Maia Ramnath - Decolonizing Anarchism.pdf - Libcom

228 I Ramnath
its sustainability as well as people's access to it."2H The state
that once upon a time "had so confidently joined in Third
World struggle against hegemonic powers, had been a pillar
of the non-aligned movement, and had followed a modcl
of self-reliance based on a measure of de-linking from the
world capitalist system, has today fallen so easy a prey to
the doctrines of ... integration into the world market, and
to the homogenising spread of high tech, high consumerism,
ecological destruction and ethnic genocide."29 In other
words, it was being re- or ncocolonized.
Furthermore, Kothari contended, its repressiveness
was directly rdated to its increasing alienness and separateness
from society: lacking hegemonic consent or a sense
oflegitimate representativeness, the only recourse was to
fo rce. He concluded one article by saying that
our overview is of the decline of the state as a legitimate
instrument of social will and its being
sidetracked by new constellations of power and resources-corporate
capitalism with its global reach,
COnll11Unai and ethnic forn1ations .. . :llso leJ.ding to
its growing decline as an authoritative organ of civil
society which was at one time supposed to possess
a monopoly of coercive power and violence. What
remains of the state is, of course, being turned over
to agents of violence and terror, all the way from
police and the military to mafia criminal gangs .
. . . There is taking place a growing breakdown
of authority of the state in the wake of its being
challenged by a growing incidence of revolts and