A Post 4th of July Reality Check

Beginning with our 1898 intervention in Cuba’s war of independence against Spain and taking over its empire from Latin America to the Philippines, we now have over 800 military bases around the world to defend and extend our domination.  Behold:  Uncle Sam, the 21^st century Goliath, the Global Hegemon with our latest “General Breedwar” commanding NATO military “advisors” and “volunteers” armed with $billions of weaponry all the while sacrificing Ukrainians as “canon fodder” in behalf of our proxy war against Russia.   Thus, the last act plays out…before the curtain falls on 500 years of Western imperialism, exploitation and its delusion of continuing colonization…as the rising powers and people of Asia, Africa and Latin America, who are yearning to be free, watch this war, which is not only against Russia, but all of them.

Indeed, it was Maria Zakharova, the brilliant spokeswoman for the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Sergei Lavrov, Russia’s Foreign Minister, in a 90-minute interview with the independent Swiss journalist, Guy Mettan, June 12 in St. Petersburg, where she declared:

“In Ukraine, we fight against Western neo-colonial hegemony.”

However, we were not listening so by July the 4^th, in the midst of our flag-waving and explosion of fireworks, we were still proclaiming our “Exceptionalism”:  granting US the right, indeed declaring our messianic mission to remake the rest of the world in our image, to “spread democracy”, to mandate and enforce the rules of our “liberal world order” by threatening nuclear war.    But before we light that suicidal fuse in a fit of hegemonic hubris or a “senior moment” slip of Presidential senility, now that we stand surrounded by the ashes of yesterday’s fireworks and hopefully sobered up after our orgy of July 4^th patriotism, let’s consider wiser voices from around the world… eloquently represented by the former Indian Ambassador M. K. Bhadrakumar 3/13/22.

“To my understanding, in the world of today, American hegemony is unsustainable.  The US bullies those who are susceptible to bullying and blackmails those ruling elites who are vulnerable to blackmail, individually or collectively.  Hopefully, our ruling elite do not fall into such a pitiable category.”

“By the colour of our skin, our religion, our culture, our geography, our political economy, we will never be accepted by the West as ‘one of us’.  Do not be mesmerised by promises of equal partnerships.  Look at the US’ track record – selfish, cynical and ruthless in the pursuit of its interests.

“History didn’t end with the eclipse of the Cold War.  Fundamentally, what the Western powers are planning is a form of neo-colonialism borne out of the desperate need to arrest the decline of their economies through a massive transfer of wealth from the rest of the world inhabited by 88% of mankind – Asia, in particular.  To that end, the West has unceremoniously buried ‘globalisation’ and turned its back on multilateralism.

“Quintessentially, what is unfolding is no different from (the) 19^th century colonial era. Therefore, India should work together with like-minded countries that are stakeholders in the preservation of their sovereignty, hard-won independence and most important, their cherished freedom to choose their paths of development insulated from interference in internal affairs of attempts at regime change.”

And let’s watch and ponder the dialogue between Gilbert Doctorow, Independent International Affairs Analyst based in Brussels and George Szamuely, Senior Research Fellow of the Global Policy Institute in Budapest June 29 re. the 3-day NATO summit in Madrid (www.urmedium.com/c/presstv/112012):

There, Szamuely points out that NATO, with its non-stop expansion only creates more and more threats and Doctorow declares that the war in Ukraine was foisted upon Russia.  Thus,  what was going on at the Madrid summit on stage and before the microphones was mere posturing to impress the folks back home… while the reality is playing out on the battlefield in Ukraine.

Meanwhile, at the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China & South Africa) summit last week, the former British diplomat and Middle East expert, Alastair Crooke, who is now based in Italy, informs us:

“The wider Ukraine meaning lies in this insight:  Other leaders are no longer naïve when the West offers glass beads (or paper dollars) in exchange for their real riches.  Ukraine has accelerated talk of integration among economic blocs, with several speeches by BRICS regional leaders at the Summit this week focussed on how to escape dollarized debt.  Or better yet, how to implement an alternative system to the one established at Bretton Woods.

“Furthermore, BRICS citizens – as those in Europe too – do not yearn for more efficient markets or for ‘more’ neo-liberalism.  The Middle East particularly, has had  its fill of neo-liberalism with the extreme inequalities of wealth to which it has given rise.  They have bad experiences from World Bank and IMF-style predatory development doctrines.  Now they have the evidence that properly-prepared states can not only survive western sanctions, but can use them as a tool to alter the global trading system to their advantage.”

Indeed, as Maria Zakharova declared to Mettan:

“We are in the majority.  I think our Chinese colleagues jokingly depicted on a map the ‘international community’ on whose behalf Western leaders and the media constantly speak.  This map has no sign of ‘China, India and various countries in Africa and Latin America’ you mentioned.  The West speaks on behalf of a minority.  No one has any illusions about this anymore.”

Mettan: “Russia, China and non-western countries have underlined the necessity of a multipolar world order.  What do you mean exactly by a multipolar world?  How to reach such an objective without risking open conflicts?  What could be the role of the United Nations to create such a more equitable world order?

“Maria Zakharova:  It is obvious that a democratic multipolar world order is emerging now.  The entire system of international relations is undergoing a profound transformation.  The unipolar world has become a thing of the past, and this happened long before the events in Ukraine.  New centres of power in Asia, Africa, Latin America, and the Middle East are playing an increasingly prominent role in shaping the global agenda and are showing readiness to defend their interests, demanding respect for their own development path.”

She continued:

“Russia has consistemtly advocated building a truly multipolar world order, where all participants of international politics demonstrate their firm commitment to the principles laid down in the UN Charter, including sovereign equality and non-interference in domestic affairs of states, and other fundamental international legal standards.  Forming a more just global architecture is fully in line with modern trends characterised by the emergence of new economic and political centres of power among developing countries who rightfully claim a more important role in international affairs.”

The entire 90-minute interview has been published in French and German (here and here), but not yet in English.

Paradoxically, considering the history of Russia, Zakharova, herself together with other brilliant women, may embody the future.  For in the 18^th century while America was declaring its independence and just beginning to establish itself as a sovreign nation, Russia, following the death of Peter the Great, was being ruled by strong women, who deposed weak, incompetent male tsars:  culminating in the reign of Catherine the Great from 1762 – 1797.  As the author of “Catherine the Great:  Portrait of a Woman”, Robert K. Massie, describes her:

“She was a majestic figure in the age of monarchy:  the only woman to equal her on a European throne was Elizabeth I of England.  In the history of Russia, she and Peter the Great tower in ability and achievement over the other fourteen tsars and empresses of the three-hundred-year Romanov dynasty.  Catherine carried Peter’s legacy forward.  He had given Russia a ‘window on the West’ on the Baltic coast, building there a city that he made his capital.  Catherine opened another window, this one on the Black Sea:  Sebastopol and Odessa were its jewels.  Peter imported technology and governing institutions to Russia; Catherine brought European moral, political and judicial philosophy, literature, art, architecture, sculpture, medicine and education.  Peter created a Russian navy and organized an army that defeated one of the finest soldiers in Europe;  Catherine assembled the greatest art gallery (The Hermitage) in Europe, hospitals, schools, and orphanages.  Peter shaved off the beards and truncated the long robes of his leading noblemen; Catherine persuaded them to be inoculated against smallpox. Peter made Russia a great power; Catherine magnified this power, and advanced the nation toward a culture that, during the century that followed, produced, among others, Derzhavin, Pushkin, Lermontov, Gogol, Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Turgenev, Chekov, Borodin, Rimsky-Korsakov, Mussorgsky, Glinka, Tchaikovsky. Stravinsky, Petipa, and Diaghilev.  These artists and their work were a part of Catherine’s legacy to Russia.”  pp. 573-4

(Compare with the Metropolitan Opera’s firing of the Russian soprano, Anna Netrebko and the Munich Philharmonic’s sacking of its Russian director, Valery Gergiev, because they wouldn’t denounce the military intervention in Ukraine.)

Contact Jean at jranc@q.com