Proceedings of the 11th International Academic Conference, Reykjavik

HEGEMONY IN THE LOCAL ORDER AND ACCUMULATION IN THE GLOBAL: CANADA AND LIBYA

SEAN MCMAHON,

Abstract:

My paper analyzes Canadian involvement in the war on Libya in 2011. My point of departure is the question: why was Canada involved in the bombing of Libya? I quickly recognize that it is facile to argue that Canada bombed Libya simply because it is a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). Other NATO members, most notably Germany, did not support UN Resolution 1973 which authorized the use of force to protect Libyan civilians. Furthermore, a number of NATO members, including usually staunchly supportive Poland, refused to participate in Operation Unified Protector. In fact, only 14 of the alliance's 28 members ultimately contributed war materiel. Consequently, I pose the subsequent query: why was Canada disproportionately involved in the bombing of Libya? Canadian involvement in the war on Libya can only be properly understood by locating the policy in the politics of Fernand Braudel's structural time. My argument is that the Canadian state supported the Libya campaign, and participated as it did, in the service of global and local interests of the transnational historic bloc led by finance capital. Globally, the war facilitated accumulation on the part of this bloc by temporally displacing the ongoing crisis of surplus capital. Locally, the war on Libya supported this bloc's political project in Canada by reaffirming a neoliberal nationalist ideology. The war was against value, including people, in Libya and resistant subordinate social forces in Canada's politico-economic order, NATO's Operation Unified Protector and Canada's Operation Mobile were material attacks in Libya and techniques of social domination in Canada. I execute my argument in four stages. First, I explain my analytical apparatus. More specifically, I adumbrate the specific ideas and insights I deploy from the historical materialist tradition. Second, I demonstrate that the prevailing readings of the war on Libya, including Canada's participation in it, are, at best, analytically deficient and at worst, ahistorical and bereft of critical reflection. It must be noted that commentaries on Canadian policy vis-Ă -vis Libya are almost non-existent, so much of this review is cast in the broader terms of the global political-economic order. Third, I explain how the war on Libya temporally displaced the problem of surplus capital and served an ideological function in Canada. Fourth and finally, I conclude with some thoughts regarding local social implications of the Canadian involvement in the war.

Keywords: Libya, Canada, historical materialism, hegemony, accumulation, transnational historic bloc, crisis of surplus capital, entrepreneurial Canadian, Operation Unified Protector, Operation Mobile

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