The days of empires are over

Nial Ferguson, Professor of History at Oxford University, in his article Imperialism or chaos: There is not other way (The Jakarta Post, Nov. 1, 2001) comes across as a man seriously mired in the past; but that is not surprising from a historian.

The gist of his article is that empires provide stability and that full-blown U.S. imperialism would provide stability too. What Professor Ferguson is conveniently forgetting is that stability from empires is achieved though oppression and that, despite this, the stability achieved is transient and internal only. The fringes of empires are never stable and when empires collapse, as they always do, chaos is the result.

Is not the current crisis, in fact, showing us that the U.S. fiscal empire is just one empire too many? That the world has a better chance of achieving lasting global stability under a truly international law-making body, rather than one dictated to by the imperialist nations that are the permanent members of the U.N. Security Council, many of whom normally are at loggerheads with each other?

Except to these nations desperately struggling to shore up their imperialism, the message is clear: the days of empire are over.

FRANK RICHARDSON

Tangerang, Banten