João Carlos Graça
All internationalisms have enjoyed their time of glory, empowered by their sincere supporters, but all of them ended up basically in failure.
In an article published in Consortium News, Patrick Lawrence raises an extremely important question, arguably one of the most important questions Russia's and China's diplomacies must face in our days. How exactly, asks Lawrence, was Vasily Nebenzya capable of making the following extraordinary shift in the UN Security Council meeting of March 11th ? On the one hand, we have his impeccable, excellent, straight formulated objections to resolution 2817, via which the "Security Council", with a dementedly high level of obsequiousness for the Empire, condemned Iran for defending itself from U.S.-Israel treacherous attacks:
"To our deep regret, the resolution that has just been adopted is framed precisely in such a biased and one-sided tone. It muddles up the cause and effect. If someone who is not well versed in international affairs reads this resolution, they will inevitably get the impression that Tehran, willingly and out of malice, conducted an unprovoked attack on Arab countries. At the same time, the attacks against the territory of Iran itself, let alone those who are behind them and carrying them out, are not only not condemned in the document but simply left out. And the Security Council has just signed off on this."
On the other hand, we unfortunately must also face Nebenzya's meek abstention in the respective vote. Russia, as well as China, could have stood firm, and defended the honor and the mental sanity of humanity - but instead chose once more to shift trajectory, evade confrontation and let go. Moreover, this comes when everybody paying a modicum of attention to international politics must also remember THE other crucial abstention of Russia and China not so many years ago, back in 2011, the one that gave green light to NATO's lynching of Libya.
It is simply heartbreaking. There's no way around it. Russia's diplomat, Lawrence adds, should instead have produced not a whimper, but a bang, coming up with a "vociferously delivered veto of 2817". What's more: he should also have vehemently "banged his shoe on his desk in protest". It is impossible for me not to applaud Lawrence's comments. But, on the other hand, the reasons he calls for these observations are much more debatable than the conclusions he extracts. The key point of contention, from my perspective, is the avocation of the very notion of "internationalism".
Misgoverning the world: Varieties of internationalism
Humankind is, of course, divided/organized under many forms and according to several various criteria. Besides, in the "United Nations" the basic entities are obviously not nations per se, but states. Humans are assumed to live associated within different nations that in turn putatively express themselves as different states, and the entire purpose of the UN is to render them as compatible and harmonious as possible. Notice that such reasoning doesn't imply that the so-called "civilization-states" are reproachable by principle: they are really assumed here to be a mere variant of "nation-states", having potentially various ethnic groups, but at the end of the day articulating still one certain nation, supposedly engendered by that multiplicity of ethnicities.
The key background assumption of the very existence of the UN is that such compatibility is basically possible. States that convey the self-determination of the various nations may occasionally collide out of short-termism, lack of discernment or simply misunderstandings, but the basic, long run, enlightened self-interest of the various nations are allegedly harmonious, or at least compatible.
This reasoning is itself an expression of one form of internationalism: the internationalism of nationalisms, according to which, if every nation is given its self-determination and thus finds the state that is its true soulmate, matching it nicely, then thanks to these elective affinities the very reasons for wars will tend to simply wither away. The enlightened patriot of one certain country fundamentally understands (and sympathizes with) the motives of the enlightened patriot of another country. There are not unsolvable motives for conflicts for these two; nothing that dialogue, presumably reinforced by peaceful commerce, can't supersede. Wars will be gone when humanity is finally organized into nation-states, instead of empires and/or city-states.
The 19th century, abundant in the production of this variety of internationalism, created also other important species of the same genus: namely the proletarian internationalism, the internationalism of free-trade, and the technocratic internationalism, the last one in turn subdivisible into the internationalisms of engineers, of economic advisors, and of lawyers. This is basically how the mental map of internationalism in the 19th and 20th centuries was put forward by Mark Mazower in his 2013 milestone book " Governing the World: The History of an Idea, 1815 to the Present".
Following Mazower's presentation, all internationalisms have undoubtedly enjoyed their time of glory, empowered by their sincere supporters, even enthusiasts, but all of them ended up basically in failure. With one important failure, too, being the last (post-1991) version of internationalism, correspondent to the U.S.-cum-Enlarged-West's project to somehow reframe the UN and the other world institutions, aiming at some form of straight expression of the "global civil society" (that was assumed to exist) and to be directly connectable, thus short-circuiting the mediation of existing states, with a World Government. This endeavor, in turn, was supposedly maintained by the U.S. military might, with its raw power transformed into true authority by the U.S. might also in the realm of the noosphere, and operating particularly based in the group of allegations usually associated with the so-called "humanitarian" and "ecological" causes.
All of this, Mazower admitted, was arguably untenable and incoherent from the start, expressed a rather biased (West-centered, or even straightforwardly U.S.-centered) version of facts and of problems, and was already in deep crisis, if not altogether moribund, thirteen years ago, when Mazower's book was initially published.
Therefore, we're back to square one: the old, but also "forever young" internationalism of nationalisms that arguably found its ultimate expression in the basic architecture of the UN. It is true that nations (or, more exactly, states that are their political expression) act according to their interests and obey the so-called "international law" only inasmuch they assess it convenient for them to maintain that obedience. The conclusion is thus imposed that we remain always fully into the realm of Machiavelism, with "law" being here just one more (rhetorical) weapon to use, among the many various other weapons.
But the fact is that, at the same time, the multiplicity of intervening parties, and the variety of their perspectives, tends to segregate a sort of surrogate for a "public sphere", with rhetorics partly replacing arms, or at least taming them, and the division of powers, as well as the variability of the systems of alliances, inducing the devices of checks-and-balances that are supposed to "civilize" customs, even though not truly "moralizing" them. In other words: absent good intentions, at least formal honor is supposed to end up being tenable, and even necessary, as a subproduct and a side benefit of the interaction of a multitude of thieves.
Within this context, the avocation of the species of internationalism usually associated with Cuba was and is, let us now assert that bluntly, mostly an imposture or a misunderstanding. The very idea, typical of the 19th century socialist and communist movements, that the global, international solidarity of classes was destined to replace the Babel Tower configured by the division of humankind into many nations - is basically false. The national solidarities are, simply put, considerably more important than class solidarities - regardless of the more recent revival of these ideas, or more exactly their symmetric image, matching the notion of a global administration by the worldwide economic rulers, the united-plutocrats-of-the-world that often express their purpose to create an alleged global government (actually global misgovernment) à la Davos or more or less similar to that.
Separation of waters
Transnational movements are, of course, something to ponder. Think, for example, of the universal religions, or the secularized version of those that are the various political "isms". But they don't replace or evade the one fundamental "system of classification" of persons that are nations. If, to be more explicit, I am Portuguese, the one and only identity that is admittedly prior and precedent to that is the one referring to my human condition. All other belongings (familial, professional, religious, ideological, political, economic...) are subaltern to my nationality. Even idiomatic affinities are submitted to that, notwithstanding their enormous importance.
Much more so regarding the political affinities that, during the entire 20th century, have induced political agents into so many tragic mistakes, in good measure because of the equivoques of "internationalism". Admitting that such topic would require a lot of more detailed discussion, I nevertheless submit immediately that one of the best things that Uncle Joe did in his long political career was precisely the dissolution of the Third (or Communist) International, back in the 1940s.
True, the "internationalist" variety of arguments reappeared soon afterwards, associated with the USSR's victory over Nazism and the redesign of the map of central-eastern Europe. But think of the mess, the huge number of problems that the Soviets ran into, precisely because of falling for the local communists' pressures, thus shifting from the strict purpose of "collective security" into doctrinaire external policies, indeed into armed proselytism. No way. No "proletarian internationalism" is a possible sound basis for a good external policy, even of a state assuming itself as a socialist project.
A quite different problem is, however, the one configured by the decolonization processes after 1945. There, the USSR played basically a good and relevant role. Not because of some imaginary "proletarian" inspiration, but basically because it was an important supporter of the emerging nationalisms. In other terms, it was on the side of the internationalism of nationalisms. According to Luciano Canfora, 1956, the "year of the separation of waters", was precisely the crucial year in this regard, the moment when the USSR emerged simultaneously as an important champion of the "Third Word", or the "Global South", via its support to Gamal Abdel Nasser's Egypt against the colonial powers, and as the oppressor of central-eastern Europe, via its disastrous intervention in Imre Nagy's Hungary. (And also, very importantly, in a path of decisive, irreversible rupture with its former protégé, Israel, given the new alignment with Egypt and the Arab cause).
The Appollo 13 of humanity's sense of decency
Now, Cuba configures a totally different question from the mess the Soviets ran into Eastern Europe because of the sirens of "internationalism". The island, let us now recall, had been preemptively "liberated" by the USA from Spain back in 1898, via the lies-based "splendid little war", with the purpose of avoiding its full independence, and so it remained (submitted to the infamous "Platt Amendment") until the victory of Fidel Castro and his compañeros.
Ever since its New Year's 1959 revolution, Cuba has undoubtedly done a lot of service for humankind, for which this one is still vastly indebted. Think, for example, of the assistance given to Angola's decolonization and to the very preservation of Angolan unity in the period after 1974, as Patrick Lawrence rightly points out - assistance, I must now add, regarding which one cannot avoid noting with dismal the strange, absolute muteness of the Angolan government during the present Cuban hardships.
But not only regarding the military support to Angola and other national liberation causes was Cuba to become noteworthy. Arguably above everything else, we must also refer the outstanding service made to public health all over the world - including as beneficiary even its northern neighbor, the "sicko" society of the USA, as nicely illustrated in Michael Moore's famous movie.
Also, during the COVID crisis, Cuba, a country approximately the size of Portugal and submitted by the U.S. embargos to a colossal number of restrictions that fortunately don't affect the Portuguese, and that these are mostly not even capable of imagining, stepped forwards immediately to help many countries with doctors and medical material, including various (repugnantly ungrateful) European countries, Portugal one of them. And was even capable of rapidly advancing vaccines that it autonomously produced and offered the "EU" to commercialize at low cost - all, of course, for the big concern of Josep Borrell, the grotesque Borrell, who emphatically voiced his infamous recommendation for everybody to not trust the "mask diplomacy" of Cuba (and Russia, and China); and, of course, also the mammoth anxiety of Ursula von der Pfizer...
These are, unquestionably, the deeds for which Cuba is going to be remembered in perpetuity. These the accomplishments for which it is and will be, beyond any reasonable doubt, allowed to proclaim that "I am happy because I'm giant" ("Y soy feliz porque soy gigante") (see Silvio Rodriguez's lyrics here, and Chico Buarque's version here).
But is there any "internationalism" identifiable here ? That would probably not be my word of choice, but, if that is the case, from within those identified by Mazower, the variety of internationalism truly referable to Cuba is certainly the internationalism of nationalisms: the patriot of any "normal" nation considers the patriot of another "normal" nation, and immediately and fully sympathizes with him.
Beyond that, however, dare I suggest, there is in the case of Cuba yet another imperative: one indeed fully pan-human imperative that is somehow even more important and overwhelmingly compelling. The Caribbean Island may really be called, in the present moment, the Appollo 13 of the sense of decency of humankind. No matter the aspects for which this mission to the limits of human experience may retrospectively be deemed to have achieved success, or instead produced failure, the most important thing now is definitely to bring it back alive to the common bosom of humanity, by tearing it from the clutches of its predator.
I would not like to be remembered as a person somehow in charge if, God forbids, that rescue mission was destined not to be accomplished. Certainly not on my watch.