Problematics of Transnational Feminism for Asian American Women

WITNESSING THE TRAJECTORY OF INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS THESE DAYS confirms my belief in the necessity of psychic transformation, especially after the U.S. declaration of a "war on terrorism" in response to 9/11. The intensification of U.S. imperialist efforts to eliminate any geopolitical influence that would get in the way of its campaign to achieve global dominance demonstrates the failure of military force to attain world peace. If we are to create international relations based on mutual cooperation, then Americans need to move beyond jingoism and self-serving protectionism and embrace a consciousness about global interconnections, between nations, within nations, and between people and the natural environment. The shock of "9/11" represented for so many Americans the bursting of their "national security" bubble, supported by a general ignorance of U.S. foreign policy, as well as providing a rationale for throwing uncritical support behind U.S. military aggression abroad in order to punish those foreign "evil-doers." Moreover, many patriotic Americans turned a blind eye to the way the U.S. government eventually bullied its way into Iraq, in spite of a lack of United Nations (UN) support, in order to further its oil and other economic and [End Page 131] geopolitical interests in that part of the world (Mathis 2003), all justified in the name of an "international coalition" to more easily hide their government's rogue tactics. The fact that most Americans did not respond to this wake-up call by demanding instead that the U.S. government change how it relates to other nations means that we first need to have honest dialogues about the issues within this nation's own backyard that lead to such different visions of international community, if we are ever to bring about true transformation of global consciousness.