Abstract

The ironic contradictions of New World Order have become too obvious to be ignored. Serbian snipers and Somalian warlords patrol the shifting boundaries of post-imperial disorder. The post-modern project turns out to have pre-modern problems. So much so that for some observers, like Robert Kaplan, the end of the world is near. West African airports become gloomy metaphors of doom. But Johannesburg airport is open for business, and perhaps the latest jeremiads should be taken with a grain of salt.

New world disorder revives the old problem of social order, and fosters ethnic primordialism. but that does not mean we are heading into some kind of ethnic WWIII.