Jihad vs. McWorld (57 page)

18.
Joel Kotkin captures some of the ambivalence of diaspora peoples by using the term
tribe
to refer to transnational peoples operating on the new economic frontier of trade and commerce—i.e., Indians, Chinese, and Jews but also (rather oddly) Brits and Americans too. See Kotkin,
Tribes: How Race, Religion, and Identity Determine Success in the New Global Economy
(New York: Random House, 1993).

19.
An Amendment to the Canadian Constitution guarantees the equality of English and French in New Brunswick, but it is a result of attempts to mollify the Quebecois. See Clyde Farnsworth, “Acadians Cling to Their Culture, and to Canada,”
The New York Times
, July 5, 1994, p. A 4.

20.
Perhaps it is not so surprising that some of the same weary people who reviled the Communist symbols that dominated Communist East Berlin’s Karl Marx Platz should now revile the commercial symbols that dominate it (renamed Augustus Platz) today. Where the “imperialist” hammer and
sickle once flew now sits the glitzy “imperialist” logo of Mercedes-Benz—much as, in today’s Budapest, the “Gold Star” logo of the South Korean electronics giant has been plastered across what was previously the apartment of Marxist theoretician George Lukacs.

21.
The band Radikahl’s song “Swastika.” There is a powerful paradox in the use of modernity’s commercial medium, rock music, by the enemies of modernity, who wear T-shirts bearing the logo: “Hitler: The European Tour.”
  There has been slippage, however, and bands like Stoerkraft and Böse Onkelz have moved away from the Right. Ingo Hasselbach, a founding member and vice chairman of the outlawed National Alternative recently published a book called
The Reckoning: A Neo-Nazi Drops Out (Die Abrechnung: Eine Neonazi Steigt Aus)
(Berlin: Aufbau Verlag, 1994) that suggests the posturing of at least some neo-Nazis is born of economic frustration rather than deep ideological convictions.

22.
The band Final Stage’s “Winter in the F.R.G.” asks “Will there ever be a Germany again worth living in?” (see above). Schoenhuber eschews such neo-Nazi crudities in favor of such polite one-liners as: “Me, I love the Turks, but it is when they are in Turkey I love them the most.” Rather than celebrate Hitler, he speaks of the great fascist party that Hitler “betrayed.” Philippe Boulet-Gercourt, “Franz Schoenhuber: un SS trés frequentable,”
Le Nouvel Observateur/Monde
, April 16–22, 1992, p. 66 my translation.

23.
Between July 1991 and July 1992, East German manufacturing jobs were almost halved (45.6 percent) as compared with a reduction of 2.5 percent in comparable jobs in West Germany.
The Week in Germany
, September 25, 1992. In 1991, Treuhandanstalt (the West German privatization agency) facilitated the sale of ten East German newspapers to West German publishers.
The Week in Germany
, April 19, 1991.

24.
Ignatieff notes the tendency of German skinheads to borrow from the British, though he indulges in both exaggeration and a certain Canadian animus against England in quipping that: “Skin culture may just be Britain’s most enduring contribution to Germany and the new Europe.” Ignatieff,
Blood and Belonging
, p. 83. For Nazis on-line, see Jon Wiener, “Free Speech on the Internet,”
The Nation
, June 13, 1994, pp. 825–828.

25.
For an account from a critical perspective, see Norman Birnbaum’s two-part essay, “How New the New Germany?” Part I,
Salmagundi
, Nos. 88–89, Fall 1990/Winter 1991, pp. 234–263; Part II,
Salmagundi
, Nos. 90–91, Spring/Summer 1991, pp. 131–178, 292–296. Also, Peter Rossman, “Dashed Hopes for a New Socialism,”
The Nation
, May 7, 1990, pp. 632–635.

26.
These victories occurred despite a united opposition joined by all other parties. The Democratic Socialists have a faction called “Communist Platform,” which remains Marxist-Leninist, but for the most part the party depends on East German local loyalty, the politics of personality, and a party philosophy that states: “Our goal is not the revolutionary overthrow of the democratic parliamentary order and the building of some kind of dictatorship, but rather the true democratization of Germany.” The party leader, Gregor
Gysi, plays directly on East German resentments: “I accept the political freedom, the legal order and the democratic possibilities that this system offers. But I also maintain that people in eastern Germany have lost important rights, and that in this society there is much social injustice and much that needs to be fundamentally changed. We are not facing the global, social, ecological and cultural challenges that confront us. So for me there are still very good reasons to be anti-capitalist.” Stephen Kinzer, “In Germany, Communists Resurgent,”
The New York Times
, June 29, 1994, p. A 6.

27.
Next to workers from Greece, Italy, Turkey, and North Africa, are newer immigrants from Vietnam and India along with a burgeoning crowd of political refugees from Eastern Europe who make good use of Germany’s liberal asylum laws.

28.
Frankfurt, for example, is nearly a third foreign, and has over 140 nationalities, making it a rival of Los Angeles and New York as a center of multiculturalism. Germany’s other irony is that, like Israel, it has enacted a legal right of return for all ethnic Germans. Thus, in addition to the millions of East Germans, it has dealt with 100,000 ethnic Germans from the East. To West Germans, many of these returnees, and poor East Germans as well, are seen as “foreigners.” Naturally, the returnees resent the “real” Turkish and Greek “foreigners” just as much as they themselves are resented by the West Germans. Ignatieff tells the revealingly ironic story of the newly arrived ethnic German immigrant from Russia. “I thought I was coming to Germany, instead, it’s Turkey,” she says—in perfect Russian since she herself speaks no German (while many Turks, second and third generation, speak perfect German)! Ignatieff,
Blood and Belonging
.

29.
According to the Federal Office for Protection of the Constitution. Ferdinand Protzman, “German Attacks Rise as Foreigners Become Scapegoats,”
The New York Times
, November 2, 1992, p. A 1.

30.
Ibid.

31.
In 1991, for example, there were about 44,000 marriages between a German and a foreigner (not quite 10 percent of the total number of marriages), including 3,500 between Turkish men and German women and 880 between German men and Turkish women.
The Week in Germany
, January 29, 1994.

32.
Der Spiegel
, October 26, 1992.

33.
“The nightmare of the new Germany is that its teenage gangs talk politics,” writes Ignatieff,
Blood and Belonging
, p. 84.

34.
The antiforeign climate “contradicts the Olympic spirit, since in the Olympic village everyone is a ‘foreigner,’” worries a key player in Stephen Kinzer, “German Violence Worries Investors,”
The New York Times
, January 1, 1993, p. A 3.

  1.
Milton Friedman in
Capitalism and Freedom
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1982) or Jeffrey Sachs in
Poland’s Jump to the Market Economy
, based on
the Lionel Robbins Memorial lectures delivered at the school of economics, January 1991 (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1993).

  2.
Cited by Nicholas D. Kristof, “China Sees ‘Market-Leninism’ a Way to Future,”
The New York Times
, September 6, 1991, p. I. Also see Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn,
China Wakes: The Struggle for the Soul of a Rising Power
(New York: Times Books, 1994) for a pointed if at times overly harsh and cynical treatment of China today.

  3.
On the economic “miracle” in the “awakening dragon” of China, see William H. Overholt,
The Rise of China: How Economic Reform Is Creating a New Superpower
(New York: Norton, 1994). Overholt is among those who actually think authoritarianism in China, as in Taiwan and Singapore, is good for economic development since it frees the government from the need to kowtow to public opinion or interest groups. Overholt reports that “China’s Guangdong Province has become second only to the United States as a market for Procter & Gamble shampoos” and is Motorola’s “No. 2 market in the world for second generation cordless phones.” A similarly naïve enthusiasm is found in many journalists; see for example Joe Klein’s “Why China Does It Better,”
Newsweek
, April 12, 1993, p. 23.

  4.
Perry Link, “The Old Man’s New China,”
The New York Review of Books
, June 9, 1994, p. 31–36.

  5.
Remarkable proof of the impotence of sovereign states in the face of McWorld’s markets is offered by Link, who writes: “It is reliably reported that representatives of ten major US corporations, in a meeting with Chinese economic czar Zhu Rongji in Beijing early this year, actually urged Zhu to take a tough line with Clinton on MFN.” Official American policy falls not to Chinese obstinacy but to unofficial American corporate meddling. Link, “Old Man’s New China,” p. 34.

  6.
Cited by Nicholas D. Kristof, “Chinese Communism’s Secret Aim: Capitalism,”
The New York Times
, October 19, 1992, p. A 6.

  7.
The Chinese economic miracle, with a growth rate over 18 percent, is increasing social inequalities and income maldistribution: a meal served to a table of friends at a fancy restaurant can cost ten times the annual wage of most workers.

  8.
Nicholas D. Kristof, “China Sees ‘Market-Leninism’ a Way to Future,”
The New York Times
, September 6, 1991, p. 1.

  9.
The difficult position of artists in post-1989 China is described, and artwork displayed, by Andrew Solomon, “Their Irony, Humor (and Art) Can Save China,”
The New York Times Magazine
, December 19, 1993, pp. 42–51.

10.
Cited by Suzy Menkes, “Yuppie Shanghai Shows an Old Flair,”
International Herald Tribune
, May 25, 1993.

11.
Cited by Jianying Zha, “China Goes Pop: Mao Meets Muzak,”
The Nation
, March 21, 1994, pp. 373–376.

12.
Nicholas D. Kristof, “Satellites Bring Information Revolution to China,”
The New York Times
, April 11, 1993, pp.
I
, 12.

13.
Ibid. By the same token, the failure to acquire the 2000 Olympic games was an economic disaster for the Beijing region that would have profited economically, and a blow to China’s global image; but for officials worrying about insidious outside influences, it may have represented an inadvertent victory.

14.
Dave Lindorff, “China’s Economic Miracle Runs Out,”
The Nation, May
30, 1994, pp. 742–744.

15.
Kristof, “China Sees ‘Market-Leninism’ a Way to Future,”
The New York Times
, September 6, 1991, p. 1.

16.
Sheryl WuDunn, “Clan Feuds,”
The New York Times
, January 17, 1993, p. A 10.

17.
It has responded to both provocations with a heavy-handed and brutal use of force—over sixty thousand are estimated to have been killed, including Sri Lanka’s president, who was assassinated by a terrorist on May Day 1993; in 1987, India was dragged into the Tamil conflict, sending over fifty thousand troops into northern Sri Lanka to enforce its own solution. The troops went home empty-handed, and for his trouble, Indian ex—Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi was assassinated by Tamil terrorists in 1991. In 1993 some progress was made toward resolving the dual Jihad of Tamils and extremist Sinhalese (see Edward A. Gargan, “Sri Lanka Is Choking Off Long Ethnic Revolt,”
The New York Times
, March 20, 1993, p. 1). Yet most observers believe Sri Lanka’s multiculturalism may yet destroy it; see William McGowan,
Only Man Is Vile: The Tragedy of Sri Lanka
(New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1993).

18.
Indonesia is 85 percent Muslim, but 10 percent of the population are Christian, the rest falling into small Hindu, Buddhist, and animist minorities. Military intervention has been episodic and Suharto would like to convince his trading partners that his is a disciplinarian regime no worse, say, than Singapore’s or Taiwan’s. But repression is unceasing: most recently, three very influential magazines, including its best known newsmagazine
Tempo
(founded in 1971), were closed down without warning.

19.
James Fallows,
Looking at the Sun: The Rise of the New East Asian Economic and Political System
(New York: Pantheon, 1994). Fallows is unpersuaded that the economic slump of 1994 is anything other than a small bump in Japan’s road, and contests those like Bill Emmott
Japanophobia: The Myth of the Invincible Japanese
, New York: Times Books, 1994) who think Japan is a country like any other (which in my terms would make it a better candidate for McWorld).

20.
Karl Taro Greenfeld,
Speed Tribes: Days and Nights with Japan’s Next Generation
(New York: HarperCollins, 1994). There are, Greenfeld reminds us, 25 million Japanese between the ages of fifteen and thirty. They are “the children of the industrialists, executives and laborers who built Japan Inc.” and they are “as accustomed to hamburgers as to rice balls and are often more adept at folding a bundle of cocaine or heroin than creasing an origami crane.”

21.
Neil Strauss, “In Performance,”
The New York Times
, July 23, 1994, Section 1, p. 12.

22.
The most innocuous changes can signal the deepest challenges: for example, in 1994 economic pressures mounted to introduce Western-style self-service gas pumping at Japan’s sixty thousand gas stations. In the ensuing controversy focusing on safety and jobs, culture was hardly mentioned. Yet while self-service may be economically efficient, it problematizes the cultural ideal of full employment (see Part III) and the traditional Japanese concern for courtesy and service. The campaign to maintain full-service pumps is hardly likely to inspire a cultural Jihad, but perhaps it ought to. For a discussion, see Andrew Pollack, “Japan’s Radical Plan: Self-Service Gas,”
The New York Times
, July 14, 1994, p. D I.