Understanding Power: The Indispensable Chomsky

by Noam Chomsky

now where the P.L.O. leadership fits in is just as part of the standard Third World model: they are the ruling Third World elite. So take a classic case, look at the history of India for a couple hundred years under the British Empire: the country was run by Indians, not by British—the bureaucrats who actually ran things were Indians, the soldiers who beat people up and smashed their heads were Indians. There was an Indian leadership which became very rich and privileged by being the agents of the British imperial system—and it’s the same thing everywhere else. So for example, if you look at Southern Africa in the more recent period, the most brutal atrocities were carried out by black soldiers, who were basically mercenaries for the white racist South African regime. And every Third World country is like that. Whatever you want to call it, the whole American sort of “neocolonial system”—El Salvador, Brazil, the Philippines, and so on—is not run by Americans. The U.S. may be in the background, and when things get out of hand you may send in the American army or something—but basically it’s all being run by local agents of the imperial power, whose internal power depends on their support from the outside, but who very much enrich themselves by their client ruler status. Alright, that’s the standard colonial relationship, and the P.L.O. is intending to play that role.