stuart Mill did his highly praised essay titled “A Few Words on Non-Intervention,” he raised the question of whether Britain should intervene in the ugly world or keep to its own business and let the barbarians carry out their savagery unmitigated.

He concluded that Britain should intervene, regardless of what everyone else might think, and all because many people cannot comprehend that England “is a novelty in the world,” an angelic power that seeks nothing for itself and acts only for the benefit of others. To these intellectuals, though England selflessly bears the cost of intervention all by herself, she shares the benefits of her labours with others equally.

How many Zimbabweans agree with this assertion today? Is this not the image we all get when we hear that Gordon Brown’s patience over Robert Mugabe is wearing thin? The world is supposed to see an angelic mission meant to free Zimbabweans when Jendayi Frazer of the US State Department visits the rest of Southern Africa in the name of freeing Zimbabweans from the “tyranny” of Robert Mugabe.

Scholarship and media in the West portrays this picture that tells the world that interests are of a benign effect when the imperialist ruling elite are discussing intervention in countries they view as chaotic.

To these people, everyone must believe that Afghanistan is one good example of a just war, Iraq is one good example of how to get rid of dictatorships and Iran is one good example of a rogue state threatening the peace of the world. Of course Zimbabwe is one good example of how best to run down an economy – the sanctions effect is benign.

All other intellectual inputs to the contrary are from “dissident intellectuals” and “self-styled journalists.”

This writer will assert that all factors affecting the political processes in the global community be interrogated exhaustively in their entirety. The one sided opinions, either from the left or the right, will just mislead people and if this goes unchecked then the trend will continue to be a major threat to world peace.