Dear all,
This morning the "New York Times" reports a deadly fire in Egypt. It seems to have been handled by the Egyptian authorities is a way that reminds me of the U.S. federal response to Katrina -- confusion, little information available for the affected, highly visible use of heavily armed military. I was struck by a quote by one of those grieving, "They don't care about us," referring to the government
(http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/07/international/africa/07egypt.html?th&emc=th ).
Over the past week we have read and heard statements that echo that perception of national government by the speaker in Egypt.
This brings to mind Ulrich Beck's book, "The Risk Society," and the question of what the basis of legitimate authority of the nation state is, or should be, in the 21st Century. A few years ago I published in the U.N. Chronicle and elsewhere an appeal for development of an international treaty that would assert protection from avoidable harm in extreme natural events to be a duty of the nation state. I suggested that this protection should be seen as a positive human right (http://www.un.org/Pubs/chronicle/2000/issue4/0400p6p.htm ).
That was 2001. By 2005 the forces of economic globalization and neo-liberal ideology in the U.S. and many other countries have further eroded support for a "rights driven" approach to human development. The "culture of prevention" has been reinterpreted in the U.S. as a matter of individual responsibility. "Lean government," and "less government" have become uncriticized standards that are being exported and imposed on poor countries as part of debt forgiveness conditionality.
Meanwhile the phrase "good government" and "governance" is on every lip in U.N. agencies, donor country aid agencies, NGOs, and was heard echoing through the conference rooms on Port Island, Kobe, Japan during the World Conference on Disaster Reduction in January 2005.
What all of this suggests to me is that the political aftermath of Katrina is not simply "political" in the short term sense of electoral challenge, "spin," and Congressional investigations. The situation in the U.S. and elsewhere raises fundamental questions about the function and legitimacy of the nation state. Beck's inspiration is Jurgen Habermas, a great political philosopher. One of his seminal works was, indeed, entitled, "Legitimation Crisis."
Ben Wisner
[log in to unmask]
|