REVIEW / TUNISIA
It is perhaps possible to have a discusreceived prison sentences on charges of membership of an illegal organision with someone who sincerely believes zation, the distribution of leaflets without authorization and threatening that a free market economy will aid devepublic security. The ten were the following: Mohammed Kamel Charni — lopment in Brazil and Argentina; but
13 months; Fathi Salawi - 11 months and a fine of 100 Tunisian dinars;
someone who puts forward the same views
Nureddin Selmani - 11 months and a fine of 100 Tunisian dinars;
Nureddin Saidi - 11 months and a fine of 100 Tunisian dinars; Habib for Bangladesh or the Sudan is surely a
Souihi - 11 months; Jelel Zoghlami - 11 months; Jelel Tlili - 11 crank.
months: Rafik Tlili - 11 months: Shaifeddin Mselmi - 3 months; Imad
It is one of the less edifying features of
Zoghlami - 3 months. Two other defendants, Abdelmajid Mselmi and
Fukuyama's book that he systematically
Hamadi Zoghlami, were acquitted. The defendants are all appealing but blames the victims of capitalist underno date has as yet been set for the hearing and it is important to maintain development for their own misfortunes.
pressure on the Tunisian government. Protests can be sent to the Ministry of the Interior, avenue Habib Bourguiba, Tunis, Tunisia - copies of pro-
Growing gap between rich tests should be sent to the Tunisian League of Human Rights, fax number:
and poor
There is no recognition in the book that the gap between rich and poor countries is getting bigger or indeed that the history of the advanced countries might have something to do with the history of imperialism.
Another less than edifying aspect of
Fukuyama's prescriptions is his warning against "premature" attempts to introduce
In a country like the Philippines, he argues, democracy just gives a wider terrain for the battle between the reactionary pre-capitalist classes like the landlords, and the Leninist left who have grown up to challenge them.
Far better to go for an authoritarian modernization capable of crushing right and left, thus preparing the way for the free market.
The equation of advanced capitalism with democracy is a more serious idea, and one which has a massive hold on popular consciousness in the West. Critics can point to the fact that there are, on a broad interpretation, only some 25 constitutional democracies in the world.
But it is Fukuyama's strong point that all the most advanced capitalist countries are parliamentary democracies. Marxists have to seriously answer this point.
For example, the long-term existence of parliamentary democracy since the second world war stands in rather stark contrast to
Engels' claim that Bonapartism is "the religion of the bourgeoisie"
The relative stability of liberal democracy is surely connected to the prolonged period of economic stability during the long postwar boom, and hence the ability of the bourgeoisie to grant major concessions to the working class; and also to the catastrophic experience of the imperialist bourgeoisie with fascist experiments in
Europe during the second world war.
The absence of authoritarian governmental forms is deeply connected to the absence of economic or social emergency from the viewpoint of the ruling class. To posit the impossibility of a return to authoritarian rule depends largely on the presump tion of continued economic growth and
It is hard to see how Fukuyama can explain the growth of the Front National in France and other European fascist movements, which have their roots precisely in
Blind optimism is also apparent in his approach to areas like the Middle East and the ex-Soviet Union. They will become economically developed and this will result in liberal democracy — because the theory says so. The prospect of a long period of authoritarian rule is simply discounted.
The appearance of Fukuyama's book coincides with the publication of a detailed historical and comparative study of many of the themes he raises - Capitalist Development and Democracy - written by three Canadian social democrats.4
Landowners hostile to democracy
Their conclusion is that everywhere the most reactionary social layer and the one most hostile to democracy are the landowners. There is however no innate predilection of the bourgeoisie towards democracy; in every case, democracy is a product of the size and density of working class organization and of the history of the struggle for democratic rights.
Constitutional democracy, they find, is thus a product of class compromise. Such a way of viewing things is of course a closed book to Fukuyama.
Fukuyama's book introduces a new slant on the alleged impending victory of liberal capitalist democracy throughout the world. Capitalist victory creates a "Last Man" who lives in a society in which all basic questions have been solved.
No longer is there the possibility of struggling for higher goals, but the danger of producing a society of bored consumers. Might they not, he speculates, revolt against their sublime zombie-like existence and resume the course of History?
Here Fukuyama has really skewered himself, making a series of admissions which undermine his whole case. The potentially unhappy state of the Last Man results from the "decline of community" and the growth of isolated consumer existence.
Fukuyama should have read a bit more Marx. Even if his whole case was justified, why is it that the final result must be such a bored, apathetic and alienated society? Might it not be something to do with the intrinsic nature of capitalism that the danger exists of the rebellion of the Last Man? Something to do with the commodity spectacle? With the logic of a society dedicated to the production of more and more useless things, to make more and more destructive profits?
Isn't humanity capable of something a bit more profound than the latest fashion in motor cars or the appalling, vulgar advertising campaign that masquerades as a presidential election in the United States?
Fukuyama is right. Even if the victory of the free market and constitutional democracy is at hand, this is an outrageous and catastrophic state of affairs against which it will be necessary to rebel. Even in the circumstances envisaged by Fukayama the course of history would be resumed. * 1. The End of History and the Last Man. Published in Britain by Hamish Hamilton and in the USA by the Free Press. 2. Op. cit, pp. 42-45. 3. See for example Seymour Martin Lipset, Political Man, Garden City, Anchor Books, 1960. 4. Capitalist Development and Democracy, by DieJoin D, Sicken. yer, velane Huber Stevens and 27 John D. Stevens, Polity Press
EUROPEAN DEPUTIES CONDEMN CUBA BLOCKADE
DEPUTIES to the European Parliament have recently addressed a letter to Frantz Andriessen, the European commissioner demanding that the embargo against Cuba instituted last January by the European Economic Community (EEC)
be lifted. We publish below the principal portions of that letter.
"Your office has indicated that over the past eight days you have issued precise instructions to prohibit all direct or indirect aid to Cuba because 'the Cuban government does not respect human rights.'
"This decision has probably been made following the one reported in the January 23 edition of El Pais to suspend all plans for cooperation and that published in Le Monde on January 25 reporting on the cancelation of the planned trip of a commission to Cuba charged with studying the possibilities of cooperation. This decision, taken to protest the recent application of the death sentence, has shocked us. Firstly, because the EEC has close political and commercial relations with many states that still apply the death penalty. Secondly, because it holds a people hostage for the actions of its government. We see this action as a pure and simple indication of support for the American blockade against Cuba.
"Last October, 78 European deputies demanded in the pages of Le Monde that the blockade be lifted
"Your decision, taken at the end of January, to prohibit even humanitarian aid has shocked us even more. As a consequence, thousands of innocent people will be condemned to death or to malnutrition!
"We demand that these disastrous decisions be reversed and that food assistance be delivered to Cuba's children,
D. Piermont (Germany); L. Castellina (Italy); Ken Coates (Britain); A. Falconer (Britain); M. Elliott (Britain); A.
Smith (Britain); H. Verbeek (Netherlands); R. Bontempi (Italy); M. Hindley (Britain); P. Napoletano (Italy); C. Oddy
(Britain); R. Imbeni (Italy); R. Barzanti (Italy); D. Dessylas (Greece); R. Piquet (France); H. Barrea (Spanish State);
M. Simeoni (France); L. Van Outrive (Belgium); P. Canavarro (Portugal); K. Tsimas (Greece); R. Roumeliotis
(Greece); J. Vandeumeebroucke (Belgium); N. Blaney (Ireland); S. Santos Lopez (Spanish State); V. Ephremidis
(Greece); R. Brito (Portugal); F. Wurtz (France); S. Elmalan (France); M. Gremetz (France); S. Ribeiro (Portugal); J.
Miranda da Silva (Portugal); A. Alavanos (Greece); R. Barton (Britain); W. Ewing (Britain); D. Morris (Britain); H
McCubbin (Britain); G. Ruiz-Gimenez Aguilar (Spanish State); S. Mayer (France); S. Ainardi (France); P. Herzog
(France); D. Valent (Italy); W. Telkamper (Germany); N. Kertscher (Germany); S-Y. Kaufmann (Germany); R. Trivelli
(Italy); H. Breyer (Germany); K. Landa Mendibe (Spanish State); C. Roth (Germany); P. Crampton (Britain);
March 30, 1992 •