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Volume 2, Number 2-k, 1996COMMENT ON WAGAR David Schwartzman Department of Biology Howard University Washington, DC 20059 USA dws@scs.howard.edu Copyright 1996 by David Schwartzman. v. 6/10/96 Wagar's paper is most welcome for reviving attention to the vital role that a transnational political party might play in global politics. I fully agree with Warren that globalization from above is the material reality that will, sooner or later, engender the self-organization of a countervailing "globalization from below," including the emergence of world parties. His vision is both utopian and "as radical as reality itself." While progressive transnational organizations like Greenpeace are well known, it is not widely recognized that there is a world party presently organized, the Transnational Radical Party (TRP), an outgrowth, or more like an appendage, of the Italian Radical Party (see full page ads in the N.Y. Times, 9/28/94, 10/28/94; for U.S. citizens to join the membership fee was $255!). In existence since 1993 (?), with a claimed international membership of 50,000, including [Page 1]
parliamentarians from every continent, its focus has been
primarily on gaining a moratorium on the death penalty worldwide,
an international tribunal to try war crimes in former Yugoslavia
(now formed) and the legalization of drugs. TRP now has
consultative status as a Category I NGO in the UN, qualifying it,
unlike Greenpeace and many other progressive NGOs, with being able
to introduce draft resolutions which may even reach the General
Assembly (only 42 NGOs have this status, e.g., the International
Red Cross). Up to now, the TRP has not addressed the challenge of
constraining the global power of the transnational corporations
and banks, an absence which may reflect its libertarian ideology
and tilt to supporting U.S. foreign policy positions. With all of
its limitations and lack of real challenge to global capital, the
TRP does partially fill a political vacuum, a vacuum likely to be
filled with other world parties in this decade, including I
predict at least one sponsored by transnational capital itself.
The TRP has made extensive use of the Internet in their global
outreach (to get their communiques, send an E-mail to
listserv@agora.stm.it, note SUBSCRIBE TRANSNAT Firstname Lastname;
"owner" is radical.party@agora.stm.it). Arguably, utilization of
the Internet is a necessary (but of course not sufficient)
condition for the emergence and organization of a Wagarian
ecosocialist world party (henceforth "WP").
What is a plausible scenario for the emergence of a WP? In
contrast to Wallerstein's arguments regarding the possibility of
the "deghettoization" of anti-systemic movements, Wagar emphasizes
their national exclusiveness, downplaying the new material basis
for their possible synergistic convergence. For example, a
rebirth of the U.S. trade union movement (now a realistic
possibility with new leadership of the AFL-CIO), is arguably a
necessary condition for shifting politics to the left in the U.S.,
and by its multiplier effects, in much of the rest of the planet.
[Page 2]
This development in turn depends increasingly on its convergence
with the anti-systemic movements of people of color and women,
since these sectors constitute the core of the most organizable
sectors. Similarly, with NAFTA, U.S. trade unions are forced to
confront the necessity of building transnational labor solidarity.
Of course other "convergences" are required for a WP, particularly
that of the "red" and "green" movements - the emergence of
"ecosocialism" - that can bring into being both a new vision of
socialism and a movement to achieve it. Viable socialist
internationalism should now be centered on the struggle for a
sustainable global economy, entailing equity in North/South
economic and ecological relations. Viable green politics must
increasingly adopt a perspective for democratization of the
economy, for social governance of production and consumption.
Again, there are multifold grounds to argue that the objective
basis for this convergence is growing out of the phenomenon of
globalization. To be sure there is nothing inevitable about these
prospects, given the countervailing forces, above all racism,
sexism, and nationalism, fragmenting the national and
international workforce and dividing national movements. But
confronting this challenge is both the burden and the immense
opportunity for an emergent transnational political movement along
the lines of the WP.
Some see the real hope in capturing the imagination of the
youth: "The alternative to nationalism is not an abstract and
bureaucratic internationalism; it is supranationalism. Despite the
dreary deterioration of educational systems, the attraction of
supranationalism exists among the young, whose idealism is not
extinct" (John Lukacs, N.Y. Times, 1/8/93, p.A25). Wagar argues
that this supranationalist movement in the form of the WP should
be guided by the secular ideology rooted in the Enlightenment. I
would agree so long as the WP reaches out to humanist currents in
[Page 3]
the world religious movements. The WP should make full use of
contemporary world science (no longer "Western") to fight against
all retrogressive ideologies that divide humanity into "races" and
castes, that subordinate and oppress women and sexual minorities.
Instead of "multiracial," the movement against racism should be
"transracial," embodying a critique of the concept of race as a
biological category (the racists invented this classification of
H. sapiens); the unavoidable use of the word race carries its
racist biological baggage (see essays in Harding, 1993).
The WP should strive to represent humanity's common interests
in national and local struggles, while recognizing the vital role
of the anti-systemic movements, and above all labor, movements
which are bound to have nationalistic distortions. The
contradictory character of individual multiple identities of
participants in each anti-systemic movement is reflected in the
limits of its agendas and achievements in local/national
struggles, but it is also an opening for the presence of
transnational consciousness. In other words, globalization from
below is bound to have a complex and uneven development. To
pretend that a WP could emerge in a mode of pure conversion
without being deeply rooted in national anti-systemic movements is
idealist in a most anti-utopian sense. The WP's first
constituency is natural: the minority non-geographical community
in every nation state that is active in anti-systemic movements,
particularly among the youth, i.e., those who are consciously
"planetary citizens." The pessimistic assessments of the
feasibility of organizing a WP may well be correct (e.g.,
Wallerstein's remarks at the ASA panel), but we will never know
unless a serious attempt is made in that direction. Let us begin!
Some ideas on moving ahead with the very initial steps to
forming the WP: a study of the Transnational Radical Party would
be most useful as well as circulating draft principles,
[Page 4]
manifestos, calls, organizational ideas, and near-term scenarios. Any such effort should naturally assume a transnational character from the beginning. I close with an updated quotation: "The World Party does not form a separate party opposed to other progressive parties. It has no interests separate and apart from those of humanity as a whole. It does not set up sectarian principles of its own, by which to shape and mold the movement for a sustainable global economy in a healthy planetary environment. The World Party is distinguished from the other progressive parties by this only: 1) In the national struggles of progressives in different countries, it points out and brings to the front the common interests of all of humanity, independently of all nationality. 2) In the various stages of development which the struggle for global sustainability has to pass through, it always and everywhere represents the interests of the movement as a whole." (after The Communist Manifesto, with apologies to K. Marx and W. Warren Wagar) References Harding, Sandra (editor). 1993. The "Racial" Economy of Science. Indiana University Press. Schwartzman, D. 1992. A World Party. Vehicle of Global Green Left. Ecosocialist Review, Spring, 4-5. [Page 5] |
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