Michael Byers holds the Canada Research Chair in Global Politics and International Law at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver.
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Vol. 23 No. 3 · 8 February 2001
pages 7-8 | 2218 words
Ready for a Rematch
Michael Byers
The family feud is rarely mentioned as a factor in contemporary politics, perhaps because its tribal character does not fit well into the ‘rational actor’ model favoured by political scientists and pundits. Yet the American political system, in particular, operates on quasi-tribal lines, to the point where ideological affiliations play an overt role in judicial appointments. Tribalism may soon become the determinating factor in White House decision-making as well, for George W. Bush and his entourage don’t deal in shades of grey. As far as they’re concerned, the distinctions between good and evil, right and wrong, us and them, are perfectly clear; and within this world of absolutes the family feud is alive and well. After eight long years of waiting, the Bushes have a score to settle with the Husseins.
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Letters
Vol. 23 No. 5 · 8 March 2001
From David Edgar
Michael Byers (LRB, 8 February) quotes George W. Bush's National Security Adviser, Condoleezza Rice, as saying that 'we don't need to have the 82nd Airborne escorting kids to kindergarten.' This much-cited quotation appears to refer exclusively to the role of the US Forces in places like Kosovo. But in fact the 82nd Airborne was the division sent in by the Federal Government in 1957 to desegregate the schools in Little Rock, Arkansas, against the wishes of the state authority. As an Afro-American beneficiary of this intervention, Rice presumably knows this. The right of states to resist Federal power has of course been invoked in order to preserve racial segregation. If her remark is not an instance but an analogy, how far back do these people plan to turn the clock?
David Edgar
Birmingham
