George Joffe: Imperialism rears its ugly head again

The theoretical background to international affairs that we are looking at today is a replay of the old late-colonial agenda of la mission civilisatrice that emerged from France in the post-revolutionary period, and the idea, dare I say it, of the white man's burden. It certainly involves the Kiplingesque idea of "lesser breeds without the law", to whom we should bring law.

That, if you agree with Simon Schama, also reflects a much older British concern, going back to the 18th century, of the coincidence between imperialism and liberty. So "reluctant imperialism" is a throwback, and a dangerous set of ideas in today's multicultural world, in which we are supposed to be able to develop ideas of mutual tolerance and understanding. It can only work in this multicultural world if the states that articulate it show restraint; if they are prepared to accept that difference is not to be condemned.

I am by no means certain that the idealistic vision that that implies, or indeed the vision of a rule-based international society, fit very comfortably with that agenda. I find it difficult to see how any region can be beaten into accepting the way in which it should govern itself, and the evidence generally is that people resist this. But then resistance is to be condemned because resistance is against the "good;" the concept of an appropriate world order, preordained by Europe and the US. Therefore countries that resist it must by definition be bad.

We are moving from a world that was supposed to be at the end of history to a revival of a discredited past; inside all these ideas, whether they involve domestic limitation of the rights of individuals in the countries of the developed West or the imposition of values, and of course, orders and interests, upon the developing world outside, that is the true consequence. The vision enshrined in the concept of "reluctant imperialism" seems to me to be nothing less than the reconstruction of the colonialism of the past.