Chomsky on Anarchism.pdf - Zine Library

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CHOMSKY ON ANARCHISM Vietcong.... Our operations have been designed to make the first choice impossible, the second attractive, and to reduce the likelihood of anyone choosing the third to zero."24 The benefits accruing to the newly urbanized elements have also been amply described in the press, for example, by James Doyle of the Globe, February 22, 1968: Saigon "is a rich city, the bar owners, B-girls, money changers and black marketeers all making their fo rtunes while it lasts. It is a poor city, with hundreds of thousands of refugees crammed into thatched hurs and tin-roofed shacks, more than two million people shoehorned inro 21 square miles." Or Neil Sheehan, in a classic and olten-quoted article (New York Times. October 9. 1966): A drive through Saigon demonstrates another fashion in which the social system works. Virtually all the new construction consists of luxury apartments, hotels and office buildings financed by Chinese businessmen or affiuenr Vietnamese with rdatives or connections within the regime. The buildings are destined to be rented to Americans. Saigon's workers live, as they always have, in fetid slums on the city's outskirrs .... Bars and bordellos, thousands of young Vietnamese women degrading themselves as bar girls and prostitutes, gangs of hoodlums and beggars and children selling their older sisters and picking pockets have become ubiquitous features of urban life. Many have remarked on the striking difference between the way in which the press and rhe visiting scholar describe what they see in Vietnam. It should occasion no surprise. Each is pursuing his own craft. The reporter's job is to describe what he sees before his eyes; many have done so with courage and even brilliance. The colonial administrator, on rhe other hand, is concerned to justifY what he has done and what he hopes to do, and-if an "expert" as well-to construct an appropriate ideological cover, to show (hat we are just and righteous in what we do, and to pur nagging doubts to rest. One sees moral degradation and fetid slums; the other, prosperity and well-being-and if kindly old Uncle Sam occasionally flicks his ashes on someone by mistake, that is surely no reason fo r tantrums. Returning to the collection of scholarly and objective studies in Asian Survey, the first, by Kenneth Young. president of the Asia Society, describes our difficulties in "transferring innovations and institutions to the Vietnamese" and calls for the assistance of social scientists in overcoming these difficulties. Social scientists should, he feels, study "the intricacies that effectively inhibit or transfer what the Americans, either by government policy or by rhe technician's action, want to introduce into the mind of a Vietnamese or into a Vietnamese organization." The problem, in short, is one of communication. For this objective scholar, there is no question of our right to "transfer innovations and institutions to the Vietnamese," by fo rce if necessary, or of our superior insight into the needed innovations or appropriate institutions. In JUSt the 23
OBJECTIVITY AND LIBERAL SCHOLARSHIP same way, Lord Cornwallis understood the necessiry of "transferring the instimtion" of a squirearchy to India-as any reasonable person could see, this was the only civilized form of social organization. The "scholarly objectiviry" that Huntington lauds is further demonstrated in the contribution by Milton Sacks. entitled "Restructuring Government in South Vietnam." As Sacks perceives the siwation, there are two forces in Somh Vietnam, the "nationalists" and the "Communists." The "Communists" are the Vietminh and the NLF; among the "nationalists," he mentions specifically the VNQDD and the Dai Viet (and the military). The "nationalists" have a few problems; fo r example, they "were manipulated by the French, by the Japanese, by the communists and latterly by the Americans," and "too many of South Viemam's leading generals fought with the French against the Vietnamese people. "25 Our problem is the weakness of the nationalists, although there was some hope during General Khanh's government, "a most interesting effort because it was a genuine coalition of representatives of all the major political groups in South Vietnam." Curiously, this highly representative government was unable to accept or even to consider "a proposal for what appeared to be an authentic coalition government" coming from the National Liberation Front in mid-1964.2 6 According to Douglas Pike, the proposal could not be seriously considered because none of the "non-Communists" in South Vietnam, "with the possible exception of the Buddhists, thought them- 24 selves equal in size and power to risk entering into a coalition, fearing that if they did the whale would swallow the minnow." Thus. he continues. "coalition government with a strong NLF could not be sold within South Vietnam," even to the government which. as Sacks informs us. was "a genuine coalition" of "all the major political groups in South Vietnam." R.'lther, the GVN and its successors continued to insist that the NLF show their sinceriry by withdrawing "their armed units and their poli6cal cadres from South Vietnamese territory" (March I, 1965). According to Sacks, "the problem which presents itself is to devise an instimtional arrangement that will tend to counteract the factors and forces which are conducive to that instability" that now plagues Vietnamese political life. This problem. of course, is one that presents itself to us. And, Sacks feels, it is well on its way to solution, with the new constitution and the forthcoming (September 1967) elections, which "will provide spokesmen who claim legitimacy through popular mandate and speak with authoriry on the issues of war and peace for their constimency." Although this "free election ... will still leave unrepresented those who are fighting under the banner of the South Vietnam National Liberation Front and those whose candidates were not permitted to stand in the elections." we must, after all, understand that no institution in the real world can be perfect. The il1l.porrant thing, according to Sacks, is that for the first time since the fall of Diem, there will be elections that are not seen by the government in power simply "as a means of legitimating the power they
Page 2 and 3: CHOMSKY ON ANRRCHISM SELECTED AND E
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OBJECTIVITY AND LIBERAL SCHOLARSHIP
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LRNGURGE FIND FREEDOM human spirit
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LRNGURGE FIND FREEDOM In every anim
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LRNGUAGE AND FREEDOM
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LRNGUAGE AND FREEDOM other facultie
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LRNGURGE FIND FREEDOM 1. 1. 4 deriv
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LRNGUAGE AND FREEDOM ty, or even in
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THREE NOTES ON ANARCHISM (1970) U8
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NOTES ON RNRRCHISM through (he taki
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NOTES ON RNRRCHISM 1. 22 shabby, an
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NOTES ON RNRRCHISM meO( of a man, b
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NOTES ON RNRRCHISM bourgeoisie. It
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NOTES ON RNRRCHISM 1. 28 remarks by
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NOTES ON RNRRCHISM NOTES This essay
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NOTES ON RNRRCHISM 27 For discussio
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THE RElEVANCE OF ANARCHO-SYNDICALIS
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PREFACE TO ANTOLOGIJA ANARHIlMA
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PREFACE TO ANTOLOGIJA ANARHIlMA of
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CONTRINING THE THREAT OF DEMOCRACY
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CONTRINING THE THRERT OF DEMOCRACY
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SEVEN ANARCHISM , MARXISM AND HOPE
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RNRRCHISM, MRRXISM RND HOPE FOR THE
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EIGHT GOALS AND VISIONS (1996) In r
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GOALS AND VISIONS It should be adde
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GOALS AND VISIONS 1928 that "Labour
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GOALS AND VISIONS understand what l
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GOALS AND VISIONS 1. 98 assisted ma
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GOALS AND VISIONS Medicine cites th
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GOALS AND VISIONS 202 It is intrigu
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GOALS AND VISIONS 204 can be attain
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GOALS AND VISIONS power lies elsewh
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GOALS AND VISIONS funds that serve
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GOALS AND VISIONS Minnesota Press,
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NINE ANARCHISM, INTELLECTUALS AND T
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ANARCHISM, INTEllECTUALS FIND THE S
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ANARCHISM, INTEllECTUALS FIND THE S
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ANARCHISM, INTEllECTUALS AND THE ST
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INTERVIEW WITH BRRRY PRTEMRN I was
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INTERVIEW WITH BRRRY PRTEMRN every
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INTERVIEW WITH BRRRY PRTEMRN My son
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INTERVIEW WITH BRRRY PRTE MRN reall
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INTERVIEW WITH BRRRY PRTE MRN ing c
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INTERVIEW WITH BRRRY PRTE MRN it-th
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ELEVEN INTERVIEW WITH ZIGA VOD OVN
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INTERVIEW WITH ZIGA VODOVNIK J thin
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INTERVIEW WITH ZIGA VODOVNIK onize
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INTERVIEW WITH ZIGA VODOVNIK What i
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