[A-List] Misapplied Idealism

["Henry C.K. Liu" <hliu@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

There is a distinction between hostile interference with hidden agenda
and friendly influence designed to help. China will try to influence
Myanmar domestic policy and assist it in its struggle against
imperialism, giving full allowance for historical conditions and current
difficulties, but not dictate to Myanmar with moral imperialism. There
is much political struggle inside all countries, but no country has the
right to impose conditions or its own values on another. Persuasions,
particularly private persuasions, yes, dictation, no.

The trouble with Bond is not his idealism, but his selective application
of it. Those of us who have identified ourselves with Third World
struggles, would try to change the politics to our liking but without
reverting back to imperialistic domination, while Bond's "democracy or
else" inevitably delivers newly independent nations back into
imperialist hands. There is no freedom unless one is free to make one's
own mistakes. The weak, the oppressed and the inexperienced are always
making mistakes. To condemn them for making mistakes that their  long
history of deprivation has made inevitable is to oppose their right to
struggle foe liberation. Yes, much still needs to change in Myanmar and
in China and everywhere else to move closer toward socialist ideals, but
it all needs to happen by internal struggle, not dictation from
Washington, and certainly not from Civil Society snake oil nonsense,
which is the equivalence of preaching the importance of proper dress
code for dinner when the kitchen is empty and the children are starving.

Henry C.K. Liu