The Conception of a Rules-Based International Order and the Role of Measuring, Standards and Human Agency to Advance from Opening to Opening
Rules are not at the level of law. By using discretionary powers, rules are something that can be policed by those who control the rules. The fraud of what is referred to as a "rules-based international order" is that there are those who control the rules and decide according to their sole discretion what it takes to follow the rules and the punishments for failure to abide by the rules. Palestine is an example where the U.S. and Israel decide what the rules are, such as what constitutes self-defence, who is breaking them and the punishment merited. Their declarations and decisions are seen as utterly irrational, as well as self-serving and reactionary, as there is a complete lack of standards which accord with international law. Unless the standards on the basis of which decisions and declarations can be judged are rational, the decisions and declarations reveal how incoherent and unacceptable they are to the peoples who they target.
So too in Canada and other countries these arguments are used to defame people, criminalize conscience and speech and mete out crimes and punishments in a spurious manner which serves the aim of isolating the peoples' movements which affirm their rights. At the May 7 UN Security Council debate on multilateralism, the incoherence of the argument presented by Blinken was obvious. The policy that might makes right is in the past, he claimed saying: "When countries came together after World War II to form the United Nations, virtually all of human history up till then indicated that might made right. Competition inevitably led to collision. The rise of a nation or group of nations necessitated the fall of others." Then, he said, by forming the United Nations, "our nations united in choosing a different path." Note how a perspective of time orientation is given, a feeling of going forward in time conveyed by his sequence of "in the past" followed by "then." But this going forward in time is separate from the actual before and after. His "before" is: "might makes right." He follows this by saying that when might makes right nowadays, yes, there are a lot of problems. "In the years since, we've faced daunting challenges, from the divisions of the Cold War, the vestiges of colonialism, and the times the world stood by in the face of mass atrocities. And today, conflicts, injustice, and suffering around the globe underscore how many of our aspirations remain unfulfilled." His point is to say that, for the U.S. going forward, there is a future which is not based on "might makes right." That was "in the past." Today, he says, we have "commitment": we have done these crimes in the past but now we are committed to change. People then look at the U.S. policy on Palestine and ask themselves how this commitment applies to Palestine where the U.S. support for Israel's use of might is causing untold devastation and suffering. Strong in the popular consciousness is that this is wrong. But what is not readily understood is that there are rules which are being followed over which they exercise no control whatsoever. This is the "rules-based international order" advocated by the U.S. imperialists and countries such as Canada. In their striving for world domination, the U.S. imperialists use whatever means and arguments they see fit.
The positions are not coherent. The peoples of the world raise the most legitimate question: why not just stop it? When someone in authority, like Biden or Blinken, make such incoherent statements which abide by no standards, how are people to judge either statement? The "rules-based international order" cannot but be seen as irrational. A rule is supposed to be something that anyone can take into account. It furnishes a standard against which anyone can measure what is taking place. They can see if what is occurring measures up to that standard. To take the measure of something involves publicly recognizing a standard which is independent of oneself and following that standard. Following rules is not a matter of inventing things as one goes along or interpreting things in an incoherent or self-serving manner. It is rather the recognition of a measure and standard established in a manner which accords with a reality outside of oneself. Genocide and aggression, for example, can be measured based on the public standards that have been established for them, with a due process to implement them. The same can be said if we refer to rules for sports, which are to be followed independent of the individual interpretation or feelings of this or that player. Even the discretion accorded a referee follows a standard to measure if the rules are being followed or not. So too when speaking of the rules of the road or in any other field; there is recognition of a measure and standard to follow. Following rules involves the relationship of cause and effect. However, when speaking of a "rules-based international order," this relationship of cause and effect is used by the rulers to cause confusion. It is the main problem the peoples have to contend with when dealing with this conception of a "rules-based international order." It signifies the use of fraud in the disinformation perpetrated by the state in order to deprive people of an outlook. In practical terms, it brings disorientation in terms of cause and effect. The need to follow rules is premised on the recognition that there is something which requires sorting out. But if there is no fidelity to a principle, such as Palestine's right to be, then the demand to follow the rules, based on the claim that they will sort the matter out, is merely for purposes of disorienting people. It is one of the ways of defrauding history. The fact is that Israel was a creation of the post-WWII development of the United Nations. International law provides the standard for judging that Israel is an occupying power violating all standards of conduct acceptable to humanity. It must be kept in mind that in the post World War II period, the U.S., Britain and other imperialist and former colonial powers commonly used partition as a weapon against the peoples, as in India/Pakistan, China/Formosa, Vietnam, Korea, Germany, to say nothing about how the African and West Asian nations were carved up into countries in every which way to suit the interests of these powers.
Nonetheless, one effect of the disinformation to disorient people in terms of what are the achievements of history is the idea that the Zionist state as it exists has to be defended. This idea is contrary to the conditions established for it to qualify as a member of the United Nations. Nonetheless, the idea is that Israel has to be defended. History is portrayed as a string of events from the past. But history involves relations, with advances and retreats and significant achievements and their effects, such as the worldwide defeat of fascism and all that the anti-fascist struggle gave rise to, including the establishment of international law. The disinformation of the rulers seeks to hide the historical developments of societies that exist and movements that exist and their effect on society. Israel was one of the first creations of the UN. The creation was designed to disorient people from the historical achievements coming out of WWII. This disorientation takes place as a time disorientation: what led to what, what came before and what came after, what is cause and effect. There is also space disorientation. These are two important conceptions in dealing with cause and effect: time disorientation and space disorientation. According to the U.S. think tanks and propagandists, including Biden, there are rules and those who created the rules should have a say because they know the rules. Furthermore, those who agree with the rules, advance because of those rules. Those who do not agree with the rules face problems if they refuse to follow the rules. At no time is there to be any discussion about the rules. Nonetheless, quite a few countries are challenging the conception of a "rules-based international order" on the grounds that it does not uphold the standards set by international law. Furthermore, more countries are beginning to openly challenge the creator of the rules which are touted, which is the U.S. The U.S. conception of the "rules-based international order" is clearly in defence of Israel vis a vis the Palestinians and not in conformity with the international order based on international law and standards. The defence of the Zionist Israeli state as it exists today is also not simply to disorient the resistance movement as regards the crimes being committed but also to undermine, subvert and even overthrow the achievements that came out of WWII, with its anti-fascism, opposition to aggression, equality of nations big or small, and respect for their sovereignty and right to self-determination. This also in part explains how the anti-fascist united front of the peoples which was brought into being during WWII was transformed into an anti-communist united front in which the peoples no longer had the initiative or played a decisive role. Cause and Effect and the Perversion of History
A main point here is the relation of cause and effect and that there is a relation. As an example, there is the cause of the Palestinians for liberation and independence which involves upholding the underlying principles on which international law is based, and there is the cause of U.S. imperialism and its allies which involves defence of their so-called rules-based international order. The U.S., Canada and others start from their so-called rules-based international order, with history rendered in an irrational abstract manner as in "before there was might makes right" and "now we have rules that make might right for the rule makers like the U.S. but not for others."
There is nothing in their arguments to be understood, nothing indicating that they are striving to work something out, as occurred during the period of the European Enlightenment when the bourgeoisie was rising and it needed to provide itself with arguments and forms on the basis of which it could sort out their rebellion against the old feudal order. This emphasis on rules-based order is something very different to what was provided by the Enlightenment used by the bourgeoisie to constitute the nation. Instead of recognizing that there is history, with its triumphs and tragedies, history is defrauded by the rulers as part of disinformation. This is the case no matter what issue arises -- whether it be Israel, or the U.S. Civil War, or slavery, or the genocide of Indigenous peoples or the development of the U.S. Constitution, or any other. There is a denial of history itself and of the world as is today. As an example, speaking at the UN forum on Multilateralism, Blinken said, "Let me be clear -- the United States is not seeking to uphold this rules-based order to keep other nations down. The international order we helped build and defend has enabled the rise of some of our fiercest competitors. Our aim is simply to defend, uphold, and revitalize that order." Blinken here explicitly says the U.S. is not defending and upholding international law and its standards. He says there is a "rules-based order" that the U.S. will "defend, uphold, and revitalize." Blinken also attempts to defraud the history at the foundation of the UN which recognizes a world that united against fascism to bring into being the UN and international law, which extends beyond humanitarian law. Through the efforts of the Anglo-American imperialists and especially the U.S., attempts have been made without letup to force everyone to accept their perversion of this history, twisting it into a world united against communism. In this vein, Blinken continued his presentation at the UN forum by posturing that the U.S. is the defender of human rights. "Second, human rights and dignity must stay at the core of the international order," he said. He elaborating this further saying: "The foundational unit of the United Nations -- from the first sentence of the Charter -- is not just the nation state. It's also the human being. Some argue that what governments do within their own borders is their own business, and that human rights are subjective values that vary from one society to another. But the Universal Declaration of Human Rights begins with the word 'universal' because our nations agreed there are certain rights to which every person, everywhere, is entitled. Asserting domestic jurisdiction doesn't give any state a blank check to enslave, torture, disappear, ethnically cleanse their people, or violate their human rights in any other way." The problem here is not that people don't often recognize the crimes the U.S. is known for committing as concerns human rights. The aspect often missed is the perversion of history that occurs, the defrauding of history. There are laws and standards for crimes like genocide and crimes against humanity and on the basis of these laws and standards we can see if what is occurring measures up to them. But once these laws and standards are perverted, confusion sets in when it comes to making a judgement about what is taking place. The example of Palestine speaks volumes of how the perversion takes place as concerns cause and effect and the defrauding of history. The Israeli conception of Al Nakba, the Catastrophe when Palestinians were driven from their homes and land, is that it is a Palestinian version of the creation of Israel used to oppose the Israeli state. Israel says the cause is the establishment of the state of Israel, which they defend, and the effect is Palestinians who call it Al Nakba. It is often said history is written by the victors. Israel would say that of course that is how it is done. One response to the history written by the victors is that there is an "alternative" history, a "people's" history, as though two histories exist. But neither the history of the victors nor the "alternative" history gets at whether there is a standard of measure of what was before and what was after and their consequences. This is the heart of the matter. One can legitimately list all the crimes and express the righteous anger and fight against U.S./Israeli aggression and for Palestine, as people worldwide are doing. A serious problem remains, however, which is that to be effective, there is a need to dislodge the imperialist's perversion of cause and effect. The peoples are certainly united in a mighty cause and the effect it can have on the world is recognizable, such as its effectiveness in exposing the crimes of the Zionists and to rally the peoples to reject the U.S./Israeli claims about self-defence. Similarly, if we take an example related to human rights, we can consider what is the measure of a person and the qualities of personhood being put forward by the U.S. and Israel. Israel is going all out to impose the fascist conception that a person is not necessarily a human being, with the qualities of what makes someone human. Those qualities of thinking social beings with claims on society are linked to history. We are not speaking here to what can be recognized, say, as a human emerging from its ape-like conditions and after. There were several different ape-like beings that existed but we end up with Homo sapiens. This result is not based on a sequence of events either, as is often presented, just as the emergence of a modern democratic personality and the qualities of personhood today are not a matter of sequencing events. History is not a sequence of events. It takes people and their interventions in the world to effect change and advance humanity to make history. Similarly, the measure of a Constitution in providing a structure of equality, for example, is the conditions the people face. The broad and persistent conditions of inequality, state racism, injustice and lack of accountability people in the U.S. face -- which the Constitution does nothing to prevent -- are the measure of the U.S. Constitution and its invalidity for the present.
The points he makes serve to defend U.S. actions, weaponize human rights and intervene into the sovereignty of countries in the name of an abstract human being. The claim is that U.S. leadership is to be judged by its acts going forward, not by what it has done in the past. Fraud is straightforwardly given as content. It is similar to when Obama did not deal with the torture, black ops and rendition to torture the U.S. was carrying out by saying: the past is past and we should look forward to the future. What is not said is that the future does not yet exist. What the U.S. imperialists sell is a future benefit of some sort or another. In similar fashion, the U.S. sells future threats to justify what cannot be justified. This includes their talk about potential violence by protesters or potential terrorist acts. One cannot bring in evidence to deal with such threats so they pledge the "commitment" to deal with them. The commitment is going forward, to a future that does not yet exist. It is not a matter of deeds in the present. Obama's justification for refusing to bring charges against former President Bush for his crimes of torture and aggression, was that "past is past." In other words, there is no need for the U.S. to account for itself in the present. There is also a long-standing notion among rulers that it is necessary to take measures worldwide to protect against what is not feasible and assess what is feasible. For the ideologues of U.S. imperialism, possibility gets mixed up with necessity. They do not assess what is needed and then what can be done based on an assessment of the resources, the available forces, the costs and so on and on this basis assess whether the various costs are too high or not and so on. In other words, they do not draw what are called warranted conclusions. This is because they ignore standards for deciding anything. We can see this in the day to day directives given during the COVID-19 pandemic which change without rhyme or reason and contribute to creating an atmosphere of irrationality and incoherence. As concerns the war in Afghanistan, it is now said that the cost of the war is too high or that the time required to prosecute it is too long. How much is too high or too long? It could be anything but the only thing people know for sure is that the human cost in death, casualties and destruction of human productive powers is not counted by the U.S. The U.S. Ambassador to the UN Madeleine Albright expressed this succinctly in 1996 when she was asked by 60 Minutes about the sanctions against Iraq that killed more than half a million children. She said, "I think that is a very hard choice, but the price, we think, the price is worth it." The self-serving argument which underpins the positions of the U.S. is that because they are in a superior position, they get to make the decisions. Blinken says that the U.S. has moved out of crimes of the past and is superior now. That is the before and after they give. For instance, since they are the ones who created the various trade and financial institutions, they are the ones with superior judgment to decide on their use. The illogic introduced is that what was first remains first; it is most important, thus superior and the best possible and therefore it gets to be the judge. The past is superseded, it is passed over by the present. The conception is that the past created -- caused -- the present and the effect is the present. Totally absent is the role of human agency, of people changing conditions, of intervening to open a path that favours humanity. By speaking of what was first, then of what came second, the latter is always a derivative of the first. The first remains primary and the second remains secondary. The denial is that what was secondary, or came after, overthrows or subverts what came first. This denial leads to the crisis that is being faced by what is called the rules-based international order. If the logic of Blinken and Biden is to be accepted, then a standard of rule as presented is a paradox and confusing. Measure involves following a standard of rule, independent of oneself, like 1+1=2 is not a matter of opinion. The way the confusion gets expressed is by asking: does a rule determine the course of action? One can be for or against the rule, but is being for or against the rule what determines your actions? Does the human agency follow from the rule because it is against the rule or for the rule? Such claims present the rule as the cause of what happens and the actions that are taken are said to be separate from where the rule comes from, or even if there is a rule or what is its relation to the course of action taken, to how one intervenes. The Palestinians are rising in defence of their right to be and their right to resist, and this is not based on opposing U.S./Israeli rules. Another way the right to resistance is expressed is: "If injustice is law, resistance is duty." It is not a matter of rules. It is a matter of a just cause and social responsibility to intervene for justice, for rights. Human agency is intervening to affirm rights. It is pro-active and not primarily a matter of being reactive to rules imposed by the imperialists. History Is Not a Matter of Interpretation
Looking again at history and the defrauding of history, some say there is both a "people's" history and that of the oppressors, as if there are two different histories. History is given as a matter of interpretation, one looking from the people's perspective, the other from the perspective of the rulers. One says their perspective provides for cause and effect, the other says it does not because the interpretation is wrong.
U.S. propaganda endlessly repeats that Israel is merely defending itself against Hamas' rocket attacks. The counter response is often that Israel started the fight -- a notion commonly used to divert the movement from its just cause. Who fired the first shot was the argument used by the U.S. against Korea. It accused the north of launching aggression against the south which denied the fact that the U.S. divided Korea at the 38th parallel and that it was the aggressor who had no business being there, interfering in Korean affairs and funding trouble. It was used in Vietnam by creating the Gulf of Tonkin incident. The fact is that "who fires the first shot" is not relevant. The issue is whether one is resisting aggression or not. Accepting the "who fired the first shot" argument falls into the trap of first is best and gets to decide and second is derivative, is secondary and always remains so. The notion of following a rule is given as following a course of action. Providing a "people's" vs. the oppressors' history is given as interpretations -- pro- or anti-people, racist or anti-racist -- which poses the immediate problem that comes with this outlook which is that at one moment one thing may be said and at another something very different may be said. When the Israelis hit the highrise building in Gaza housing the Associated Press and other press agencies, Israel said it was because Hamas was using the building to hide. The push-back against this, including by the Associated Press which routinely repeats the U.S. propaganda against Hamas and Palestine, was that no, this building housed the press and not Hamas and therefore should be protected. Others advance the view that Hamas is the legitimate government of Gaza and others say no it is not. What gets hidden is that aggression and resistance exist objectively, they are not a matter of interpretation of which "side" acted first or who is present in the building. The fact is that following rules is not a matter of interpretation but rather the recognition of a measure and standard. There is also the fact that a standard has a public face; it is not private. A standard is not a matter of interpretation or new information which might make one change one's opinion. Both resistance and aggression continue separate from whether someone changes their argument or does not do so. What is the difference between the conception of a measure being public, and the conception that it is up for interpretation? A ruler is 12 inches and inches are standardized; it is a public measure. The same can be said for measurements based on the metric system. But when it comes to defining a modern, contemporary, actual human being, the issue is presented as a matter of interpretation. The Palestinians have been saying their story is not simply a matter of numbers, that every person has their own story, their full life, the contributions they make, which should be put in the first place. How do you measure that? They are trying to find a public face for the standard. How do you do that? The argument that everyone has their own perspective involving history, such as a "people's" history vs. the rulers' history, raises the problem that if history is a matter of interpretation by one person or group of people, this is tantamount to saying if you think you are following the rule, it is the same as following the rule. There is a failure to grasp measure. This is what the U.S. does, saying we are not to look at the past and how it measures up to international law and standards. The past is past, the U.S. says. Following a rule is not something that happens inside individual brains, or by a group that reaches a consensus saying this is the rule. If that is the case, then it becomes Blinken's rule, his interpretation. Opening a Path
If there is an historical process that leads to simplification of antagonisms, and a different order that says the world is more and more complex, then how does one measure complexity? No standard is given to measure complexity. It is just asserted as a reality. How does one establish a measure of this complexity that does not fall into the trap of following a rule, based on one interpretation after another, and the trap of thinking that because one is following it, it is the same as actually giving the measure based on a standard? Put another way, thinking you have a choice to make is not the same as occupying a decisive moment when choices are being made for you and you want to take advantage and avoid the disadvantage sought by the rulers. Promoting confusion about measure and standards provides the basis for the defrauding of history. Everything is being done to undermine the reality that there is such a thing as history and definite courses of action taken and we can look at those actions from our vantage point. How do you look at opening a path? For the rulers, any action taken can be made to accord with a given rule, and for the people, everyone can decide to add their interpretation of the claims of the rich. Since nothing makes sense, this approach is very disorienting; it does not provide a guide to action. We need to look more at cause and effect. The people have a cause. Yet how do you measure cause and effect? Cause has something to do with time orientation, past to present to future and also space orientation, which involves the relation of form and content. Cause and effect get conflated and mixed up in myriad ways that harm the movements of the peoples. Endless confusion gets promoted on cause and effect and the role of agency in the actual situation in the present -- in relation to past, present and future. What is the orientation needed, the direction? "End of History" arguments turn out to be a big scam to sell false goods. But people have a collective memory that these arguments come up against -- as attested to concerning Palestine, or U.S. slavery and the genocides of today, etc. For us, human agency, activating the human factor and the basis for the information needed, all have to be addressed. The argument we give about starting from the present and delving into the past to shed light on the present and work out a guide to action refers to analysis and synthesis in the form of a guide to action. It is not along the lines that cause and effect are usually spoken about, according to which the past caused the present which is the cause of the future. According to this, if you know what happened in the past you are also going to know what will happen in the future. That is a dangerous thesis of the balance between continuity and change, where first remains first and what comes second is a derivative of what comes first. According to this logic, the U.S. is the best example for empire. It has come in first, is "indispensable" and must remain so. We say there is a line of march that can be traced, like footprints in the sand, and the responsibility is to march on. But keep in mind that change is not some particular event. There are upsurges and struggles. There are footprints in the sand. You cannot see footprints going forward until you actually make them with human agency. The line of march, the path forward, involves the concept of opening that path. There is often confusion about what is closed and what is open, of how to take advantage of openings and the place of human agency in doing so. An act of conscious participation of the individual is intervention, human agency, the path is the act of finding out. The past has bound, closed information. However, the basis for finding an opening is that there are already different paths, traces, which make up the past. That is the basis for freeing up some of the information that is bound up in the whole system. History is real relations, not a list of events from the past. It involves cause and effect. Making history involves human agency taking advantage of openings and advancing from opening to opening.
This article was published in Article Link:   Website: www.cpcml.ca Email: editor@cpcml.ca |
Today it has become commonplace to hear the
ruling elite of the neo-liberal democracies speak of a rules-based
international order. This idea has been repeated since the end of WWII,
including during the Cold War. Relations among nations are said to
follow rules, or just that there are rules to be followed. The
rules-based order referred to is distinct from what constitutes
international law and what it means to uphold international law. Indeed
it is meant to eliminate the conception of international law and the
public standards, crimes and responsibilities international law
establishes.
A feature of the administration of U.S. President Biden is to promote
this so-called rules-based international order. Both Biden and
Secretary of State Blinken are going all out to say there is such an
order. This is part of the Biden administration's wild desire to deprive
people of a say over any matter of concern so that they can exercise
control over their lives. By using arguments which claim that liberal
democracy and especially U.S.-style democracy are the best and most
elevated form of government humanity can achieve, the disinformation
about a rules-based international order is part of an assault on any
intelligible historiography that would assist the people to open a path
forward. The arguments are both incoherent and meant to disorient and
divide people as they strive for political empowerment.
Consider how Biden has been presenting the rules about Palestine.
First he said Israel has the right to self-defence. In other words, the
aggression and bombings by Israel do not measure up to being criminal.
Then, in the face of relentless Palestinian resistance and their general
strike, Biden said that before there can be a cease-fire there has to
be serious de-escalation. By what measure can it be said one day that
there is nothing to comment on -- everything is fine, Israel has the
right to self-defence, what it is doing is fine, and, the next day it
can be said there is more and more escalation and, before we stop it,
what is needed is de-escalation?
Keeping
this practice of partition in mind, there were two conditions given for
Israel to be accepted into the UN. 1) it was to be "bi-national" as it
was put then -- two subsystems side by side, Palestinian and Jewish and
2) it was to uphold the Right of Return. Once there is consciousness
that these were the conditions for Israel to be accepted
as a member of the United Nations, then one can also acquire the
consciousness that there has never been a time when either of those
conditions has been met since Israel was founded. Every year
resolutions are passed by the General Assembly concerning the Right of
Return, amongst others. The Zionist Israeli state has done everything
in
opposition to the requirements mandated by those resolutions. The
consciousness that this is the case exists worldwide.
To hide the incoherence of the arguments advanced by the U.S. and its
hopeless cause to perpetuate itself as "indispensable nation" by
imposing its so-called rules-based international order, Blinken has
created the impression that this order and international law are one and
the same. Pushing back forcefully against those he says are undermining
the rules, he says: "When UN member-states -- particularly permanent
members of the Security Council -- flout these rules and block attempts
to hold accountable those who violate international law, it sends the
message that others can break those rules with impunity." He emphasizes
rules for purposes of equating them with international law. His
speech however refers repeatedly to rules and "rules-based order" while
for the most part he limits reference to international law to one of its
parts -- humanitarian law.
The promotion by the U.S. of the military-industrial complex and,
more generally, of the claim that because of its complexity, society
can only be understood by those who are superior, is in conflict with
what was characterized by Marx as the defining feature of modern
bourgeois society, its distinct feature, which is the simplification of
the
whole of society with its many antagonisms. There is a conflict between
simplification -- the whole of society splitting more and more into two,
which is the basis for two camps, one defending the Old, the other
advancing the New -- as opposed to things becoming more and more
complex, like the military-industrial complex, which complexes
with finance capital, etc. The world, and each country, is said to be
faced with this complexity. This is not to say there is no complexity,
but rather that the distinguishing feature of modern society is the
simplification, with the whole of society splitting in two.
