The 'Exceptional' Imperialists

There is a direct relationship between the power of a superhero, and the bravado with which they wear their underwear on the outside of their pants. Captain America is no exception.

Captain America’s shield is brighter than a shooting star. He is brave, tall, strong, smart, courageous, heroic and clever. He is just, fair, sharing, caring and never leaves the toilet seat up. Whenever anyone’s in trouble, Captain America swoops in to save the day, get the cat out of the tree, unblock a pipe or banish the Taliban. Captain America is so special, in fact, that he’s coming to join… sorry, us? Little old Australia?

That’s right. On April 20^th of this year 2500 American marines landed in Darwin. The intention is to keep a lid on the Asian ‘threat’ that 76% of Americans believe to be posed by China. So the USA, the world’s protector, first avenger and great defender is cosying up to its little buddy Australia. After all, we’re in prime position to keep an eye on those reds up north. It’s only a small addition. 2500 troops, that’s small potatoes! Especially when you look at the grand scheme of things.

There are 255 000 American military personnel deployed worldwide, excluding those in Iraq and Afghanistan, at a total of 738 foreign bases. That’s four for every single country in the world. It has the largest defence budget globally. That’s OK though, Captain America has enough cash to fork out the $640 billion annual contribution. Again, small potatoes. Of course, he could spare $3 billion of that to feed every hungry school child in the world for a year… but obviously stockpiling weapons is more important.

All this military occupation makes us wonder, what are they waiting for? And the truth is, the Cold War never ended. So many of America’s foreign policy problems can be traced back to their Cold War expansionism, but the pundits, and even the commander in chief, suffer from a bit of geo-political amnesia from time to time.

Secretary of State Clinton admits that the US government created Al Qaeda in the fight against the Soviets in the first gulf war. It looks a little like Captain America created the very enemies he fights today. To adapt a quote from journalist Fareed Zakaria, ‘Military intervention can seem simple. But it is a complex affair with the potential for unintended consequences.’

Uncle Sam’s a little like the aggressive drunk at the bar, aching for a fight. Why else would the American government spend the majority of its foreign aid not on feeding hungry children or stabilising nascent economies but on arming other countries? Let’s not forget though, Uncle Sam is fighting for the good of the people. Nuclear disarmament, world peace, decreases in armed forces.

However, does it not seem strange that Captain America perceives himself to be above his own rhetoric. If the US can keep its nuclear weapons, why can’t North Korea or Iran, or China for that matter? Why is it that no one questions this ‘exceptionalism’, that the rules don’t apply to the States? Seems a little bit hypocritical to me, but maybe I’m just one of those radical, ‘subversive’ types. But ‘when asking an impertinent question, one is invariably greeted with a pertinent answer.’

The answer is that they do not want any nation to rival them as the reigning superpower. Since the fall of the Iron Curtain, that hasn’t been a problem. But the world as we know it is a rapidly changing place.

Chinese products are outstripping the quality of those American. One such product is China’s brand of capitalism. While there are 43 million Americans living in poverty, the highest number on record, China’s poor has shrunk 76% since 1985. However, like all capitalist states, inequality persists, in fact it has doubled in the same time.

The richest 70 members of China’s rubber-stamp parliament, for example, are worth $90 billion combined. To put that into perspective, each member could buy themselves forty private islands each. In case they want to get away from the rat race or something. Forty private islands. Each. According to one of Bill Clinton’s former advisers, ‘If the Chinese Communist Party were called what it really is, it would be called the Chinese Capitalist Bureaucratic Party.’ Interesting… It sounds so familiar… the 99% having less money combined than the 1%... where have I heard this before? Who knows.

But it would seem that China has become a threat to the US because it is now better at doing what the US has always done best. It has the strength of a free enterprise economy harnessed by a government that never has to answer to the people. Therein lies the reality of the Chinese ‘threat’.

Though it has 1.5 million active personnel, the American army is only the second biggest in the world. The first? You guessed it! We have a winner ladies and gentleman! The People’s Liberation Army of China. It’s twice the size of Uncle Sam’s rabble, with three million active personnel. Chinese defence spending jumps 11% every year. And for some reason, Captain America’s biceps shrink a little bit every time he hears about that.

There are countless examples of the fabled ‘global police force’ abrogating its responsibilities; they intervene when it suits them.  Why is their status beyond question? They have not earned their position, and neither do they deserve it. Rather it has been taken and asserted with brute force.

Australia’s strength may not be militaristic. We may not have nuclear weapons, luckily for New Zealand. We refuse to stoop to intimidation tactics, which is convenient, because they aren’t at our disposal anyway. Australia’s strength is its international diplomacy.

We ought to aspire to fulfilling the overt framework of justice established by the United Nations and World Court. We ought to aspire to mature methods of dispute resolution, in lieu of needless violence. We ought to aspire to co-operation based on mutual respect for sovereignty and cultural difference.

Thus, the formation of the US marine base in Darwin should not be permitted. It was President Obama himself who said that ‘the institutions of democracy – free markets, a free press, a strong civil society – cannot be built overnight, and they cannot be built at the end of a barrel of a gun.’ As we encourage our own subordination at the hands of a superpower, we would do well to remember that the person with the biggest stick is not always morally superior.

It’s time to feel pride in our own autonomy. And why shouldn’t we? We have a larger income per capita than the United States. We have the second highest human development index in the world. We have the highest rate for tertiary graduation. We invented Ugg Boots.

We are a small nation. But we don’t have to be Captain America’s lowly little sidekick any longer. David stood up to Goliath, and so can we. We must remind the United States of America that the Cold War was supposed to have ended. We must remind them of the United Nations’ purpose. We must remind them of their violent history. We must remind them that adults wear their underwear on the inside of their pants. And we must invite them to meet the standard of diplomatic dignity the rest of us adhere to – why shan’t they?

The Politics of the Veil...ed Truth

‘Remember, Ginger Rogers did everything Fred Astaire did, but backwards and in high heels.’ – Faith Whittlesey

‘Women belong in the house… and the Senate.’ - Anonymous

On the back of a toilet door at my high school, where I am currently in my HSC year, there is a scrawled question.

Is feminism dead?

The inquiry looked very lonely, for many years, until, reading it perhaps for the hundredth time I saw that a new scrawl had been added underneath.

In some countries, it hasn’t even been born yet.

Despite the fact that globalisation has made feminism more relevant to the world’s women than ever, it has stagnated as a movement since its third wave. It seems that despite its simplicity, public intellectuals, authors, politicians and activists treat it as an untouchable subject.

Women just want access to a higher status than that which they already occupy. They want to evade discrimination and access to social mobility. They want autonomy over their own bodies. They want freedom from fear of abuse or harassment. They want, quite simply, respect, choice and control over their own fates.

The complexity of modern gender inequality means many feminists approach it in different ways. This multiplicity of milieus within the movement only serves to divide and weaken it. Though facts like Australia’s 18% pay gap are concerning, it is the entrenched, misogynistic subtleties that women don’t have a hope of dispelling in the near future.

Despite the fact that modern feminists refuse to homogenise their opinions, the most important thing they have to offer the world’s women is awareness that the job is not yet done. Ideas of false independence and optimism have been instilled among young women so that instead of blaming patriarchy or misogyny when they are legitimately wronged by them, they blame themselves. Even feminist terminology like ‘patriarchy’ has acquired clichéd connotations as radical though it continues to be relevant.

It is for these reasons that I have to believe in feminism. I have to believe that one day it will dig itself out of the grave in which it now resides, festering in petty dispute.  The women of the world need its resurrection. From young women on Sydney’s north shore who hate their cripplingly high heels but feel obligated to wear them, to schoolgirls who have acid thrown in their faces on their way to school in Afghanistan, the world’s women need feminism as their defender.

And all feminism needs is for people to believe in it.

There are many divergent opinions about what feminism is, but I believe feminism to be about choice. Recently, a young man told me that women in his area feel ‘too empowered’ because they ‘have to go to work, and some don’t want to’. To me, this is a contradiction in terms, as anyone who feels obligated to do something they don’t want to do isn’t empowered at all. If the definition of feminism is freedom to choose, women must have opportunity to work if they wish. 

Only choice can empower.