Will new left challenge the present world order?

In a world of political hegemony and dominance where the strong overpower the weak, are you one of those that subscribe to the theory, "so what? that's nature. It happens in the jungle as well."

Yet, before your very presence should someone overpower you and rape your wife would you still maintain, "So what? that's the jungle's law".

Surely, you wouldn't. Instead, the law courts would be your refuge to punish the strongman that weakened you. Thus, the discriminatory application of the jungle's rule to suit whatever is our convenience. As one moves away from the conceptual arena to pragmatism seeking justice, is it possible to act in like manner should your employer earn millions and throw away a pittance at you.

Levelling that inequality is not the court's concern - its redress being only in non-receipt of remuneration. Yet, welfarism, democracy and human rights all part of liberal politics was to mitigate social inequality - seemingly unthinkable worldwide except in social democracies.

Why then do liberal democracies facilitated with a free ride into unjust governance result in large-scale social frustration.

No competitor

Contemporary liberal politics believably has no formidable competitor unlike in the fifties and sixties. The world then was relatively enlightened, says Colombo University's senior Professor in History Dhamma Dissanayake. What's more, in that political enclave, intellectual trends were evident unlike today. Polarisation of Soviet politics broke that trend of intellectual discourse that raised issues on equality, equity, human dignity, non-exploitation, art and tradition.

From liberal politics emerged the black movement, feminist movement, the French students' struggle not to forget new trends in music like for instance the Beetles and Ragae and so on. Likewise the Cuban and Chinese revolutions and the communist trend was the outcome of Soviet and Communist party politics.

Coming in between liberal and communist politics was the non-aligned movement. Thus an equilibrium in world politics set in.

Since the two systems of non-alignment and communist party have become defunct, what's more in the absence of intellectuality, current liberal politics is riding on a crest wave and continues that way with no formidable opposition. "However the danger lies in the fact that liberal politics is based on ignorance," said Dhamma Dissanayake and continued," we must not forget that it was the intellectual trend of the 50s and 60s that brought in relatively better world politics. He believes world politics today to be polluted by liberal politics and its time an alternative is found because of the anarchy setting in.

The three trends of earlier times helped keep nation state boundaries which have collapsed after liberal politics. While capitalism is king in the global economic system, the US is king in the world's political stage.

Illusion

The illusion of stability projected by liberal politics in reality has brought in more and more instability. Transparency, rule of law, human rights, accountability, good governance all these remain only as labels. The UN continues to be a conceptual world body - needless to say the ineffective WTO, IMF and WB. How far have these world bodies been successful in bringing world peace? If we study state by state performance, only concepts remain while in reality what exists is anarchy in the absence of rule of law.

While global political anarchism has been the result of a lack of good governance and rule of law, economic anarchism has brought in much inflation never mind the social anarchism arising out of myth and violence.

Listening to Dissanayake's delivery, one could deduce how liberal politics based on ignorance, devoid of intellectually is more of an emotional kind. For instance take the world's super power - the US - its attitude towards other countries. Bush apparently goes hammer and tongs in dealing with other nations. Charged with emotion, he is into decisions not of a rational/intellectual nature.

US decisions on Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan and others displays sufficiently the illogical thought trend of liberal politics not to forget the strife stricken countries in the Asian/African region. Very recently Benazir Bhutto's assassination inter-alia is a glaring example.

However, the good news is an emerging trend from Latin American countries, hopefully a formidable challenge to current liberal politics. This new Republicanism of Brazil's Lula de Silva and others is expected to emerge from within the nation state.

Mr. Dissanayake also warned, "without such alternative to break the liberal monopoly, certainly a warped mentality could set in where intense feelings towards race, religion, caste and region would be widespread. It's already there, but very likely to worsen in the future."

Though Mr. Dissanayake's argument is reason based, whether the alternative he sees of a new left entry would overpower the sense based materialistic grandeur coming off liberal politics is still to be seen. In the fall of the communist bloc is evidenced how strong and successful sensory needs and perceptions could be over what is intellectual, rational and emotion free which the leftists had to their advantage.

Yet they themselves quite overawed by the liberal market yielded to the sensual market economy arising out of liberal politics which if it is to survive needs more and more divisiveness, chaos and mayhem - a prediction coming from Mr. Dissanayake himself of stronger bondage into caste, race, religion and what not.

The leftists' realisation of an intellectual base of a levelled playing field is doubtful as humans are more sense prone into emotional instability hankering only after whatever material gains only the liberal market could offer. There is little doubt whether even the leftists themselves are alien to this weak zone.

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