The Empire Strikes Back

At the Asian Social Forum, as at the World Social Forum and other gatherings, the need for strong sovereign states, the need to rebuild the state, to address politics would appear to be central. Also, the difficult negotiations within the diverse groups and locales to find 'political' consensus - to deal first with the big rogue state, the father of all rogue states, and then their own rogue states. Only then can the enormous street confrontations, the valiant successes of people's movements on the ground, push back this new hegemony, the Bush power.