The failed states of Somalia and Haiti

The border between Haiti and the Dominican Republic

In 2010, a catastrophic magnitude 7 earthquake shook the Haitian capital of Port-au-Prince and its surrounding environs. Most sources agree that 300,000 people died in the quake and  over a million lost their homes[1]. Meanwhile, in Somalia, the country has entered its third decade without a central government of any kind. Despite these horror stories of globalization, there is almost no coverage of this peculiar symptom of the modern interconnected world.

This year on the campaign trail, as most years in recent memory, much ado has been made by candidates on both sides of the isle about "losing American jobs to foreign markets" and "globalization." However, the only person who seems to be calling a spade a spade, so to speak, is President Barack Obama. Although it did not receive much media attention, Barack Obama gave a speech in Mumbai in 2010 in which he finally made a coherent argument about the simple fact that globalization and global economic interconnectedness is never going away. In this speech, the President warned against those who "see globalization as a threat," and admitted that the "interconnected world[2]" of modern trade is never going away. Essentially, globalization is broadening interconnectedness throughout the world political system, not just taking American jobs. Because of globalization, nation states are becoming more dependent upon each other to maintain their own security. Although globalization has only recently entered into the popular vernacular, various waves of the phenomenon have been occurring for centuries. Unfortunately, most of the focus on globalization in the media has been on either the positive aspects of this phenomenon -- i.e. the BRIC countries and their rapid economic growth -- or on the perceived negative economic effects being felt in the United States. However, there has been almost  Somalia and Haiti are examples of failed states that have been affected by globalization.

The “country” of Somalia was a British and Italian colony until 1960, part of a second wave of colonialism globalization. The colonialist period of globalization was characterized by the domination of Europe in world affairs. The Westphalian system[3] created by the European nation-states was spread throughout the world through colonization. Although colonization is certainly not a major part of globalization today, European expansion engendered the global economic and political system we experience today. Colonization spread the Westphalian system and made the concept of the sovereign “nation state” the ideological and practical norm throughout the world. So, when the British and Italians withdrew from Somaliland, a new nation formed uniting the two separate colonies. As with many former colonies, after the colonizers left, a period of instability followed. In 1969, Mohamed Siad Barre formed an authoritarian socialist state that essentially forced stability on the people of Somalia. In 1991, the regime collapsed and the state broke up into a number of factional groups. A UN mission attempted to stabilize the state in the early 1990s, but pulled out in 1995 after the United States withdrew its forces (due to an outcry by the American public after 19 American soldiers died in a military operation to arrest one of the factional leaders). Although the factions that are in power have changed, the nation of Somalia has failed to provide even basic state services to the people living within the supposed territorial confines of the “country.”

Because Somalia has no central government of any kind, it is not recognized under the Westphalian system by any other state. Maps published in other countries show Somalia’s boundaries as being those previous to 1991. The competing fiefdoms in Somalia cannot provide any common Westphalian territoriality. Furthermore, the state is not sovereign. It cannot resist incursions by its neighbor, Ethiopia, nor can any of the governments provide any form of “freedom from want” or “freedom from fear” to its people. A UN mission was forced to enter the state and end famine in the early 1990s, without the UN mission, many more Somalians would have starved.

A second country that has also been a victim of the legacy of colonization is Haiti. Haiti was the first part of “The New World” that Christopher Columbus landed on in 1492. In twenty-five years, Spanish settlers had essentially annihilated the natives who lived on the island. In the late seventeenth century, Spain seceded the Western half of the island of “Hispaniola” to the French. This half of the island became Haiti. Because the natives had been killed and otherwise absorbed into the colonizing population, Haiti became predominantly populated by African slaves. In the late 1700s, the slaves in Haiti revolted, and in 1804, Haiti declared its independence from France. Unfortunately, the country has always been plagued with economic problems. The economy of Haiti was founded on Mercantilism, and when Haiti declared its independence, the state lost the valuable trade of its former colonizer. Today, Haiti is the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere. The state plays no part in the globalized trade system, and the country has been plagued by central governments that have not provided sovereignty, security, or economic subsistence to the people of Haiti. Despite the rapid humanitarian response by the international community after the 2010 earthquake, the scars of Haiti's most recent disaster will be felt for decades; far longer than a disaster in nearly any other country in the world.

The examples of Somalia and Haiti show a sad and relatively unknown effect of globalization. Somalia and Haiti are failed states because of a previous wave of globalization. Unlike many other former European colonies that have been able to begin contributing to the globalizing world of commerce, trade, and politics, Somalia and Haiti lack even adherence to the Westphalian system. Furthermore, unlike other failed states that are of great importance to the globalized system either economically (like the Congo) or politically (like Afghanistan), Somalia and Haiti have relatively no important natural resources. Although the Congo is certainly a failed state, it is getting injections of capital from the trade it does in Coltan and diamonds. Afghanistan has become central to the United States’ “War On Terror.” Somalia, Haiti, and other failed states like them, were colonized and then left without the ability to become stable nation states without their colonizers. Unfortunately, the modern wave of financial globalization is passing these failed states by.

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[1] Significant discrepancies in the death toll estimates exist. An unpublished USAID report claims that fewer than 100,000 people lost their lives:
BBC News. (2011, June 1). Report challenges Haiti earthquake death toll. Retrieved from http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-13606720
However, that report has been called into question by other people in USAID itself:
Trenton Daniel, AP. (2011, June 4). US: Flaws in death toll report on Haiti quake. Retrieved from http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory?id=13758738
Regardless, tens and probably hundreds of thousands of people lost their lives, and the continued effect on Haiti is evident.

[2] Christi Parsons, Los Angeles Times. (2010, November 06). Obama appeals to business leaders in India. Retrieved from http://articles.latimes.com/2010/nov/06/world/la-fg-obama-india-speech-20101106

[3] Wikipedia. (n.d.). Peace of Westphalia. Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peace_of_Westphalia

Does the Public Intellectual Matter?

Tupac Shakur’s posthumously released song, “Changes” (1998) – perhaps his most thought-provoking and certainly his most uplifting anthem – is a moving indictment against the plight of the urban (black) poor. The song is rife with moving anecdotes and references to political and social issues (“and although it seems heaven sent/ we ain’t ready/ to see a black president” being perhaps the most striking of these). One brief moment in the song, however, strikes me as a hidden (and perhaps unintentional) reference to the purpose and place of the public intellectual in society:

Give the crack to the kids who the hell cares/ One less hungry mouth on the welfare

First ship 'em dope and let 'em deal the brothers

Give 'em guns/ step back and watch 'em kill each other

It's time to fight back/ that's what Huey said

Two shots in the dark now Huey's dead

I got love for my brother/ but we can never go nowhere

Unless we share with each other

This may seem like quite an arcane reference to the question of whether the public intellectual matters. But it all hinges upon how we see Huey P. Newton: was he a public intellectual or simply a social activist? Does this distinction even matter?

Discussing whether the public intellectual matters requires us to arrive at a suitable definition of the term, “public intellectual.” We must also determine whether the term “public intellectual” means anything in its own right, or whether it is just a way for various like-minded academes to self-label themselves. In other words, is the “public intellectual” a type of flower with definable characteristics, or simply a bunch of people who all share the appreciation of flowers?

In her essay, “The Public Intellectual, Service Learning, and Activist Research,”[1] Dr. Ellen Cushman provides a primer of various conceptualizations of the public intellectual. Specifically, two of the definitions put forth by academics that Dr. Cushman discusses have value in our own discussion:

[The modern intellectual’s] goal would be to enact in one’s research an informed concern with specific questions of public value and policy. –Dominick Lacapra (p. 328)

And

A postoccidental intellectual [is] able to think at the intersection of the colonial languages of scholarship and the myriad languages subaltemized and banned from cultures of scholarship through five hundred years of colonialism. –Walter Mignolo (p. 328)

Academic wordiness and douchebaggery aside, both of these conceptions inform a possible definition for the public intellectual – someone who is concerned with the civic good and questions of socio-economic inequality. Dr. Cushman tends to agree with these conceptualizations. She argues that this tendency to quantify the public intellectual within the population of “middle and upper class policy makers, administrators, and professionals” is incorrect[2]. She believes that the public intellectual should be primarily concerned with inequality in society:           

The kind of public intellectuals I have in mind combine their research, teaching, and service efforts in order to address social issues important to community members in under-served neighborhoods. You know these neighborhoods: they’re the ones often located close by universities, just beyond the walls and gates, or down the hill, or over the bridge, or past the tracks. The public in these communities isn’t usually the one scholars have in mind when they try to define the roles of “public” intellectuals. (p. 329)

Dr. Cushman goes on to argue the importance of “service learning”: where enlightened individuals from the bucolic college environment spend time in poor, urban communities. In other words, she shares the foregone assumption that both Lacapra and Mignolo indicated in their conceptualizations of the public intellectual: that he is academically inclined and university-trained, probably holding a Ph.D. in some-such, and full of concern for the unlucky, downtrodden Common Man.

Elanor Townsley, professor of Sociology at Mount Holyoke College, thinks all the kind of elitism evident in Dr. Cushman’s portrayal of the public intellectual is bunk[3], and I am inclined to agree. The public intellectual, she says, is “an important political trope in contemporary U.S. culture and politics[4].” She believes the concept of the public intellectual is nothing more than a “figurative use of words, or a cultural shorthand, that holds, contains, and organizes moral tension about intellectuals and politics in the contemporary United States” (emphasis in original)[5]. She points out that intellectuals who make their work accessible to the masses are nothing new; they just have a new brand. The term “public intellectual” was not in use until some point in the early 1980s, when it began to appear in the pages of the New York Times and other publications. Other terms, such as “intelligentsia” and “literati” have been in use for much longer. What is unique about the public intellectual meme is that it has been used as a nearly universally positive concept. Whether this new “brand identity” for the academic elite was some sort of orchestrated conspiracy, or, more likely, it simply sprouted naturally from growing use is unimportant. What is important is the term has grown into widespread use in the journalistic and academic fields. Furthermore, in the New York Times, from 1987 – 2005, by far the greatest use of the term “public intellectual” appeared in the Book Review Desk[6]— in other words, intellectuals and critics talking about other intellectuals and critics (the second greatest incidence was the editorial desk – again, presumably intellectuals referencing each other). Because the term “public intellectual” has no specific, codified definition, anyone who lays claim to “public intellectualship” is a public intellectual. In short, the definition of a public intellectual is whoever people are calling a public intellectual.

A public intellectual is, therefore, more of a horticultural club than a specific flower. So, by defining who a public intellectual is, where does Huey P. Newton fall under its umbrella? In order to answer this, a bit of Dr. Newton’s personal history must be discussed. Huey P. Newton formed the Black Panther Party for Self Defense in 1966 based upon “revolutionary humanism,”[7] because he felt disenfranchised from mainstream American society (p. 21). Newton and his co-founder, Bobby Seale, were greatly influenced by other revolutionary intellectuals, such as Karl Marx, Vladimir Lenin, Malcolm X, and Che Guevara[8]. Newton and Seale were undergraduates in college at this time, but they soon achieved recognition in the media as radical activists. As Newton became embroiled in legal battles such as his trial for the fatal shooting of Oakland Police Department officer John Fey and the murder of 17-year-old prostitute Kathleen Smith, he also began to write and speak politically. Eventually he received a Ph.D. in social philosophy from the University of California at Santa Cruz in 1980. Despite all this, Dr. Newton did not seem to consider himself a public intellectual, and I found no evidence that anyone else laid a claim to his status as a public intellectual, either[9]. In fact, upon receiving his Ph.D. in 1980 he said, “My foes have called me bum, hoodlum, criminal. Some have even called me nigger. I imagine now they'll at least have to call me Dr. Nigger[10].” Although Dr. Newton certainly deserved to be called a public intellectual, no one saw fit to invite him to the party. Perhaps if he had not been killed in a senseless act of drug violence and had been a part of the intellectual club for a bit longer, he would have gained more acceptance as a public intellectual, rather than a radical activist.

But if Huey P. Newton was not a public intellectual, where does that leave all those who consider themselves to be public intellectuals? After all, Paul Krugman, Noam Chomsky, Richard Posner, et al. are all considered by various sources to be public intellectuals. They have written on all manner of subjects of public interest. They must all believe in the power of criticism to effect change, otherwise they would not be (or have been) writing in the public domain. And yet there are no Grammy-nominated, top-of-the-charts pop songs written about Krugman, Chomsky, or Posner. Much of their writing is targeted for public consumption, but the public doesn’t seem to be listening. And if someone like Huey P. Newton can have more of a cultural effect than these self-described public intellectuals, what is the point of their efforts?

The answer is the manner in which we think about public intellectuals – if we need to think about them at all. While there are many rubrics we might employ to define the public intellectual, focusing on defining who and what the public intellectual is provides little use beyond intellectual exercise. Stephen Mack, professor of writing at the University of Southern California, is on the right track. Conceptualizing the public intellectual, he says, needs to shift from thinking of “categories and class” to thinking about their “function”:

[O]ur notions of the public intellectual need to focus less on who or what a public intellectual is—and by extension, the qualifications for getting and keeping the title. Instead, we need to be more concerned with the work public intellectuals must do, irrespective of who happens to be doing it[11].

In other words, the public intellectual doesn’t matter. However, the mission of the public intellectual matters a great deal. Striving for change is the goal of both public intellectuals and ostensibly non-intellectual activists like Huey Newton. Decrying the decline of the public intellectual as Richard Posner has done is simply a waste of time. As Dr. Mack points out, criticizing the status quo and discussing questions of social, moral, and political import is the duty of all citizens in any healthy democracy. Highly trained scholars are often better at this because, as Dr. Mack succinctly observes, it’s their “day job.” These voices certainly deserve our notice, but anyone who has a good idea or a cause to champion also deserves notice. In fact, people like Richard Posner, who whine about the current state of the public intellectual, seem to be revealing an existential angst they must feel about their chosen profession: if people like Huey Newton and other supposed outsiders can effect so much political change, where is the value in old-fashioned scholars like Posner? Mr. Posner needs to remember that the goal of his social criticism is not about mirroring some scholarly ideal, it’s about the message itself.

Perhaps our least intellectual president, Theodore Roosevelt, said it best:

It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself for a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat[12].

If Teddy were alive today, I think he would have valued the efforts of Dr. Huey P. Newton as highly as any intellectual’s. And that’s good enough for me.

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[1] Cushman, E. (1999). The Public Intellectual, Service Learning, and Activist Research. College English, 61.3, 328-336.

[2] Cushman, E, p. 328.

[3] Townsley, E. (2006). The Public Intellectual Trope in the United States. The American Sociologist, 37.3, 39-66.

[4] Townsley, E, p. 40.

[5] Townsley, E. p. 40.

[6] Townsley, E. p. 46.

[7] Pinn, A.B., Finley, S.C., & Alexander, T. (2009). African American Religious Cultures, Volume 1. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, LLC.

[8] Pinn, A.B., et al. p. 21.

[9] In my research for this essay, I found that people who considered themselves to be public intellectuals would often say so in their obituaries (whether they had been written by themselves or others). The term “public intellectual” does not appear in reference to Huey P. Newton in the several articles written about his murder in the New York Times, as well as his obituary in the Times and other publications.

[10] Huey P. Newton. (3 Jan 2012). Retrieved 26 Jan 2012, from http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Huey_P._Newton

[11] Mack, S. (13 Jan 2012). The Decline of the Public Intellectual [blog post]. Retrieved from http://www.stephenmack.com/blog/archives/2012/01/the_decline_of_7.html#more

[12] Roosevelt, T. (23 April 1910). Citizenship in a Republic. Speech at the Sorbonne, Paris.