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'Constant revolutionizing of production, uninterrupted disturbance of all social conditions, everlasting uncertainity and agitation distinquish the bourgeois epoch from all earlier ones ... All that is solid melts into air, all that is holy is profaned.' Marx

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December 5, 2004

Tom Nairn's response to Timothy Garton Ash's Free World is critical. He says:


"While glad of release from doom, however, one may still have serious doubts about the recipe Free World offers us. A more free, democratic world must be due, beyond the crisis: but on these terms, and argued for in this way?....a grim vein of truth does emerge from his new story — not quite intended, but impressive all the same. What he’s pleading for is, in effect, a globe of “special relationships”, bonding yet non–constraining. And such relations could indeed proliferate along his super–motorway bridge."

This bridge-buiilding in terms of 'special relationships' is happening--eg., Australia and the US and Britain and the US.

So what is the problem? nairn says:


"It is not that I pine in any way for warriors and prophets, who stand reconfirmed in the camp of great–power conviction after Bush’s 2 November 2004 victory. No, my doubts about any re–baptised Free World are far more conservative and mundane. All I’m arguing for is nations, minus the dratted “–ism”: democratic–national independence, diverse, ordinary, even boring rather than 18th century museum–pieces, or dictators, or hustlers like Blair and Berlusconi."

The America of Bush, the Australia of Howard and the Britain of Blair is full of nationalism. The nationalism of the Australian and Britain l disguises the subservience of these nation states to the US.

| Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at 3:15 PM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (2)
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Listed below are links to weblogs that reference :

» Free World? from Crooked Timber
From an interview with Timothy Garton Ash, (Mother Jones): [Read More]

» Free World? from pas au-delà
Ash is the author of Free World: America, Europe and the Surprising Future of the West. A brilliant, must-read critique of the book here (courtesy of the s lot). Related posts at the brand spanking new Progressive Blog Alliance HQ. Incidentally, if o... [Read More]

 
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