Triumphs and Travails of a Cold War Remedy

Extract

The cold war, many people contend, ended sometime around 1989. A number of facts, such as the United States' military hegemony, the demise of the Soviet empire, and China's impeccable capitalist record, tend to corroborate this contention. Yet, with all due respect to the memory of John Adams, stubbornness is not the privilege solely of facts. Certain mind-sets can prove just as obstinate. Dormant or sidestepped during most of the 1990s, cold war mentalities and their mantras—“trace all evil to the main enemy,” “don't let your base be troubled by nuance and ambiguity”—have indeed made a great comeback since the beginning of the new millennium, and their mouthpieces are working hard to turn George W. Bush's post-9/11 pronouncement “You are either with us or you are against us …” into a self-fulfilling prophecy (“President”). To ward off the return of these disciplinary strictures, it is tempting to resort to probably the most powerful cold war remedy of the 1970s and 1980s—namely, human rights discourse and activism. Has this remedy retained its potency in the current context? Addressing this question—or at least stressing its urgency—is the main ambition of the following pages.