Castro, the State and the Market: Refining the New Political Anti-Globalization

Fidel Castro has spent the greater part of the last year meditating on a life's efforts as one of the principal opponants of American global ambitions. First as a factor in Soviet alignment and now playinga similar, though more reduced role within a Chinese sphere of influence, Cuba has exerted an influence on letters and intellectual development far greater that its population size and geo-political position might have suggested. But proximity to a giant often does that. Over the last several months Castro has been refining and restating the fundamental character of his opposition of the current hegemonic system of global harmonization. It is by now well known that this harmonization Castro opposes is based on the ascendancy of the private transaction over public relations, of contract over private law, of the enterprise over the state, of international law beyond international organization (effectively the rise of transnational law regimes) over municipal law and intergovernmental regulation of global affairs.

In a recent address posted on line, Fidel Castro Ruz, A Reflection on Hard and Obvious Realities, Aug. 3, 2007, Castro lays out his fundamental difference with the current form of globalization:

The concern which the Cuban Revolution has always had about the education of the people is obvious. Judging by my own experience, I soon came across the idea that only conscience could prevail over the instincts that govern us. Technological advances today speak of the possibility of manipulating the functions of the cells in the human brain. What good would all this do in a world ruled by the commercial value of goods and services? Who will have the final say in this regard? By this means and through the shameless brain drain, a phenomenon we should adamantly continue to discuss, the most valuable part of the human being could be destroyed: a human being's education via its conscience. Fidel Castro Ruz, A Reflection on Hard and Obvious Realities, supra.

Thus the evil underlying modern global realities--the commercial values of goods and services. What is unacceptable to Castro is a world whose foundational values are grounded in the private consumption choices of individuals which are served by private entities which, in their relation with the consumers of goods and services, appear to have little need for the state.

And Castro should be opposed to this form of globalization, for it is inimical to his own universalist political philosophy. Marxist Leninist thought tend to posit a hierarchy of power based on the requisites of a dictatorship of a national proletariat whose purpose is to pave the way for the eventual succession of a mature communist community (the state withering away). But for this to happen, there must be a state to wither, and that state must be powerful enough for its national proletariat to effect the sort of education necessary for the withering. Thus, for example, Castro's focus on education in the material quoted above, a concern that has marked the Cuban Revolution from its inception. For Castro, then, globalization, to be legitimate, must proceed from and by states. People must act on the basis of a singular allegiance to a singular supreme community--the political state--through which all aspects of organized life, including economics, social welfare, morals, culture, etc., may be ordered.

But the American system of globalization threatened that very order by positing a different rule of law basis--one grounded in a privileging of individuals and private law, and tolerating a more horizontal relationship between private and public power. But this is incomprehensible to the master of a system that necessarily posits a hierarchy of power in which the people (collectively) can owe undivided allegiance to but one juridical personality, and that juridical entity must be the political state. And thus the threat of market globalization is not merely a threat of American "imperialism", the usual way n which Castro's writings on this point tend to be brushed aside in the West. Instead, Castro is at pains to suggest a deeper theoretical difference, one based on a wholly incompatible understanding of politics and law systems.

Castro thus suggests that "Commercial advertising and consumerism are incompatible with the survival of the species. After all possible calculations, you will realize that natural resources, space, climate, weather, and the system cannot yield any other outcome, given their pace and the direction in which they are moving." Fidel Castro Ruz, A Reflection on Hard and Obvious Realities, supra. But what he is really suggesting is that his euphemism for private, contractually oriented transnational law systems are incompatible with the traditional state system for ordering all aspects of an individual's life--economic, social, cultural and political. T this extent, Castro is right. And it suggests a difficulty that Cuba will have to face as it slowly moves from traditionally isolationist and strictly state dependent Stalinism, to a more ambiguous Chinese style system.

China’s People’s Liberation Army at 80: Projecting Power and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization

This year the People’s Republic of china celebrates the 80th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Liberation Army. “On August 1, 1927, CPC-led armed forces held an uprising in Nanchang, capital of east China's Jiangxi Province, which is regarded as the founding day for the PLA. This year, a series of official programs are to be held nationwide to celebrate the 80th anniversary of the army's Day.” Hu Jinatao Hails Army’s Role, Contribution to Nation, People’s Daily Online, July 27, 2007. Indeed, the Chinese State has taken great pains to use the celebrations to remind the world of its new willingness to project power—and its ability to do it through the PLA. See, e.g., PLA Budget to Rise With the Economy: President Ho, People’s Daly Online, Aug. 2, 2007; Beijing military exhibition draws 1 million visitors in 15 days, People’s Daily Online, Aug. 1, 2007 (“The exhibition showcases the development of the PLA, by displaying a total of 20 pieces of advanced military weaponry and logistic outfits of the army, navy and air force, 970 pictures and 1,750 other military exhibits in a total area of 6,540 square meters. Advanced military weaponry, including new types of ground-to-ground missiles, medium-range surface-to-air missiles, fighter aircraft and new logistic outfits are on display.”). As Ho Jintao was quoted as saying in a widely circulated address: “The PLA is "no longer a small, single-service force, but a strong and multiple-service force," which has made progress in modernization and is stepping toward an information technology-based army, Hu said.” China's armed forces more modernized, professional: President Hu, People’s Daily Online, Aug. 1, 2007. And critical to any improvement in the power of the PLA is its unquestioned loyalty to the Chinese Communist Party. The union of CCP and PLA has been the basis of stability in China for a long time; and it is a connection that Chinese leaders are always cultivating. See, e.g., Chinese president stresses PLA's loyalty to CPC, People’s Daily Online, Aug. 1, 2007 (quoting Hu Jintao as saying: “"In these 80 years, the PLA has fostered its fine revolutionary traditions," he said, stressing "the traditions, in essence, mean that the PLA is forever at the CPC's command and the service of the people and should be courageous and skillful at war fighting." "The noble spirit that the PLA has nurtured over the years is to adhere to the absolute leadership of the Party," he said.”).

Among the many activities to which the People’s Liberation Army has begun to devote itself, one in particular may deserve a bit of sustained attention, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO). According to the official website history, “The Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) is an international organisation composed of the Republic of Kazakhstan, the People of Republic of China, the Kyrgyz Republic, the Russian Federation, the Republic of Tajikistan and the Republic of Uzbekistan.” History of Development of Shanghai Cooperation Organization. India, Pakistan, Iran and Mongolia have been granted observer status within SCO. Id. Formed in 2001, its primary mission was “combating terrorism, separatism and extremism.” Id. An Organizational Charter was adopted in July 2002. The Charter broadened the scope of the SCO’s mission to include: “strengthening mutual trust, friendship and good-neighbourly relations among the member countries; promoting their effective cooperation in politics, trade and economy, science and technology, culture, education, energy, transportation, ecology and other fields; making joint efforts to maintain and ensure peace, security and stability in the region, to establish a new, democratic, just and rational political and economic international order” Id. The SCO Charter elaborates an institutional structure that is essentially intergovernmental in character, though it has developed a limited institutional structure.

Article 10 of the SCO Charter (entitled Regional Antiterrorist Structure) provides:

The Regional Antiterrorist Structure established by the member States of the Shanghai Convention to combat terrorism, separatism and extremism of 15 June, 2001, located in Bishkek, the Kyrgyz Republic, shall be a standing SCO body. Its main objectives and functions, principles of its constitution and financing, as well as its rules of procedure shall be governed by a separate international treaty concluded by the member States, and other necessary instruments adopted by them.

SCO Charter, art. 10. Pursuant to this provision, the PLA has slowly been gaining substantial experience in multilateral military cooperation, especially the sort of cooperation in which the PLA takes the lead. The focus since 2002 has been on trouble in China’s troubled Western autonomous regions. Thus, it was no surprise to learn that a “joint anti-terrorism drill held by China and Kyrgyzstan from Oct 10 to 11, 2002 in the border region of the two countries. This is the Chinese army's first real ammunition military drill with foreign army, and is also the first bilateral joint military drill within the framework of the SCO.” China & Kyrgyzstan joint anti-terrorism drill in 2002, People’s Daily Online, July 27, 2007.

This year, the SCO again expands Chinese military capabilities. Currently, SCO states are engaged in an exercise

“operation, codenamed "Peace Mission 2007", involves 1,600 members of the PLA traveling by train and various military vehicles from Xinjiang in Northwest China to Chelyabinsk in the mountainous Ural region of Russia. The distance by train is 10,300 km, while aircraft will cover just 2,700 km, Xinhua quoted Senior Colonel Lu Chuangang as saying yesterday. This is the first time such a large military force has crossed a national border and traveled so far, Lu, who is the officer in charge of the drill, said.”

PLA ready for Peace Mission challenge, People’s Daily Online, July 31, 2007. The operation is more than a simple military drill. It suggests the sort of training one can expect of a state ready to project power where it will:

“‘It's not that simple for us to carry out exercise in a foreign country," said, Yin Xunbo, a 26-year-old soldier, "We have to learn other things besides military skills.’ For 1,600 members of the Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA), to be in Russia next month, some understanding about relevant laws and Russian culture is as much important as their military skills. In this case, all of them had attended classes on these matters.”

Chinese soldiers study law before going to Russia for joint exercise, People's Daily Online, July 28, 2007. And the “exercise will involve practically all SCO members for the first time in its history.” Peace Mission 2007, People’s Daily Online, July 27, 2007.

It is possible to read all sorts of things into these joint exercises. Ironically, perhaps one of the most astute observers of the SCO is Fidel Castro, the ailing President of Cuba who, for the last year has the leisure to think about the SCO. He picked up on an assessment by a Russian military official of the potential for SCO—not for the defeat of terrorist activities in Chechnya or Western China, but for a challenge to the United States:

On July 24th , the Russian news agency Ria Novosti published the following information:

Colonel General Leonid Ivashov, a defense expert, stated that the main instrument of the US policy is the economic, financial, technological and military dictate. . . . The United States would do anything in its power to prevent Russia from being an autonomous player. The debates on anti-missile defence, Iran and Kosovo, have not generated any formulas for compromise. It is important for Russia to consolidate its positions and recover its geopolitical potential. . . . In order to neutralize the plans for world hegemony it is necessary to build an alternative pole, and we already have the foundations to do so: the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO). . . . The SCO ought to recruit new allies and combine the potential of those countries which want to and are capable of implementing an autonomous policy. . . . Within the SCO framework, a novel philosophy could be formulated, based on the harmony among civilizations and on the rational use of natural resources. The majority of States will surely support such measures, of that I am convinced. Thus, a new political pole will come into being, the pole of peace. The SCO mission is to create a new model of development for human civilization.

Fidel Castro Ruz, Reflexión del Comandante en Jefe. Reflexión sobre duras y evidentes realidades. 3 de agosto del 2007 . While the United State sis busy building its own version of a new world order, based on privatizing globalization, free markets, democratic state governance and its understanding of rule of law, a number of other states are increasingly busy building an institutional architecture for a challenge to that system. Whether that alternative architecture will ever pose a substantial challenge to the current developing global system remains to be seen. But the eagerness of other nations to indulge these pursuits ought to worry the Americans.

Fides et Ratio: Religion and Law in Legal Orders Suffused by Faith

What follows is a written version of a talk given at the 10th Annual Conference of the Association for the Study of Law Culture and the Humanities, held at Georgetown University Law Center, March 23, 2007 for a panel entitled Law and Ontology.

Over the greater part of a millennium or so, the Christian world in general, and the Catholic Church’s Magisterium (see, e.g., Catechism of the Catholic Church, Part Three (Life In Christ), Section One (Man's Vocation Life In The Spirit), Chapter Three (God's Salvation: Law And Grace), Article 3 (The Church, Mother And Teacher), I (Moral Life and the Magisterium of the Church) paragraphs 2032-2040), in particular, has lavished a great attention on matters of faith and reason. In the encyclical Fides et Ratio, John Paul II reinvigorated a dialog on the power of a certain ontology (that is, of the nature of being or the kinds of things that have existence) in the production and disciplining of knowledge. John Paul II, Fides et Ratio, September 14, 1998. The current Roman Catholic Pope, Benedict XVI, whose work as Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger has been important in the life of the Roman Church for decades, has deepened that dialog.

I propose here a reverie on this very human project. I seek the condition of being lost in thought, to wander, and, by that wandering, to understand a little more, the world as others see it. This is not a linear exercise. It is not a forced march through time from a beginning to an end. This exercise is not for those wed to the ancient patterns of Hippocratic knowledge. I do not propose to identify a malady, review its symptoms, classify the aggregate of symptoms within a constructed cosmology, and apply a corrective (though I note that this ontological methodology is well beloved by the doctors of the flesh, of the law and of the Church). Nor do I propose this exercise as (an erroneous) exercise in the purported channeling of “higher” or “other” sources communicating with me (though I note that such overripe emotion substituting itself for both faith and reason is much beloved by others). Thus today’s exercise in illumination—a daydream, a wandering within a state of abstracted musing, an exercise in faith and reason.

This exercise is meant as an homage of sorts. It is an homage to the shape and power of a structure of understanding the world and the relationship of humans to it and to each other. This is laid out nicely in Fides et Ratio. Humans remain at the heart of, and describe the limits, of reason. Fides et Ratio, Introduction paragraph 1 (“It is a journey which has unfolded—as it must—within the horizon of personal self-consciousness: the more human beings know reality and the world, the more they know themselves in their uniqueness, with the question of the meaning of things and of their very existence becoming ever more pressing.” Id.). Thus the search for truth is both inward oriented (noting “the fundamental questions which pervade human life: Who am I? Where have I come from and where am I going? Why is there evil? What is there after this life?” Fides et Ratio, Introduction paragraph 1) and capable of a powerful effect on human organization. “In fact, the answer given to these questions decides the direction which people seek to give to their lives.” Id. And that is the difficulty. “It has happened therefore that reason, rather than voicing the human orientation towards truth, has wilted under the weight of so much knowledge and little by little has lost the capacity to lift its gaze to the heights, not daring to rise to the truth of being. Abandoning the investigation of being, modern philosophical research has concentrated instead upon human knowing.” (Fides et Ratio, Introduction paragraph 5). Faith is the means of overcoming those limits “to engage truth more deeply.” (Fides et Ratio, Introduction paragraph 1). “In reaffirming the truth of faith, we can both restore to our contemporaries a genuine trust in their capacity to know and challenge philosophy to recover and develop its own full dignity.” (Fides et Ratio, Introduction paragraph 6). Faith, and its instruction, then, plays a critical role in the ordering of knowledge, and its deployment in the construction of human organization. Those who can direct faith, then, control knowledge and the construction of human social, political and economic organization. (Fides et Ratio, Introduction paragraph 6 (“For it is undeniable that this time of rapid and complex change can leave especially the younger generation, to whom the future belongs and on whom it depends, with a sense that they have no valid points of reference.”)).

Fides et Ratio thus touches universals truths, and point to universal struggle. This structure forms the basis of religion, and the religion of law. It serves as our old, new and current covenants. The reconciliation of opposites, the assemblage of individuals into an organism grater than any of its parts, the elaboration of webs of power between and beyond those objects, that is the grounding of faith and reason in law and religion. It is to that project that the Roman Catholic Church has provided much illumination that will likely have influence beyond its context—now that is both faith and reason. But it is also one with which all universalizing systems of substantive conduct grapple. The shape and power of the structure of a world built on the reconciliation of binaries, its complexities and mandatory nature provides the foundation for critical modern conversations between the great universalizing systems today.

To enter the world of faith and reason is to step into a universe of binaries, and to seek the harmonization of contradiction. For John Paul II, the two "are like two wings on which the human spirit rises to the contemplation truth" (Fides at Ratio, Blessing) For Benedict, faith and reason is less poetic and more institutional (though not for that, perhaps, less beautiful to the believer—consider the incarnation of the Church through the Virgin Mary, the “Mother of the Church” John Paul II, Blessed Virgin is the Mother of the Church, L'Osservatore Romano, Weekly Edition in English, 24 September 1997, page 11). It is evidenced by the practices of the university and the coherence of Greek knowledge and Christian faith.

Within Western thought--Christian, Jewish, Enlightenment, Marxist, and post-modern—this pattern of thinking is well worn, and indeed, to some extent, foundational. The inversion and resolution of opposites has been the bread and butter of Western thought since the Greeks. Within law systems, this coherence of oppositional directions is also foundational. There is, in fact, little better way of understanding the law's urtext--the rule of law—than as a faith in an abstraction (a rule of community above person), the knowledge and love of which may bring people to the "fullness of the truth about themselves." (Fides at Ratio, at Blessing). The set up is clear—suppose a seemingly oppositional set of binaries and propose the falsity of the opposition and the unity of binaries within a greater singularity. Thus, as Cardinal Ratzinger, Benedict XVI noted that

"Faith and science, Magisterium and exegesis, therefore, are no longer opposed as worlds closed in on themselves. Faith itself is a way of knowing. Wanting to set it aside does not produce pure objectivity, but comprises a point of view which excludes a particular perspective while not wanting to take into account the accompanying conditions of the chosen point of view."

Joseph Cardnal Ratzinger, Pontifical Biblical Commission, On the 100th Anniversary of the Pontifical Biblical Commission, Relationship Between Magisterium and Exegetes, May 10, 2003, available . Faith and science, the Greek and the Christian, God and Humanity, law and morals/ethics, the Word, by the reconciliation of faith and reason converge within a single ontology. The only irreconcilable is truth and error—God and Satan—though both are united, in a sense, though a hierarchy in which truth is meant ultimately to prevail.

The Roman Church’s tussle with union of ratio and fides is directed to two struggles that are intertwined but distinct, and point to a third for which the first two provide an analytical template. The first touches on the long struggle between religion and secular universalist ontologies. The second touches on the equally long struggle within religion and related to the rationality of religion—the problem of faith in an irrational God or an irrational faith in a savage God. The third touches on the relationship of human systems, especially law systems, to reason and faith.

The current incarnation of the dialog is conceptually interesting if only for the ways in which it connects to current religious and political currents. Faith and reason, in the 21st Century touch on the dialogue between the religion and the post Enlightenment secular political order, on the one hand. The struggle is against “systems that espoused the cause of rational knowledge sundered from faith and meant to take the place of faith.” (Fides et Ratio, Chapter 4 Paragraph 45). Such separation of faith from reason, or the substitution of a rationalist faith to support reason, can only lead to bad things—Fides and Ratio defines these erroneous and faithless errors as rationalism, Benedict XVI, as Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, nicely articulated its most important current incarnation in his successful crusade against so called “Liberation Theology.” See Congregation For The Doctrine Of The Faith, Instruction On Certain Aspects Of The "Theology Of Liberation" Aug. 6, 1984. The incompleteness of knowledge without context, of reason with faith, leads to error and the inability to build authentic community or to deploy knowledge appropriately, that is, not self destructively. These errors are described as ones of eclecticism (use of disparate learning without regard for their internal coherence or historical context, a rationalist Frankensteinism; Fides et Ratio at paragraph 86), historicism (denying the validity of an ahistorical truth, Fides et Ratio paragraph 87), scientism (rejection of “the validity of forms of knowledge other than those of the positive sciences, Fides et Ratio paragraph 88), pragmatism (a system that precludes “theoretical considerations or judgments based on ethical principles,” Fides et Ratio, paragraph 89), positivism (positing the meaninglessness of metaphysics, Fides et Ratio paragraph 88), and in postmodernity (described as a world embracing the absence of meaning, Fides et Ratio paragraph 91), to the greatest error of nihilism (characterized as the denial of the humanity and identity of the human being, Fides et Ratio paragraph 90). Nihilism is said to engender despair; positivism indulges the illusion that “thanks to scientific and technical progress, man and woman may live as a demiurge, single handedly and completely taking charge of their destiny.” Fides et Ratio, paragraph 91.

Faith and reason also touch on that increasingly important dialogue within Christianity, and between Christianity and other religions, particularly Islam. On the one hand, Catholic Pontiffs of the last generation have sought to draw on the similarities of faith to combat the faithless reason represented by secular society. See John Paul II, Apostolic Journey To Africa, Remarks On Meeting Of John Paul II With The Muslim Leaders, Nairobi (Kenya), 7 Mai 1980 (“Prayer, almsgiving and fasting are highly valued in both of our respective traditions and are beyond doubt a splendid witness to a world that runs the risk of being absorbed by materialism. Our relationship of reciprocal esteem and the mutual desire for authentic service to humanity urge us on to joint commitments in promoting peace, social justice, moral values and all the true freedoms of man”). On the other hand, the same Pontiffs have sought to combat faith without reason, both within Christian thinking and as part of the religious beliefs of others. “There are signs of a resurgence of fideism, which fails to recognize the importance of rational knowledge and philosophical discourse for an understanding of faith, indeed for the very possibility of a belief in God.” (Fides et Ratio, Chapter 4 Paragraph 55). Referring to the issue of religious terrorism, John Paul II noted:

Terrorism is often the outcome of that fanatic fundamentalism which springs from the conviction that one's own vision of the truth must be forced upon everyone else. Instead, even when the truth has been reached—and this can happen only in a limited and imperfect way—it can never be imposed. Respect for a person's conscience, where the image of God himself is reflected (cf. Gen 1:26-27), means that we can only propose the truth to others, who are then responsible for accepting it. To try to impose on others by violent means what we consider to be the truth is an offence against human dignity, and ultimately an offence against God whose image that person bears.

John Paul II, Message Of His Holiness Pope John Paul II For The Celebration Of The World Day Of Peace, 1 January 2002, No Peace Without Justice No Justice Without Forgiveness. John Paul II condemned irrational faith directly: “We also need to heed the question which comes to us from the depths of this abyss: that of the place and the use made of religion in the lives of people and societies. Here I wish to say once again, before the whole international community, that killing in the name of God is an act of blasphemy and a perversion of religion.” John Paul II, Address to the Diplomatic Corps, January 10, 2002.

And the dialog of faith and reason has great implications for our understanding of secular rule of law concepts, so beloved of that other “Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith” (the global elite legal community), from a “faith” perspective. In many ways, rule of law discourse mimics the dialogue leading to the construction of a moral system in law, a substantive rule of law, grounded in a secular conception of human dignity and human rights at a level of governance above (and beyond) the state. See, e.g., Michael Rosenfeld, The Rule of Law and the Legitimacy of Constitutional Democracy, 74 Southern California Law Review 1307 (2001); Larry Catá Backer, God(s) Over Constitution, Law at the End of the Day, January 8, 2007. But the religious dimension of this construction is also becoming important in a world that appears to be moving with some determination toward a new socio-political accommodation with institutional religion.

The three fronts in the struggle for the reconciliation of falsely oppositional binaries—faith and reason, religion and secularism, and Christianity and Islam—came together nicely in Benedict XVI’s now notorious address to the faculties at Regensberg University in 2006. Benedict XVI, Apostolic Journey Of His Holiness Benedict Xvi To München, Altötting And Regensburg, (September 9-14, 2006), Meeting With The Representatives Of Science, Lecture Of The Holy Father, Aula Magna of the University of Regensburg, Tuesday, 12 September 2006, Faith, Reason and the University (Official revised version) (original version). I have discussed elements of this remarkable talk elsewhere. See Larry Catá Backer, Benedict XVI, Islam and the Politics of Abusive Discourse, Law at the End of the Day, September 16, 2006. I focus here on the reconciliation of binaries and the struggle against faithless reason and irrational faith.

For Benedict, modern secularism is unfulfilled because it represents a faithless reason.

The intention here is not one of retrenchment or negative criticism, but of broadening our concept of reason and its application. While we rejoice in the new possibilities open to humanity, we also see the dangers arising from these possibilities and we must ask ourselves how we can overcome them. We will succeed in doing so only if reason and faith come together in a new way, if we overcome the self-imposed limitation of reason to the empirically falsifiable, and if we once more disclose its vast horizons. . . . Here I am reminded of something Socrates said to Phaedo. In their earlier conversations, many false philosophical opinions had been raised, and so Socrates says: "It would be easily understandable if someone became so annoyed at all these false notions that for the rest of his life he despised and mocked all talk about being - but in this way he would be deprived of the truth of existence and would suffer a great loss".

Faith, Reason and the University, supra (original version). And it ignores the socio-cultural foundations of European rationalism. “We can also express this the other way around: this convergence, with the subsequent addition of the Roman heritage, created Europe and remains the foundation of what can rightly be called Europe.” Id. It follows that reason without faith id deficient in material respects. “The West has long been endangered by this aversion to the questions which underlie its rationality, and can only suffer great harm thereby. The courage to engage the whole breadth of reason, and not the denial of its grandeur - this is the programme with which a theology grounded in Biblical faith enters into the debates of our time.”

Religion can serve as the point of reconciliation of faith and reason. But not all religion. An irrational religion can, in its own way, suffer the same deficiencies as a faithless reason. Referring to the production of the Septuagint and the reconciliation of Greek knowledge and Jewish faith, Benedict describes “A profound encounter of faith and reason is taking place here, an encounter between genuine enlightenment and religion. From the very heart of Christian faith and, at the same time, the heart of Greek thought now joined to faith, Manuel II was able to say: Not to act "with logos" is contrary to God's nature.” Faith, Reason and the University, supra (original version). Thus the problem of the irrational in religion. “Is the conviction that acting unreasonably contradicts God's nature merely a Greek idea, or is it always and intrinsically true? I believe that here we can see the profound harmony between what is Greek in the best sense of the word and the biblical understanding of faith in God.” Id. For Benedict, the answer is clear: God and reason are inextricably intertwined. He rejects the possibility of “a capricious God, who is not even bound to truth and goodness” (id.) as a legitimate expression of an authentic Diety. Thus religion, to be authentic, must be rational, and rational in a way that accords with settled notions of that term. It follows that any suggestion of members of the community of Islam of a possibility of divine irrationality and the power of violence, must be inauthentic. Benedict, like his religious predecessors, can search for an “authentic” Islam, created in the image of the Roman Catholic Church, even as he rejects the religious legitimacy of other variants.

I wish to reaffirm the Catholic Church’s respect for Islam, for authentic Islam: the Islam that prays, that is concerned for those in need. Recalling the errors of the past, including the most recent past, all believers ought to unite their efforts to ensure that God is never made the hostage of human ambitions. Hatred, fanaticism and terrorism profane the name of God and disfigure the true image of man.

John Paul II, Address on the Pastoral Visit in Kazakhstan, Meeting With Representatives of the World of Culture, Auditorium of the Congress Hall, Astana, Kazakhstan, 24 September 2001, available . This is a powerful temptation, and exercise. It is one that the secular West has recently indulged in repeatedly. See Larry Catá Backer, Of Political States and Soft Religion as the Basis for State Organization, Law at the End of the Day, July 16, 2007.

Central to the unity of Greek and Christian, faith and reason, Christianity and Islam, God and Humanity, is Logos.

“John thus spoke the final word on the biblical concept of God, and in this word all the often toilsome and tortuous threads of biblical faith find their culmination and synthesis. In the beginning was the logos, and the logos is God, says the Evangelist. The encounter between the Biblical message and Greek thought did not happen by chance. The vision of Saint Paul, who saw the roads to Asia barred and in a dream saw a Macedonian man plead with him: "Come over to Macedonia and help us!" (cf. Acts 16:6-10) - this vision can be interpreted as a "distillation" of the intrinsic necessity of a rapprochement between Biblical faith and Greek inquiry.”

Faith, Reason and the University, supra (original version). This synthesis in Logos, reason and self-communication, is the bridge to other faiths and other systems of ethics. “Christian philosophers can develop a reflection which will be comprehensible and appealing to those who do not gasp the full truth which divine Revelation declares.” (Fides et Ratio, paragraph 104). Communication permits collaboration, since “understanding and dialogue is all the more vital nowadays, since the most pressing issues facing humanity—ecology, peace and the co-existence of different races and cultures, for instance—may possibly find a solution if there is a clear and honest collaboration between Christians and the followers of other religions” and others sharing “at heart the renewal of humanity.” (Fides et Ratio, paragraph 104). And communication/collaboration might lead to evangelization. (Fides et Ratio, paragraph 103) (“This attention to philosophy too should be seen as a fundamental and original contribution in service of the new evangelization”). All of these resolutions may lead to the ultimate resolution of a universalizing creed—the assertion of a legitimate authority over the human community. “A philosophy in which there shines even a glimmer of the truth of Christ, the one definitive answer to humanity’s problems, will provide a potent underpinning for the true and planetary ethics which the world now needs.” (Fides et Ratio, paragraph 105).

These great themes haunt modern universalist rule of law systems as well. Modern intenationalist rule of law systems have been built on that greatest diálesis of the 20th century—between an overripe nationalism in Europe (and thereafter in the parts of the globe colonized by European states) and individual human dignity. It too seeks communication, and collaboration. It means to evangelize the community of nations and ultimately provide the community of states with a planetary system of political ethics and mores which reflect the beliefs and truths of humanity organized within the family of nations. It, too, seeks a union of reason (rechtsstaad) and faith (the sozialstaad or social welfare state norms), but now disciplined by the norms of the collective of humanity organized in states. Internationalism has added a dimension to constitutional rule of law now written in the constitutions of nations. Law systems, like religious ones, contemplate this union of reason (process) and faith (the overarching framework of constraints on power).

Thus a great immersion in fides and ratio, diálesis (controversy) and Logos. This immersion in fides and ratio at last prepares us to nestle in the embrace of a knowledge of unity from coupling. This coupling suggests the infinite. But the allusion to coupling is telling. The embrace of faith and reason is restless and fickle—it is temporal and partial. Within its embrace, and at the moment of climax, it looks within to find its universe of form and meaning. It seeks to join together for the approach to Truth. Logos, truth, then serves as both the projection outward and the limiting barrier of faith and reason.

Fides thus suggests the foundation of Truth—it is bounded, but within its boundaries embraces the world. Logos, understood as encompassed within the corporeal body of Christ in the world, suggests this conception of Truth. It is contained within discernible limits (the body of Christ or of doctrine or belief, etc.)) yet within this membrane, encompassing all (God).

Faith is the great disciplinarian. But faith itself is the verb, a mechanics which incorporates those postulates and assumptions that together constitute lived Truth in reason. Thus the body of Christ as faith and reason. “Logos means both reason and word - a reason which is creative and capable of self-communication, precisely as reason. John thus spoke the final word on the biblical concept of God, and in this word all the often toilsome and tortuous threads of biblical faith find their culmination and synthesis.” Faith, Reason and the University, supra (original version).

Beyond truth lies the irrational, the disordered, the outlaw.

Beyond truth is inversion of a necessarily ordered world.

Beyond truth there is. . .nothing.

And in this Benedict is right. Self-constituted communities are bounded by the Truth of their constitution, a truth that necessarily embodies faith and reason in the sense that Benedict describes. Political communities like religious and social communities, are bounded by the Truth of their constitution—rationally bounded by rules and understandings within which the infinite is possible. Faith provides the ongoing principles of that community—its morals, ethics and theology. Reason serves as the means to incorporation and application of those principles.



Where the community of the faithful includes the world, the internal workings of faith on reason becomes the paramount relationship. The body of the Divine defines the extent of reality; it serves without limit. But in a world in which multiple communities of the faithful exist, and where the scope of faith communities are functionally differentiated (political, economic, etc.), then faith and reason acquire a different direction—communication, collaboration, and evangelization (diálesis) rather than Logos. This is a world with many bodies of the Divine, internally infinite, yet externally limited by the body of faith. In this world, and within that diálesis, an overcoming of parochial faith (one that is inwardly infinite and outwardly limited) might be possible, or power relationships played out. I suspect that faith and reason in this century produces a bit of both.

Indeed, from Peter Fitzpatrick’s excellent discussion of the “Laws of Thomas Hobbes,” presented at the 10th Annual Conference of the Association for the Study of Law, Culture and the Humanities, Georgetown University Law Center, Washington, D.C., March 24, 2007, it is possible to illuminates parallels in the construction of the body of “Law” with that of the body of “faith” elaborated in Fides et Ratio. Fitzpatrick starts his reading of Hobbes’ Leviathan in the usual way: positing that the state of nature gives rise to natural laws. The primal contract, the primal covenant, produces the state from out of nature. But that is the essence of the rule of law. Leviathan is limited by the nature of the covenant ceding power (in this case essentially to protect life), and thus limited by the natural law from which it arises. Higher (or lower) law thus constrains the sovereign, the breach of which will (eventually) bring the sovereign down. We move here from a reading of Hobbes as advocating absolute sovereignty, to one of the sovereign as constrained—beyond the boundaries of sovereign authority there is nothing, yet within the authority of the sovereign the possibilities are infinite. Thus the power of reason is constrained by the limits of faith: Leviathan (and law systems generally), like faith communities, are constrained within its body (borders). Yet within those borders there is unconstrained freedom of the sort described in Fides et Ratio (or unrestrained power to the sovereign authority). These borders are territorial (physical borders), temporal (finitude), topical (limited by scope or subject matter), or vertical/foundational (rule systems constituting the sovereign; the body of God; Logos). And thus the relation between law and religion in faith and reason in this system: law is shaped by popular desire, operating within its collective boundary norms. Popular desire is shaped by religion (which operates within its own boundary norms). In secular political systems, doctors of religion may not subvert the boundary norm systems of law. Still, they assert a certain authority on civil society (by shaping popular desire). Religion in this way exerts a powerful parallel and indirect effect on law.

Consider this in the context of the diálesis between the Hellenized Christian faith of which Benedict speaks, Islam and the secular. For the Hellenized Greek Islam may be an exemplar of the irrational faith because it is unmoored to Truth. As a consequence it can rationally conflate Truth and violence. Secularism is disordered because in rejecting Truth (faith) it serves other (and lesser) masters. This leads secularism away from truth and ultimately towards the irrational.

For Islam, Christian truth is itself a subterfuge and a blasphemy. It purports to channel the will of God within parameters to which God may not have consented and which leads away from Truth as submission to the will of God. Secularism is disorder. It is a mockery of the divine order and its inversion.

For the secularist, Christianity is artificially constrained and itself inverted, positing the end point of reason as its starting point. Islam is the sum of its actions—violence at times. That violence is real, and reason suggests it ought to be appeased and feared. Yet as its violence diminishes so does its power.

Power relationships in the future will have to confront faith and reason on these terms. There is a bit of irony in the terms Benedict XVI confronts these issues.

“The courage to engage the whole breadth of reason, and not the denial of its grandeur - this is the programme with which a theology grounded in Biblical faith enters into the debates of our time. "Not to act reasonably, not to act with logos, is contrary to the nature of God", said Manuel II, according to his Christian understanding of God, in response to his Persian interlocutor. It is to this great logos, to this breadth of reason, that we invite our partners in the dialogue of cultures. To rediscover it constantly is the great task of the university.”

Faith, Reason and the University, supra (original version). Diálesis in this century may require all systems of Logos to confront both the infinite possibilities within their frameworks, and the limitations of those possibilities across frameworks.

The U.N.'s Global Army and Institutional Autonomy

Scandal has always been the lubricant for major structural change. The United Nations has had its share of scandals in recent years. Among the more troublesome scandals has been that touching on the gross misconduct of U.N. Peacekeeping troops. Allegations of criminal activity by U.N. troops have been alleged, and are being investigated, all over the developing world, including in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Haiti, Cambodia and Ivory Coast.

And the solution? Create a standing army independent of the Member States that supply the troops and subject to the direction of the United Nations through some mechanism to be determined. Thus says the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture, Manfred Nowak. See U.N. Requires Better Peacekeepers, BBC News Online, July 28, 2007. Mr. Nowak made two points. The first, and least surprising: the selection process for peacekeeping troops and their oversight need substantial revision to be made more strict. Mr. Nowak suggested that the problems in peacekeeping have grown since military participation has been democratized and broadened. This was expressed as "concerns about the quality, training and ethics of peacekeepers were growing as developing nations with questionable human rights records were being asked to contribute troops." U.N. Requires Better Peacekeepers, supra. Among the problems: sexual crimes by Moroccan troops, and torture by Nepalese. U.N. Requires Better Peacekeepers, supra.

And indeed, there is a substantial rule of law element in this comment suggesting a growing maturity and autonomy within the institutional structures of the U.N. The comment reflects a view that the U.N.'s operations, especially its military operations, might no longer be viewed strictly as intergovernmental in character. As such, the operational unit itself, as an autonomo0us collective, rather than the governments which contribute to the operation separately, ought to be responsible for the conduct of military operations. As the Catalan professor Jaume Saura suggested recently, "whenever international humanitarian law is otherwise applicable, and whenever international organizations actually have the capacity to implement it, UN peacekeepers must observe this body of law. " Jaume Saura, Lawful Peacekeeping: Applicability of International Humanitarian Law to United Nations Peacekeeping Operations, 58 Hastings Law Journal 479-532 (2007) at 480 ("there is little doubt that the United Nations as a legal entity will bear international responsibility and will be obliged to make reparations for any injury caused by such breach"). Such institutional autonomy, were it to be effective in form or substance, shifts power from the states which make up what had been a purely intergovernmental association even as it changes the character of the association.

The second, and perhaps more interesting solution follows from the inclination toward autonomy reflected in th first: "Mr Nowak said one solution was finally to give the UN its own professional standing army." U.N. Requires Better Peacekeepers, supra. This proposal is not new. There have been periodic calls for some sort of professional military establishment under the control of the U.N. All such proposals have met strong resistance from the United States. See Experts Call for UN to Take Sides, BBC News Online, August 23, 2000. By 1997, several developed states had proposed some form of international autonomous military force. See Frederick Bonnart, Opinion: It's Time for a Standing U.N. Rapid Reaction Force, International Herald Tribune, January 22, 1997. For resources in favor of such deployment, see Global Policy Forum, UN Standing Force.

From the U.N.'s perspective the second idea is logical. As the institution has sought to assert greater autonomy (though lately not very successfully at times), it has sought those institutional trappings that might permit it to project power independent of the ember States that constitute its community. Peacekeeping has become a larger portion of the UN's business since the 1990s. The spread of political violence, and the increasingly accepted notions of a rule of law system that bind states in their conduct with each other, has tended to shift responsibility for the management of political violence and the settlement of disputes from individual states to the "community of nations." Of course there have been telling lapses (the invasion of Iraq in 2003 stands out). It stands to reason that the institution responsible for these sorts of things would seek greater autonomy. That appears to be the nature of evolving transnational governance institutions in this century. See Larry Catá Backer, Principles of Transnational Law: The Foundations of an Emerging Field, Law at the End of the Day, March 9, 2007.

But in a world of economic privatization and globalization, states concede substantial power, at least as measured from the perspective of the political ideologies of the first half of the 20th century. A military unit would permit the United Nations to project power like a state. That would necessarily produce a greater shift of power from states to the community of states operating independently of its members--and indeed against the interests of some of its members some of the time. This is a concession of power and autonomy that neither the United States nor the People's Republic of China would likely greet as a positive development. But the newly empowered civil society stakeholders have a different view. Derogations of state power might well serve their interests by shifting power both incompletely and away from the state. International private actors, from multinationals in need of transnational stability for their business to international civil society organization, like Oxfam, and Human Rights Watch, seeking to implement their global vision in a word order in which their participation is augmented, might be more amenable to an international military force overseen by the U.N. The realities of globalization, and shifts in power balances within the international community, tied with a greater acceptance of a rule of law regime for international governance and of the need to manage conflict by consensus make clear that we have not heard the last about a global military force.

Cotton and Sovereignty: Brazil, the US, the WTO and Cotton Subsidies

The World Trade Organization is sometimes understood as largely a an intergovernmental organization. Its member states meet to try to arrange a global system within which private trade among their citizens can take place. This is true enough. But the WTO is increasingly building an autonomous institutional framework through which existing multilateral agreements might be implemented. That these institutions are quasi judicial in form makes them more powerful in the Western institutional mind.

In June of this year, the Doha round of multilateral trade talks collapsed amidst a bit of bitterness. Latest World Trade Talks Collapse, BBC News Online, June 21, 2007 ("Brazil and India blamed the latest failure on the EU and US not offering enough concessions on agriculture. The EU and US countered that Brazil and India were not opening up their markets to Western manufactured goods"). In the face of these setbacks, there was fear that the process of building a multilateral framework for trade--based on the management of impediments to trade imposed by some states--would be stymied.

But it seems that while the political and intergovernmental aspect of multilateralism has been slowed, its judicial aspects continue to "make facts." Thus it was that Brazil was able to take an additional step toward procuring agricultural concessions from the United States, at least in connection with American cotton subsidies. Brazil Claims WTO Cotton Victory, BBC News Online, July 27, 2007 (reporting that the WTO decision determined that "The changes made by the US were insufficient to bring the challenged measures - certain support payments under the 2002 Farm Bill and export credit guarantees - into conformity with US WTO obligations.").

And of course, this quasi judicial determination appears to move forward (in an unsystematic way to be sure) "discussion" on agricultural concessions in fact. Brazil had accused the U.S. "of unfairly helping its farmers, distorting the price of cotton and make it harder for developing nations to compete." Brazil Claims WTO Cotton Victory, supra. This was precisely the point in which intergovernmental talks had been stalled. "Subsidies, particularly those paid to the US cotton industry, have been at the heart of WTO trade talks that have been sputtering and stalling." Brazil Claims WTO Cotton Victory, supra.

The American reaction was telling: "US Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns had a different view, adding that the US would work "very very hard" to protect the financial payments it made to cotton farmer." Brazil Claims WTO Cotton Victory, supra. A curious conundrum for American law and American business. On the one hand, the WTO system, a multilateral system fashioned after American desires to develop a global private economic system demands that states take a secondary role to that of private market actors. On the other, the majesty of American rule of law notions, as traditionally applied, make the attainment of global economic policy difficult at best. Treaties, after all, are no more compelling than federal statutes (to the extent of their conformity with American federal constitutional constraints). And they are subject to the will of Congress representing the political state. In a sense, the political theory of American rule of law constitutionalism works against American economic globalization goals. Unless of course, our goals are merely to secure the greatest possible concessions while retaining the greatest measure of advantage. While this may be a worthy political goal, it is at odds with the rule of law system inherent in the WTO itself--constituting itself as something that seems to be searching for a measure of autonomy from the intergovernmentalism from which it arose. And so .

Brazil Has Come of Age: Castro on Brazil as the New United States

Fidel Castro has used the occasion of the Pan American Games held in 2007 in Rio de Janeiro to think about the development of Brazil and its new role in Latin America. It is interesting to work through his ideas as they relate to international relations, and the construction of an international rule of law order. See Fidel Castro Ruz, Reflexiones del Comandante en Jefe. Tercera reflexión sobre los Panamericanos. ¿BRASIL SUSTITUTO DE ESTADOS UNIDOS?. 23 de julio del 2007 (for the English version click here).

The statement, quite short, focuses on the development of global markets for labor, and specifically markets for sports labor. This market place is private as has been built on the assumption that states will not seek to create monopolistic sub markets for labor within their territory. Within this marketplace, Brazil tends to be a net importer of labor. So is the United States, and Germany as well. Developing countries tend to be net exporters of sports labor. Why? Because labor, like capital, tends to flow (when unimpeded) to those places where it might maximize its return.

Thus, Castro starts his discussion:

A short while ago I was saying about the brain drain that is disgusting. A bit later, a good offensive player on the Cuban handball team showed up wearing the uniform of a professional Sao Paulo team. Betrayal for money is one of the favorite weapons the United States uses to destroy Cuba's resistance. The athlete was a higher education student; he would be a graduate with a degree in Physical Education and Sport, an honorable job. His income is modest, but his professional training is highly appreciated; whatever the sport or specialty, if they attract a large audience and commercial publicity or none at all they are still useful for human growth.

Fidel Castro Ruz, Reflexiones del Comandante en Jefe. Tercera reflexión sobre los Panamericanos. ¿BRASIL SUSTITUTO DE ESTADOS UNIDOS?. 23 de julio del 2007 (for the English version click here).

Castro acknowledges that in a system seeking a singular global labor market, labor will tend to follow returns. In a global labor market, talent will flow to those places where labor can maximize its earning. For states, like Cuba, that tend to have low wages, it is difficult to keep local labor, even when they seek to offer non-financial compensation. This mat be galling, especially for states like Cuba, that invest a tremendous amount of state resources on training labor. For such states, it appears that that wind up subsidizing the development and training of labor factors of production for exploitation by developed states, without any hope of realizing a return on their investment. Or even of realizing their costs to produce the athlete.

This relentless plundering of brains in South countries dismantles and weakens programs aimed at training human capital, a resource which is needed to rise from the depths of underdevelopment. It is not limited to the transfer of capital; it also entails the import of grey matter, which nips a country's nascent intelligence and future at the bud.

Fidel Castro Ruz, Reflexiones del Comandante en Jefe. EL ROBO DE CEREBROS. 17 de julio del 2007 (in English click here). Ironically, Castro uses World Bank research for the purpose of elaborating his own theories. See Fidel Castro Ruz, EL ROBO DE CEREBROS, supra, 17 de julio del 2007 (in English click here) (citing Richard H. Adams, Jr., International Migration, Remittances and the Brain Drain: A Study of 24 Labor-Exporting Countries, World Bank Poverty Reduction and Economic Management Network Policy Research Working Paper 3069 (June 2003)). "" Global labor, then, like global capital, serves the interests of the developed states, shifting the costs of development onto the least developed states, and creaming the benefits to augment their own wealth. See Backer, Larry Cata, "Ideologies of Globalization and Sovereign Debt: Cuba and the IMF," Pennsylvania State International Law Review, Vol. 24, 2006.

But, for Castro, global labor markets violate the national principle of classic Marxist Leninist thought. If socialism is national, then efforts to uncouple socialist development of production from the state violate principles of rational economic development. On this basis, it can be no surprise that Castro speaks of the mechanics of global labor movements the way mainstream religion thinks of religious cults: "In Germany, there is a mafia devoted to selecting, buying and promoting Cuban boxers in international boxing matches. It uses sophisticated psychological methods and many millions of dollars." Fidel Castro Ruz, Reflexiones, supra. Thus, criminality is conflated with passivity. The idea is that labor cannot exercise its own free volition in the face of the imperatives of capital not otherwise controlled by the collective of individuals organized as states. As a consequence, though individuals think they are exploiting the global labor market, they are, for Fidel Castro, merely objects of manipulation--to be bought and sold in the market. See Fidel Castro Ruz, Reflexiones del Comandante en Jefe. Cuarta reflexión sobre los Panamericanos. LA REPUGNANTE COMPRAVENTA DE ATLETAS. 27 de julio del 2007 (in English here).

For Castro, public rule of law systems must be state centered. The purpose of economic activity--of which capital and labor markets form a part--is for the benefit of the state, and through the state, for its citizens. That requires strict control of both capital and labor markets, political control of economic activity. Private markets, and private rule of law systems, are incomprehensible, or at least not legitimate. Private law systems cannot escape the imperative of political control. As such, private systems--global labor and capital markets grounded in free movement--must serve the interests of the states form which the bulk of the activity is controlled. As such, "The trend towards the privatization of knowledge and the internalization of scientific research companies subordinated to big capital has been creating a kind of "scientific apartheid" which affects the vast majority of the world's population." Fidel Castro Ruz, Reflexiones del Comandante en Jefe. EL ROBO DE CEREBROS. 17 de julio del 2007 (in English click here).

Thus, Castro describes the system in terms of theft. What in the English version of the "Reflextion" is rendered as the passive "brain drain" (see above) is rendered in the original Spanish literally as a more active "mind theft" ("robo de cerebros") Fidel Castro Ruz, Reflexiones, supra. And he characterizes the action by those who exploit the global labor market in sports as traitors. What in the English version is translated as "betrayal for money," in the original Spanish version is better rendered as "treason for money" ("La traición por dinero"). "What, from the technological and economic points of view, has been the worst problem faced by poor countries? The brain drain. What has been their worst problem in patriotic and educational terms? Talent theft."Fidel Castro Ruz, Reflexiones del Comandante en Jefe. Cuarta reflexión sobre los Panamericanos. LA REPUGNANTE COMPRAVENTA DE ATLETAS. 27 de julio del 2007 (in English here).

It is in these terms that Castro understands a rule of law: and fleshes out his long held views of the illegitimacy of globalization based on private law systems. "Last Sunday, July 22, around noon, the sad news was received that two of the most outstanding athletes in boxing, Guillermo Rigondeaux Ortiz and Erislandy Lara Santoya did not show up for the weigh-in. Very simply they were knocked out by a punch to the chin, paid with American bills. No countdown was needed." Fidel Castro Ruz, Reflexiones, supra. Where economics and politics cannot be separated, globalization is possible only through state planning, private systems cannot be legitimate. This basic understanding drives much of what Cuba is attempting. It explains the differences in view of what constitutes law and its rule. It has given rise to the new experiment in regional trade associations--the ALBA (the Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas).

And for Castro, Brazil occupies a curious place in the constellation of global labor markets. It is clear that Brazil is joining the group of states that can afford to exploit global labor markets for its own advantage. At the same time, its own historical and economic experiences should make it sensitive to the hidden political subordination inherent in global labor markets.

It is totally unjustified to seek political asylum. If Brazil is not the final marketplace, it makes little difference. There are wealthy countries in the First World who would pay much more. The Brazilian authorities have declared that whoever wishes to defect must prove the real necessity for seeking asylum. It is impossible to prove the opposite. Even beforehand, we know their final destination as mercenary athletes within a consumer society. I think that they have offended Brazil by using the Pan American Games as the pretext for their self-promotion. In any case, we consider the declarations of the authorities to be useful. Fidel Castro Ruz, Reflexiones, supra.

Again, something is lost in the translation. The English version speaks of those seeking political asylum. The Spanish version describes those who desert ("los que desertan") the nation. Castro expresses the ope that the change in official Brazilian policy suggests that Brazilian authorities are offended by the spectacle of well trained athletes from developing states deserting their homeland for financial gain. But the facts he relates suggests that Brazil has joined the family of nations that find global labor markets in sports a valuable tool of national policy.

On the Anniversary of the Attack on the Moncada Barracks: Cuba Moves Forward towards its Chinese Future

July 26 marks the Día de la Rebeldía in Cuba, commemorating the failed attack on an outpost barracks by Fidel Castro and his band of rebels against soldiers of the Batista regime. That failed attack marks now the beginning of the Cuban Revolution whose victors continue to administer the Cuban state.

This year Raul Castro, the First Vice President of the Cuban Republic, delivered the official address to mark the anniversary. See Discurso pronunciado por el Primer Vicepresidente de los Consejos de Estado y de Ministros, General de Ejército Raúl Castro Ruz, en el acto central con motivo del aniversario 54 del asalto a los cuarteles Moncada y Carlos Manuel de Céspedes, en la Plaza de la Revolución Mayor General Ignacio Agramonte Loynaz de la ciudad de Camagüey, el 26 de julio del 2007, "Año 49 de la Revolución" (in English here). The speech is worth analysis for emerging themes of Cuban engagement in the world and the evolution of its own internal governance structure.

The speech is short (as one tends to measure those things in Cuba) and can be divided into four broad themes:

1. The United States as the greatest exporter of terrorism in the Americas. The rhetoric of the American administration's war on terrorism has had one perhaps unintended consequence. The rhetoric itself has been inbcreasingly directed back to the United States by the enemies of its government. This is, of course, the nature f rhetoric. It's context, its ideology, is eminently contextual. In the hands of the United States, the great intellectual campaign against terrorism is directed mostly at Islamist fundamentalism. In the hands of Marxist Leninist Cuba, the same rhetorical devices are deployed against the United States itself.

Before the mortal remains of each of the 3,478 victims of terrorist acts directly organized, supported or allowed to happen by the United States authorities; before the fallen in defense of the Homeland or in the fulfillment of their internationalist duty, our people confirmed their commitment to their heroes and martyrs. . . . In essence, this has been the last half century of our history. There has been not one minute of truce in the face of the policies of the United States government, aimed at destroying the Revolution.

Discurso pronunciado por el Primer Vicepresidente de los Consejos de Estado y de Ministros (English version). Raul Castro has inverted the usual course of analysis. In a war in which the United States has dedicated itself to the overthrow of the Marxist Leninist revolutionary government of Cuba, the Cuban hierarchy means to deploy the imagery and rhetoric of anti terrorism against the United States. The object, of course, is to invoke rule of law notions against the United States. Cuba seeks to de-legitimate American actions against Cuba on the basis of a suggestion that such actions are criminal and violate international law norms. Thus, Raul Castro describes the current United States administration in terms that the Americans have used to describe the regimes it overthrew in Afghanistan and Iraq. For Raul Castro, the Buh Administration is described as a "erratic and dangerous administration, characterized by such a reactionary and fundamentalist philosophy that it leaves no room for a rational analysis of any matter." Discurso pronunciado por el Primer Vicepresidente de los Consejos de Estado y de Ministros (English version). Indeed, Raul continues to embellish the usual description of the American economic embargo (el bloqueo) as constituting "a relentless war against our people, as the current administration of that country is especially bent on finding even the slightest of ways to harm us." Discurso pronunciado por el Primer Vicepresidente de los Consejos de Estado y de Ministros (English version). While the rhetoric of the embargo and American hostility as as old as the Revolution, the increased emphasis of a conflation of anti--terrorism, American activity, and lawlessness is new. The usual American response, focusing on the anti-democratic structure of the Cuban state apparatus, will be less effective in countering the refocused Cuban charges. Americans will have to begin to device arguments that its own actions may be measured against the rule of law standard it has asserted in its action sin other places. Failure to do so (and it will not be enough to say that it is right because the United States is doing it) could continue to limit the effectiveness of American intellectual global campaigns.

2. The transition of leadership in Cuba proceeds smoothly without abandoning the fundamental ideas of Fidel Castro. Raul Castro devotes a substantial portion of his address to an elaboration of the idea that nothing has changed since his brother was forced by illness to transfer power. Indeed, the transition has proven to be no transition at all. "The past twelve months have constituted a remarkable example of our people’s maturity, steadfast principles, unity, trust in Fidel, in the Party and above all in themselves. Despite our deep sorrow, no task was left undone. There is order in the country and a lot of work. The Party and the Government bodies are functioning on a daily basis in the collective search for the most effective response possible for every problem." Discurso pronunciado por el Primer Vicepresidente de los Consejos de Estado y de Ministros (English version).

3. The growth of Cuba's military capabilities. With Raul Castro and the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias (FAR) in control, the state has begun augmenting its military capabilities. Raul Castro appears to be warning those who would use the transition as a period to prepare for the violent overthrow of the regime, that it might be more costly than anticipated. "Hundreds of thousands of militiamen and reservists of the Revolutionary Armed Forces, together with officers, sergeants and soldiers in the regular army have carried out Operation Caguairán, allowing for a substantial increase in the country’s defense capability, attaining levels of combat readiness that are superior to those of any other period." Discurso pronunciado por el Primer Vicepresidente de los Consejos de Estado y de Ministros (English version).

Like China, Cuba is focusing on its military to provide the institutional skeletal structure on which it can develop. "We cannot fool around with defense! The Commander in Chief directed and reaffirmed it yet once again just a few days ago. For us, as I have said so many times, avoiding a war is tantamount to winning it, but to win it by avoiding it, we must sweat a lot and invest quite a few resources." Discurso pronunciado por el Primer Vicepresidente de los Consejos de Estado y de Ministros (English version). Borrowing from the Chinese, the Cubans plan to enlist its population in the defense of a total war against a potential invasion likely (in their planning) to be sponsored by the United States. "Operation Caguairán will carry on in the next months. It will allow us to train about a million compatriots and will have as its crowning glory the Bastion 2008 Strategic Exercise which will take place at the end of the year." Discurso pronunciado por el Primer Vicepresidente de los Consejos de Estado y de Ministros (English version).

4. On the nature of Cuba's planned engagement with globalization. In an important segment of the speech, Raul Castro outlined the plans of the state apparatus for engagement with globalization. The foundation for this segment of the address was a long and detailed discourse on internal economic reorganization. The focus was on the bureaucracies of central planning for the production and delivery of milk on the Island. As Raul Castro describes it, central planning might become more focused on frameworks and less on the minutiae of regulating the production of goods. The emphasis is on the state, the centrality of the socialist principle of public benefit, and the subordination of private efforts to this conception of public benefit.

That is the template that Raul then uses to describe the plans for Cuba's outward engagement.

In this connection, we are currently studying the possibility of securing more foreign investment, of the kind that can provide us with capital, technology or markets, to avail ourselves of its contribution to the country's development, careful not to repeat the mistakes of the past, owed to naivety or our ignorance about these partnerships, of using the positive experiences we've had to work with serious entrepreneurs, upon well-defined legal bases which preserve the role of the State and the predominance of socialist property.

Discurso pronunciado por el Primer Vicepresidente de los Consejos de Estado y de Ministros (English version). The state remains the foundational object of economic activity. The state, and the political community it represents, also defines the extent of such economic activity. "Wherever it is rational to do so, we must also recover domestic industrial production and begin producing new products that eliminate the need for imports or create new possibilities for export." Discurso pronunciado por el Primer Vicepresidente de los Consejos de Estado y de Ministros (English version).

For this purpose, Raul suggests opening up to globalization through the newly created socialist alternative to regional trade associations--ALBA. Greater reliance, perhaps, will be placed on the other socialist nations engaged in globalization. Raul Castro is envisioning the creation of a grand socialist league of states, united in their intervention, as states, within the otherwise private systems of global economic activity. "Proof of this are the steps we are taking forward next to our brothers in Venezuela, Bolivia and Nicaragua, and our solid ties to China and Vietnam, to mention but a few noteworthy examples of the growing number of countries in all continents with which relations of all kinds are being re-established and extended." Discurso pronunciado por el Primer Vicepresidente de los Consejos de Estado y de Ministros (English version).

Internationalism, it appears, may soon acquire another voice--one with socialist characteristics, in which the state, rather than the individual, in which the public, rather then the private sphere, will seek dominance and control of human activity. Cuba, with China, appears to remain at the forefront of these movements. Both, together with states like Vietnam (and increasingly Russia) suggest the reemergence of what is in this century referred to authoritarian capitalism. See Azar Gat, The Return of Authoritarian Great Powers, Foreign Affairs (July/August 2007) at 59-69. Perhaps in the future Cuba, like "China and Russia represent a return of economically successful authoritarian capitalist powers, which have been absent since the defeat of Germany and Japan in 1945." Id., at 66.

Its success, at any level, ought to be a cause for concern in Washington. If Cuba can demonstrate that state (national) socialism is compatible with market economies, it can provide an alternative model for state organization than that advocated by Washington. Both China and Cuba have, in their own ways, been working hard to make that a reality. Yet it is likely that the American elite will continue to hear Cuban rhetoric like it hears Chinese rhetoric--as little more than ideological posturing not worth much effort to either understand or counter through the development of strong positions and stronger actions. The U.S. may regret its inattention as Cuba continues to build an alternative system, and China continues to add its encouragement and expertise.