Three worth seeing

Inside Job

Persepolis

Night Catches Us

Jonas

On the weakness of the global left

Once every two weeks, world historical sociology scholar Immanuel Wallerstein writes a lengthy commentary on whatever world affair is currently foremost on his mind. His latest piece, “The World Left and the Iranian Elections,” discusses the fragmented views taken by self-identified leftists around the world. Some support Ahmadinejad openly (for example, Hugo Chávez); others are “virtually unconditional opponents.”

It’s an interesting read but I want to skirt the topic and highlight a single parenthetical sentence: “The principal voices of the world left today tend for the most part to be primarily that either of free-standing intellectuals or of activists who are located in very small organizations.”

I have no real way of evaluating this statement, but it strikes me as fairly accurate. The leading leftist governments of the world are either not particularly “left” per se or are often politically unhelpful (Exhibit A: the aforementioned Hugo Chávez). No one is ready to proclaim Evo Morales or Rafael Correa as a spokesperson of the global left. When I think of such spokespeople or leaders, I think of people like… Noam Chomsky, or Martin Khor, or Naomi Klein, or Vandana Shiva. All of these people have their flaws, but more importantly they fit perfectly into Wallerstein’s characterization. For who they are they have remarkable influence, but on a global (and surely on a world historical) scale their power is extremely limited.

All of which goes a long way towards explaining why – for example – in the midst of a tremendous global financial crisis that could and should be seen as an implication of the neoliberal, deregulatory agenda of the past 20-some years, no real reforms are being proposed in any of the circles that matter. The power dynamics are titled too far to one side.

Flying Whale