By Johan Galtung
PENANG, Malaysia, Feb 9 2015 (IPS)

A theory serves comprehension, prediction and identification of conditions for change. Seven such historical-cultural pointers will be indicated for China – using the West in general, and the United States in particular, for comparison.

Look at a map combining world history and geography, time and space. China shows up through 4,000 years as relatively coherent dynasties with complex transitions and the West as empires-birth-growth-peaking-decline-fall, like the Roman, British and now U.S. empires – duration vs bubbles that burst, China-centric vs hegemonic.

Johan Galtung

China marginalised space peopled by South-West-North-East barbarians – outside the “Chinese pocket” between the Himalayas-Gobi desert-Tundra-Sea, except for the East China-East Africa silk roads, destroyed by Portugal and England from 1500, colonising Macao-Hong Kong.

A goal of current Chinese foreign policy is to restore the silk roads and lanes: high speed trains for Eurasia, cooperating for mutual and equal benefit, harmony.

The United States marginalises time by disregarding past history, and with the idea that creates future New Beginnings for immigrants, and New History for itself, for other countries, for the whole world.

For Daoism, valid knowledge is holistic and dialectic, based on big, complex units of thought (whole humans, China, the world) riveted by forces and counter-forces, yin-yang, good vs bad, themselves yin-yang, with what is suppressed growing and what is dominant declining until the next turn. The holon may jump from one contradiction tapering off to the next.

For the West, valid knowledge is based on subdivision and accumulation of knowledge about elements, woven together in theories.

For Mao Zedong the basic contradiction was foreign imperialism with landowners vs the people, students-peasants-workers. The 1949 revolution started a distribution vs growth dialectic with jumps every nine years (1958-1967-1976): Mao’s death, four chaotic years.“China shows up through 4,000 years as relatively coherent dynasties with complex transitions and the West as empires-birth-growth-peaking-decline-fall, like the Roman, British and now U.S. empires”

For Deng Xiaopeng, it was misery vs lack of growth. The 1980 revolution accumulated capital with farmers near cities and in Shenzen (26 percent annual growth), and re-created merchants. Then nine years distribution vs growth again: from 1989 (Tiananmen!) distribution, 1998, 2007, 2016: new focus on growth.

China draws on Daoist insights, on Confucian ideas of hierarchies with harmony, and Buddhist small community equality: Buddhism for distribution, Confucianism for growth, Daoism for jumps between them.

The West could have drawn upon the positives in Judaism, Christianity and Islam, but focused on negatives for discrimination-prejudice-war-genocide – now as Judeo-Christianity vs Islam – with unused synergies.

Chinese Mandarin rulers combined rule by rules with high culture, over farmers and artisans, and merchants marginalised at the bottom; Western aristocrat rulers combined rule with force, trade and clergy benediction; later to become State, Capital, Intelligentsia. A basic difference was marginalisation vs integration of merchants.

The Chinese Emperors were Sons of the Heaven trading with those who paid tribute to the Emperor; in the West, Heaven was the only God for the whole world at all time, creating and taking life, the monarch being the only person with a Mandate from God-rex gratia dei-by the grace of God, also entitled to take life, delegated to His army.

The English refused to pay tribute, using opium wars, “gunboat diplomacy”, burning (with the French) the imperial palace instead; China was never violent outside the “pocket” (except when provoked by India in 1962).

The Mandate of the Heaven is lost when People shout in the streets, and regained by addressing their grievances and ideas in the ancient petition system – by “idea democracy, not arithmetic democracy”; the West counting votes in multi-party national fair and free elections.

The Cultural Revolution shouted in the streets against Confucian rule by older men with high education from East China, paving the way for the young, the women and West China – also in 80 million educated “communist” Party members, presumably wise enough to understand the yin-yang dialectics. Tiananmen 1989 was not about democracy, “no votes for uneducated”, but – like Hong Kong (?) – about losing their feudal position to wealthy farmers, merchants, private and state capitalists.

China is China-centric, the deep culture is still holistic-dialectic with a Western surface, the three civilisations synergy is there. So is the Chinese inability to handle the “pocket”: Taiwan-Tibet-Uighurs-Mongolians-Vietnamese-Koreans.

But China indeed went global; trading with barbarians; upgrading merchants-traders-money people; accumulating huge wealth. Mao opened up society for huge masses of Chinese, the young, women, and the West; Deng lifted the bottom 300-400 million up 1991-2004, with the communist focus on the needs of the neediest, into capitalism: capi-communism. Beijing 1980: six million bicycles 0 private cars; 2010: 0 vs five million.

The West, out-competed by BRICS (Brazil-Russia-India-China-South Africa), did more killing than learning.

China’s ruling class, steeped in culture, linked dynastic cycles to yin-yang thought, and traders to barbarians. Today’s rulers, deep in money shouting to beget more money, link money to corruption – and speculation? And competition from Latin America+Africa – shouting in the streets may send China packing – and the end of a dynasty is near.

China’s lead is not forever. Nothing ever was. Except, maybe, some China. A more spiritual dynasty, after materialist “communism”? (END/IPS COLUMNIST SERVICE)

Edited by Phil Harris   

The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of, and should not be attributed to, IPS – Inter Press Service. 

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By Johan Galtung
LIVERPOOL, Feb 4 2013 (IPS)

The Middle East-North Africa – MENA — is Arab-Muslim with a growing Jewish island in its midst. It was colonised for over four centuries by the Sunni Ottoman Turks, then the secular West, United Kingdom-France-Italy — for half a century and is now under Israeli colonialism and U.S. imperialism.

Johan Galtung

The latter two have controlled MENA through dictatorships, condoning violence and corruption as long as they support U.S.-Israel policies in the area. The Arab awakening is against the violence in favour of democracy, against corruption in favour of growth and jobs, and against U.S.-Israel domination. There is also a Muslim awakening — to believe that Islam tolerates imposed secularism is incredibly naive. But there are many Islams, like there are multiple Christianities and Judaisms.

How does the U.S.-Israel react, and what would be a positive reaction to their reaction — keeping in mind that this is old colonial territory?

U.S. policy is, by and large, state building – with U.S. as model, with multi-party national elections and “free” markets controlled by multinationals in general, private banks and finance banking in particular, also controlling elections. On maps states have one colour, so states are seen as unitary, with one market for the economy, one state for multi-party elections, and one political focus: the capital. Multicoloured maps showing the nations and fault-lines inside might be enlightening.

That reality is used to fragment states that stand in the way: the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia were divided into 15 and seven states, some now members of NATO or the European Union.

States seen as Islamist-terrorist are in for the same: Sudan-Somalia broken into two and three parts. They are both on the list of seven countries the White House ordered the Pentagon to “take out” right after 9/11 (general Wesley Clark, Democracy Now, Mar. 2, 2007): Iraq, Iran, Libya, Lebanon, Syria, Sudan, Somalia; seen as hostile, with state, not private central banks, blocking market globalisation.

For Israel what matters most are the neighbours. From the early beginning this is the usual story of violence and counter-violence read two ways. The Israeli reading is violence against a Jewish homeland becoming a state, legitimised by the Shoa in general; and counter-violence to defend that emerging state. The Arab reading is an Israel established by violence, the Nakba, and counter-violence to contain the expansion of that state. A typical example of two truths that do not add up to one Truth. The result is an endless, fruitless, angry exchange of accusations about who started what, where, and when. A Truth would go beyond fruitless quarrels, identifying a stop. An end to escalation, acceptable to both: like Jun. 4, 1967, with swaps.

However, that symmetry breaks down when Israel still expands – invades-occupies-lays siege – on ever more Arab-Palestinian territory. And even more so when visions of a Greater Israel take shape:

Scenario 1: from the Mediterranean to Jordan;

Scenario 2: from the Nile to the Euphrates (Genesis 15:18), where nine countries are located. Both scenarios are for Jews only, Jewish states.

In search of recognised and secure borders? Only by forcing Arab-Muslim states into submission, dissolving them into mini-states, using internal fault-lines. The list would certainly include Pakistan, a doubly artificial construct, and a nuclear power. Israel’s Mossad and the Indian army’s Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) cooperate against Pakistan.

Assuming that Lebanon and Iraq – like Palestine – are fragmented, that Jordan is kept for a possible Scenario 1, that Libya is steeped in internal provincial-clan-racial-religious fights, what remains of the seven countries are Syria and Iran. Israeli press mentions a partition of Syria into four states: Shia Alawite, Sunni, Druze and Kurdish (in the Northeast). Egypt, Tunisia are resilient.

The approach to Iran — no colonial construct, fault-lines (Kurds, Azeris, Arabs in Khuzistan) but less vulnerable – is bombing, based on U.S.-Israeli division of labour, the shared accusation that Iran is close to their status as nuclear powers, and the shared, fabricated lie that president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said in a speech in Tehran on Oct. 25, 2005: “Israel must be wiped off the map”. He never said that, but quoted imam Ruhollah Khomeini: “The Imam said this regime occupying Jerusalem must vanish from the page of time”. And mentioned three examples of such regimes: the Shah of Iran, the Soviet Union and Saddam Hussein. History tells us that regimes come and go; countries, even states, remain.

The U.S. strategy in the region, to use existing states and bend them to their economic purposes – like imposing private central banks in all seven — is doomed to fail because of inner fault-lines. The Israeli strategy is more intelligent, using fault-lines to fragment states.

In all these cases how much fragmentation is by U.S.-Israeli design and how much by inner tensions will sooner or later be better known.

What would be the Arab-Muslim counter-strategy?

(1) Federations. Fault-lines are real and most people want to be governed by their own kind in autonomous sub-states with common foreign-security-finance-logistics policies. Forty percent of humanity lives in 25 federations, and there is much to learn from Mother Switzerland.

(2) Confederations-communities. Tie them together in strong solidarity communities resisting divide and rule policies.

Do both, and the Arab-Muslim world is more resilient than today.

(END/COPYRIGHT IPS)

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